Jeff Dinelli at The Left Coaster just sent this email to his daughter’s vice principal.
Ms. (Vice Principal),
My name is Jeff Dinelli, and I am the father of two (local school) students, one of whom is (my daughter), a 6th grader. I am writing to express my extreme concern over a Physical Education project that started this week in Mrs. (Physical Education teacher’s) class.
The kids were to enter their height and age into a computerized program, which informed them of their “ideal” weight and percentage of body fat. They have been instructed to count their daily caloric intake. Wednesday night I picked up a pizza on the way home from (my 2nd grade son’s) little league game and (my daughter) was frantic because the box didn’t indicate how many calories were in each slice.
She and her friends now discuss each other’s weight, body fat, and how many calories they ingested the night before.
Frankly, I am furious. Let’s leave aside the very real problem of the overweight children in the class who assuredly are suffering from utter embarassment right now because they are heavier than their classmates and are surely being harassed for it. We live in a culture where the ideal of what a female should look like is extremely unrealistic. From the models on the covers of magazines, to actresses on television and in movies, girls are taught to starve themselves to match up with their role models. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of the horrific prevalence of serious eating disorders such as Anorexia nervosa, Binge eating and Bulimia (if you need help please Google the Center for Mental Health Services or the National Institute of Mental Health).
If an “ideal” weight or percentage of body fat is taught to 12-year-old children in school, it should concentrate on the absurdities of what our culture expects girls to look like and the often deadly diseases that can easily begin to affect young women who become obsessed with squeezing into the latest fashions and looking “good” exposing their midriffs or wearing that two-piece bathing suit at the pool.
There are many ways to teach the importance of proper nutrition and exercise without being told what they “should” weigh or how their bodies “should” look.
I would like this program justified, though I cannot think of a way that could possibly be done.
Yay for Jeff! And lucky for his daughter to have such a great father. (And I say that even though he’s a Hillary supporter. :-p )
There’s more at Jeff’s blog. I hope he gets a good response… although I’m not optimistic. There’s a lot of pressure on educators to make children more focused on, and more fearful of, their own waistlines.
I wish there were more parents like him in the world!
I’d be pulling my kid out of that class for the duration of the project.
Middle- and High-school health classes are terrible like this. They seem to just pick whoever is free that period to teach them (e.g. the gym teacher), and the prejudices and idiosyncrasies of the teacher are allowed free reign. When I was twelve (in 1994, so maybe something’s changed), we learned in health class that a single mother couldn’t legally give her child her own name, and that’s why it’s important to find a man to give it his, otherwise the government will name it for her. Another teacher told my brother’s class to monitor their parents diets and report back to the health teacher if the child felt they were unhealthy.
I’m glad Jeff stood up to this particular idiocy.
I took my 5-year old in to the doctor for her annual checkup. His main concern? Her BMI isn’t right. It’s too high. “Let’s try and keep her weight steady as she grows taller to get those numbers in the right place.”
Or, here’s a thought, let’s make sure she gets a healthy diet and a good amount of exercise and let her body grow the way it should grow. Dipshit.
Seriously, I am finished.
The next person who says the phrase “childhood obesity epidemic” can go die in a fire. In fact, I will personally help them accomplish this task.
Go and give him some love, he’s getting trashed in his comments. :(
He’s a great dad to be writing this letter. Eating disorders cause a lot of harm.
What if a child eats right and such and happens to fall in the higher or lower end of the scale because of family genetics or a health condition other than anorexia or bulemia? the standard bmi doesn’t (in my opinion) cover everyone because it is an average of everyone. there are allways expetions to the rule.
Hate to be a devil’s advocate, but if the description jeff gave of the program is accurate then I don’t necessarily see the harm. There are averages for bmi and weight that are in healthy ranges. I believe the school should go out of its way to explain to the students that there is a range of weight and the harms of eating disorders. But encouraging children to be aware of what they eat cannot be harmful. And, respectfully, childhood obesity is a growing problem. Look at rising rates of childhood obesity (http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/childhood/index.htm) and you can see that it is a very real and serious issue. What these courses should help kids understand is the importance of nutrition and exercise, but in order to better illustrate these ideas they must actively counter the negative body image messages that are sent out to them everyday. It has to be a multi-pronged approach. But to say that kids should track their calories for a week to see how much they eat is damaging is ludicrous.
