Doctors step up fight against childhood obesity, say "watchful waiting" doesn't work
Children as young as 12 with obesity should now consider taking weight-loss drugs, and those as young as 13 with severe obesity should consider metabolic or bariatric surgery, according to aggressive new guidelines released Monday by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The new guidance marks the first time the AAP has recommended weight loss drugs for childhood obesity. Overall, the medical group is urging immediate, intensive action to get ahead of childhood obesity and overweight conditions, which are complex, before they lead to long-term health problems, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
[...] Obesity and overweight health categories have long been stigmatized as simple conditions driven by personal choices. But in reality, the AAP points out, they are complex medical conditions that involve combinations of genetic, physiologic, socioeconomic, and environmental factors.
[...] In addition to recommendations related to weight-loss medications for obesity and surgery for severe obesity, the guidance includes recommendations for motivational interviewing and intensive health behavior and lifestyle treatment. The AAP also recommends that pediatricians evaluate children who are at the levels of overweight, obese, and severely obese for lipid abnormalities, high blood pressure, signs of pre-diabetes or diabetes, and mental health conditions. The guidance discusses the increased risk children face due to special health needs, low socioeconomic status, and structural racism.
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 12, @03:39PM (33 children)
Surgeon recommends surgery. Medics recommend medicine. News recommends news at 11.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Thursday January 12, @04:05PM (32 children)
I don't like the surgery idea, but do you have better alternatives to propose?
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 5, Touché) by Rich on Thursday January 12, @04:25PM (1 child)
Organic farmers would recommend organic farming products.
And the military would suggest military excercise. (Kindergarten boot camp! Through the mud! Under the barbed wire and over the obstacles! "You sorry twat want to be a Marine?" "Sir! Yes, Sir!"...)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aafcac on Thursday January 12, @04:39PM
And that's why you should evaluate the recommendation with the conflict of interest in mind. Just because organic farmers are recommending organic products doesn't mean that their wrong, but there is a definite conflict of interest and possible rose colored glasses involved. Sometimes they're into it because it's the best option, and sometimes they're pushing it because they just think it's the best option.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fliptop on Thursday January 12, @05:08PM (10 children)
How about we stop allowing SNAP benefits to be used to buy Pepsi and potato chips? Or anything else that isn't actually food?
To be oneself, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity
(Score: 5, Informative) by aafcac on Thursday January 12, @05:22PM (2 children)
Because this problem goes way beyond just people on these meager benefits programs. The stuff that's actually healthy at a grocery store tends to be relatively expensive and it's hardly just things like Pepsi and potato chips that are the problem. Even things that should be relatively healthy aren't necessarily what they seem at first glance. Chicken may well be adulterated with salt water that shouldn't be in there. Salt is probably not the bogeyman that some thing it is, but it does increase appetite and it can cause water retention if it's excessive.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Thursday January 12, @08:18PM (1 child)
I'm not sure that's true, I spend about $25 a week at my local produce store for fruit and vegetables, and although meat and eggs are up right now, SNAP recently increased recipients' benefits by 25% [npr.org]. Additionally, I've discovered when I eat healthy (for me, that's little or no carbs), I actually eat less b/c my brain isn't constantly signaling my body to "gimme more."
To be oneself, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Friday January 13, @04:42PM
I work at a grocery store and $25 doesn't get you much in the way of grocery stores. And that assumes that the people on benefits even live close enough to a real grocery store to buy them. Many people live in areas where they can't easily access a full service grocery store without a car or a long bus ride.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 12, @06:38PM (1 child)
And start recognizing that junks foods are created to be addictive and advertising is training our brains to dopamine-reward at the sight and sound of our favorite junk food merchants. Yes you have free will, and can say no. But no, we are fucking weak and became obese instead and now need medication... all because we can't stop tapping the reward center.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 13, @04:00PM
We know that all the giant food conglomerates have teams of scientists trying to make their products more addictive, and teams of marketers trying to create the opposite impression, and teams of lawyers lobbying (bribing) governments to do nothing about it. Let's look at the Saclers and their opiate blockbuster and try and put 2+2 together. Or maybe they're jut good products, and good hard working businessmen, hoo-raa, wave flag, OMG abortion, trans bathrooms, etc.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by crafoo on Friday January 13, @12:55AM (3 children)
It's impossible to regulate it to that level. They'll just sell it on a black market and get what they want after a heavy fee (funding further criminal activity).
