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Musing on recent fat facts and fat related research
Martin Collis
Oh that this too, too solid flesh
Would melt, thaw and resolve itself Into a dew.
:: William Shakespeare
Like fat cells, stories about fat grow and proliferate in the media. Editors and commentators try to one-up each other with fat facts and stories. But, in spite of media attention, multi-million dollar research studies, doctorial dissertations, pharmaceuticals, conferences, surgery, weight-loss programs and miraculous products sold on late night TV, the fat stats keep trending upwards. Year after year Canadians and Americans get heavier, so that it’s normal to be overweight and not unusual to be obese. Body fat seems to provide a protective layer so people are immune to stories of disease, discomfort and ostracism. Many health-related scare tactics have been tried and so far they’ve all failed.
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“Obesity is correlated to diabetes, depression and death.”
“There’s lies, damn lies and statistics. What else you got?”
“But that’s not all. There’s heart disease, stroke, hypertension, osteoarthritis, many cancers, glaucoma, asthma and gout.”
“Whatever! Pass the fries.”
“What about sleep apnea and sexual dysfunction?”
“That’s why they have TV 24 hours a day.”
“Varicose veins? Back pain? Chronic fatigue? Liver problems?”
“I’ve handled tougher stuff than that.”
“Fat people are discriminated against on job interviews.”
“I’m not bothered, I’m on disability.” |
Apparently, the thought of a sex-starved, sleepless, uncomfortable life and an early death doesn’t resonate, and maybe leads to feelings of stress, which in turn leads to more indiscriminate eating.
Other big problems are emerging from having so many big people. Planes and cars are burning more gas as their passenger load gets heavier. There are niche industries for giant hospital beds, with winches to help lift the patients, who finally need monster coffins to accommodate them when they die an early death. Patients are getting too big for CAT scan machines and doctors are refusing to do knee and hip replacements on joints which are being forced to withstand two or three times the weight for which they’re designed.
What’s surprising is that the lures of the automobile, the TV screen, computers, fast food and ‘convenience’ are more powerful than the threat of a lifetime of discomfort. The problem probably lies in the fact that fast food, entertainment and easy transport deliver immediate gratification whereas all those diseases and discomforts are somewhere in the future and might never happen. It’s a human design flaw to look for the quick fix.
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The sleeper food hit of this year’s Texas State Fair: Fried Coke. Coca Cola flavored batter is deep-fried, then drizzled with Coke fountain syrup and topped with whipped cream, cinnamon sugar and a cherry. |
 Overweight and Out of Shape? The Canadian Armed Forces Wants You!
Our potential enemies must be smiling that the Canadian Armed Forces have abandoned any pretense of standards for fitness and body composition in order to gain entry into the military. With two thirds of the nation overweight and most of them unfit, there were just not enough potential recruits who could pass the modest fitness requirements of 19 push-ups, 19 sit-ups, a 75kg squeeze on the hand grip dynamometer and jog 2.4k (1.5 miles) in a very attainable time. (It’s even easier for women). As noted later in this article, men in the 18 – 33 year old age bracket are putting on weight faster than any other age group.
New recruits who are overweight and unfit will be assigned to a specific training squad to try to whip them into shape. Basically, part of our military will become a tax supported fat farm.
The problem is not that your goals are too high and you fail
to reach them but it’s that they’re too low and you do!
:: Michelangelo
People tend to rise to the level of the expectations placed upon them and if you want to serve your country in a military capacity then you should be expected to report in decent physical shape. The movie “Stripes” comes to mind when I picture 300lb (136kg) recruits in basic training. [On a similar topic in this issue, read what happened to the Florida Police Chief who expected his officers to get in shape; he was fired.]
Starting Young
Fat does not discriminate against gender, race, sex or age and our children are reflecting the fattening of our species. As I noted in an earlier article in ‘Well’ when the fictional Pied Piper came for the children, parents were panicked into action, but so far our responses have been modest, given the statistics with which we’re faced. In a paper in the November 2006 journal “Pediatrics” based on the work of C Li, Ph. D, M.D. et al. at the University of Rochester, the childhood progression towards obesity is reported as accelerating. There is now general agreement that abdominal fat (visceral fat) is the most dangerous and most highly correlated with diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease and it was abdominal fat that was of particular interest to Li et al. What they found was shocking.
- Between 1988 and 2004: Abdominal obesity increased 65% among boys and almost 70% among girls.
- It appears that abdominal fat is increasing even faster than the more commonly reported BMI. Between 1999 and 2004 the percentage of 6 – 11 year olds with elevated BMIs rose about 25% (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey – NHANES). But the increase in abdominal obesity of the same group over the same period increased 35%.