But encouraging children to be aware of what they eat cannot be harmful.
Strangely enough, that totally isn’t what this project is doing. The project has nothing to do with what children are eating as it is actually recording calories. The PE teacher isn’t asking the kids to write down how many servings of fruit they’ve eaten and if they’ve gotten 100% of their Vitamin C for the day; the assignment is based on calorie tracking.
I’m going to assume, Jamaal, that you have never suffered from an eating disorder. I’m also going to assume that you’re fairly ignorant about the subject and that you don’t realize that there seem to be genetic components to eating disorders and that a little trigger at a sensitive time can turn a healthy kid with a slight body image problem into an ED sufferer who will have to deal with that forever. Forever. Eating disorders have an extremely low recovery rate, and anorexia is the most lethal of all mental illnesses.
But, by all means, we can’t have our kids being FAT. Geez, that would be AWFUL.
I think the program could teach about good nutrition and healthy habits without personalizing it. For example, teaching about the food pyramid (or whatever nutritional information) and have the kids calculate calories, fat, fiber etc. of say a Big Mac as opposed to a meal of gilled chicken and broccoli. Or have them calculate how many calories are burned by a hypothetical person who exercises and takes the stairs, rides their bike to work, etc. compared to another hypothetical person who leads a sedentary lifestyle. They also need to give information about eating disorders and how to get help. As well as a study of how mainstream media reflects weight (as in the ideal) and how accurate that is to a healthy lifestyle. For example, take a look at some stats or articles about what models eat and see how healthy that is. The emphasis should be on eating healthy and moving. What that actually does to anyone’s BMI is totally irrevelent to the class setting. And should not be the focus.
At the very most, I could see giving them PRIVATE journals to record eating and exercise. But with checklists, not so much calories. For example, check boxes for eating 5 servings of fruits and veggies, check boxes for each 5 minutes of additional physical activity. The stress should be on the improvement of habits. nothing specific about each child’s weight or BMI (or their supposed ideal BMI) should be included in the program. Certainly not publicly.
The thing about BMI is that it is an average and is not always accurate for every adult. When you start talking about kids in puberty? The accuracy basically goes further down the toilet. The spectrum of body types and growth patterns in preteens is extremely wide because of the different stages they find themselves in as far as puberty and the teenage growth spurt goes. A post pubescent 14 year old boy who is full of muscle might have the same BMI of a prepubescent 14 year old boy of the same height and weight but who carries less muscle mass and more fat. Same goes for girls. BMI in teenagers is a ridiculous concept, anyway.
Silly Vice Principal. Children will humiliate their peers over their weight even if you don’t interfere. You don’t have to encourage it, they’ll snap to it on their own. Now granted, they might do it even if the kid isn’t particularly fat, but then, so will you.
It reminds me of my 10th grade PE teacher who went above and beyond the call of duty, and encouraged us not only to lose weight, but not to work out too hard so we don’t get all muscular and manly-looking.
Teaching 12 year olds to count calories!
Howabout instead of teaching kids to fear food, teach them ways to consciously, mindfully, socially enjoy great food . . . maybe take a field trip to a farm where good food is grown, have them help harvest and prepare a dinner, or create a weekly “stone soup” lunch with potluck healthy stuff, or create a demonstration garden at school . . . oh. I guess these things would break the budget.
I guess we’ll have to stick with teaching them to count calories, and then treat some percentage of them for eating disorders for the rest of their lives.
All the more reason for school districts to have anti-bullying policies that are in place and enforced.
And why children who physically bully others, particularly in high schools, aren’t being arrested for assault remains a mystery to me. Assault is a criminal matter, last time I checked, and principals aren’t the court system.