End the welfare state. Just end it all. We can't afford it anyway. And if we could afford it we should still end it. It's rewarding the worst behaviors in society. Massive over-regulation of small businesses ensures anyone of the cattle class will never even get a chance at the American dream.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fliptop on Friday January 13, @02:53AM
You're probably right, the lobbyists won't allow it.
To be oneself, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 13, @02:41PM
What do you propose to replace it with? If you recall, we tried this little experiment for a few thousand years. Not so great, turns out.
(Score: 3, Touché) by aafcac on Friday January 13, @04:44PM
And yet we can afford roughly $750bn a year for defense, but somehow we don't have money to ensure that everybody has a roof over their head and nutritious food in their refrigerator. It's not that we can't do it, it's that a bunch of uneducated people think that the free market will fix these things when all it really does is funnel more and more wealth to the wealthy.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Moof123 on Friday January 13, @03:57AM
We could tax Pepsi, and subsidize veg. Per calorie processed food laden with high fructose corn syrup is cheap as hell. For under a buck you can carb load your kid with a box of mac and cheese, or spend $10 for a fancy salad with some chopped up chicken breast.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by BlueCoffee on Thursday January 12, @05:14PM (17 children)
How about practicing and doing what kept people fit and generally unfat decades ago: exercise, being active, healthy food, limiting portions, limiting fast food to being "a treat" once a month, limiting junk food to once a week, waiting 10 minutes after your first helping to give your brain a chance to register your full stomach, and getting rid of your microwave oven to stop yourself from heating up in 3 minutes a 1000 calorie "snack" an hour before supper? That seemed to work well for centuries and most of history. Remember, until post WWII, everyone except royalty and the filthy rich were living in poverty.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Thursday January 12, @06:32PM (10 children)
OTOH, there are reports that after changing the gut biome, people have effortlessly lost 40 pounds with no change in habits whatsoever.
So whatever should we do, the same advice that has been failing for a hundred years or something else?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 12, @06:41PM
Exactly, that is the clownish "kids these days" argument. Always true, but never about the kids.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by aafcac on Thursday January 12, @06:52PM (6 children)
The method with the most research, and quite frankly common sense, is that intermittent fasting is pretty much the only thing that reliable works in the long term. Dieting won't work as the body adjusts to it, but if it does get regular sized meals, then it doesn't know to expect that this is recurring rather than a one off and doesn't need to adapt to it.
Sure, you can do a fecal matter transplant, but the same factors that led to it being screwed up are going to recur in most cases if nothing else has changed.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday January 13, @03:25AM (5 children)
OTOH, dropping 40 pounds without fatigue normally associated with dieting may be just the thing to spur changes.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Friday January 13, @03:40AM (4 children)
Decades ago I lost about 60# in 6 months by simply cutting out the in between meal snacking, drinking a couple cups of green tea and walking when I had time. Oddly, that's more or less how I came to lose serious weight both times I moved to China. A bunch of walking, relatively little between meal snacking and a bunch of tea.
I do think that a lot of the problems people have with dieting has to do with the fact that most of the advice is garbage. Few people can maintain a diet for more than a few months. And, even if you do manage it, chances are that cognitive impairment will come with that as the body gets starved of calories and nutrients.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 13, @02:46PM
It's the food additives, damnit.
