Weight Loss

Straight off this is a spin off thread from the "Is it just me or does everybody seem like PIGS" thread. 

NOTE: Just in case it comes up, I am in no way advocating harassing people about their weight, food choices, or grocery carts in a one-to-one scenario. 

The heat on the thread above came from the idea that an individual would look at another individual (in a store, in a food court, at their lunch desk) and think there were a "pig" for their food choices.

It's hardly surprising that this was an inflammatory remark on a weight loss board. 

The second interesting flash point in the thread came when a poster said that it was this negative judgement of others that contributed to her eating more and continuing her over eating disorder (I would assume the same could be said for an under eating disorder). 

From these two comments we ended up with what I will call a strong support for rampant individualism. 

On one hand posters were outraged that people would have the audacity to judge the contents of someone else's grocery cart, because that is mean and rude (to summarize). On the other hand those who said it's those judgmental people who helped make me fat were also denigrated for not taking personal responsibility for their own eating choices. 

Basically the overwhelming consensus became what I eat is none of your business and what you eat is none of mine. 

I can't pin point exactly why but this rang as a really bad idea to me. 

It's hardly a secret that North America is engaged in an obesity epidemic. Over 50% of adult American's are overweight, the percentage of overweight and obese children is growing exponentially, and this generation is the first generation projected not to live as long as their parents. 

Ultimately what we put in our mouths is our decision, but a decision is reached from the choices available and I began to question how free our choices are. 

The individualist argument will tells us that we simply have to choose to eat healthy foods in moderate quantities and exercise. This is the secret to a healthy weight and lifestyle. 

If it is that simple I have to ask, why are so many of us increasingly overweight?

I know I didn't wake up one morning and decide that I wanted to be overweight, I did not make a plan and decide to become overweight, I did not make an effort to become overweight. 

I suppose an argument can be made that I should have kept myself better informed as to what my nutritional requirements were and met them. I didn't. A lot of people didn't. In fact 50% of adult American's didn't. 

At this point I have to think that there is more at play here than my individual choice to choose a healthy lifestyle or not. 

My argument is that a healthy lifestyle is no longer intuitive. Or, that our intuition is so heavily bombarded by outside influences that it is rendered useless. 

Fast food is a multi-billion dollar industry, as is packaged goods, as are soft drinks. 

Fashion, cosmetics and the diet industries are each also multi-billion dollar industries. 

Our junk foods are heavily engineered products including taste and fragrance enhancers engineered to trigger our endorphins for pleasure. 

Billions of dollars tell Americans to find pleasure in fast food, and then to diet it off to fit into a size 0 dress. 

Jenny Craig is owned by Nestle (hardly the only major diet plan owned by a food company that also produces junk food). 

I can think of half a dozen fast food restaurants in less than 6 seconds (McDonalds, Wendy's, Arby's, Taco Bell, Burger King, Tim Hortons - yes I'm Canadian) but I can't think of one single healthy food choice restaurant that would have brand recognition internationally (or even nationally). 

Supermarkets are (in a well proportioned supermarket) 70% packaged goods. Retailing research helps lay out supermarkets to the extent that they have demographics on exactly which way the majority of people turn when they walk into a store (over 90% of people turn right by the way). 

With this kind of money, marketing and research behind the scenes of our food and image industries I really do have to question how much individual choice we really do have when choosing our foods. 

This is where I think judgment becomes important. Until we think about what we as a society are putting into our grocery carts we will not ask why. 

It's too easy and too reductionist to say that we are not influenced by or simply have to ignore the billion dollar a year food advertising industry. 

I think we are where smoking was 15 years ago. We now *know* without a doubt that obesity is bad for us. It's not just unfashionable, it's not just poor choices in clothes it's actually killing people at a higher rate than smoking ever was. 

Now sure, second hand fat doesn't kill.... well not in the same way that second hand smoke does...

However if 50% of the adult American population is overweight then there is something in our culture that is making it acceptable for us to slowly kill ourselves this way, and it obviously does affect others (witness the growing rates of obesity).

As I said at the top I'm not saying we should start picketing taco bell, or ridiculing the person in front of us at the grocery line... 

What we do need to think about is how far we're willing to push individual freedoms to allow ourselves to ignore a social epidemic.

Hi All,

I've written to the moderators who have tried to be helpful with this very long thread and pointed out the instigating comments. The good news is that the thread seems to have been taken back over by people who want to engage in discussion.

Trustwoman I have to admit my head was more in the "save the thread" mode and trying to figure out where flame throwing got into all this I will go back and re-read your responses and try to be a bit more clear headed now. 

Trustwoman I think I agree with most of what we both say, lets see if I can find the areas of commonality and the ones that we may have some discussion left.

Agreed

Not Labeling Individuals

I 100% agree that it is counter productive, hurtful, rude, immoral etc... to start picking on individuals for their weight. The should not be labelled socially irresponsible, fat, lazy or anything else. 

