In response to a reference dropped in a comment on a private entry.
This book does not argue that there is no relationship between weight and health. It argues, rather, that the health risks associated with higher-than-average weight have been greatly exaggerated, while all sorts of related but far graver risks have been ignored. In particular, this book emphasizes that poverty, poor nutrition, and a culture that makes it easy for Americans to be sedentary are important public health issues in America today. We should be encouraging Americans to be physically active, to eat well, and to provide reasonable access to medical care for those among us who lack it. What we should not be doing is telling Americans that they will improve their health by trying to lose weight. As we shall see, there is very little evidence that attempts to achieve weight loss will improve the health of most people who undertake them, and a great deal of evidence that such attempts do more harm than good.
The point that I feel is relevant from the entire shpiel shows up clearly only at the end. There’s a great deal of finger pointing and moralizing being done by someone who is condemning finger pointing and moralizing.
Rising technology has led to some problems. Ready transportation and mechanical technology reduces the exercise that the average person puts forth. Great rises in agricultural productivity increase the ready availability of food. Taken together, these trends lead to both a decline in health and increased quantities of body fat.
Some people stay physically active. Another, partially overlapping, group of people consume similar quantities despite the increased availability. Some do both, some do neither. And some adopt unhealthy behaviors such as anorexia in response to the perceived pressure to “eat right”.
I did find the article to which you linked interesting. I also found it harshly critical with few references to back it up.
I do not advocate turning back the technological clock. That is ridiculous. However, we can work on incentives to encourage and facilitate increased athleticism while discouraging and de-incentivizing the consumption of “unhealthy” or highly processed food. There are things we can all do on an individual basis to make it easier for ourselves as individuals, but as this is a systemic problem, I think a systemic response is more appropriate.
If one in a thousand people is doing something we’d rather they didn’t, personal character may be a reasonable explanation. If two out of three are behaving in detrimental fashions, perhaps other explanations, and correspending interventions, are called for.
boo, protected post. Can you copy the relevant links over?
If it’s the book I think it is, it’s mostly just rationalization for not wanting to go on a diet. There’s some merit to the idea that you don’t need to starve yourself to get back to a health body weight. Good nutrition and exercise should get you back there eventually, without needing to go on some crash diet.
There are other factors that would lead one to opt for starvation versus a balanced reigmen of proper diet and exercize. The ambient pace of life is getting faster. People are constantly told in their lives from parents, teachers, bosses that they must be more productive/more efficient more quickly. We’re not taught to seek out the best solution to a problem anymore. What’s cheapest? What’s fastest? These are the solutions that are sought in the real world. It’s not much of a wonder that people would start applying them to their own lives. But your article does raise several good points. I’d love to know what book/conversation this was referrencing.
you are allowed to have your opinions and since i know you you are even allowed to have them in my own journal … but i definitely thank you for moving this into your space rather than mine … although it might have been better to post your comment as a brand new one and not as a response, but at this point it doesn’t really matter.
i think a lot of people are mislead by the issue of weight. too many people think that they will be healthier if they lose weight and they see the extra pounds as their sole source of unhealthiness rather than an indicator of unhealthy lifestyle. the weight-loss industry certainly helps perpetuate this idea. what is better is exactly what you said: to be physically active, to eat well, and to provide reasonable access to medical care for those among us who lack it. doing these things will, no doubt, lead to weight loss for the vast vast vast majority of obese people. note that i said obese, not overweight. while it is very possible to be overweight and very healthy, i seriously doubt that more than a handful of people in the entire world could be classified as both obese and healthy.
And clearly we are in violent agreement.
LOL! stephen i love you. “violent agreement” is the best phrase i have heard in a while. i am definitely taking that for my own use. 🙂
I lifted it from Simon. It’s a beaut. =)
Clearly, the Government should be subsidizing Video Game Arcades, so as to make DDR cheaper and encourage active play. 🙂
I wholeheartedly support this, along with Stephen and I moving to a DDR-compatible abode this fall (*nudge*wink*).
I just read an article a few days ago, which I’m currently trying very hard to find the URL of in Google News but so far I’m not having any success – but anyway, it reported that a survey had found a strong inverse correlation between the number of hours people spend per week in their cars (most of this time was spent commuting) and the number of hours they spend per week exercising. It then went on to note an additional correlation between exercising and living within one quarter of a mile of the nearest store (apparently one quarter of a mile, or half a mile round trip, is the limit at which most people switch to driving most of the time). If this is true (and unfortunately I don’t remember how big a survey this actually was, so I don’t know how seriously to take the findings), then it seems that people don’t so much actually need incentives to exercise; they just need to not be prevented from exercising by having their workplaces located so far away that their commutes leave them with very little free time for exercise, and by having stores located so far away that they would have to walk multiple miles (carrying their purchases, on the way back) if they didn’t drive there.