the News abounds with news - some of it junk

On the good side of the news, Gina Kolata has written a book which tells its readers some of the things about weight loss that the diet industry would like to keep from us. For example, she reports on a study - first done in 1950 and repeated many times since, with the same results, by Hirsh and then, Hirsh's associate, Rudy Leibel which suggested that obese people trying to maintain a weight lower than their high set point exhibited psychological and physiological symptoms of starvation, even if they were eating ENOUGH FOOD to maintain that weight. Although this group of studies is not new, it certainly IS new to the American public, large segments of whom are still under the impression that if a person loses weight, they can reset their set point and be slim forever doing nothing more than "eating less and moving more" (an expression which, I recently discovered, originated in the mid 1800's!). This is definitely what the diet industry would like us to believe.

The symptoms of starvation can be very ugly. On the psychological side, depression, suicidal ideation (can over dieting explain the high rate of teen suicide?), aggression, food fantasies including dreaming about food, a desire to binge eat. On the physiological side, the symptoms can be things like being cold all the time, extreme fatigue, voracious hunger, hormones produced which regardless of what is eaten, cause a weight gain and burning as much as 24 percent FEWER calories when exercising. Metabolic damage can last, stated Leibel in an oft quoted message, as long as 10 years after the diet has ended and eating patterns are more normal.

These symptoms were first observed in the Ansel Keyes study of the 1940's. Keyes was trying to find how to rehabilitate the starving refugees from WW II and asked several conscientous objectors to volunteer for this study. Interestingly enough volunteers were given 1700 calories a day (which was considered starvation back in those days).... rather interesting because many of today's slim women are eating less than half that.... and also volunteers were exercised for several hours a day. There is an interesting video about the Keyes starvation study on the University of Nebraska conscientous objector website.

I know bariatric surgery patients who, to maintain weights over 290, cannot eat more than 1000-1200 calories a day or less. We blame regainers from diets and bariatric surgery but is it really their fault or is it, as the studies suggest, something physiological - that "strong biochemical system" defined by Rudy Leibel, which goes to an extreme to defend the higher weight?

On the junk science side, there is a new study which suggests that drinking fruit juice can risk your risk for diabetes. The problem with that study as pointed out to me was the researchers never asked about physical activity except for a yes or no question i.e. "are you physically active?" Of course most answered "yes". A lack of exercise IS a known factor for raising the diabetes risk.

Stories about gastric bypass patients in the news have (as usual) featured new ops who have taken all their weight off and are "happy" (the usual catch phrases are quoted - "can buy clothing off the shelf" "can fit on carnival rides") without one word about things like the need to take vitamin B12 shots for the rest of your life or many people requiring iron infusion which is done in the same place chemo therapy is done. And without mentioning the most important thing - that those who can keep their weight at goal and remain healthy are less than 5 percent of all patients! And that a rebound gain of 50 percent is expected in about 65-70 percent of patients!

A medical provider once told me that patients are NOT given informed consent (i.e. told the risks and dangers of medical procedures) because (as he put it) "then they would never have anything DONE!" Perhaps that is true but in view of the fact as reported by the JAMA in 2000, that a combination of medical treatments, errors and side effects of medications are responsible for 250,000 deaths a year (twice as many as attributed to obesity!), should not people have that choice of whether to have a treatment or not? And especially with elective surgery like bariatric surgery!

The Childhood Obesity Hysteria only makes our kids unhealthier

On a show in October, Tyra Banks, host of "America's top models" featured two children with eating disorders. One of them, started in when she was five, eating paper to avoid eating food.

"I would eat a little bit of breakfast, a bite or two at lunch and a bite of each thing that my mom gave me at dinner and then the rest was paper," Justine Galleger, now 14-years-old, told Tyra. "I had a little baby fat on me and I saw other kids being teased, and figured if I didn't put on weight then I wouldn't be made fun of."

During her period of fullblown anorexia, Justine only weighed 32 lbs.

Another child Tyra had on the show chews food, then spits it out to avoid gaining weight.
Tyra who has gotten in the news lately, by allowing herself to gain up to 161 lbs which puts her in the low part of the "normal BMI range", has been trying to bring a message to the public which they need to hear ... our obsession with size and "childhood obesity" is very badly affecting our kids... for anyone who thinks these kids described above are exceptions, keep in mind that many of the kids I know personally, even those as young as 9 years old, are totally calorie conscious, can detail how many calories and how much fat is in most foods (they read labels of most of what they eat), consider being fat as horrible, ugly and negative, consume large amounts of green tea and/or water and chew gum to avoid eating and try to exercise off any food "indescretions". Since most of them do not eat healthy, I suspect that they, regardless of what they weigh, may be poorly nourished. They drink little to no milk, they take no multi vitamins and they don't eat much in the way of veggies but they all eat a lot of fast food and junk food.

In school, most teachers who taught in the 1980's and are still teaching now, have commented that the attention span of the kids, is markedly less now than it was 20 years ago when they were better nourished and not so fat phobic.

We can hope that Tyra gets through to the public where others have not.

sick n tired of being sick n tired

I received an email from a weight loss surgery (WLS) patient who complained that since his gastric bypass 5 years ago, he'd had a major surgery every year and now, in 2007, he was facing another. He wrote that this is getting very old and that he's sick and tired of being, sick and tired.

This same patient has also complained about the lack of energy, the daily fight he has with his body to not eat and more.

The story struck me because many people use that reason FOR GETTING weight loss surgery in the first place i.e. that they are sick n tired of being sick n tired and yet, so many older post ops complain that after a gastric bypass they are MORE sick and tired than when they were fat.

And of course, those people have bought into THE myth that losing weight is so going to solve all their problems, that they ignore the fact that the surgery they requested will destroy their ability to digest most vitamins and most nutrients that they eat. Of course when someone is vitamin depleted, they will be "sick n tired" because we NEED 100's of vitamins and nutrients on a daily basis and our bodies can only exist well without these for a limited amount of time.

We all are upset about the starvation in Africa but how often do we realize that many folks trying to keep up, not only with fashion but with their medical provider's advice, would, if they removed their clothing, look similar to the gaunt, boney figures we see of the starving Africans?

We pass the buck to the fashion industry and I'm sure it doesn't help when teens see magazines filled with size 0 models but I suspect the motivating factor for most teens is their parents being "worried" about "the obesity epidemic" and this scare they did NOT get from magazines but from their local medical providers who are so sold on the "dangers of obesity" that they are even more and more, are advocating surgery to partially destroy the digestive system for teens!

And if you think of it, how crazy is this? Destroying one of the most important systems in our bodies for a look, and a size which has never really been proven to be healthy at all?

Isn't it a no brainer that starvation wouldn't be healthy for our bodies on the long term, however you achieve it? The only difference between starvation by weight loss surgery and starvation by dieting is that, as a friend who had weight loss surgery for 22 years, states, "you can walk away from a diet but you cannot walk away from a weight loss surgery".