Fit to Fat to Fit on TV?

There is a series on "A & E" TV called "Fit to Fat to Fit".  The show has two protagonists.  One of them is an overweight person (usually quite overweight like over 300 or 400 lbs) and a personal trainer.  The personal trainer is usually very slim and fit and decides to put on some weight so he or she can "understand" how it "feels to be fat" (as the show states).

One of the shows I saw, had a lady who really did usually, watch her weight and was able to gain 40 lbs rather easily. But two of the shows had a male personal trainer who obviously was naturally slim (while eating healthy but having "cheat food" every so often).  When the male personal trainers tried to gain weight, they had to work very hard at it, eating 5000 calories or more a day and even at that, they could not gain much more than 20 or 30 lbs and didn't look overweight at all.  They too, however, at that point, said they now could understand how it felt to be "fat".

What annoys me, especially about the latter two shows, is that everyone I've known who is able to gain large amounts of weight (including me!), has genetic and metabolic issues which TV shows like the A&E programs do not take into consideration at all. Science does acknowledge this. For example, obesity scientist, Dr Rudy Leibel states that 60% or more of our size is genetic and/or physical rather than what we eat.

TV star, Al Roker, who had a gastric bypass, has told his audience that he does count his calories and also does 45 minutes of running several times a week.  He's not the exception - he's the rule.  Surprisingly, a study which included members of NAAFA, a social club for people of size as well as average size people, found that NAAFA members actually consumed considerably less food at meetings and banquets than did those of average size.

But sadly, TV which is the informing source of most folks who do not have the time to read, is telling a fairy tale.  People on TV asked how they got so fat, invariably say they eat too much but their "too much" is often less than the amounts that average size folks eat - those who do not become overweight.

I get very weary of TV shows blaming overweight people for their size.  Surely true that an overweight person can keep to a so called average size but it takes lots of work, including saying "no" to any type of fast food, in addition to counting caloric intake (and I mean writing it down or keeping it in the computer - the latter is made more pleasant by great clients such as "My Fitness Pal" etc).

I feel shows like "Fit to Fat to Fit" do a great deal of damage to folks who do have genetic factors and physical factors contributing to their size.  I know about this on a personal basis.  I was very active as a child and kept slim...until I had a tonsillectomy and right after that, I started gaining quickly despite not changing my level of activity (in fact, after, I was more active after surgery, because I wasn't sick in bed all the time like I was before surgery).

Later on, much later on, like when I was in my 40's, still pondering why I gained weight after my tonsillectomy, I read that 50-60% of kids who had tonsillectomies in the 1950's and 1960's, sustained damage to the pituitary gland which of course, would adversely, affect the metabolism.

So, after blaming myself for so many years for my "weight problem", I realized I had a medical reason why I gain weight so easily and since then, I, ironically, have been able to compensate for my lower metabolism through mild calorie restriction and have managed to lose and keep off 106 lbs since 2010.

Shows like "Fit to Fat to Fit" should be balanced out by a more realistic portrayal of obesity, and the genetic and physical factors involved, instead of intimating that all fat people do nothing but sit on the couch "eating bon bons".  Society as a whole would be better off.  Because the truth makes everyone free.

All he did to lose weight was eat less and move more?

An article on CNN covers the weight loss of a man who went (they claim) from almost 500 lbs to "one-der-land". The man, Matt Hoover (who ironically is a namesake of one of the Biggest Loser Contestants of the 2005 season), told CNN his weight loss journey lasted 3 years. Most of the article is detailing "how terrible he looked" as a person of size and the usual. Finally a couple of sentences way down in the article tells how he lost the weight.

Predictably, he "ate less and moved more" that is, the article states:

He ate smaller portions and took daily walks. The first 120 pounds came off.

And in case we didn't understand how the weight melted off when he "just got off the couch", he's quoted:

"When you're that big, you can lose weight pretty quickly," he said.

The article goes on to say that Matt plateaued out at 150 lbs over his goal weight and then, joined Weight Watchers and "lost the rest of the weight"

According to this article, Matt had no health problems (or I'm sure they would have mentioned them) and it was all how "bad he looked" which motivated him.

Hey, if a person wants to lose weight (or not lose weight) that's fine - our bodies are ours to do with them what we want.

What I found very objectionable in this article was the following:

1. The article implies that the only reason Matt got up to 470 lbs was because he ate too much and moved too little in other words, "he sat on the couch, eating bons bons all day so no wonder he was so fat", and this idea is I think, what CNN wants to convey to the readers. But the reality about obesity is that according to Dr Rudy Leibel and the scientists who study this stuff, size is mostly genetic.

2. The article gives the impression that once Matt started eating as a "normal person" i.e. not totally overstuffing himself while sitting on the couch, the weight just "dropped off". And that is so not true! For a person who is genetically/physically obese to lose weight and keep it off takes daily vigilance almost to an obsessive level.

To expand on the second point, while the article implied that Matt just had to "get off the couch" (they never did detail what his exercise program consisted of however), ordinary exercise does not keep off any weight if you've got a certain set of genetics - I can personally attest to that one!.

For example, the Matt Hoover from the "BIGGEST LOSER" (not the same guy as in this story, I'm pretty sure) is described in one article as exercising 25 hours a week (he did regain some, it says from his "Biggest Loser" season but is determined to get it off):

Hoover spends 25 hours a week training for the grueling triathlon, which consists of a 2.4-mile open-water swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a marathon 26.2-mile run.

In my research I have found that societies in which there is no obesity, typically move 25-40 hours a week and eat about 1200-1400 calories a day.

Now that's a lot more than just "getting off the couch" and "eating smaller portions".

This type of article is falsely misleading. To the person of size who thinks that they can exercise an hour or so a day and eat a bit less and the weight will drop off, they will be very disappointed when they can actually gain weight eating normal amounts of food even if they do exercise. (How well I know about that one!)

And for those 85% of society who do not have to fight clinical obesity, articles like this just fuel the flames perpetuating the falsehood that shaming people of size is actually "good for them" because they might get motivated to "eat less and more more" and the "weight will drop off", as it did with Matt Hoover who is not the Biggest Loser contestant in this article.

I know people of size who have awesome achievements, careerwise and life-wise and even are very good looking, and yet, feel themselves failures because even though they already "eat less and move more" the weight just doesn't fall off them like it does on people in the newspaper or on TV. These feelings brought on by articles like this CNN article, filled with falsehoods and misleading statements, can lead people to drastic measures including unhealthy diets or even surgery to cripple their digestive system (what Dr Fobi, WLS surgeon calls the gastric bypass) or worse.

In a world which needs more love, isn't it time we enjoy people for who they are and just accept that in a country like ours where food is in easy access, people are going to come in all sizes and so what? What if we were all the same size - it would be pretty boring! (look at manikins for example). :)

Note: the photo included with this blog is Olympic athlete, Cheryl Haworth who won an Olympic medal in Weight Lifting. Like all elite athletes, she trains hard for several hours a day and watches what she eats. She also weighs over 300 lbs. People do come in all sizes and just because someone is a person of size, doesn't mean they lie on the couch all day, eating bons bons.

Like one of the TV reality show stars quipped when someone called him on a misrepresentation in a so called "reality show".

Well, you cannot believe everything you see on TV!

Biggest Loser "Where are they now" show was blew some smoke screens

Lately the reality show, "The Biggest Loser" in which they sequester several clinically obese people, put them through grueling workouts of 5 hours or more a day and greatly curtail their food intake to effect quick weight loss, has come under no small amount of criticism.

It has caused a hue and cry among personal trainers and especially exercise physiologists who feel that the training given on the show is not only somewhat sadistic but sheds a negative light on personal trainers in general who try to teach people a healthy lifestyle.