Unless you are suggesting everyone in the 1970s was disciplined and did their 10000 steps religiously? Everyone in the 1970s was slim and they were a bunch of stoner hippies with no discipline. And NOW? We are all discipline, discipline, punishment, shame, guilt - that you can purchase products to help with, or medication, or therapy. Fuck that.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday January 14, @05:43PM (2 children)
Yes. It seems that at least for some people, reaching a more average weight involves becoming a functional anorexic.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Saturday January 14, @06:02PM (1 child)
There's no such thing as functional anorexia and suggesting that cutting back to basically the amount that you should have been eating is hardly a big issue. It's more or less impossible to exercise so much as to undo the effects of overeating. Apart from some olympians and professional athletes you're just not going to burn enough calories exercising to make much of a difference. Calories density of many foods is very high, and exercise doesn't burn very many calories. You're talking about burning somewhere around 600 Cal an hour for running at which point, you'd have to run for 6 hours to burn one pound worth of calories, and that assumes that you don't eat anything at all to make up for the burn. Eating that many calories in a day isn't particularly hard to do.
You're talking nearly 600 Cal in a Big Mac alone, let alone with the fries and the drink. Do that a couple times and you've more or less consumed all the calories that you burned doing all that running. Which is especially hard to do when few people run 6 hours in a go and would likely spread it over a few days.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday January 14, @07:01PM
Actually, there is. It is entirely possible for some people to eat the "recommended" amount and then feel hungry all day with their metabolism slowing in response to starvation complete with fatigue and brain fog.
So what do we normally call it when someone ignores hunger long term in spite of negative physiological effects in order to maintain a lower weight?
I say functional to recognize that it isn't exactly the same as anorexia nervosa.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by BlueCoffee on Friday January 13, @12:21AM (1 child)
Portion control and buring calories has never failed us when we want to lose weight.
It is true ~5% of our weight is bacteria and other microorganisms and we are learning that our body flora and fauna affects us more than we know, from our behavior to stomach ulcers to depression and allergies. But people who are eating well likely already have a heathy gut biome because they eat a variety of foods including raw (not sterile cooked) veggies and that probably comes into play with weight control. Not to mention they microfast between meals and overnight by not constantly overeating and not eating snacks thus the gut bacteria dont get to grow like crazy 24 hours a day. People with modern microwave & fast food & junk food diets would benefit from a more balanced and healthy diet in more ways than one.
Feed yourself, not the things that live in your gut.
(Score: 3, Touché) by sjames on Friday January 13, @01:24AM
So what you're saying is that your simplistic advice is so successful that nobody has been overweight in over a century?
That doesn't seem quite right somehow... It's almost as if there's more to it than that.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RamiK on Thursday January 12, @07:45PM (5 children)
I've read an archaeological survey paper that looked into obesity and status. The results were inconclusive but it quoted ads for house-keepers and cooks specifying not to be corpulent and unrelated monitions of how the stagecoach were fat from sitting around all day long and jokes around how bakers and beer brewers were round bellied due to eating and drinking their master's stocks all day long: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10092119/7/Thesis%20v2.pdf [ucl.ac.uk] (~p.322)
So, while we don't have hard numbers on how common overweight and obesity were, we know it was WAY more common than just "royalty and the filthy rich".
compiling...
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 12, @11:38PM (4 children)
Agreed it was not just royalty, but anyone who owned a bakery or brewery was definitely not lower class.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday January 13, @05:28AM (3 children)
The joke is them working in the bakery / brewery and eating/drinking the owner's stocks.
Anyhow, we don't have good numbers about the 17th century but the middle class in 18th century England was 15% of the population while the laboring poor were only 25%: https://sites.udel.edu/britlitwiki/social-and-family-life-in-the-late17th-early-18th-centuries/ [udel.edu]
So, I'm pretty sure that means ~65% of 18th century England were "comfortably fed" with a solid 15% of the population being overweight and around %1-2 obese to the point they struggled to walk around. For the latter guesstimate we have collaborating "idle" study mentioned in the paper I linked earlier.
Either way, it wasn't uncommon to see flabs to the point fat people were ridiculed for being lazy rather than affluent at least as early as the first years of industrialization mid 18th century and even 100 years earlier.