Reply batgirl
I haven’t suffered from an eating disorder but I have two close friends of mine who suffered from severe bulimia and are in the process of battling back from years of abuse because of it. I am simply stating that the program itself is trying to address a real issue. If you were able to click on the link to the CDC that I posted then it becomes quite clear that the rise of overweight children is real and the risks that accompany rising rates obesity go along with them. Now, if the program only consists of counting calories without discussion of proper nutrition or talking about body image and the like then it is woefully incomplete, but I believe I had already mentioned that in my original post. I feel that the letter written felt incomplete and that the issue was with the calorie counting. I don’t see calorie counting or assigning it as inherently bad. I don’t think people need to publicize their results but having the kids know their BMI and giving them a better understanding of health and nutrition is vital. Also, while BMI is an imperfect measurement, as all measuring tools are, it is the simplest thing we have to quickly determine what is a healthy range of weight. Also, for juveniles there are multiple BMI tables that are divided up by age to try and correspond to the massive shifts in weight gain that accompany puberty. The system isn’t perfect but people have tried to make it accurate. Would a more holistic suit these kids better? I have no doubt. I have read some good suggestions that would help this. But having kids aware of what they’re putting in their bodies and showing them exactly how many calories they consume in everyday food is a valuable lesson.
I have misunderstood some of the foundational issues here. I do not support simple calorie counting as an effective means of nutritional education. I think it would be a constructive exercise over the course of a day or to have kids see the massive amount of calories that people eat every day. For example, having the kids research the amount of calories one can find in fast food, starbucks coffees, candy etc…But that can only work effectively when coupled with greater discussions on body image, proper nutritional guidelines that go beyond calorie counting, and effective talk about issues resulting from body image and eating disorders.
Clearly, I didn’t properly express that and after talking with some other friends of mine I did not have anywhere near a conception of the pressures that many girls have in middle school and how an one-dimensional project like that can cause the potential for harm. That being said, it is important that we educate our kids on the real dangers of being excessively overweight. We can support and nurture them. But as educators and as parents, one should recognize the responsibility of educating kids about how to live healthy lives. In addition, we need to more actively fight the incredibly damaging and sexist images that these kids are exposed to everyday. That fight needs to come from the parents and schools.
The program described in the original post is woefully inadequate. I certainly wouldn’t want my little sister only counting calories and have her believe that was some gauge of proper diet. But this points to larger issues of getting qualified instructors in health classes and in improving curricula for these programs overall.
Jamaal, thanks for conceding a little ground. But I still disagree with a lot of what you’re saying.
You write:
Why is it important?
First of all, most people in our culture already believe that being “excessively overweight” (how does that differ from just “overweight,” in your view?) is dangerous — far more than mortality statistics justify, in fact. The “fat is dangerous!” belief is constantly expressed in popular media, in news programs, in magazines and newspapers, and in school health textbooks.
We don’t need a “fat is dangerous” course in schools, any more than we need a course on America being swell or on consumer goods being important. These views are already being shoved very effectively down everyone’s throat; no more is needed or desirable.
I somewhat agree that we should be encouraging kids to have healthy habits (although I think this is unlikely to be effective as a classroom subject; it makes more sense to look at environmental incentives).
I completely disagree that a focus on health should include any focus at all on weight or BMI. I’d prefer any such program simply focus on healthy eating and regular exercise. In other words, a Health At Every Size mentality, rather than a diet mentality.
I was talking about BMI because it is the standard measurement by which public health professionals and physicians measure health. In that sense, I saw it as a way of bridging the scientific community with the greater community and as a way to have a starting point somewhere. I speak as someone who has worked in a cardiologist’s office in a support role the past two years and as someone trying to get to public health school to try and attack some of these issues. If you look at the risk factors that obesity brings about then I would say that it is very important that we try and attack this rise in obese kids. This clearly goes beyond simply saying “Fat is dangerous!!” but we must also be careful with saying every size is healthy. Diabetes, heart disease, and asthma are just a few risk factors and diseases that have links to obesity and these diseases and risk factors only become worse and more prevalent if an individual is/was obese in childhood.