Possibly what is most upsetting to the producers of the show (which apparently has versions in several other countries besides the USA) is the fact that the ratings of the show now in its 10th season, have fallen drastically, which can be a death knell for any TV show.

So tonight, NBC aired a show which promised to catch us up with what former contestants on the "Biggest Loser" are doing now and did they regain the weight, but actually seemed more of a "damage control" effort to try and convince the viewing public that what is done on the "Biggest Loser" is really a good thing and has changed lives.

Injury on the show has apparently (and rightly so) upset the public so the show dealt with that issue. The 9th season featured as the first challenge, a 1 mile run for clinically obese folks who had not exercised in quite a while and ended up with one of them, Tracy Yukich collapsing and being air lifted to the hospital where she remained for a week or more.

Dr H went to her home to visit and they relived the incident where she collapsed. Tracey's eyes filled up with tears when she watched the video and she commented that she thinks about this every day. She also said, "here I was 37 years old and almost - well gone."

Tracy is slim now and writes cheerfully on her facebook fan page that:

The Biggest Loser has changed my life. I never dreamed I would be at my college weight again. I am so grateful for all that have touched my life and helped me through this journey.

Tracy's website claims that she collapsed from heat stroke but that she was in the hospital for two weeks after, seems there might have been more wrong. Tracy uses her Biggest Loser fame and that she's kept the weight off, to do motivational speaking now.

On the catch-up show we watched on Wednesday night, they didn't say what happened to Tracey. The only explanation given by Dr H was that she was so fat, she had fat everywhere. Tracy weighed 250 lbs at 5'2" which while clinically obese, wasn't exactly the largest contestant either.

In researching this, I found out that likely what she had was "Rhabdomyolysis", a condition of muscle injury where the muscles break down releasing a chemical which injures the kidneys and can cause kidney failure.

The outcome of this illness (which also can happen with statin drugs by the way) is unclear according to the NIH:

The outcome varies depending on the extent of kidney damage. Acute kidney failure occurs in many patients. Treatment soon after rhabdomyolysis begins will reduce the risk of chronic kidney damage.
People with milder cases may return to normal activity within a few weeks to a month or more. However, some continue to have problems with fatigue and muscle pain.

According to another article, Tracey was restricted while on the ranch for any workouts, even in the pool so while she may be training for a marathon now, she may still have residual damage to her kidneys.

Quite a bit more than the "heatstroke" claimed.

Another contestant in that same season, Abby, got an early injury to her tibia and was also restricted from the grueling workouts and challenges.

Injury in the contestants was not really discussed in Wednesday's show though, which was filled with praise and emotionally filled statements of how the "Biggest Loser" was changing lives. Dr H. actually claimed that this reality show had found "the answer" to obesity and should get the Nobel Peace Prize. (Yes he said this with a straight face!).

Another problem which has cropped up is Ryan Benson. He was the season one winner who told all on his Myspace - about how he dehydrated himself for the final weigh-in using techniques he'd learned in wrestling and how he re-gained 30 lbs (just water weight) in the week after the finale.

The show ended with featuring the 9 winners of the "Biggest Loser" in a healthy Thanksgiving dinner (which although everyone oohed and aahed about how great the food was, it didn't look real appealing to me). Ryan Benson was at the dinner and said how he re-gained all the weight because he'd gone back to his old habits and how he was so inspired at seeing the other winners, some of whom looked a lot heavier than when they won the show. Erik Chopin claimed to have lost the 122 lbs he regained and although he looked a bit slimmer than he did when he appeared on the Season 9 finale, he didn't look anything close to how he looked when he won the show.

The show was supposed to convince us that those who had been contestants on the "Biggest Loser" had had their lives changed, had gone on to make careers of motivational speaking etc and how they were living the dream. But it was unconvincing. Some of the contestants in telling about their lives and their experience on the "Biggest Loser", wept while they were talking, suggesting they may still be emotionally damaged from the experience.

Out of some 200 people who had been contestants for the show, only 35 were "caught up with" and most of them were from seasons 8 and 9. But 35 had not kept off all the weight. As we know, Ryan Benson was back to his original weight and Erik Chopin was somewhat up in weight. A couple more had obvious regains. So that leaves only a few like Tracey, Alli, Tara, Mike who had kept it all off. About 7 percent or less of those who had been contestants on the show.... Hardly as Dr H claimed, a "cure" for obesity.

Will it work to save the show's dropping ratings? Only time will tell. That several have spoken out against the training and other issues (like Kai who was not mentioned at all) is hard to blow a smoke screen over. Emotionally and physically injuring obese people is not really acceptable in any circles, not even the most fat phobic ones.

Biggest loser premier shows lowest rating ever

An article on the Philly burbs tells how the show, "The Biggest Loser" suffered a significant loss in the ratings - 25% down. The article asks in the conclusion, "is it because Americans are tired of being reminded how obese they are?"

No, I don't think that's it at all. I think it's because of those former contestants who have spoken out about the sadistic methods of training used in the show, the long hours of workouts and the psychological abuse contestants get. The last one to "sing" who said she got an eating disorder after being on the ranch, might have signed the death nell for the show.

That and the fact that Ryan Benson, the winner of the first season has admitted he's regained to a higher weight than his original weight (not withstanding his open admission on his "myspace website" about how he clinched his win using techniques of dehydration he learned, back in his days as a High School wrestler - and how he gained 30 lbs the week after the big win).

Or maybe it was Erik Chopin appearing on the Oprah Show, almost back to his original weight. The Biggest Loser tried to do damage control by having trainer Bob, visit Erik and Erik admitting it was just all his fault. Bob extracted a promise from Erik to be back to a better weight by the finale but that never materialized. Maybe some of the viewers were looking for that event and didn't "forget about it" as the show producers likely hoped.

Perhaps it was the couple who appeared on Carnie's quiz show who got married but both admitted quite a bit of regain.

Or the contestant who told the press that the week before the finale, she had lived on diet jello all week.

There is also, a growing number of personal trainers who are very much against the way the "loser" contestants are treated by Jillian and Bob - they say it gives folks the wrong idea about personal training in general. And there have been articles in industry magazines which were critical of the personal training on the show. Likely some of this filtered down to their clients.

The show has received enough "bad publicity" to spoil the magic image of the weight somehow magically falling off the contestants.

Everyone knows if you starve and work out many hours a day, you will lose weight but that isn't even healthy, and rapid re-gain is likely. No magic in that at all. On the contrary...

I'm over the "Biggest Loser" Show

Jillian described this last week's episode as her very favorite (2nd week in Season 9) and asked people to give her feedback on her Facebook page. All the feedback I read was positive.

My reaction was totally different. The show went over the top in my book.

First part of it, was psychologically abusing the contestants one by one. Dr Huizenga was in charge of that. Although none of them have any real co-morbidities, that didn't stop him from giving them dire predictions of where they will be in the next few years, i.e. diabetic, aging prematurely or dead. He mixed this message with strong suggestions that they were hurting their loved ones by being overweight.

And Dr Huizenga managed to get all the falsehoods about obesity in this part. "That was so enlightening" said some folks who gave Jillian the feedback on her Facebook fanpage.

Each participant, male and female alike was ripped apart psychologically and ended up crying. It was not pretty. I finally fast forwarded through the rest of it after being thoroughly nauseated. Abuse of any one and especially psychological abuse leaves lasting scars. And why was it necessary? These people have all shown good faith by coming to the ranch in the first place.

Next was the challenge - usually that's kind of fun but for this one, their first challenge in their second week (so they are not fit yet and still probably the heaviest group they're ever had on the BL) was a bit ugly. They were asked to walk on a 3 inch balance beam across the swimming pool to deposit beachballs in a basket on the other side. The winners got immunity from the weigh-in. The losers got a 2 lb penalty at the weigh-in.