Norms wise, the upper classes weren't happy about being fat by any means. Women were corsets since the late 16th century and, despite Ruben's preferences when drawing heroic figures, they were almost always commissioning their portraits to have their double-chinned faces and chubby hands glued on top of slimmed down waists. Moreover, some artist of the period started painting real people (like Pieter de Hooch) where working village women and servant girls without corsets were shown, some clearly being overweight while others looking mostly average.
Put it all together and it's pretty clear it wasn't just the royalty and the upper class that were fat.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by quietus on Friday January 13, @09:01AM (2 children)
Just take a look at the rural paintings of Pieter Brueghel the Elder -- that's the 1500s. Thinking that people were poor, thin, dirty and under the booth of a lord in the medieval and renaissance period is common, but wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 13, @02:49PM (1 child)
Who was paying for the
newspaintings...(Score: 2) by quietus on Tuesday January 17, @06:11PM
Interesting remark.
The elder Bruegel started his career as a drawing artist at a publishing company, In de vier winden, of one Hieronymus Cock. Cock wasn't a nobleman, but a citizen, and it seems that Bruegel's work was mainly focused on the illustration of calendars.
On the one hand, it could be that his customers wanted to see idyllic displays -- leafing through a book about the Flemish Primitives, I couldn't help but notice that the only 'thin' person in paintings was the Christ figure -- stressing his suffering. On the other hand, Bruegel is known for his realism and detail, and for being a humanist.
(If you're interested in Bruegel's works, here's an interesting site [insidebruegel.net].)
(Score: 0, Troll) by cobaco on Thursday January 12, @10:29PM
Do what we all used to do, tell the kids
Go outside and don't come back till dinner (and kick em out without their phone)
That seemed to work rather well in preventing obese kids in the past
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday January 12, @04:04PM (26 children)
Maybe prevention of childhood obesity might be much more gooder than surgery?
Why is this happening?
Some hunches:
Other ideas?
I remember reading, I think within the last year, right here, that China limits kids video game time to 3 hours per week. Horrors!
Looking back, I remember how bright the future was when I was young. I could see computers (such as they were 40 years ago) getting more powerful and being a benefit to humanity. A decade later I was using the internet and thought it was amazing. Little did I realize how computers and internet could also be a great scourge upon humanity. The dark side of human behavior. Video games and social media. Maybe for adults: online gambling, or pr0n.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 12, @04:27PM (6 children)
The problem is that fat kids don't usually just spontaneously generate, there's usually at least one fat parent. I'm married to an obese woman and I'm overweight as well. Literally whenever I do manage to lose any weight, she goes on the offensive to make losing weight as hard as possible. She'll fill the entire refrigerator with so much junk food that there's little room for healthier stuff. She'll make sure that there's always junkfood in plain sight and if I'm not eating it, she'll go out of her way to bring it to me and to make sure that I know it's there. Then when I do agree to eat something there will always be a bunch of extra there beyond what I agreed to and just about the only thing she wants to talk about is food.
The sad thing is that she's going to lose about 210# when I divorce her because I don't normally have issues managing my weight, I just avoid buying most of it at the grocery store, just eat a couple meals a day and get exercise and that's it. But, with all the constant talk about food, eating and the food pushing, it's extremely hard for me to just know when I'm hungry, let alone full and because the food is perpetually there, there isn't any just eat what's on hand and don't buy more. Because there's always more food coming into the house.