I agree environmental incentives would be a good place to start but we all know the sorry state of many schools, especially in poorer and minority areas where obesity is a problem, and their inability to supply proper incentives. I believe with a combination of those environmental incentives and some classroom instruction, one can learn a lot. I just fear the continued ignorance and cognitive dissonance that many hold towards obesity and its increasing prevalence in our population. It is a real public health threat.
Well, I think we’re unlikely to agree, Jamaal, because I don’t agree that obesity is a “real public health threat.” But even if I did agree, I don’t agree that constant hectoring and othering of fat kids will reduce obesity or make people healthier.
It’s interesting that you contrast “the scientific community” with “the greater community.” In the greater community, there is a strong consensus that fat is a horrible health threat. But I’m not convinced that any such consensus exists in the scientific community; on the contrary, exactly how unhealthy fat is remains a subject of great controversy among scientists.
If you’d like to continue this discussion, it might be helpful if you first read this post over at Kate Harding’s.
The takeaway point (one of several, really) is that the scientific evidence doesn’t show that being fat inevitably means poor health. To the contrary, fat people can be healthy; and being thin is no guarantee of good health.
Even if I went along with the herd and agreed that fat is unhealthy, so what? It’s not like anyone knows of a healthy, sustainable, reliable way to stop being fat, so it’s not useful to focus on weight in any case.
I’d prefer any such program simply focus on healthy eating and regular exercise. In other words, a Health At Every Size mentality, rather than a diet mentality.
What would that look like?
I can see setting different achievement goals by age and/or gender, for example:
Run a mile in 10 minutes and finish with a heart rate of less than ____;
Do ___ situps in a minute;
be ___ able to reach ______ inches past your toes from a seated straight leg position;
Have a resting heart rate and blood pressure of less than _____ and ____;
and so on.
Would you sign onto those measures? If not, how would you define a measure of health for teens? What would “healthy at any size” mean?
But the BMI is a horrible way to measure health. We have so many much better ways to measure health — activity levels, diet composition, heck, even blood chemistry. When we instead choose such a tragically flawed ruler by which to measure ourselves, we end up encouraging behaviors that may transform our bodies to more closely follow the rule, at the expense of our overall health.
Let me make an analogy. I propose the “170-pound rule” for health. It states that in order to be healthy you must weigh 170 pounds. If you weigh more than 175, you’re overweight. Less than 165, you’re underweight. Under the 170-pound rule, tall kids will come away with the impression that they’re “overweight” and that they need to reduce their caloric intake, while short ones will be told that they’re “underweight” and they need to eat more. While this rule won’t affect the average kid, those short and tall kids will be encouraged to undertake unhealthy behavior — gorging and starving themselves, fretting about their weight, yo-yo dieting, etc. We can probably agree that it’s healthier to have no rule at all than such a heavily flawed rule.
But how is the 170-pound rule significantly different from BMI? The 170-pound rule doesn’t take into account one’s build, body composition, dietary composition, genetic factors, exercise regimen, or height; while the BMI similarly neglects all those factors except for height. BMI encourages exactly the same destructive behaviors that the 170-pound rule encourages. Many of us think that it’s healthier to have no rule at all than such a heavily flawed rule as BMI.
BMI apologists, when backed into a corner, will concede that the BMI has flaws and shouldn’t be used as a strict ruleset, but rather as one metric amongst many. But no sooner are you out of sight than they start once again pushing BMI as the be-all-end-all of health. This program is one example; Robert’s experience with his pediatrician is another.
There’s no doubt that the best approach is to teach kids to have an active lifestyle, eat healthy food, eat slowly, only eat when hungry, etc. If a teacher can’t teach that, they should at least refrain from indoctrinating kids with unhealthy metrics like the 170-pound rule and BMI.
“that you don’t realize that there seem to be genetic components to eating disorders and that a little ”
Another set of gentic componnets that gets left out is the varying evolutionary strategies in various populations that result in a wide range of completely normal body types. Another set of genetic components that gets left out of teaching on nutrition is metabolic adaptations – eg. milk does NOT do everybody good.
“I was talking about BMI because it is the standard measurement by which public health professionals and physicians measure health.”