Change the Environment

Yes, I agree I glossed over this, will get back to it. The key is changing the environment to encourage change in the people and most importantly change in the future for people to come. 

Obesity Kills

Agreed. 

BMI Is Not the Best Indicator Of Health

Agreed especially when it is used on it's own. 

On the fence

I don't think I outright disagree with these areas, but I'd be inclined to look for more data or add a qualifier.

Obesity Does Not Kill As Many People As Smoking

I'd really like to see some reliable data on this. As someone who works in government lobbying there is often a lot of "this is more harmful than...." going around. I would be hard pushed to believe that with the diabetes levels, and Heart and Stoke levels being some of the top killers that the numbers for obesity are not in the same ball park as smoking. 

Smoking was banned because of it's affects on Bystanders

I think if you look into this you will find that while bystanders did have a significant impact on many smoking bans, smoking bans occurred for a variety of reasons. I'm from Canada, and I know the impact of smoking on the health of the smoker and therefore the impact on our health system was a factor in our bans. 

Beyond that I think that focusing on "as bad as" arguments or "maximum damage" arguments can waylay the issue that being overweight (I will get to the BMI issue) is not generally healthy and there is something in our society that is encouraging this behaviour in our populations at epidemic levels. 

Increased Mortality is linked to obesity not overweight

Strictly speaking I agree. The caveat that I would put on that is that I don't think that we should overlook rates of people who are overweight because it is not as dangerous as obesity. I'm not saying that you are arguing that. A society that says it's okay to be overweight but not obese is confusing the issue. There needs to be away to link overall health with weight in a positive and constructive way. Which I think you are advocating. 

Government Action

While I agree that there is a lot that can be done at the government level, I find that it is rarely the best level for social change, or change of social perceptions. I think there's a lot of good discussion here. 

 

 

Original Post by trustwomen:

Definitely, anndjoe. A significant excess of body fat can be a contraindication for some surgeries, and/or for anaesthesia. But you can't measure that purely by BMI.

I used to work at a surgery clinic and the anaesthesiologists would have to evaluate very obese patients to see whether they could be asleep - and the important thing was their neck and airway (in case they would require intubation). Some people were quite large but were all-cleared by the doctor (especially the "pears"), and others were less large overall, but due to a different fat distribution (i.e. heavier in the face, neck and shoulders) were refused.

I think there is some validity to excluding immigrants based on health status, in countries with universal health care (including my own). I don't like it in theory, but I recognize that it is probably necessary in practice.

 Yes I agree, I don't necessarily totally agree that immigrants should be excluded because of health, but like yourself I accept why it may be necessary.

However, if this practise encourages at least a handful of families who want to move to that country to look at and adjust their life style accordingly then surely that is at least one plus of this policy?

I think of the on the fence issues if we shelve or parking lot the discussion on if smoking or obesity is the bigger killer as well as why smoking was banned then we can focus in more on what we can do. 

This brings me to the government action and obesity vs. overweight.

I plan to continue using "overweight" since IMO while it is an inadequate term (i.e. a very fit rugby player could be overweight but is certainly not unhealthy) it is currently the most recognized and recognizable. I am open to alternate suggestions.

Moving on to what we can do.

I've posted a few times a list of social contributors to the obesity epidemic as noted by other posters here.

Trustwoman and others have posted some solution ideas.

I'm reluctant to push too hard on the government accountability lever as I'm not sure what more they can really do that would not be an infringement on civil rights of some sort. There are nutrition labels, school programs are changing, they have forced trans fat onto nutrition labels, there's a ministry of health etc.... etc...

Most of the social contributors that were listed were economic, or advertising related. This is where we as citizens and consumers come in.

Several of my favourite rampant individualists have quite correctly pointed out that this is not an exercise in blaming the business man. The business - fast food, convenience is filling a demand.

We as the consumers created this demand. 

How do we alter it? Vote with our dollars is a first step. Are there others, how can we encourage and reward businesses that meet a healthy demand, how can we impact advertisers.

I want to give this much more thought, but I need to run for the day.

Thanks everyone for pulling this thread back on topic.

 

supersized & trustwomen...

not labelling individuals: totally agree

change environment: agree, the UK has also started an early education policy of primary school children on healthy diet...this is proving very effect in that the children are then passing this on to their parents and insisting that they buy healthier food?!

obesity kills as many people as smoking: it is said here that it is rapidly overtaking smoke related deaths, but this is because so many people have now stopped smoking? so it stands to reason that the figures would balance each other out now.

The banning smoking: hmmm I have mixed views on this, it is now against the law to smoke here in any enclosed public place for the supposed reasons of the drain on the health service and bystanders....but the government has the power to stop the sale of cigarettes completely!....why don't they do this....simple revenue..they get too much money from it. For this reason they also won't ban the sale of unhealthy foods, with the vast number of fast food outlets and products in our supermarkets once again they would lose too much revenue.