These data come from a paper titled “Recent Trends in Waist Circumference and Waist-Height Ratio Among US Children and Adolescents”. You should be careful to notice that the big percentage increases are in the obesity groupings and not overall. However, this is a strong indication that there are significant increases exactly where we don’t want to see them. It is important to notice that these are measured data, not from a survey on the telephone.
There are many factors that lead to more and more overweight children. It is not only food that comes fast and prepackaged, but also games and entertainment. Games no longer need to be ‘made’, but just ‘played’, usually under controlled conditions so that kids can be creatively starving in the land of plenty. Safety is deemed more important than activity and games are electronic, packaged or programmed by adults. Asked where he liked to play, a nine year old replied, “Inside, where the plugs are.” For ‘physical’ play we seem to be moving towards the air-conditioned nightmares of Fantasy Resorts in Japan. Here visitors must provide ID before entering the play premises. Shoes must be removed (they carry germs) and the wheels of baby buggies are sprayed with antibacterial solution. There are more than 20 staff in identical bright yellow coveralls and a matching number of security cameras mounted in the ceiling. Pets, of course, are banned; the toys are inflatable and soft, the floor rubberized and the sand in the sandpit sterilized. The children don’t get injured, but neither do they get challenged.
The game was never worth a rap
For rational folk to play
In which no accident, no mishap
Could ever find a way.
:: A. Gordon, 1936
A recent issue of McLean’s Magazine pointed out that you almost never see skipping games in school playgrounds any more. Likewise, numerous other physically active games and activities have disappeared from schools.  Pearl Marko is a recreation therapist who has created Positive Playgrounds, a national organization to teach forgotten games like freeze tag, marbles, hopscotch and kickball. It’s rather like some of our First Nations elders trying to preserve old dialects and languages among children who learn their vocabulary from TV, pop songs and DVDs. For more on creative play, I recommend “Child’s Play” by Silken Laumann.
Many of our children are overprotected, under-exercised, calorically overwhelmed and nutritionally deficient. In a research project commissioned by the Globe and Mail newspaper and CTV it was shown that many popular children’s cereals contained as much sugar as a chocolate bar. The researchers compared the amount of sugar in a 50g (1.75oz) serving of cereal with that contained in various popular chocolate bars. For example, a bowl of Post Sugar Crisp contained more sugar than a Kit Kat bar, a Mr. Big, a Snickers bar and numerous other chocolate ‘treats’. There was little caloric difference in many of the big selling ‘kids’ cereals and candy bars. Dietician Leslie Beck says, “I think parents know that the cereals are sugary, but they don’t understand the extent. When you say, “Your child is eating the equivalent of a Mars bar for breakfast” it starts to hit home.” The pediatric endocrinologist, Dr. Robert Lustig, says that many children’s cereals really don’t deserve the name of ‘food’. “A food substitute is a better description.”
There is a move against trans-fats, which are good for shelf life, but not self-life. Longer lives on the shelves
Leads to shorter lives for ourselves.
 KFC is swearing off trans-fats, as is Disney. All this is good but won’t help much in combating obesity until we get portion size and sugar under control. Burger King, of course, offers the “Quad Stacker” with 4 slabs of beef, four slices of cheese, a bunch of bacon smothered in creamy sauce, all of which adds up to 1000 calories and 68 grams of fat. (The Quad is rumored to stand for quadruple by-pass).
The Future
Are people going to continue to get fatter and fatter as they have for the past quarter century, or will a combination of legislation, social engineering, education, pharmaceuticals and lifestyle change begin the slimming of North America? There are some faint lights at the end of a long tunnel.
- Many schools and school districts are moving towards increased physical education and physical activity.
- Junk food is being removed from schools and many other organizations.
- Pedometers are becoming more popular.
- Public awareness is growing through massive media attention to weight control.
- Workplace wellness programs create opportunities for healthy life-style choices.
To finish on a cautiously positive note, recent statistics from the Canadian National Population Health Survey, which has tracked more than 10,000 Canadians, suggests that, although we’re still getting fatter every year, it appears that the rate at which we’re putting on weight is slowing down. In the years between 1996 and 2001, men averaged a weight gain of about 1/2kg (1.1lbs) a year and women just under 1/2kg (1lb) a year. From 2001 to 2005 that rate of increase has been slowed by about 35%. The one group to increase weight in the final 2-year period of measurement ending in 2005 was young men in the 18 – 33 age bracket. They averaged a weight gain of more than 0.8kg (1.75lbs) a year.