So they claim. In fact it often reflects cosmetic concerns more closely. This is not some new thing; the Army has been at this crap for 30 years now, with the height and weight standards having booted out hundreds of thousands of productive soldiers over the years. There was some need for some efforts in this area, especially in a force recruited from the South and Midwest, but they made a witch hunt of it – and then found out after the Falklands War that carrying some extra flab made for better combat endurance ( cold endurance, longer times between feedings) even if it adversely affected other, less important kinds of stamina.
Also, just because there is a correlation between obesity and diabetes/heart disease/etc. doesn’t mean that obesity causes diabetes etc. They both might be caused by a third factor — to the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever proven causality, only correlation.
What if it’s not obesity, but yo-yo dieting, that causes diabetes? You’d see the same correlation: fat people are told to yo-yo diet, so they get diabetes, and viola, fat people end up with diabetes. Doctors see the correlation, and like morons assume causality.
If this were the case, that dieting and not obesity causes diabetes, then you would expect to see no increase in diabetes amongst fat people who eat healthily, exercise regularly, and don’t diet (compared to skinny people who do the same). Anybody have a link to a study?
“I was talking about BMI because it is the standard measurement by which public health professionals and physicians measure health.”
This is so untrue. BMI is a quick and dirty measurement of height and weight ratio that was made to be used by lay people. Those without access to an EKG, a body fat measureing “dunk” container, a phebotomist and a pathology lab to examine blood work. BMI was made so that everyday people can get a very broad picture of whether they are over or underweight or not.
I work in healthcare, and although physicians will sometimes talk to patients about their BMI in regards to their weight and health, I don’t think any of them find it “the standard way to measure health.” I think you’d be laughed right out of the doctor’s lunch table if you were a doctor who said that.
Anyway, I do think it is entirely possible to teach kids to eat a variety of 5 fruits and vegetables, get X amount of protein, carbs, fat and other micronutrients, try to exercise at least 30 minutes a day, etc. etc. And never mention any child’s weight or BMI. It is not necessary. It may be that doing these things will make some kids lose weight, but others might not. The important thing is process not product. All of us, no matter what our weight, will be healthier if we eat better.
BTW, my sister is 5’7″ and weighs 115 (which according to BMI is underweight) and she eats crap food. No veggies, lots of frozen french bread pizza, sedentary lifestyle. And I’ll just tell you, cuz I don’t give a crap who knows my weight. I am 5’5″ and weigh about 160, which is overweight according to BMI. I eat better than her, more balanced meals, more whole foods as compared to processed, etc. I also exercise more, and walk a lot more in my everyday life because I can’t drive. Plus have two preschoolers to run after. I admit that I eat too many sweets, it is my downfall. But if I cut down or even eliminate sweets? I will still never be 115 pounds. And I will still have a more healthy diet and more active lifestyle that her.
Its all in the process.
I don’t know if there’s a “childhood obesity epidemic”. But I do think there’s a “childhood sit on your ass and get no exercise epidemic”. I see kids of all shapes and sizes. I don’t think the distribution of body types and weights have changed that much. But I think the fitness levels of kids are poor, regardless of what they weigh. And I’ve probably worked with about 300 of other people’s kids at this point for varying lengths of time. Get the kids outside running around for an hour a day and take a sledgehammer to their video consoles and you’ll see a lot less problem with kids having health problems, IMNSHO.
Kids’ sports are not always the answer, either. How much time do they spend actually getting exercise and how much time are they standing relatively still while waiting to work on (or while actually working on) a specific skill? Half an hour in the batting cage sharpens the eye-hand coordination but doesn’t do shit for your aerobic fitness. Both my kids went through all kinds of sports – soccer, lacrosse, hockey, tennis and softball. Great stuff, but it doesn’t necessarily make you fit.
Anyone who thinks BMIs are good for anything is on crack. My BMI these days is about 23. At my fittest it was 26.
Stupid useless number.
Ampersand:
No matter what the deniers say the debate is over.
(Sorry. The parallel with another issue was just too great to resist an attempt at ironic humor.)