Keep in mind that the balance beam the 89 lb gymnasts walk on is four inches wide.

To their credit, most of them struggled through this challenge but one older lady who is petrified of the water tried and tried and just couldn't do it. She finally fell on her face on the concrete around the pool and got an ambulance ride. She was ok but had a bruised face and a black eye.

Jillian took this lady later and helped her to learn to float. I suppose that's supposed to make it OK that she was forced to do the challenge which petrified her and ended up getting her hurt. Surely she won't be the first injury. Injury is common among the contestants on the Biggest Loser who immediately start running and other things they should NOT be doing at their size.

Finally was the "last chance workout" (the last workout before the weigh-in). Jillian and Bob delighted in "beating up" the contestants, screaming at them to go faster, harder. Two of them told them TV cameras that they hurt all over from last week and now they had to workout harder and it was sheer pain. The pain showed on the faces of most of the contestants. Some were crying and screaming back at Jillian and Bob. It was here that I had enough of their pain and fast forwarded to the weigh-in (which always takes long because there are several commercials - someone told me that there is only about 45 minutes of viewing time in a 2 hour show like the Biggest Loser).

Of the team which fell "below the yellow line" (didn't lose "enough weight"), was a mother and her daughter. The mother asked to go home.

I notice something interesting in those eliminated. They shed a few tears at the moment of elimination when the blond lady host announces "Sorry to say you are NOT the Biggest Loser and must leave campus immediately" But 24 hours later when they are arriving home, there is invariably a look of enjoyment - and yes, relief on their faces.

It's kind of like hitting your head against the wall. Feels so good when it stops.

I did not yet set up the Biggest Loser for recording next week. I think I've had my fill. After watching several seasons, each successive one which has featured heavier, less fit, older contestants, and watching those folks on the ranch slowly get battered, physically, emotionally and psychologically, I've had enough of that show.

And a sad thought comes to mind. If these were not fat people, what is done on the ranch would be illegal. For example, in the 1960's when similar things though not near as abusive, were done in the "EST" seminars on a weekend to managers, the "EST" group got in serious trouble.

No one seems to care about the fat people on the Biggest Loser though. And that is the real tragedy.

Shrek movies - do they really promote size awareness

On the surface, the Shrek series of animated movies seems to promote size acceptance. The so called hero of these movies is a fat green troll who is as noble as he is ugly. The lady he marries who first looks like a typical model type is actually a troll herself and turns into one when they get married. Like her husband, she's fat also.

There was always something which niggled me about these movies and after watching Shrek III, I thought it through.

I realized that not only is Shrek ugly looking but he's more than a bit uncouth (he IS a troll after all).

Everyone else in the movie is either a cute animal or very slim, nice looking humans - Shrek and wife are the only fat trolls.

Considering that, under the surface, Shrek does the opposite of what one might think. On an unconscious level, it connects "fat" with not only "ugly" but "uncouth" as well and it's pouring these connections into the unconscious minds of the viewers, the most pernicious type of brain washing and especially into the impressionable minds of kids.

I suspect if I had small kids I might not encourage them to watch these movies - more fat-a-phobia and negative connotations of people of size, we do not need.

Obesity causes cancer - more "BIG FAT LIES"!

A radio show from the BBC recently featured a metastudy which concluded that obesity "causes" cancer. The researchers opined that 100,000 cases a year can be linked to obesity. According to the Washington Post:

This study, from scientists at the University of Manchester, analyzed 141 articles involving 282,137 cancer cases and 20 different types of malignancies to determine the cancer risk associated with a 5 kilogram-per-meter-squared increase in BMI, roughly the increase that would bump a person from middle-normal weight into overweight.

141 articles isn't that many of course, not withstanding that they can pick and choose which articles to include and also, probably did not have a real accurate measure of BMI from the studies anyway.

It should be noted that over 1.6 million new cases of cancer are diagnosed in the USA every year, so even if their figures were correct that would only be 6 percent of cancers (according to WEBMD.COM) which can be linked to obesity - 94 percent of which can NOT be linked to obesity. The researchers on the program admitted that lifestyle factors like sedentary lifestyle and poor food choices were a player and briefly mentioned "the link between tobacco and cancer" but did not give any figures.

WebMD states that these figures linking obesity and cancer, were "estimated" from existent data (what the junkfoodscience.blogspot.com calls a "data dredge" study.).

So how does excess fat "cause" cancer? The researchers didn't have an answer for that but opined that fat tissue, produces estrogen. What they didn't tell us is that fat tissue produces the type of estrogen our bodies can use but when we flood our bodies with synthetic pharmaceutical estrogen, this raises the risk of breast cancer FAR MORE than 6 percent.

For example the HERS study on 11,000 women, a double blind study found a 26 percent higher incidence of breast cancer in those in the cohort, on low dose birth control medications. 26 percent OBSERVED in a double blind study which was stopped midterm. Not a tiny 6 percent from "estimated" figures.

Synthetic estrogen was put on the FDA list of carcinogens in 2005.

Finally, it should also be noted that researcher, Dr. Glen Gaesser stated in his book, "BIG FAT LIES" (CA, 2002) that he found in his metastudy of all the obesity research in the previous 20 years, that obese people seemed to get cancer significantly LESS often than non obese people. 40 percent less cancer in the obese, than normal weight people, concluded Gaesser.

Dr Linda Bacon, respected scientist and author of "HEALTH AT EVERY SIZE", was also on the BBC program and started to directly refute the findings with cited studies. As soon as they found she could do this, she was rudely interrupted (twice!). Before they cut her off, she pointed out that for example in a group of 23 studies, only 4 had suggested a significant link between obesity and cancer so she asked how these researchers could conclude from a small percentage like that, that obesity "causes" cancer. They evaded her question, of course.

I wrote the BBC a comment accusing them of dishonesty in news reporting and challenged them to have Dr Bacon on again to tell the REALITY of what the studies on obesity and cancer REALLY show. Perhaps some of you might want to do same.

Until we demand more honesty out of the news services, we won't get it. Fat activist Marilyn Wann was on the same program. Here's the link:

BBC radio program on the so-called "obesity link" to cancer

Fatter babies caused by estrogens in the air?

A recent Newsweek article opines that the chemicals in the air, namely the so called "phytoestrogens" may be causing today's babies to be more overweight than before.

They quote an impressive sounding statistic:

In 2006 scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health reported that the prevalence of obesity in infants under 6 months had risen 73 percent since 1980.

Pointing out that if more fast food and less exercise could explain the higher prevalence of adult obesity, it was more difficult to explain an increased incidence of obesity in a population (like babies) who don't attend movies, and don't eat fast food and were always "couch potatoes". Must be the chemicals in the air, concludes Newsweek...

I looked up the study - apparently the researcher, Matthew Gillman, MD, is also a pediatrician.

He never even mentioned chemicals in the air as a possible reason for fatter babies but rather concluded after studying "120,000 children younger than 6 years old at 14 Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates practices in eastern Massachusetts from 1980 through 2001" that solving the problem of increased baby weight might lie in:

"Avoiding smoking and excessive weight gain during pregnancy, preventing gestational diabetes, and promoting breastfeeding, all of which researchers have shown to be associated with reductions in childhood overweight."

(remember how a recent article blamed breastfeeding for _increased_ size in infants?)

While I understand that Newsweek must come up with eye catching stories almost on a daily basis which must be difficult, I think the public should realize that stories like this one are just that - eye catching - and not necessarily based on any good science.

