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Archive for the ‘Public health’ Category

Obesity and personal responsibility

Posted in Obesity, Public health on May 9, 2013 | 20 Comments »

In an apparent bit of self-serving research, an anti-nanny stater surveyed 800 Americans and shocker, found that 80% “said individuals were primarily to blame for the rise in obesity.” Next after individuals were parents at 59%:

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Stephan Guyenet, who tweeted the study had an interesting conversation with a follower that pretty much sums up my thoughts:

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Interestingly, Michael Prager just tweeted a link to a researcher who holds a very different view:

The socioeconomic dimension of the obesity epidemic becomes apparent once you start looking at maps where the obese people live … obesity rates in Seattle can vary by a factor of five depending on address.

Obesity-Zipcodes-in-Seattle

It reminds me a bit of Gibson’s quote on the future: it’s here, it’s just not very evenly distributed. Apparently there’s a lot more personal responsibility in those wealthy white neighborhoods, eh?

I’ve gone on record before as not being optimistic about nanny statism (and I don’t use that term pejoratively) as a solution. But I do think it’s ludicrous to look at the rise in obesity as a global failure in personal responsibility.

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Paleo is not a panacea 4

Posted in Food addiction, Food industry, Obesity, Public health on March 29, 2013 | 5 Comments »

In an MDA post yesterday, Mark Sisson seems to say that if you’re fat or unhealthy, you’re lacking in integrity (emphasis his):

Sure, the massive health problems in our country are in part fueled by false medical messaging that leads well-intentioned people down the wrong roads in search of health. Much of it, however, can simply be attributed to an unwillingness to buck up, take responsibility choice by choice, and live with health integrity. By health integrity, I mean an honesty to one’s self, a commitment that begins and ends with one’s self, an inner compass that has nothing to do with the outside world.

I’m not sure, but I wonder if part of the genesis of this post is the regular posts by paleo users on various forums. You know, the ones where folks are doing great to a point … until they find themselves inexplicably (?) needing to cheat or even binge.

Anyways, as I said in paleo is not a panacea 2, if you’re overweight from overeating, you’re still on the hook … it’s your hand putting the food into your mouth.

But I don’t believe that the solution is to “buck up … and live with health integrity.” I like Mark and even his products (his chocolate protein powder plus Fage yogurt == yum!), but I refuse to attribute the rise in obesity and so-called lifestyle diseases (like diabetes) as a global failure of personal responsibility.

(more…)

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Quote of the day

Posted in Obesity, Policy, Public health, QOTD on January 8, 2013 | 1 Comment »

I *love* this post — “The Big Oversight In Our Obesity Conversation” — by Andy Bellati over on Civil Eats regarding the recent JAMA study about obesity and mortality. Here’s the oversight according to Andy:

When our discussions on health center around weight (whether by stressing or minimizing the dangers of gaining it), it is too easy to leave other important factors out of the conversation. …

My biggest concern is that solely focusing on weight (regardless of how positive or negative that focus is) impedes the health movement’s progress. Such a clinical and quantitative frame gives very little thought to – and leaves no room for a conversation about – socio-political and environmental factors that pose a threat to our health (including, but not limited to industry lobbying, Big Food predatory marketing, and misguided agricultural subsidies). Even if the message is “being overweight isn’t bad for your health,” we do know that a highly processed diet (let’s face it, the Standard American Diet) is. There is no doubt that, above all else, the way we eat has tremendous effects on our health.

My diet isn’t as “plant-centric” (aka vegan) as Andy’s, but I am completely with him on the problems with solely focusing on weight as a barometer for health. Please read the whole post … it’s a goodie!

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Keep Kids off The Biggest Loser

Posted in Public health, Weight loss, Weight stigma on December 31, 2012 | 5 Comments »

The Biggest LoserDances With Fat blogger and activist Ragen Chastain has created a petition to keep kids off The Biggest Loser. I’ve signed and would like to encourage folks to consider signing and sharing.

This show has been a guilty pleasure of mine for many years. But knowing what goes on behind the scenes to create the “successes” of the contestants (and how these successes typically do not last), I have to weigh in (pun intended!) when it comes to a kids version.

I have no illusions that this petition will have any result (indeed, a commenter on Yoni Freedhoff’s Facebook page is concerned it will drive ratings higher). But I’m also convinced that remaining silent means that 1) producers will think this is fine and take it further next time and 2) there can be no meaningful discussion about weight, kids, stigma etc.

Ragen is going to be speaking later this week with the doctor who monitored the kids. I think it’d be great if this petition could get more traction before that conversation!