Can we all agree that more likely than not obesity has long term health consequences? We teach children the dangers of smoking even though we all hear stories of the occasional smoker living to a ripe old age. Same with the dangers of drinking and drug use. We teach children the dangers of unprotected sex. We show (or used to. I am not sure what they do now days) films of horrible automobile accidents to impress on them the dangers of the road. How is the obesity thing any different?
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Well, first of all, there is universal agreement that smoking is incredibly unhealthy in legitimate, peer-reviewed journals. That’s simply not the case when it comes to overweight and obesity at all but the most severe levels. Conflicting peer-reviewed studies and journal articles aren’t at all the same as “the occasional smoker living to a ripe old age”; the former is evidence, the latter is anecdote.
There’s also the fact that smoking is, even according to the studies cited by the “fat is dangerous” crowd, far more dangerous than being obese. For instance, the study I wrote about here found that being obese carried risk ratios that rarely rose above 1.9 (1.0 is no difference at all), and in many areas the “normal” weight people actually had higher risks of death than the “overweight” people. In contrast, for for smokers the risk ratio of death by lung cancer, compared to non-smokers, is 23.3 for men and 12.7 for women.
Finally, the success rate for quitting smoking is far, far higher than the success rate for “quitting” being fat, and carries virtually no health risks of its own. Telling people to not smoke, difficult as it is, is much more reasonable than telling them not to eat. :-p
Finally, the success rate for quitting smoking is far, far higher than the success rate for “quitting” being fat, and carries virtually no health risks of its own. Telling people to not smoke, difficult as it is, is much more reasonable than telling them not to eat. :-p
Realistically, the only people who have a reasonable chance of losing weight permanently (barring the chronically ill) are those who undergo bariatric surgery. Which is only done for moderate to morbid obesity. Bariatric surgery can have health benefits for the severely obese, but it is clearly not worth the risk for people who are overweight or mildly obese. So people in the 25-35 BMI range are just out of luck: unending social pressure to lose weight and no means of doing so.
Like amp, I’m not at all convinced that the “obesity epidemic” is the threat it’s claimed to be, but if we really want people to lose weight on a society wide level (as opposed to the occasional “miracle cure” successful diet), we’re doing it all wrong. People aren’t going to lose weight because they’re told that they’re fat any more than they’ll stop smoking if you tell them they’re smelly and leave it at that. If we really want a thinner country, we’d have to make society wide changes similar to those that were undertaken for smoking. Some ideas I have, not necessarily all good, but to stir up thought:
1. Fewer cars, more public transportation, bike paths, and sidewalks. Walking uses energy and even the minor amounts of walking (and stair climbing) involved in the use of public transportation are enough to make the average person who is now driving lose a couple of pounds per year (assuming no compensatory increase in eating) and exercise, regardless of weight, is healthy.
2. Stop advertising high calorie low nutrient foods. By “advertising” I also include things like attractive packaging. Make all food come in neutral containers labelled only with the name of the product, ingredients, and nutritional information.
3. Increase the number of parks, swimming pools, playgrounds, etc available to kids of all socioeconomic groups so that those that wish to can have a chance to play outdoors.
4. Get serious about researching the mechanisms of hunger and weight control. As in, a NIH sub-institution dedicated to it. Pharma research is all very well, but too immediate term oriented to make the basic breakthroughs that will have to happen if we really want a decent pharmacologic method of appetite or weight control to become available. (And pharmacologic aids were critical in improving the number of people who quit smoking successfully: without any pharma, the successful quit rate is something like 6%, with wellbutrin, nicotine replacement and counseling, the success rate goes up to something like 30-35% per attempt.)
In short, stop blaming people for not accomplishing the impossible and make it possible. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the goal is worth accomplishing.
My understanding of this weight issue (and someone feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) is that there is a point where carrying around those extra pounds impedes on your life functioning and can have a downward spiraling effect on overall health. I’m talking people who suffer obesity that interferes with their ability to walk and breath and digest properly. These are your bariatric patients.