One thing which struck me is the entire article is based on the "73 percent increase" in "infant obesity" however, is that really as impressive (or alarming) as it sounds? Probably not. For example, the study found that the incidence of overweight children had "jumped 59 percent" but then the actual numbers on overweight kids, were in 1980: 6.3 percent and in 2001: 10 percent. And this means that in 2001, 90 percent of the children were not overweight, even according to our inflated weight charts which have set the line for "overweight" to much less than it was in 1980.

Less than 3 percent more kids were found to be "overweight" in 2001, not exactly anywhere close to a significantly higher figure even with much more fast food and much less activity!

We should always be on the lookout for statistics which may sound alarming but in reality, are not.

Unfortunately I could not find the actual percentages of overweight babies but I suspect it's not that significantly higher either...

The Newsweek article goes on to cite a string of mouse and rat studies which seem to prove their "chemicals in the air = obesity" theory.

And all to the conclusion that we just might be innocent victims of weight gain, like the caged rats and mice (which also were very "under-exercised" and had a much greater exposure to food than their cousins in natural surroundings), and the fact that we burn 800 calories a day less than did our grandparents and that most of us are consuming high calorie fast foods several times a week, has nothing to do with our being somewhat larger than our grandparents. Nope, it's all the chemicals in the air!

(Forgetting of course, that the phyto-estrogens in the air have not particularly increased since the 1980's - on the contrary, with all the "green" hysteria, there are actually less pollutants like this in the air. I know, details, details... :)

While articles like this are entertaining reading (Americans love to be alarmed), we should not take them too seriously. All news media should carry a warning "for entertainment only - any resemblance to facts is purely coincidental"!

Can you be fat and fit? Latest spin says "No"

Based on a "data dredge" study (meaning they took existent data which was not designed for THAT study so is outdated and also doesn't usually have the right information), some of those in the diet industry are now telling us that we cannot be fat and fit.

The study, like other epidemiological studies boasted big numbers, 39,000 women classified as normal weight, overweight or obese (BMI 30 or over). It was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, April 28, 2008 issue.

I looked up the article, because the news service headlines read "Fitness does not reduce risk if you are fat". The media told us that people who were obese had a 50 percent greater rate of heart attack even if they exercised than people who were not obese.

If the study had really suggested this, it would be very questionable ... the exercise habits were self reported and people often exaggerated their level of fitness (mostly exaggerate it!). Also overweight and obese women are often weight cycling (popularly called "yo yo dieting") because the body produces all kinds of hormones to force weight gain if it thinks your weight is too low (and too low varies for every different body). And of course, several CLINICAL studies have suggested that any kind of dieting increases heart disease risk by 50 percent.

However, in looking up the abstract, the study did NOT suggest that there was no benefit for an obese person to be fit. On the contrary, the last line of the abstract reads:

The risk of CHD associated with elevated body mass index is considerably reduced by increased physical activity levels.

The media ignored this statement and picked up the next line in the conclusion:

However, the risk is not completely eliminated, reinforcing the importance of being lean and physically active.

Ok, that's fine except it is a meaningless statement because a reduction in risk doesn't mean no risk... regardless of weight. However, it made a great statement for the media to base yet another article of misinformation on.

Now if we look at the study further, we find that although researchers wanted the expenditure of 1000 calories in exercise a week (which isn't very much... about 3 x a week, 40-60 minutes each time), the average expenditure in calories in exercise for those considered "active" (remember this is self reported) was 550 calories a week which isn't for most people, even twice a week. And even that small amount, said the researchers, reduced the risk of CHD significantly regardless of weight (34 percent, they stated).

It should be remembered that many people feel NON cardio is exercise to be counted like gardening and likely reported that as "activity" even if it didn't fit in the categories which were basically cardio exercise (I guess gardening could be reported in the "walking" category if you stretched it).

So although this wasn't the best designed study (to put it mildly) the results were not what the news media reported them to be. Exercise does significantly reduce the heart disease risk... regardless of weight.

Rudy Leibel, obesity researcher said "there probably is a benefit to being of 'normal weight' but there is no proof that people forcing their weight down below their set point enjoy that advantage". This is kind of a no brainer and I have no problems with it. Although right now, according to CDC statistics, people in the BMI category of 25-35 are living longer than those in the so called "normal weight" category.

Another strange thing in our society is that although most of us have had friends who exercise a lot of cardio, are lean but smoke cigarettes, drop dead rather early in life, I have not noticed any studies suggesting what we already know to be true - that smoking may cancel out the good effects of exercise in some individuals (regardless of weight or fitness level).

And in fact, many people who smoke, are doing so to keep their weight down because they are under the false conclusion that doing anything unhealthy is better than being fat. And of course, where do they learn that but from our media.

The Cooper Institute studies of 50,000 people over the last 30 years or so, suggested that people who were obese and fit had only a 00.08 greater risk of heart disease than those who were normal weight and fit. And those studies also suggested that being lean (under normal weight) was at the highest risk even if fit. But of course you will never see that in the media which is, bottom line, hard selling a diet.

One more comment about this study. Most people do not keep up a fitness program more than a year or two but in a self reported study, those people may not have reflected the change (stopping exercising) in their surveys.

Exercise greatly cuts risk of illness regardless of what people weigh but cutting risks doesn't mean no risk, of course. And to enjoy that reduction of risk, people must make cardio at least 3 times a week (and 5 times a week is way better) a part of their lives FOR life.

And it seems the greatest risk to our health may be believing the media which when not lying, is incorrectly reporting health topics.

What are we doing to our teens?

Most teens I talk to, feel they are fat, even though they are not.

Several teens I know personally, started smoking to control their weight.

Somehow we are _not_ getting across the message that smoking has been _proven_ health threatening and are concentrating on giving folks the message that obesity is _extremely_ health threatening even though there is virtually NO scientific evidence that obesity alone is health threatening at all.

How much of a problem are eating disorders among teens and pre-teens? If you look at youtube.com, there are huge numbers of videos which advertise themselves as "thinspiration". These videos either show slim young women squeezing what small amount of fat they have on their bodies in disgust or else, are slide shows of super slim fashion models and actresses. Often the songs which accompany the videos give mixed messages. One song begs "SOS me - rescue me" while another song states that no one notices that her body is falling apart.

One young woman who is 21 years old, and said her latest dieting effort began with her wanting to "get her body back" after having her son, started uploading videos in August 2007. Her first video made while she was smoking a cigarette, had her talking a lot about how she cared for her skin. But in the end of the video, she admitted that she had a problem with eating and also showed us a piece of tape covering a scar she made on herself when she was 16 ("S" for sinner, she said) and how she covered it all the time now. "Smoking is bad" she admitted but then added that she smoked a lot during her 'fasts'.

Another video made in early late 2007 by the same woman, was all text. It told how she had been in a mental hospital because of a suicide attempt. How from the age of 16 and on, she had tried all kinds of drugs in a desperate attempt to lose weight. And how she was going to rehab and get well now (but not take any prescription drugs). "I want to get my son back" she wrote, "he's 3 years old!". Another video showed a visit with a bright eyed 3 year old boy, her son. The video was entitled "I miss my son".

Sadly her rehab didn't work- a recent video talked about her 40 day fast which would end April 11, 2008. Two body shots showed that she had lost quite a bit of weight since she uploaded her first video - she looks like the typical anorexic in those shots. But this fast is not about her eating disorder, she tells us - it's to "gain control". She is allowing herself 1 glass of juice a day and the rest, non calorie drinks like coffee, tea and water. She is continuing this for 40 days, during which she will exercise and get control and save up the money (if she can get a job) to get a pole and start pole dancing. "Weight doesn't matter" she keeps saying adding how she discarded her scale.