This is more extreme than usual as my wife has serious psychological problems where she won't respect any of my boundaries and won't respect any of my opinions about how I'm doing. But a less extreme variation of this is probably a part of what causes a lot of the obesity in kids that age. They aren't old enough to drive and most of them don't have cars, so their parents are just about the only source of food other than at school.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday January 12, @04:56PM (1 child)
Something surprising happened to my wife and I during covid. After while we noticed we were losing weight. Why? Because we were eating better. We stopped eating out. Ate more home cooked food. And slowly we lost weight. No exercise. Just better eating. It wasn't fast weight loss. It wasn't even noticed right away. But at some point it was unmistakable.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 4, Informative) by aafcac on Thursday January 12, @05:03PM
That's not surprising, there's often a few things there. One is that restaurants tend to put a lot of salt, sugar and fat into their dishes to ensure that diners get a bunch of taste. Restaurants are easy to eat at, even if you aren't truly hungry and most restaurants serve far more food than is appropriate. I've personally seen menus where nearly every item has 2 to 3 meals worth of calories, but not necessarily anywhere near that much nutritional content. And, I do think that having to think about whether it's worth the effort of cooking does somewhat deter people from eating when they're not hungry as even a simple meal probably takes a half hour to cook if you're not just throwing a TV dinner in the microwave. (Which honestly, has most of the same issues as the restaurant, just for a lower price and increased convenience)
(Score: 2, Disagree) by sonamchauhan on Friday January 13, @03:57AM (3 children)
Just be firm about not eating. Get something healthy and put it in the fridge first. Someone with her problems will benefit from a strong example. She literally needs you to be that example. And that isnt a favor you'd be doing. It's part of your job as a husband
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 13, @06:09AM (1 child)
I would have thought so, but even going so far as to throw entire cakes and boxes of donuts directly into the trash hasn't made any sort of impression. Anything shy of 100% rejection of all the food every time seems to be insufficient.
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Friday February 03, @05:52PM
What I meant is *you* just be firm about eating healthy for yourself. Cook regularly and get a second fridge if needed
You can't force her but can influence her
Gently :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 13, @02:52PM
Yuck. Remind me not to reincarnate as a woman for at least another 1000 years. More time needed.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by aafcac on Thursday January 12, @04:42PM
Keep in mind that Chinese children are in school for a huge number of hours a day and 3 hours is a significant chunk of what little free time they likely have left after school, studying and probably chores.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gaaark on Thursday January 12, @05:02PM (4 children)
When i was a kid, i remember Pop Shoppe pop: my parents would pick up a case of 24 (you could mix and match flavours any way you wanted, glass bottles) and we would get, at most, 3 bottles each a week.
Now, kids are drinking pop as if it was water and not exercising at all (we were never inside, always out running our asses off: today, they sit on their asses and don't move).
So yeah: exercise, less pop, better food...
Mmmmm... Pop Shoppe pop....
https://www.thepopshoppe.com/blank-11 [thepopshoppe.com]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 12, @06:53PM (3 children)
Is it because you were a super disciplined kid that wanted at least 40 minutes cardio per day and religiously maintained a raw egg and oatmeal diet that made you the man you are today? Or were you just a kid and the environment around you (which you had nothing to do with) made running around outside easier than whatever alternatives.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Freeman on Thursday January 12, @09:03PM (2 children)
I mean, generally people didn't used to report you to CPS, because your kid was running up and down the block.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 13, @02:56PM (1 child)
So it is the environment is what you're saying, not the lazy kids who are so pathetic they need medication with a proprietary blend of electrolytes.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday January 18, @05:49PM
Kids are as lazy as they are allowed to be. Even then, some are forced to "be lazy" due to their environment. When I was a kid, my Mom would toss out in the backyard and say, play. There was no fence, we rode up and down a side road on our bikes. We knew what we were allowed to do and not. We got plenty of sunshine and none of us were fat. The only fat kids I knew growing up, lived in city neighborhoods. I didn't actually get fat, until after college. When I got a desk job. Hey, guess what, if the majority of the day you remain indoors and in-active. You get fat. Sure, some people have metabolic disorders from birth, etc. They are not the majority of people. Also, stop feeding your kids McDs every day. You want your kid to "not be fat". Throw them outside and feed them real food, that you prepared.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Interesting) by sjames on Thursday January 12, @06:38PM (6 children)
I marvel at the lack of understanding. Kids are not allowed outside, their parents aren't home due to work so the kids are expected to stay inside. But no running, jumping, or screaming in the house, so plop in front of the TV it is. Then it's "I wonder why the kids don't go run it off outside"?
The kids don't walk or ride bikes anywhere anymore because their parents get hassled by the cops if the kids walk anywhere outside of the neighborhood without an adult.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 12, @08:47PM (3 children)
Interesting.
