HT to Childhood Obesity News for this great QOTD on obesity, diabetes, and evidence from across the pond’s EarlyBird Diabetes Trust:
Diabetes and heart disease are related to obesity, and everyone knows what causes obesity - or at least we think we do. But until we measure it, what we think we know is inevitably hunch, assumption or, worst of all, prejudice. … We must be receptive to what sometimes seems counterintuitive if we are to get to the bottom of childhood obesity. …
There is a frustrating lack of evidence to justify the seemingly endless raft of new initiatives to tackle obesity. Health strategists seek evidence-based solutions, but there is at present only a limited evidence base in childhood, where the process mostly begins. The outcomes of adding fruit to the lunch-box or of prescribing two hours of PE a week, while intuitively good, are in reality unknown. Action is needed, but there seems little point throwing money blindly at the problem until the underlying mechanisms - social and biological - are understood.
Only then will it become clear when, where and towards whom scarce resources should be targeted. Understanding the problem has to be a key issue.
Be sure to check out the Trust’s “novel and sometimes counter-intuitive findings” such as obesity “leads to inactivity, rather than the other way round.”
Weight Maven is written by Beth Mazur. Beth believes that obesity is more symptom than cause and that the real problem is our modern culture -- especially diet. Beth writes about ancestral health, health policy, & mindfulness. And cats! 
