I don't get it.

[dianec42]

So there seems to be some sort of "obesity epidemic" going on, or so the news outlets shriek at us daily. I've seen recent articles on the Beeb and in the LA Times about how it's not our fault: the nasty-bad corporations and "food manufacturers" and so forth are saturating our environment with cues to overeat. This one in the LA Times (Cue the gluttony) goes so far as to say that we need to change the environment of our daily lives; apparently this means LAWS "regulating portion size, labeling or the places where food can be sold or eaten."

First and foremost: Good god, spare me. If you criminalise bacon, I'm on the next plane to New Zealand and not coming back.

Second, spare a thought to wonder what the hell ever happened to personal responsibility. How on earth they'd ever enforce such BS comes in at a distant third.

Here's the thing I don't get though. Why is everyone so certain that overeating is the problem, as opposed to (say) lack of exercise? Or the shift to manufactured, chemicalized foods? Or the increased stress and reduced sleep of modern life? Or some combination of the above?

There is more going on here than too many trips to Dunkin' Donuts, people. We've had Dunkin' Donuts for 60 years, and we've had ice cream a hell of a lot longer than that. Is this just a media plot to distract us from world events, or is there something sinister happening?

Comments

Re: not BACON!!!! Nooooooooooo!

[dianec42.livejournal.com]

People are too quick about dismissing the BMI index

I think the opposite: I think people are too accepting of it, as a single number to tell you if you're OK or not. At least that's how it seems to show up in media coverage.

I would contend that a boxer of a certain weight is probably fitter and healthier than a couch potato of the same height and weight. It's not just the number on the scale that matters; what that's made of does have some effect. "Fitness" as a concept might not even show up on the scale.

To summarize the summary of the summary: It's complicated.

It seems like people are looking for a single magic bullet that will make the problem go away for everyone, without anyone having to change their lives or put forth too much effort. I strongly suspect that approach is doomed to failure.

Re: not BACON!!!! Nooooooooooo!

[tb]

"Fitness" as a concept might not even show up on the scale.

Indeed, it does not. The BMI is an abstracted height-weight chart condensed into a single number. Even the Wikipedia article on it contains statements such as "BMI is a statistical categorisation and therefore is not appropriate for diagnosing individuals." It makes no allowance for sex, frame size, muscle density, etc.

I want to do some research into who decided which BMI numbers allegedly correlated to medical conditions; I wouldn't be surprised if insurance companies figured into that somehow, given the old principle of "follow the money." I do know that about 10 years ago, the low-end BMI boundary of "overweight" got changed from around 27 to the current 25, but I don't know why. The result was a sudden increase in the number of overweight people, much like my normal blood pressure is now "pre-hypertensive," and women between menarche and menopause are now "pre-pregnant." Perhaps we should just rename the BMI categories from "underweight" to "hott", from "normal" to "pre-overweight," and from "overweight" to "pre-obese," and be done with it. Or better still, let's just label everybody as "pre-dead."

I agree that the relationship between health and weight is a complicated issue. It's pretty clear that neither being starvation-thin nor immobilized by fat is healthy, but what goes on between those extremes is not so cut and dried. I think that concentrating on being more active is probably going to result in better health for most fat people than trying to diet down to a certain magic size. However, a fat person who exercises still looks fat, while a sedentary skinny person looks "better" by today's standards, and it's all about looking good, after all.

Instead of trying to re-type the various arguments from "the other side," I'll throw in this pointer. Yes, it's biased, but consider it a counterpoint to the current media-hype "obesity epidemic" hysteria. Maybe "the truth" can be found somewhere in between.

Let me also recommend the book Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink, or at least the parts where he discusses the various food-consumption experiments his lab has done (such as the bottomless soup bowl). One of the themes that keeps coming through is that pretty much everybody will overeat in certain situations, not just Teh Fattiez. I think the current easy availability of highly-processed, calorie-dense foods is part of the complicated problem, as is the change from eating regular meals to non-stop snacking. Paying attention all the time is hard work; when you're eating while distracted, "serving size = whatever's in front of you" is pretty much a given.