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Quote of the day

Posted in Obesity, Policy, Public health on December 12, 2012 | 2 Comments »

Travis Saunders points to an interesting paper that provides “an argument for reframing obesity as caloric overconsumption.” From the provisional PDF:

In order to make sense of the obesity policy cacophony, this paper argues that the problem of obesity should be reframed as caloric overconsumption. There are two broad rationales for this reframing. The first rationale deals with the problems accompanying the current frame obesity. In addition to having become politicized, obesity is an outcome and not a cause. As a frame, “obesity” does not identify any specific causes – and obesity certainly is not the cause of itself! Thus the frame obesity remains open to be interpreted and influenced by competing theories about what does cause obesity. This makes it difficult to identify or assess potential policies or interventions. The second rationale stems from the potential benefits of using the proposed frame, caloric overconsumption. The frame caloric overconsumption minimizes some of the framing competition by identifying a specific cause of obesity, energy input. Moreover, the frame caloric overconsumption will permit a more critical analysis of the various policies and interventions that can be used in obesity prevention.

As Travis says, it’s worth checking the paper. As I’ve discussed before, obesity is a wicked problem, and caloric overconsumption is just one factor (as the paper’s authors acknowledge). And also as Travis says, it’s not clear that any resulting policy implications would be any more likely. But I applaud the effort to move the conversation in the direction of actual cause rather than effect.

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Quote of the day

Posted in Obesity, Public health, QOTD on November 28, 2012 | 3 Comments »

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.”

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Quote of the day

Posted in Public health, QOTD on October 12, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

From the CSPI folks’ The Real Bears:

Big soda companies have billions of dollars to tell their story, but we have each other. Oh, and we have the truth.

A pretty compelling video with a catchy Jason Mraz tune. Worth the watch!

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A thought about emotional eating

Posted in Food addiction, Psychology, Public health on October 10, 2012 | 2 Comments »

The folks over at the Institute for the Psychology of Eating have posted their list of top 50 emotional eating blogs. I’ll be going through the list to see if there are some I should be adding to my extended blogroll.

I’ve written before that I think that all “emotional” eating is essentially physiological. But I think there’s another aspect of our thinking of emotional eating that needs to be challenged, and that’s the idea that it’s primarily about the individual.

Via a Robb Wolf tweet today I found this article about happiness. The author makes a very interesting point:

The vast majority of such studies of happiness are conducted within a specific cultural mindset. Happiness is an individual issue. Fundamentally, “it’s all in your head” and “the system enables happiness, so unhappiness is your fault alone.”

The “fix” for unhappiness in this paradigm is a carefully apolitical network of pressure relief valves – counseling, therapy, motivational speakers, and so on – all focused on “fixing” the flaws within individuals that are assumed to be the exclusive cause of their unhappiness.

[I question] the assumption that our happiness is disconnected from the society and economy that we live in. What if unhappiness is not only just an individual failure, but also the consequence of a deeply distorted society?

Hmmm! Your mileage may vary, but I’m wondering if it’s time to revisit Fat is a Feminist Issue. Maybe, just maybe, some (much?) emotional eating is not just a reflection of internal “flaws” but is what would be expected when you combine the easy access to SAD foods and an insecure, stressful existence.

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Quote of the day

Posted in Ancestral health, Public health, QOTD on August 2, 2012 | 7 Comments »

Love this interchange between Stefani Ruper and Jimmy Moore in Stefani’s latest Live. Love. Eat. podcast (lightly edited for style):

Jimmy: These issues [referring to Safe Starches panel at AHS12] are important to talk about, but at the end of the day we’re still talking about millions of people out there who are still eating crap. And if we could get them to eat potatoes and white rice instead of Ding Dongs, Ho-Ho’s, and Coca-Cola’s, we’re 90% of the way there with them.

Stefani: Yeah, it’s a very interesting bit of discernment I think that we have to do as leaders or what-not in the paleo field. Are we going to try really, really hard to try to optimize the specific perfect diet for people within this group? Or are we going to try and reach out to the 300+ million Americans out there who all they need to do is stop eating Ho-Ho’s?

Me, I’d rather get folks 90% of the way than cause them to throw their hands up in the air because they don’t have the time, energy and/or education to choose a camp in the various diet wars.

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Quote of the day

Posted in Public health, QOTD on July 19, 2012 | 1 Comment »

Harvard Medical School’s Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine on the sad state of medical research:

It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.

Scary, but I bet she’s right.

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