Changing agricultural subsidies is not a violation of civil rights, and could therefore be done without provoking any constitutional furor. Nor, in my opinion, is requiring calorie information very visible on restaurant menus, next to the price. (On that last point, though, the food companies disagree with me.)

School lunch programs haven't changed that much, I don't think. The foods are still not too healthy. And anyone who says that businesses simply meet demand does not know much about advertising - succeeding in business is as much about creating demand as satisfying existing demand. Creating needs via advertising is actually one of the things decried by economist John Kenneth Galbraith in The Affluent Society, a book I highly recommend.

anndjoe I think you'll find the strongest argument for not making cigarettes illegal is that it would push them into the black market. Here in Canada where cigarettes are very heavily taxed and can no longer even be openly displayed in convenience stores we have a HUGE problem with illegal sales of cheap cigarettes on reservations (which are tax exempt) especially. 

While I am not a strong supporter of government prohibition, I think it would be especially difficult with food. First off it's more than one single purpose substance making it very difficult for legislation. Secondly, I don't think the government does get as much revenue from food as it is not taxed as heavily as the so-called sin taxes. 

Trustwoman Sorry, in my attempt not to post tremendously long replies I was reductionist about the supply and demand issue. If you read back I think advertising is a huge contributor to the obesity epidemic. I think there's a lot to be done as consumer advocates to change advertising. I also do believe that demand on a local level could be a good place to start. For example, the rise in farmers markets, organic boutiques and whole food stores seems to begin in urban centers (this is personal experience - not fact) where the demand and density is greatest. 

I really wonder if there is a study out there of how the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty started. Obviously it is not altruistic, they sell beauty products, but they do it in an innovative and positive way (which has made them a lot of money). Of course they are also the same company as Axe - hardly an uplifting message - but it goes to show what the right consumer demand can trigger. 

Igor and Erik created this great site with it's hugely useful (I'm scared to say valuable lest they charge) database that teaches people about nutrition. 

I wonder if there is something that can be done to start addressing advertising and food / nutrition in the same way that the green movement has begun to take hold. 

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading everyone's well thought out and supportive responses to this topic.

I particularly enjoyed seeing the BMI photo site that someone posted.  It is amazing to see how someone with an "overweight" BMI looks very thin and in shape...  I am 5'2" inches and currently weigh 129, which is in the "normal".  But I think that at 140, I hit the "overweight" category.  While I don't like the way I look at that weight, I certainly don't feel like I am overweight.

Someone posed the suggestion that all calorie/nutrition information be posted on menus/fast-food billboards.  I saw something on the news the other day that this has been mandated in, I want to say, New York City.  Can someone else please tell me if this is right?  I think this is an awesome idea.  While it would not affect some people's choices of what to get, it would certainly make quite a few stop and think about ordering that Quarter Pounder with cheese.

I work in a mall environment a couple days a week and get to do a lot of "people watching."  One thing that I have noticed is that there seems to be more, let's call them hefty, children than there were 20 or 30 years ago.  I can recall only one friend in my childhood who was overweight.  My reasoning on this is that our parents (mine and my friends, at least) made us get out of the house and play outside...that and the sports teams, dance lessons, etc.  There was more of a culture of activity than there is now.  I also grew up in a generation that saw the first music video, Atari and the likes, which made EVERYONE much more likely to plop in front of the "boob tube" for hours at a time.  From a personal perspective, my mother would have none of it.  I was a lucky one, though.  My family could afford to feed me well-balanced meals and place me into physical active extra-curricular activities.  Some families are not that lucky.

I was shopping at the grocery store the other day and was trying to replace some of my "not so healthy" items with "healthier" items and my grocery bill was at least $35 more than usual.  It IS more expensive to eat "right" than it is too eat "fast".  As a mother, it is very hard for me to try and figure out to feed my children.  My son is an EXTREMELY picky eater and will try hardly anything.  It is a battle I fight daily, and one I almost always lose as he would rather not eat at all than eat most of what I serve.  My daughter, however, will try anything so I let her try everything!

In our house, we try to limit the kid's TV/Internet time and get them playing...whether in the house or out of the house, if it is nice.  We definitely are more active when the weather is nice but we try to engage them in physical things even when it is raining (taking them to the bowling alley or the play area at the mall, for example).

In short (and sorry for the book)...I believe that it is our personal responsibility to educate ourselves and our children and *hopefully* set up future generations for success.  If we were to ALL do this, imagine the change that would be created.  This does not mean that I do not advocate people calling school boards, etc. to discuss school meals or other such actions.  I think that is great, also but, as with sex, money, drinking, drugs, etc...healthy eating habits start in the home.

Just my two cents,

Samantha