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Archive for August, 2013

Quote of the day

Posted in Obesity, QOTD on August 31, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Neuroscientist Sandra Aamodt looks at the ways that obesity is like nearsightedness (emphasis mine):

Obesity has also increased in the population much faster than genes could change. Weight is as heritable as height. And like nearsightedness, weight is influenced by the environment, with the strongest effects on the genetically vulnerable.

Scientists don’t yet know which environmental changes are most important for the increase in obesity. Candidates include processed foods, antibiotics, stress, sleep loss, prescription drugs, reduced exercise, and decreased cigarette smoking, among others. Whatever has changed over the past 50 years, it probably isn’t our collective willpower.

So why do we treat nearsighted and obese people so differently? You wouldn’t tell a person who wears glasses, “Well, it’s your own fault. You should have played outside more as a child.” But even health care professionals tend to blame their patients for being overweight, though they should know how powerfully the body fights against weight loss.

Maybe it’s time to rethink our cultural focus on individuals and their willpower as the cause of weight gain. In addition to being more fair, concentrating on the bigger picture might give us some ideas that actually work to promote health and fitness.

BTW, Aamodt did what looks to be a fab talk at TEDGlobal 2013 on why your brain doesn’t want you to lose weight. I can’t wait for that to be posted!

HT Linda Bacon.

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I get grumpy

Posted in Obesity, Public health, Weight loss, Weight stigma on August 31, 2013 | 2 Comments »

You know what makes me grumpy? What looks to me like getting sloppy about causation and correlation. For example, Stephan Guyenet (who I think is fab) tweeted this yesterday:

Bariatric surgery reduces cancer risk in formerly obese people. More evidence obesity increases cancer risk

Is this really evidence that obesity increases cancer risk? Or is it possible that what causes obesity, which bariatric surgery addresses, is what increases cancer risk?

This really matters. I get that the above is a tweet and there are character limitations, but this “obesity causes …” or “obesity increases …” concept is really rampant. And it seems, to me anyways, that this language shortcut (if that’s what it is) is potentially very flawed.

Check out the section in Weighing Success beyond the Scale (starting around the 20-minute mark) where obesity researcher Gary Foster talks about the benefits of small amounts of weight loss — the small kinds of weight loss that means that the person is still obese.

I’m not an obesity researcher, but I don’t know how you don’t translate this to a HAES-friendly argument that it’s not the weight, it’s what’s causing the weight. And what’s leading to the benefit is not the reduction of weight, but what’s leading to the reduction … typically more movement and a healthier diet.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not think that adipose tissue is benign. But I think we have yet to really disentangle how much of what leads to disease is the excess fat vs lifestyle factors that create all sorts of stress and inflammation (and one of those is weight stigma).

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Quote of the day

Posted in Ancestral health, Body acceptance on August 30, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Exuberant Animal’s Frank Forencich thinks we need to escape from the doll house:

Our various health and training practices (yoga, CrossFit, nutrition, functional training and anything that even sounds holistic) are routinely placed inside a larger Russion doll called “health and fitness.” But the “health and fitness” doll is nested inside the “lifestyle” doll, which in turn is nested inside the “entertainment” doll. This categorization has profound ripple effects: Whatever people do with the biggest doll inevitably affects all the dolls inside it. …

This explains why, no matter how hard we push for authenticity and dignity in health, the vast majority of our efforts wind up looking like one more Photoshopped soft-core-weight-loss-fashion-cosmetic-hair and skin cover issue on the local news stand. This is why health and fitness now resembles a vast, sugar-coated, mass-market peep show that’s all about sex and not much else. In other words, it’s all about gloss. …

So how are we to rescue our body-based professions from the glossification and sexification of culture? Somehow, we’ve got to find a way out of the Russian doll house that hold us captive, and that means refusing common classifications and taxonomies. … Even better, perhaps we need a complete break from every form of gloss. Let’s stop with the weight loss. Get out of the appearance business. Stop with the toning, the firming, the before-and-afters and the promise of sexual nirvana. Stop with the promises of fast results. Instead, get back to traditional practice: discipline, commitment, functional movement and health fundamentals.

He uses yoga as an example of something that’s been transformed from its “traditional, substantive roots” to the “modern high-glamour, celebrity, sexy yoga.” He doesn’t say, but I wonder if he worries that paleo is the next yoga?