Survey data such as this is interesting and keeps a lot of researchers busy, but has one major weakness; it is based on self-reported data and not accurate measurement. I have been told by more than one researcher that when it comes to reporting their weight, “everybody lies”. Speakwell web master, Ron Nye, said, “Maybe they sounded thin over the phone.” So whether we’re seeing an actual trend of decreased weight gain, or more lies, is difficult to determine. I suspect that the survey probably does reflect the beginnings of more informed eating and exercise among Canadians, let’s hope so.
For more cutting-edge reporting in this area go to the always interesting and often controversial William Saletan and some of his writing for SLATE magazine:
Sister Soda:
Bill Clinton Triangulates The War On Fat »
Junk-Food Jihad: Should We Regulate French Fries Like Cigarettes? »
Please Do Not Feed the Humans: The Global Explosion Of Fat »
 Let Them Eat A Junk Food Tax A lighthearted look at the taxation of junk food
by Jack Knox
It's inevitable: A crisis of corpulence will bring punitive taxation on unhealthy food. And that's just the beginning.
Airport customs lineup. I hit the counter nervous, sweating like George Bush in a gay bar. Good thing all the other passengers are perspiring, too—that four-minute waddle from the luggage carousel was a killer, the escalator broken like that and not even a doughnut stand to refuel at.
Oh, no, the customs guy is rooting through my suitcase, comes up with a plastic bag holding one, maybe two, keys of fine white powder.
"What's this," he says.
"Heroin," I whisper, trying to control the shakes.
"Like hell," he smirks. "I know icing sugar when I see it."
It was all over after that, of course. They found everything: the 7-Up in the vodka bottle, the hollandaise sauce in the shampoo container, the French fries in the hollowed-out Bible (the customs agent, a religious man, didn't like that). Took the sniffer dogs no time at all to home in on the beef jerky, the cheeseburgers, the deep-fried Mars bars.
No doubt about it, I was going down. And being a typical Canadian, there was no way I was getting back up again, not without two new knees, a forklift and an oxygen tank.
The customs guy smirked again. "What made you think you could duck the Twinkie Tax?"
I shrugged. Forty per cent. It was worth the risk.
OK, they don't really have a junk food tax yet. But the Canadian Medical Association wants one and the B.C. government is thinking seriously about it, something appropriately hefty, along the lines of that 40 per cent. What the heck, governments already use taxes to dull our taste for liquor and tobacco, and there's growing evidence that unhealthy eating poses as great a threat as booze and smokes.
We are, as you know, in a corpulence crisis. A diabetes epidemic looms. Childhood obesity rates have tripled in 20 years. Two out of three British Columbians are overweight or obese and physically inactive. Three in four Canadians have enough tummy fat to raise their risk of heart disease. One in four children is unhealthily heavy. (Seven in six statisticians have trouble with fractions.) Why is Canada pink on the map? From exertion.
People are getting so porky, the news stories say, that manufacturers are having to build bigger car seats for children. At the other end of the scale, as it were, we are so heavy that morticians say pallbearers can't lift the coffins anymore.
Growing girth is a global thing. In the year 2000, it was estimated American airlines burned an extra 1.3 billion litres of fuel just to carry the extra weight packed on by passengers in the previous decade. China's obesity rate is twice what it was in 1992, before western-style fast-food joints became popular. A fat-friendly Mexican resort is reinforcing its beds and stocking the beach with armless chairs. Everyone from automakers to clothing manufacturers is retooling. Puget Sound ferries reduced passenger capacity after widening seats by three inches.
Every once in a while, when presented with fresh evidence that the average Canadian student couldn't reach for the salt without experiencing chest pains, we get up on our high horse (which subsequently buckles) shake our heads (and a few of our chins) and threaten to fill high school vending machines with Brussels sprouts and to force the cafeterias to sell something other than sugared trans-fats with gravy. But then the kids suggest that maybe mum and dad should lead by example, and after that everyone suddenly finds something better to do, like have some onion rings.
Which brings us to the punitive taxation of unhealthy food. This is just the first step. Next, the real demonization will begin. The Women's Christian Temperance Union will turn its axes on the Slurpee machines at 7-Eleven. Eventually, kids will need fake ID to get into McDonald's. Just as smokers were chased from the office a couple of decades ago, junk food junkies will be forced outside, where you'll see them hunched over, trying, in vain, to protect their french fries from the rain.
Ultimately, there will be full-blown prohibition. Grow-ops will switch to sugar cane. Coke will cost as much as coke. Desperate, strung-out sugar addicts will break into cars, but get stuck in the doors.
An ugly future, but how else to combat a growing crisis? Published: Sunday, October 15, 2006
jknox@tc.canwest.com
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2006 |
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