Once long ago, communities had recreation centers where kids could go before parents got home from work. Or just to keep them out of trouble. Sometimes these were at a school, since school buildings were within walking distance of anywhere there were neighborhoods of kids.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday January 13, @02:24AM (1 child)
We didn't need recreational centers; we got on our bikes and pedaled our own asses to the park.
Sometimes a park miles away.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Saturday January 14, @06:06PM
That's probably not coming back, if for no other reason that we're living in areas which are typically much more densely populated so you get areas where there's a ton of traffic and random strangers and you get areas where there might not be anybody to call for help if something does happen while playing. I remember playing unsupervised as a kid and one time I broke both bones in my wrist. Fortunately, there were adults that were close enough that I could go inside of the school and get help, but if I had been further away, I would have had to figure out how to deal with it long enough to get to an adult.
I do think that in the modern era rec centers is probably the way to go in general as you need a critical mass of parents allowing their children to play outside unsupervised before that really works out. At least that way you can have an adult with first aid training on hand if something does need to be done, we just need for those rec centers to allow for kids to make their own games, or it doesn't really work.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 13, @02:58PM
Uh oh... sounds like the c-word. Everyone switch their brains off.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 13, @02:29AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday January 18, @06:07PM
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/05/ces_2023/ [theregister.com]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2, Disagree) by bobthecimmerian on Friday January 13, @03:50AM (2 children)
My dad had gym class three days a week in school. I had it one. My kids have it two days - better, but not good enough. It needs to be every school day, and it needs to be engaging for the kids that aren't jocks. The athletic kids are the ones that need gym the least.
The produce in most school cafeterias isn't fit for livestock. It has to be better. The soda and candy bars need to go. The apples, bananas, strawberries, salad, etc... need to be free for lunch and breakfast.
City kids are in neighborhoods where it isn't safe to play outside. Suburban kids are in un-neighborhoods where walking down the road to visit a friend will get you killed by someone driving an F-350 around a curve while texting.
Restaurant portion sizes need to be cut. Want more? Order two entrees - you can still eat as much as you want, the default is just less (default portion sizes matter). Grocery store checkout aisles should only have produce, not junk food. Buy apples on the way out, not Snickers. Advertising processed foods to kids should be as illegal as advertising cigarettes and booze. They can still see junk food, they can still buy it. But no commercials, no Youtube ads, etc...
Fuck the surgery and drugs for kids. That's money for surgeons and pharmaceutical companies, not a real fix.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 13, @03:02PM (1 child)
Compulsory gym for everybody? Sounds like a recipe for unhappy people.
How about we put pictures of fatty livers on Snickers bars, like we put cancerous lungs on cigarette packets. It's just packaging, it doesn't cost anything, no echoes of Hitler youth.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Friday January 13, @09:49PM
When I was in highschool back in the '90s the explicit point of having gym was to ensure that the students would get at least that much exercise during the week. Grading was pretty much show up and be changed on time and go along with the class and you get an A.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday January 13, @06:59AM (2 children)
I'll add in the increased prevalence of prescription ADHD medication [youtu.be]; it could suppress hyperactivity along with just plain ... activity. And if the typical kid running around like a diet Coke bottle with a Mentos dropped into it is no longer doing that at recess, what kind of role model are the other kids going to have for those 15 minutes?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aafcac on Friday January 13, @04:47PM
ADHD medications aren't anywhere near prevalent enough to cause a change in obesity. Even children that are on the medication are likely taking shorter acting forms which wouldn't have much impact outside of school and homework time. That's assuming that it's even enough to cause weight gain, which it probably isn't.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Wednesday January 18, @05:58PM
Coming from a dad with a kid diagnosed with ADHD. If you're doing it right. All you're doing is giving them the mental ability to control their impulses. As opposed to making them lethargic or whatever stupidness, because that would be stupid. The ADHD kid is still likely to be a bit more bonkers than your average kid, though.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Barenflimski on Thursday January 12, @04:07PM
The problem in America is we never build enough sidewalks or parks. Walking trails are rare. Many are scared of them, or can't access them. The problem is that we've created a place where regular exercise is the outlier, and not the norm.