But for the large majority, we are simply in that range of being 20-40 pound over the “ideal” weight. And this is where some of the medical data is controversial. Is it healthier, for example, to stay around 30 lbs. over the “ideal” on a consistent basis or go yo-yoing up and down every year, which screws with your matabolism. Also, there is a point off having too much exercise. (Most of us aren’t there, I’m sure) but there is a balance between healthy exercise and overuse injuries. So if doing so much exercise to cause injury or chronic pain is the only thing that will get you to your “ideal” weight, is it really the healthiest option? I think the controversy about weight is that if it is not vastly affecting your functioning (like you are not stuck in bed because of it, or unable to walk a short distance, etc.) is it really that unhealthy long-term? If not, then the definition of ideal weight or BMI needs to be expanded and people need not feel like failures if they are not supermodel skinny. If so, then yes, some of the measures described above may come into play.
But back to OP, none of this requires that 12 year olds be measured by middle school gym teachers.
3. Increase the number of parks, swimming pools, playgrounds, etc available to kids of all socioeconomic groups so that those that wish to can have a chance to play outdoors.
Increase the number of parents who will let their kids play at those parks and playgrounds without constant adult supervision and interference (absent security issues).
Increase the number of local municipal entities that will let a bunch of kids organize their own games without shooing them off because it’s not a sanctioned activity.
Increase the number of parents who will make their kids play in those parks and playgrounds instead of sitting indoors.
Ampersand wrote:
“We don’t need a “fat is dangerous” course in schools, any more than we need a course on America being swell or on consumer goods being important. These views are already being shoved very effectively down everyone’s throat; no more is needed or desirable.”
Wow — I really like this paragraph. This would make a great T-shirt.
Realistically, the only people who have a reasonable chance of losing weight permanently (barring the chronically ill) are those who undergo bariatric surgery.
Not so fast Dianne. I have lost about 25 pounds from my highest weight and have kept it off for about 8 years now. I did this by making a permanent change in my diet and exercise routines. For the former, I stopped drinking any kind of pop and pretty much only drink water and beer, with a definite drop in the amount of the latter BTW (I partially compensate by drinking much better beer). I also cut way back on the amount of food I eat that contains large amounts of fat and/or simple sugars. For the latter, I established one, as I wasn’t exercising at all up to that point.
Now, whether/how that would work for various people is a separate debate. I bring this up solely to rebut the proposition you advanced. It is possible for at least some people to have a lifestyle that causes them to have a certain weight, and to adopt a permanent change that leads to a permanent drop in weight.
Since we are talking about children here, why is it an issue of losing rather than avoiding gain?
It is difficult to lose weight. Once you’re obese, you’re likely to stay there. However, it is generally much easier–not always, but usually–to avoid gaining weight. If you’re 5’5″ and 160 pounds, and you want to weigh 110, you may never attain that weight. But if you’re 5’5″ and 160 pounds and you want to avoid becoming 5’5″ and 200 pounds, you can probably do so. It’s hard to lose 15 pounds; it’s a lot easier to avoid gaining 15 pounds.
This is one way in which the “you can’t lose weight!” rhetoric becomes problematic when applied across the board. Because not every debate about obesity, and not every concept that views obesity as something to be avoided, is aimed at losing weight. No, you may not be able to turn obese people into non-obese people. But if you can prevent people from becoming obese, then you don’t NEED to reverse the process.
And children–especially children who are not yet obese, who are growing, etc–are probably fairly good targets for this type of thing.
Now, this still depends on a view of obesity as a negative thing. But I’m not clear whether people in the FA movement are seriously arguing that obesity is good/neutral, or whether they’re making the (probably accurate) point that the costs of trying to lose weight are not worth the benefits.
Viewing it from a prevention aspect puts it in a better perspective. The risks of “no transition to obesity” are very different from the risks of “diet like hell.”
I have lost about 25 pounds from my highest weight and have kept it off for about 8 years now.
Good for you, assuming the weight loss was intentional and the lifestyle changes don’t make the additional social approval of your lower weight and any health benefits not worth it. However, your experience is very atypical. I’ve never seen a study of any weight loss method, not even those that advise permanent changes in lifestyle, that has led to substantial weight loss for more than a tiny fraction of those studied. Analogously, some people can quit smoking, permanently, on the first try with no pharmacological aid. But that is very rare.