One of the comments to this video states:

binges are bad! i was doing well, eating at the most, 300 calories a day, but, then i tried to fast and the binge monster came to me and i ate until i exploded although some people say it wasn't that much food. but all you have to do when you want to binge, is look in the mirror and tell yourself how it will ruin this progress! and then eat an apple or whatever and then wait. tell yourself if you're still hungry in 10 min that you will eat. chances are, you can control your binge better. but you are lucky if you can purge after. it doesn't work for me :(

NOTE: what she suggests in the above quote is a version of what Weight Watchers calls "the 20 minute rule". How much of this comes from our general obsession with dieting and a diet industry which makes a larger profit than even the pharmaceutical companies?

Several feel that anorexia and bulimia are more widespread than we'd like to think. It is usually blamed on fashion models and slim actresses however, most people who are dieting or restricting calories mention health as their first concern. An article in a London newspaper, suggests that there are many internet sites which encourage young women to starve themselves to be very slim:

The UK article suggested that 1 percent of teens have an eating disorder but an estimate from an Australian newspaper stated that 1 in 8 teens has some kind of disordered eating.

What is confusing is that most teens who are restricting (and often over exercising, will not admit it. On the contrary, they say they "eat a lot" while getting slimmer and slimmer. And instead of a cause for concern, slimmer teens are often rewarded with getting more clothing and perks from their family, as well as compliments from their classmates and often, a lack of concern from their medical providers while the fat teen is teased, often not rewarded by the parents and constantly battered by the media as well as medical providers to "lose weight or die". And we wonder why these teens start smoking to "control their weight"? They are following what _we_ are telling them... that _anything_ is more healthy than being overweight!

Ironically, it's the fat teen who is often much more well nourished than those trying to keep what is considered an "ideal weight" (which the CDC has said may be underweight for most people).

And again I ask - will the insanity ever end?

The cost of obesity and other spin

It's good to know how to interpret spin - that's the newspaper word for what Orwell called "Newspeak".

For example, we are told that obesity contributes to 100,000 deaths each year. Now that sounds like a lot except it's only a drop in the bucket in the total yearly deaths.

In 2002, in the USA, the death toll was 2,400,300. Since obesity apparently contributed to 100,000 of these, that means obesity _did not_ contribute to 2,300,300 deaths. Expressed in percentages, that's 4 percent of the deaths per year, obesity had a part in! Which means obesity did not have a part in 96 percent of the deaths per year!

Looks a bit different if we look at the whole picture, doesn't it? Why do we even think obesity is any kind of "problem"? Maybe the real problem are those who wish to sell us obesity solutions?

Even if we take the older figure of obesity contributes to 300,000 deaths a year, that's still 2.1 million deaths that obesity doesn't contribute to, isn't it.

The latest spin we are hearing is how expensive obesity is and how if we just lose 10 lbs we will save the health care system, millions.

The only way obesity can get expensive is with weight loss surgery. The average weight loss surgery costs 15,000 and they can cost as much as $50,000 and guess who pays for it.

Especially considering that in folks with BMI's over 50 (which most people seeking weight loss surgeries are), there is a 34 percent failure rate according to several studies.

Here's the cite for one of these studies - this is not available on the web (we wouldn't want folks seeking weight loss surgery to see stuff like this, would we?)

Annals of Surgery. 244(5):734-740, November 2006.
Christou, Nicolas V. MD, PhD; Look, Didier MD; MacLean, Lloyd D. MD, PhD

Abstract:
Objective: To complete a long-term (>10 years) follow-up of patients undergoing isolated roux-en-Y gastric bypass for severe obesity.

As you can see, this was a study on gastric bypass which is supposed to be so powerful in keeping off weight!

Actually, the longer a person lives, the more expensive their health care costs so if people of size really don't live as long as slim folks, then they would cost less, says an AP story which circulated recently.

LONDON - Preventing obesity and smoking can save lives, but it doesn’t save money, researchers reported Monday.

It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars.

“It was a small surprise,” said Pieter van Baal, an economist at the Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, who led the study. “But it also makes sense. If you live longer, then you cost the health system more.”

Doing the math, thin people if they do live the longest, are going to cost us the most money!

Smoking contributes to 400,000 deaths a year... that's still over 2 million deaths than neither smoking nor obesity contribute to.

Back to the gastric bypass, it kills off 2 percent of those who have it, within 30 days of surgery so would that outweigh the outrageous cost per surgery, most of which is paid for by insurance and premiums are passed down to other insured? (cite: death rate 2 percent within 30 days of surgery from 62,000 patients: report delivered to the College of surgeons in Oct 21, 2003.[Study title: The Impact of Bariatric Surgery on Patient Survival: A Population-Based Study])

Wait, I'm getting more and more confused here. If living longer costs the system more money and obesity contributes to only 4 percent of the 2.4 millions deaths a year, why are people even worried about obesity?

It's the people who live the longest who are going to cost the health care system the most.

Bottom line. The news media is not gospel. Look at the big picture and spin quickly falls apart.

And for heavens sake, don't base a surgical decision on media spin!

Spinning a Good Story on Tragedy

Years ago, I photographed a wedding - a lovely young couple. And two weeks after the wedding, the groom died - fell to his death while hiking the Grand Canyon. That hardly rated an obituary, let alone a news story.

Truth is, of course most deaths never make it beyond the obituary - there are just too many of them. For example, there is at least one death at every marathon and sometimes more when it's a large marathon.

When I was working as a computer software developer, there was a 36 year old who dropped dead on the basketball court. He was in "perfect shape" and his death confused everyone. But even that didn't rate a story in the news.

But there is ONE type of death which DOES rate a news story and that's any death that they can even -remotely- link to "obesity".

Often, regretably they play upon the tragedy of someone's life to sell a diet or surgery or perpetuate a scare about obesity.

For example, one news story this weekend, carried the headline "Grieving mum 'ate herself to death'!" The story goes on to tell us that this lady binge-d food after her 22 year old son died from suicide. "She tried every diet," continues the article saying that finally she had a gastric bypass and died from complications.

Wait a minute. If she died from complications of a gastric bypass how on -earth- did she eat herself to death? Well you see, labors the story, she was fat and so that's why she died from a gastric bypass or that's why she had a gastric bypass? If you start to process the story, it doesn't make sense - she died from the gastric bypass and if she had just stayed fat, she would still be living. That is, had they treated her for the binge eating instead of surgically destroying her digestive tract, she would have lived to possibly have gotten over the tragedy in her life. Instead, the providers used the excuse of her fatness to compound tragedy upon tragedy as she died from the invasive surgery which has been known to be somewhat ineffective in individuals with binge eating disorder.

What the news pundits are hoping is that you won't notice the small mention of the gastric bypass since most of the article is about how she was constantly stuffing her face. And they are right, most folks won't notice it!

The second story was even more sneaky about being fat-a-phobic.

The headline in most news media (and this story went out over the associated press, nationwide) read "Diabetic complains of light-headedness before dying from heart disease"

Just reading the headline, what comes to your mind? I asked my 10 year old granddaughter about this and she basically said that must be diabetes type II or the type often erroneously linked to being fat and that the lady must have been fat.

Now it's a well known fact that most folks in reading the news, do not read much more than the first paragraph. So in this story, the clincher sentence stood by itself about 6 lines into the story.

"At 36, the bride was dead from heart disease."

Only a couple of lines before the end of the article (which most people won't read) we find this:

"She had a previous cardiac episode in her 20s and was a poster child — literally — for juvenile diabetes, relatives and friends said... recalled seeing the poster featuring her on New York subways."

Juvenile diabetes doesn't mean now what it used to - because we are told daily that this obese generation of kids is coming down with diabetes in their childhood.