To blame this on structural racism, and low socioeconomic issues, seems outlandish to me. I live in a middle class area, half hispanic, half white, and we have these same exact issues. Nowhere for the kids to play unless you pay multiple subscription's to indoor facilities. Even then, they need an escort. They can't just go run around.
I find it tough to swallow that these same folks want to prescribe drugs, and blame these "factors", when the reality is we need outdoor spaces, otherwise were all going to get fat.
Seems like America issues to me, ie: max profits, politics, and "we never have enough money to do those things, we can't even fill the potholes" when you ask/beg the city council to do something different.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snospar on Thursday January 12, @05:10PM (16 children)
If you want to maintain your weight then the calories you consume have to equal the calories you burn off. If your not doing a lot of exercise then you need to consume less food. The type of food also has a huge impact: anything with more than 3% saturated fat is going to lead to weight gain (unless you're exercising) and anything high in processed sugar is going to turn into fat in your body. Eat plenty fruit and veg and you won't feel hungry, sure an apple is full of sugar but it's natural sugar and the apple also has loads of water and fibre too.
Also, nothing wrong with feeling a bit hungry between meals, you are not "starving" or "famished" both pretty offensive terms when you remember that the biggest killer in the world is still hunger. In fact it's just plain weird that we have split the world into parts where people die of hunger versus places where people die of obesity (or related complications). Again, relatively simple to fix but we won't because money, money, money.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by SingularityPhoenix on Thursday January 12, @07:05PM
To add to this. We live a very sedentary lifestyle compared to our ancestors. Our digestive system is able to process much more food than we need to sit around. We naturally want to eat more than we need. Processed foods also make it much easier to consume more calories than we need. Fiber is anything we can't digest, hence it takes up space in our digestive tracts, and energy for our body to try to process, without giving us calories. Processed food remove much of this. Apple pulp, from your example, or wheat bran and germ for white flour.
I am very grateful to live in a country where obesity is a much bigger problem [pun intended] than starvation. Starvation has much worse effects in my opinion than overeating, especially for kids as their bodies grow and develop.
>In fact it's just plain weird that we have split the world into parts where people die of hunger versus places where people die of obesity (or related complications). Again, relatively simple to fix but we won't because money, money, money.
I think some of it is also politics. I suppose you could say politics is very driven by greed, but also lust for power. There are also logistical problems that cause starvation (easiest to point out after natural disasters, but sometimes are cause by politics).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 12, @08:25PM
> If you want to maintain your weight then the calories you consume have to equal the calories you burn off.
I'd also like to remind readers of the First Law of Motion. Follow that and you'll be right on the money.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by cobaco on Thursday January 12, @10:39PM
"In fact it's just plain weird that we have split the world into parts where people die of hunger versus places where people die of obesity (or related complications). Again, relatively simple to fix"
on the contrary it's not at all simple to fix
the regions that are starving are those that have political situations that stop help from getting there
and those political sitiuations are not at all easy to fix, political things only seem easy to fix
even so the average number of calories per person worldwide has risen from 2,191 calorie to 2,885 calories between 1961 en 2013. So it's not like there's not been any progresss
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 12, @11:46PM (6 children)
You are wrong about the fat. Your body needs fat and you WILL eat until it gets what it needs. The problem is sugar, and specifically fructose. Glucose can be burnt anywhere in the body, but the only thing that can process fructose is the liver and it just stores it as the nasty white fat that is so hard to get rid of.
Fun fact for you, fructose is processed by the same metabolic pathway as alcohol, and is just about as bad for the liver.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday January 13, @02:31AM (5 children)
I find it ...unfortunately not astonishing... that typically the same people who decry the consumption of fructose then recommend eating more fruit, and using honey instead of sugar.
Chemistry, basics, flunked.