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Social isolation and weight

Posted in Ancestral health, Connection, Diet, Weight loss on August 29, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Jessica Olien’s recent essay in Slate, Loneliness Is Deadly, discusses the social isolation she felt after moving from New York to Portland:

Most of us know what it is like to be lonely in a room full of people, which is the same reason even a celebrity can be deeply lonely. You could be surrounded by hundreds of adoring fans, but if there is no one you can rely on, no one who knows you, you will feel isolated. …

As a culture we obsess over strategies to prevent obesity. We provide resources to help people quit smoking. But I have never had a doctor ask me how much meaningful social interaction I am getting. Even if a doctor did ask, it is not as though there is a prescription for meaningful social interaction. …

When we are lonely, we lose impulse control and engage in what scientists call “social evasion.” We become less concerned with interactions and more concerned with self-preservation, as I was when I couldn’t even imagine trying to talk to another human. Evolutionary psychologists speculate that loneliness triggers our basic, fight vs. flight survival mechanisms, and we stick to the periphery, away from people we do not know if we can trust.

Having moved 300 miles in the last year, I can definitely relate to Jessica’s comments. I especially got the part about looking for “my people” … I can’t count how many times I’ve used that exact same expression!

Maybe because of my move, I’ve become really interested in this topic. I suspect that this is an important missing piece in the whole diet and weight conversation, especially regarding the topics of diet, compliance, and moderation.

As Jessica notes, “the number of people we know is not the best measure” in terms of our relationships with others. What we need is “several on whom we can depend and who depend on us in return.” Being with people isn’t enough. Who has it harder? The single person without kids? Or the person in the bad marriage with no support for the hard work of raising children?

I wonder if/how this could be related to the biological imperative of group forming. And I wonder if what is beneficial about some programs, like a 12-step program or Weight Watchers or even therapy, is that they provide this sense of belonging to a group or, in ancestral terms, a tribe.

Re restrictive diets vs moderation, what happens when you’re feeling socially isolated and surrounded by hyperpalatable crap 24×7? At that point, doing a restrictive diet may be the last thing you need to do. Or at least the hardest.

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The Men Who Made Us Thin

Posted in Diet, Food industry, Weight loss on August 29, 2013 | 6 Comments »

I’m only a half-hour in to the first episode of The Men Who Made Us Thin, a four-part series from the BBC on the diet industry. Pretty amazing stuff. In the first episode, reporter Jacques Peretti learns how the diet industry was formed (it was earlier than you may think) and why it turned out that lack of long-term success didn’t derail the industry [23:20]:

If a diet is going to fail long term, the dieter will come back to the product again and again.

The fact that people kept putting on weight and coming back turned out to be a good, not a bad, thing for the diet industry.

Consumers’ failure was a recipe for business success.

You can watch below.

(more…)

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Stuff I like: pasta muffins

Posted in Cooking, Real food, Stuff I like on August 27, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

This one is not for the paleo or low-carb folk: mini quiches with pasta, aka pasta muffins! But if you’re a pasta eater, how cute are these?!

As Rachael Ray likes to say, it’s a method. So swapping ingredients or adding some (garlic!) should be fine, as should using gluten-free pasta if needed. Or you can do a version without eggs like Giada De Laurentiis.

BTW, here are the American conversions for the San Remo recipe:

- 180 degrees C = 350 degrees F
- capsicum = red pepper

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Quote of the day

Posted in Diet, Food addiction, QOTD on August 21, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Foodist author Darya Rose suggests that we all need to find our own personal sugar sweet spot:

Unhealthy but tasty foods like sweeteners and flours highlight the differences between physical health and mental health. Yes, sugar can be dangerous when consumed in large quantities (which most of us do). Yes, we are all better off when we eat less of it (regardless of body weight). But no, it is not good to live in a state of constant deprivation. No, you couldn’t live that way forever even if you wanted to. And no, smaller more sensible amounts of these foods do not doom you to a life of ill health.

The physical-mental divide is the reason getting healthy is so difficult. The secret of success is learning to navigate it.

I totally respect folks who find that sugar abstinence works for them. But just as with going LC or vegan, what works for one person isn’t necessarily a good prescription for another.

Me, I like to paraphrase that font of wisdom, Reese Witherspoon (or her character in the movie in the movie How Do You Know):

Never eat to feel better; only eat to feel even better.

Sugar to cope? Not so good. Sugar as part of a social gathering or other special occasion? Not so bad. See Rose’s post for her tips for finding your sweet spot.

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