So the only clue that we have in the whole article is that she was a poster child- literally- for juvenile diabetes i.e. that her posters were in the NY subways.

In other words, she didn't have diabetes type II at all - she had type I which is a totally different disease and not linked to fatness or lifestyle at all (usually the death of the pancreas in type I is caused by a virus or something like that).

Additionally what they don't bother telling us is whether she had a heart condition or not because if she did have a "cardiac episode" (do they mean a heart attack here?) in her 20's, she likely had a heart condition unrelated to the type I diabetes. Her picture was only carried in the NY Daily News which apparently originated the story. And predictably, she was not fat.

But fact remains, most people who read the story will walk away being more scared about diabetes and a willing audience for another series of articles which appeared this weekend telling the public how gastric bypass cures diabetes (it doesn't really - although the sugar levels drop during the fasting phase, the Swedish Obesity study observed at the 10 year post op point that only "35 percent of diabetics were still disease free").

What strikes me is the ruthlessness of the whole thing. How far will people go to sell a product? Advocating gastric bypass i.e. a partial destruction of the digestive tract, for normal weight or fat diabetics, misrepresenting this invasive surgery as a cure for anything and capitalizing on the tragic death of a newly wed to misreport her illness in order to promote a scare tactic to fat diabetics is more than ethically-challenged.

We've gone far beyond the old "first, do no harm" which doctors used to recite in the Hippocratic Oath. Now, it's more like do anything to sell the product and who cares about how many people are hurt in the process.

Queen Size movie was a Queen size diet ad

Recently Lifetime aired a movie called "Queen Sized" about a very fat High School lady who was nominated for Homecoming queen as a joke and then, decides to run. A good summation of the plot of the movie, stars, movie trailer and short analysis can be found here.

About the only positive thing I found in the movie was the main character played by Nikki Blonsky, was really fat and actually wore somewhat youngish clothing.

But the movie was actually anti fat and perpetuating the same tired old myths about fatness over and over.

Based on a real incident which happened in 2004 in Detroit to Allie Burris, various facts about Burris were changed in order to push the anti fat agenda. Whereas Burris' Dad died of asthma, a non fat related disorder, Maggie's dad died of diabetes which is said to be fat related (it is genetically related rather than fat related but it's one of the sound bites they use to scare people into dieting). Throughout the movie, although we are reminded that it - isn't nice - to make fun of fat people, we are also reminded that Maggie should lose weight to save herself from the deadly diabetes which killed her Dad.

In the real incident, Burris got the support of the other High Schoolers and got elected to Homecoming Princess (she was supposedly elected so they could jeer while she was riding in the parade but her ride was without incident). In the movie Maggie got the support of a lot of her contemporaries who were tired of the lady who usually won, but when Maggie stood up to accept the honor, she was almost unanimously booed.

Supposedly, the audience was told she brought that upon herself when she took a TV interview and acted fat and proud. "We want the old Maggie back" said several kids to her. That is, the Maggie who hated herself and thought she was a failure and buried her sorrows in food -that's the one the High Schoolers liked, NOT the new Maggie who actually thought she could do something. Ostensibly some kids who worked in her campaign got angry at her because she didn't mention them as having a part, on TV but they helped, the movie gave us the impression, because they "felt sorry for her" and not because she had any attributes worth anything.

Everyone else in Maggie's family was Hollywood slim and the movie clearly suggested that Maggie was fat because she was out of shape (they showed her running and puffing, walking and not being able to keep up with the other kids and so forth, implying the only exercise she did was opening the fridge plus the arm exercise of putting the food in her mouth). Maggie was also fat, the film showed us, because everytime something went wrong, she ate - all of the wrong things of course. Never did so much as a veggie pass over her lips.

The usual stereotypes we all are familiar with. People are fat because they eat too much and move too little. Only like other stereotypes, these are equally erroneous. There are plenty of slim High Schoolers with binge eating disorder and plenty of fat High Schoolers who are like I was - exercising MORE than the average person (I walked EVERYWHERE I went, I swam during my study halls, I ran from class to class) and STILL only achieving a somewhat large-normal size by starvation. Society doesn't want to admit fatness is mostly genetic because then they couldn't have their fat-a-phobia in comfort. But science says that size IS genetic. The "Queen Sized" movie did not teach people that however. On the contrary.

Interestingly enough, all the high schoolers were shown as slim and perfect looking. I guess the makers of that movie hoped we wouldn't ask difficult questions like "where are all these fat kids that the obesity epidemic mongers are telling us about?" Two fat kids in a large school? Where is the epidemic and why do we have to be "worried" if only 2 out of 1000 kids is fat? Guys, you cannot have it both ways!

"Queen Sized" wasn't even that interesting to watch. It dragged in several places. I fast forwarded through the commercials but I'm told the diet industry was advertising a lot.

The end of the movie was like the rest of it. Maggie goes back to being humble and carefully finds all the candy she has hidden in her room and throws it in the garbage so the audience is consoled with the fact that she has finally decided to get with the crowd and lose weight.

If you haven't seen this movie, I don't think you've missed anything but more of the same dose of fat-a-phobia we get on a daily basis. It was just cleverly (or not so cleverly) cloaked in a different wrapper.

BBC investigation shows obesity crisis to be overblown!

We used to believe scientists and what they told us. We used to
believe official reports. Now it turns out that, more often than not,
they are telling us nonsense. We just want the truth. Sensationalist
scaremongering used to be confined to the tabloids. Now it's done by
every quango and official body in an effort to justify their existence.
Tim H, UK (comment about the "obesity epidemic" media blitz)

A new BBC program states that the "obesity epidemic" risks may be way overblown, and points out that childhood obesity statistics were not based on real data but on projected and computed data (the largest children regardless of size would be called "extremely obese").

The investigators also state that "most teachers they talk to" have NOT seen this vast amount of obesity in the schools! (neither have I seen "all these obese kids" - most kids I see in school today are painfully slim with the same percentage (or less) of obese children we saw in the fifties in each class - 1 to 3 kids)

Further, continues the investigation, the estimations of the "cost of obesity" in Britain (from a well publicized report) were computed on an error which the author of the report admits but said it made "little difference" (and the error was never corrected). Turns out the error DOUBLES the figures (incorrectly) in places.

The Foresight report put the cost to the UK by 2050 at over
45bn(pnds) a year, almost half the NHS budget.

But Radio 4's The Investigation found the estimate was based
on a misreading of figures from a parliamentary report.
The report's author admitted to the programme that he had
made an error but claimed that it made little difference.
The calculations were based on a Commons Health Select
Committee Report which estimated that in 2001, obese
people cost the NHS 1bn (pnds) a year.
But the calculations for the Foresight report failed to
notice that figure doubled to 2bn (pnds) when allowing for the
costs of both obese and overweight people.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7106219.stm

Another British govt report found that:

The increase in obesity will have surprisingly little impact
on period life expectancy of the population

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/22_11_07_modelling_fat.pdf

Finally, although a British study attempts to "show" that obesity raises the risk for cancer, the real statistics show that there are no more deaths from cancer in the obese than in slim people.

(If this "obesity epidemic" is threatening us with diabetes, why is it that in the last several decades though the INCIDENCE of obesity has doubled, the NUMBER of cases of diabetes has remained relatively the same with only a few more reported cases now than several decades ago?)

You can download the investigation podcast here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/fileon4/

Source:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7105630.stm

Obesity and Cancer - Food and Cancer

Actually if you read the news articles about the Report claiming to "prove without a doubt" that obesity is a serious risk factor for cancer, which I understand has been making the headline news for many days, you might get the impression that it talks about obesity alone. But the report which is available at View/Download report actually only has one chapter on obesity although mini rants on obesity and cancer are woven into the report in several other places. And what I found while perusing the actual report is that the news claims about it, far exceed the real thing - the report talks about probabilities mostly and does not provide any new information (although they take hundreds of pages for their non informative report).

