{"id":8373,"date":"2009-08-02T15:02:29","date_gmt":"2009-08-02T22:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8373"},"modified":"2009-08-02T15:02:29","modified_gmt":"2009-08-02T22:02:29","slug":"the-problem-with-how-even-relatively-enlightened-anti-obesity-activists-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8373","title":{"rendered":"The problem with how even relatively enlightened anti-obesity activists think"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marc Armbinder is enlightened<\/a>, as “anti-obesity activists” go; he admits that obese adults aren’t going to be losing weight ((I assume he means “most” obese adults)) and he dismisses as useless any policy based on hectoring people to lose weight.<\/p>\n

But he also writes:<\/p>\n

And with obesity, we’re dealing primarily with children and prevention. Obese adults are not going to lose weight unless they decide to have their stomaches separated from their digestive tracts. Megan is pessimistic about any policy intervention and questions any such intervention from a moral level. But any sensible policy is designed to change the environment<\/a> for children, not for adults.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>I don’t really object to the idea of trying to reduce the frequency of obesity in the next generation; although I think the health effects of obesity per se<\/em> ((As opposed to the health effects of factors that tend to be correlated with obesity, such as lack of exercise, and the stress from anti-fat discrimination.)) have been greatly exaggerated, I do think there is legitimate reason to believe that obesity has negative effects on health for a sizable number of people. If it’s possible to make children healthier without stigmatizing fat kids or making their lives worse, then I’m all for that. (I don’t really believe that Marc or anyone else has a practical, proven method for reducing obesity in kids, but that’s another post.)<\/p>\n

However, I can’t agree with Marc that because “obese adults are not going to lose weight,” it follows that “any sensible policy is designed to change the environment for children, not for adults.” This assumes that “changing the environment” is only worthwhile if it leads to weight loss. Just because obese adults aren’t (by and large) going to lose weight, however, doesn’t mean they should be written off. An obese adult who doesn’t regularly exercise — just like a thin adult who doesn’t regularly exercise — could benefit a lot from policies that encourage regular, moderate exercise, like making cities more walkable and bikable, creating public parks, or subsidizing gym memberships. A policy that increased the frequency of moderate exercise among adults, even if no one loses much weight, could lead to lower health-care costs in the long run.<\/p>\n

The preliminary research on Health At Every Size techniques to improve health among fat people looks extremely promising<\/a>; some NIH funding for further research along these lines would do a lot of good. But thanks in part to the myopic focus of anti-obesity activists, there’s no money for interventions that make fat people healthier but don’t promise to make them thinner.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Mark writes that “The idea that anti-obesity activists think the problem will be solved by putting grocery stories in urban areas is kind of a myth.” Well, there are plenty of anti-obesity folks <\/a>who think that putting grocery stores in cities is part <\/em>of the solution, although I’m sure none of them think it’s a magic bullet. But more to the point, even if policies encouraging grocery stores in urban areas doesn’t “solve” obesity, that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be beneficial to health, by enabling urban people to eat healthier even if they don’t lose weight.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to the title of my post. The problem with “anti-obesity activists” is that their goal isn’t a healthier population; it’s a less obese population. But treating “health” and “not obese” as synonymous is harmful, because it places many policies that would increase health for everyone — including the obese adults Marc writes off — out of bounds. “Sensible” health policy should attempt to improve the health of all people — including those “obese adults” who aren’t going to lose weight.<\/p>\n

(A note about the top image: I hope the top image, by Flickr user ~Twon<\/a>, doesn’t come off as a “headless fatty”<\/a> image. There simply aren’t many non-mocking images of fat people exercising, or at least not many I could find. And even though the head is cut off, this photo doesn’t seem to me to contain the same “ew, gross!” subtext contained in most “headless fatty” media photos.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marc Armbinder is enlightened, as “anti-obesity activists” go; he admits that obese adults aren’t going to be losing weight ((I assume he means “most” obese adults)) and he dismisses as useless any policy based on hectoring people to lose weight. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fat-fat-and-more-fat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}