Other thoughts on how to make the population thinner: People who don’t get enough sleep tend to gain weight. As do people under chronic stress of any sort. So, a higher minimum wage, so that people wouldn’t have to work 80 hours/week (resulting in chronic stress and lack of sleep) would probably do more to reduce the incidence of obesity than any program lecturing 12 year olds on the evil of weight gain.
Oh, one other thing that is absolutely necessary before weight reduction is going anywhere on a population level: universal health care. There are some conditions which make it virtually impossible short of outright starvation (and not always even then) to lose weight*: sleep apnea, hypothyroidism, some types of brain lesions, and congestive heart failure come to mind, I’m sure I could think of more given time. With a decent health care system in place to make sure that people with hypothyroidism get replacement every day, people with sleep apnea get CPAP, etc, then many of these people will lose weight spontaneously, without even the need to make further lifestyle changes. Without the needed medicines and devices, their lives will be shortened, no matter what they weigh.
*Note that weight does not equal fat. CHF for example causes retention of fluid so that a person who has access to water will still be “overweight” even if they have no food because their bodies will retain the water abnormally.
I have lost about 25 pounds from my highest weight and have kept it off for about 8 years now. I did this by making a permanent change in my diet and exercise routines.
I am also down about 20 pounds from my highest weight. But my weight, historically, has vacillated from around 230 to 270, largely correlated with external factors beyond my immediate control: whether I had time and opportunity and energy to exercise and to cook good (healthy and tasty) meals. I have never counted calories or intentionally refrained from eating when I was hungry. I see this fluctuation as being very different from what happens when somebody goes on a long-term regimen of calorie-counting and not eating when they are hungry — so I don’t think what you are talking about, Ron, is relevant to the argument that diets don’t cause people to lose weight.
But I’m not clear whether people in the FA movement are seriously arguing that obesity is good/neutral, or whether they’re making the (probably accurate) point that the costs of trying to lose weight are not worth the benefits.
People in the FA movement obviously argue different things. Personally, I see fat as a negative only when it prevents me from doing things that I want to do, or has other clearly negative effects on my health. Usually, that is not the case.
“BTW, my sister is 5′7″ and weighs 115 (which according to BMI is underweight) and she eats crap food. No veggies, lots of frozen french bread pizza, sedentary lifestyle. And I’ll just tell you, cuz I don’t give a crap who knows my weight. I am 5′5″ and weigh about 160, which is overweight according to BMI. I eat better than her, more balanced meals, more whole foods as compared to processed, etc. I also exercise more, and walk a lot more in my everyday life because I can’t drive. Plus have two preschoolers to run after. I admit that I eat too many sweets, it is my downfall. But if I cut down or even eliminate sweets? I will still never be 115 pounds. And I will still have a more healthy diet and more active lifestyle that her.
Its all in the process.”
I’m the same really, sedentary, crap foods, no veggies, tons of sugar and fat, fast food whenever there’s some (which is not that often when you’re poor). I manage to weight between 100 and 105 lbs for 5’6″, and I can’t seem to gain an ounce…
Note that my BMI’s always been underweight by a fair margin since childhood, this isn’t a new development. I was 4’0″ and 50 lbs at 9 years old, 5’0″ and 80 lbs at 15 years old, 5’6″ and 110 lbs at 20 years old. Then weight fluctuated 97~117 since then.
Man oh man am I glad I finished grade school before the “obesity epidemic” took off in earnest. I was miserable enough being the resident fat girl, and I can only imagine how awful and self-conscious I’d feel having to “record my height and weight” and “monitor” my calories” in front of all the other junior high students (a group of people not particularly known for their sensitivity). My heart really goes out to all those poor fat kids undergoing this.
And has anyone else ever wondered, as I have, if that correlation (and it is a co-relation, not a proven cause, mind) between “obesity” and heart disease might be instead due to being told you’re not OK just as you are? Is it just me who’s wondered if there might be a connection between being taught to hate your body and your body subsequently getting sick? At this stage it’s just as plausible as Teh Fatz causing various diseases.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/msu-src071808.php