According the excellent analysis article on the Junk Food Science blog, these scientists somehow avoided including the largest and one of the most respected studies done on cancer risks called the "Women's Health Initiative". It seems, the blog continues, that they left out quite a few important studies, all of which did not agree with their desired premise i.e. that obesity causes cancer.

They do admit that they are guessing why fatness might raise the risk for cancer (and they also admit that fatness LOWERS the risk for pre menopausal breast cancer). Here is the excerpt:

There are several general mechanisms through which body
fatness and abdominal fatness could plausibly influence cancer risk. For example, increasing body fatness raises the
inflammatory response, increases circulating oestrogens, and
decreases insulin sensitivity. The physiological effects of obesity are described in more detail in Chapter 8. The effects of body fatness-related hormonal changes and inflammation on cancer processes are detailed in box 2.4

In searching for box 2.4, referenced throughout the paper, I found that their big theory is that fat is chronically inflamed due to the fact that fat tissue stores macrophages. But this is a connection which has not been proven to be bad and in fact, fat people tend to have LESS cancer and when they DO get cancer, they survive chemo better than slim people. (Gaesser, BIG FAT LIES, CA, 2002 for one). Also in the pig study, it was strongly suggested that the bodyfat in a pig helped NOT only protect against infectuous disease but ALSO against cancer - the opposite of what this new report is claiming (the pig study was one which did NOT make front page news of course).

Based on studies of pigs, researchers said, that fat helps fend off illness.
Besides keeping a body warmer, fat cells, or adipocytes, produce hormonelike proteins in reaction to invading toxins, behaving much like immune cells that fight disease.
"Adipocytes can be functional and beneficial without creating obesity," said Michael Spurlock, an animal sciences professor at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.
Writing in the American Journal of Physiology, Spurlock and colleagues from the university's veterinary school said fat cells play a role in helping insulin regulate blood sugar levels and can aid the immune system's response to cancerous cells. (American Journal of Physiology, Jan 2004)

Stephen Milloy points out in his article debunking this study that:

scientists don’t really understand carcinogenesis very well. It’s known that the risk of cancer increases with age possibly because of the deterioration of DNA repair mechanisms and a few well-documented risk factors, such as family history of cancer, heavy smoking, and exposure to certain viruses and some exposures to radiation. Outside of those and perhaps a few other risk factors, the occurrence of cancer is largely inexplicable.

There are many of us who might have noticed that the groups which seem to get the most cancer are

1) slim people
2) dieters (i.e. I have known MANY people who lose a great deal of weight and THEN come down with cancer!)
3) smokers
4) for the female cancers - those on birth control medication (placed on the FDA list of cancer causing chemicals in 2004)

This report offers some insights on the whys and wherefores of cancer which may be, according to the American Cancer Society, as much as 85 percent LIFESTYLE related. And because of the erroneous information on obesity and the constant admonitions to "maintain a healthy weight" as determined by BMI, a scale invented in the mid 1800's which does not take bone mass, muscle or even gender into consideration and is, according to the CDC, suggesting weights which are "underweight" and thus not healthy for many people, I fear some of the good things the report has to say might be missed by all in the media's frenzied effort to sell us - yet another - diet.

Most cancer is preventable, the report tells us. Considering that in 1900 they reported 210 cases of cancer in the USA and even when I was a tot in the 1950's, cancer was a relatively rare disease, one does wonder about how much IS preventable. However the suggestions by the researchers seem over simplified and missing quite a few key factors which have been identified as carcinogenic in many other sources. Here's what they say:

Most cancer is preventable. The risk of cancers is
often influenced by inherited factors. Nevertheless,
it is generally agreed that the two main ways to
reduce the risk of cancer are achievable by most
well informed people, if they have the necessary
resources. These are not to smoke tobacco and to
avoid exposure to tobacco smoke; and to consume
healthy diets and be physically active, and to
maintain a healthy weight. Other factors, in
particular infectious agents, and also radiation,
industrial chemicals, and medication, affect the risk
of some cancers.

But making healthy food choices, a balanced diet containing fiber as well as a lot of veggies but low in saturated fat and avoiding transfat completely will likely reduce the risk of cancer as will as little as 20 minutes of walking, 4 or 5 times a week. However, the report's caution to avoid red meat again has no real foundation in science and in fact, red meat may have some micronutrients which are not found in other foods and even in other meats. Obviously if you eat nothing BUT red meat that may not be healthy but avoiding it altogether might be equally unhealthy. Red Meat is a good source of vitamin B12, the lack thereof which can cause neuropathy and more.

Also my bet is that the scientists totally ignored that some 94 worldwide studies suggested a strong link between the artificial sweetener, "aspartame" or "nutrasweet" and cancer especially leukemia and brain cancer!

As for maintaining a healthy weight, science STILL has not determined what IS a healthy weight for most people (but the CDC noted that people with BMIs in the overweight range seem to live longer than those in the "normal" (BMI 22-25) range.

In 2005, the CDC reassessed their data and found that 112,000 people (not 300,000 people) had died from obesity related diseases however, they also added that since people with BMIs in the overweight zone (BMI 25-29) live longer than those in the "normal ranges", one had to subtract 86,000 from the 112,000 and that leaves 26,000 people who die from obesity related disease... less than who die from gunshot accidents!

Report on CDC and healthy weights and obesity deaths


It should also be noted that for 95 percent of the public, maintaining a "healthy weight" (according to BMI) means yo yo dieting or weight cycling which has been STRONGLY suggested in many clinical studies to not only RAISE the risk for most illness but also raise the risk for heart disease as well.

I haven't heard the news stories (I don't listen to the news - because it's so filled with lies) but I would bet that they DON'T AT ALL, emphasize the suggestion in the report to exercise cardio 30 minutes daily, which is a very good idea for all of us regardless of weight.

My bets are that this study was supposed to be the "piéce de resistance" - the study no one could argue with but since there are already two fine articles debunking the study's claims, perhaps it may fall short of its expectations and merely provide news headlines perhaps scaring a few fat people into Weight Loss Surgery.

Bottom line, this report provides nothing new, and a lot of wrong information about obesity AND cancer yet leaves out some of the most IMPORTANT information about carcinogens in the environment and in the foods we consume. In short it is just the usual rant against obesity cloaked in a different format and published for one reason alone... to sell diets and news papers. ho hum....

Obese children - what is abuse?

If we would listen to the media, we would put our kids on a diet, at the first sign of any fat we see. Unfortunately, our medical providers might agree with dieting our kids and look smilingly upon the parents for doing this. Weight Watchers has special programs where a kid can attend meetings for free with a member parent and get the same treatment which would include weekly weigh-ins and sometimes includes fat phobic advice.

How sad that today so many parents regard healthy kids with a bit of fat on their bodies (or even a lot of fat on their bodies) as our forefathers regarded lepers or severely disabled.

I am reminded of a comment made by Jerry Lewis in trying to raise more money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association at the 11th hour of the telethon.

"Would you like to be saddled with a crippled child?" he asked his audience by way of telling them if not, they should give more money. I wonder if today's parents would ask "would you like to be saddled with a fat child?"

And of course, the ultimate we are seeing more and more often is weight loss surgery for kids at a time when they NEED all their vitamins and nutrients. Sometimes kids get a lap band which at least allows normal digestion but also, sometimes kids are given gastric bypass which causes a lifelong illness of their digestive system.

One doctor opined that these surgeries may have an impact on children's health in adulthood. Understatement of the year.

One news interviewer asked a young person who had had a Lap band placed, if she was exercising now and the parents said she was joined up with a gym but when the parents were asked if she had exercised before she got the lap band, they both said "well... no"

Often I have seen that parents and doctors do NOT seem to be emphasizing healthy food choices for kids, only LESS Food and to be slim. I have two teenage grandkids who began smoking to control their weight. Most people DO begin smoking for that reason.

Having sat on the phone with a 48 year old woman who got weight loss surgery in her early 20's, mostly because of parental pressure and having her, now, ill in bed from the repercussions, weep bitterly and tell me how her mother didn't love her because she was fat, I think the physical repercussions of weight loss surgery, liposuction and dieting for any young girl, are nothing compared to the psychological trauma she may face later on.

And as the Swedish Obesity Study has shown us, weight loss surgery patients after 10 years, had only kept off an average of 16 percent of their original body weight.

We should really question this business of dieting our overweight kids - is it a type of abuse where the parents, albeit well meaning, might induce physical and psychological trauma for life? This might well end up in the wasting of a life and all because of a bit of extra bodyfat. A girl who is not using her talents because she is so busy with the hard work of dealing with stomach surgery to maintain a weight that is acceptable to a society which values not much more in a woman than the way she looks.

Read this and weep, for our children are suffering.... Will the insanity ever stop?

NOTE: for an update of Brooke Bates, please read blog of June 16, 2008.

Actually fat people live longer than WLS patients, suggests study

Those researchers on the Swedish Obesity Study (one of the studies which the news media is using to "prove" that gastric bypass patients live longer than fat people), admitted that they did not randomize the study and thus they could pick and choose which fat people they wanted in the study (in the control group which did not receive WLS). The fat people chosen had 25 percent more heart disease and 6.3 percent more diabetes than those chosen to receive WLS.

So if all things had been even, there should have been 25 percent more deaths in the fat (no WLS) group than in the WLS patients.

But there was only 1.3 percent more deaths in the fat group despite the 25 percent more heart disease. Which means the fat people survived better than the WLS patients.

So much for media spin. It should be mentioned that the Swedish Obesity study was HEAVILY funded by several American pharmaceutical firms and Johnson & Johnson (which makes surgical instruments and gastric bands).

For a detailed analysis of the studies visit this blog.

For my blog on this (in August) visit here.

Do gastric bypass patients really live longer than fat people?

In the last couple of days, the headliner news has been that two studies have suggested that gastric bypass patients live longer than fat people.

"Weight loss surgery patients are SIGNIFICANTLY LESS likely to die prematurely" stated an article in the Washington Post.
"This is HUGE!", commented Dr David Flum, to the Washington Post. Dr Flum is a bariatric surgeon.
"It's going to dispel the notion that bariatric surgery is cosmetic surgery and support the notion that it saves lives," boasted Dr. Philip Schauer, another weight loss surgery surgeon who has been prominent in the news articles denying the negative repercussions of bariatric surgery.
"The question as to whether intentional weight loss improves life span has been answered," wrote George Bray, a known enthusiastic advocate of the diet industry.

All well and good but do the two studies they quoted really prove their point?

The answer is no.

In the Swedish Obesity Study (reported in NEJ Dec 23, 2004, vol 351, no. 126) , although 11,000 people applied to be included, only 3900 were accepted to receive weight loss surgery in 1987 when the study was initiated. A matched equal number of controls were selected and given diet advice. The cohort was examined at the 2 year point in the study and at the 10 year point.

At the 2 year point (2 years post op for the weight loss surgery patients), a goodly portion had been "lost to follow up" and only 2010 patients (out of the original 3900) were examined. It's likely that most of these were gastric banding because that was the more often done procedure in the 1980's. Two years is obviously NOT long term follow up.

At the 10 year point, only 627 of the original 3900 were left to examine - the rest had been "lost to followup". And of these 627, only 34 were gastric bypass patients. Of the rest, 400 some were vertical gastric banding and the remainder were adjustable banding.

Since only 16 percent of the weight loss surgery patients were available to examine at the 10 year point, this study poses more questions than answers including the usual question "where are the others?"

Well, we got sort of an answer on this one. Apparently, the 85 percent could be tracked as far as whether they died because of Sweden's nationalized health care records. But that they were "lost for follow up" suggests that their results were even less impressive than the 641 they COULD follow up - i.e. those folks available for follow up had only kept off an average of 16 percent of their weight!

So lets talk about the deaths. A fine analysis by a medical expert solves the mystery. The fat people had a 1.3 percent greater death rate which works out to 100 and some more deaths in the 3900 fat people than in the WLS patients. BUT, apparently, according to the researchers on the the Swedish Obesity study, they did not randomize the study which means instead of taking a random section of fat people, they could pick and choose. And pick and choose they did. Turns out the fat people chosen for this study had 25 percent MORE heart disease, 6.3 percent more diabetes than did those chosen to receive WLS and also the fat folks were an average of 1.5 years older than those who got WLS.

So the S.O.S. if properly interpreted, suggests the opposite of what the news told us... that fat people live significantly longer than WLS patients (and keep in mind most of the cohort in the S.O.S. were gastric banding which has a much lower death rate than gastric bypass). Why? Because there was 25 percent MORE heart disease in the fat people but only a 1.3 greater incidence of death! (To be even with the WLS patients, the fat people should have had a 25 percent greater incidence of death). That causes a hmmm, doesn't it? For details of the analysis please visit here (it's a great blog and you might want to read all the posts!).


The second study took place in Utah. Here 7925 gastric bypass patients were compared to 7925 fat people. The fat people were selected by weight recorded on their driver's licenses.

Researchers found that there were 108 more deaths in the fat people than in the gastric bypass patients (231 deaths in the fat controls, 113 deaths in the gastric bypass patients).

This study seems to have all kinds of problems in my book. First of all, who puts their real weight on their driver's license? Secondly there seems to have been no contact with any kind of medical records on the fat people... the deaths were taken from the death certificates on file. So we have no idea whether the fat people chosen to be the controls were smokers (greatly increases their risk) or yo yo dieters which greatly increases the death risk. We also have no idea of whether they exercised or not which greatly DECREASES the risk of death in people of all sizes. (REF: Lee CD, Blair SN, Jackson AS. Cardiorespiratory fitness, body composition, and all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality in men. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 1999 Mar;69(3):373-80)

Secondly with regards to the gastric bypass patients, the followup was only 7 years and the serious repercussions of vitamin deficiencies and nutrient shortages in gastric bypass tend to show up after the 10th year post op. Basically this was NOT a long term study.

So these two studies don't prove ANYTHING about longevity after gastric bypass.

And also, the end weight results of both studies were a bit disappointing to some gastric bypass patients. At the 10 year point patients had only retained an average of a 50 - 60 lb weight loss (for those 350 lbs to start with and up). And only 35 percent of patients were still "diabetes free" so the weight loss surgery didn't work really well for diabetes either, it seems.

Meanwhile the ASBS, the professional organization for bariatric surgeons, has renamed themselves to include "metabolic diseases" in anticipation of greatly increasing their client base to normal weight diabetics.

I guess since Edward Mason, the inventor of the gastric bypass, left their presidency, they might have forgotten that the reason he thought a "billroth II" (predecessor of today's gastric bypass) would work for fat people was because normal weight patients after a billroth II could not keep their weight at anything close to normal!

Also the expected lifespan (for normal weight patients) after a Billroth II was 15 to 25 years. Since modern medication and treatment there is no expected shortening of lifespan for type II diabetics.

As far as the news media's exaggeration of these NON findings from the two studies, a quote by Stephen Milloy comes to mind:

"But who needs data when you can spoon-feed junk science to a gullible media?"
- Steven Milloy, Fox News