Eat more fat and protein, limit meals to an 8 hour window, don't eat soy or flaxseed products (and limit other sources of lignins and phytoestrogens), cook your own meals instead of getting them out of the freezer, and occasionally go do something besides sit in front of the screen all day. If obesity and desire to overeat still persist, get a full thyroid workup.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aafcac on Friday January 13, @06:03AM (4 children)
Fruit can have a lot of sugar, but it also often has a ton of fiber and various vitamins and minerals to go along with it. Good luck eating enough grapes to blow your diet. And using honey is perfectly reasonable advice as you're swapping less honey for some amount of sugar. It's still not super healthy, but it's usually a reduction in sugars.
As far as soy goes, that's bunk. Yes, there are phytoestrogens in there, but not enough to make much of a difference.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday January 13, @06:38AM
Actually, I personally know someone who blew her diet from eating grapes (the only sweet anything she consumed). Tipped her over into pre-diabetic.
As to phytoestrogen content in soy, it's second only to flaxseed. Here's a handy chart:
http://www.pkdiet.com/pdf/PhytoestrogenFoods.pdf [pkdiet.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14, @02:47AM (1 child)
The sort of fruits hunter gatherers eat yes. The stuff you by at the grocery store has been bred to be as full of sugar as they can.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Saturday January 14, @06:12PM
There is more sugar yes, and it takes less to chew them, but comparing even modern fruit with other sources of sugar is just plain ignorant. You're simply not going to eat enough fruit for it to be an issue due to the sheer volume. Juicing it does somewhat increase the ability to intake all that, but people who are diabetic and obese are not doing it by eating a bunch of fruit, doing so would likely lead to issues like diarrhea putting a limit on how much you're going to eat. Plus, the fiber content does make a difference to the digestive tract.
There's somewhere around 5x as much sugar in one serving of Coke as there is in an Apple. But, how many people even eat multiple apples at a meal versus multiple servings of Coke?
But, really, nobody should be eating massive amounts of any food group. Sure, more veggies than meats, but all of those should still be in a reasonable proportion to the rest of the food.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19, @05:42AM
Eat green leafy veges and you'd get even more than you get from most fruit.
Treat fruit as dessert or for fattening up (that's what many animals do actually - they fatten up on fruit before winter or other low food season).
Some zoos have cut down on the amount of fruit they feed to their prisoners who were getting obese etc.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 13, @02:33AM (5 children)
Clearly false. People's digestive systems are not 100% efficient. Some calories are pooped away. The amount pooped away likely varies from person to person.
If you can miss this obvious thing, perhaps you're missing other stuff too?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 13, @04:16AM
Also, I bet the body can pull more calories out of that poop, if overall calorie consumption goes down.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Friday January 13, @06:06AM (3 children)
Really, whenever we're talking calories in and calories out, it shouldn't be literally in the mouth and out as energy burnt. There's a ton of things that one can eat that effectively have zero calories because humans can't digest it. It's how many calories effectively hit the blood stream that matters more than anything else as the rest of the calories don't really do much of anything.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 13, @06:54AM (2 children)
And different people digest things differently under different circumstances.
For example the lactose intolerant. Do note also that in theory most Mongolians should be lactose intolerant but they seem to do OK/fine with a diet that has lots of dairy: https://www.popsci.com/story/science/lactose-intolerance-microbiome/ [popsci.com]
See also: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/huge-differences-even-when-people-ate-the-same-foods/ [cbsnews.com]
Many dietary recommendations/suggestions may work for most people BUT if some don't work for 10-20% that's still a LOT of people they don't work for.
Lastly if you change your diet, your gut microbiome in most cases should eventually change. How fast that happens could depend on how "hygienic" and "diverse" your environment and diet is...
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Friday January 13, @06:16PM (1 child)
It's worth noting that dietary advice beyond getting a good variety of fruits and vegetables, moderating the meats, fats and sugars and stopping when you're full gets a bit iffy when applied to everybody. I do think that there is some truth to the alternate path to digesting lactose as I got very intolerant to lactose after a year abroad in a country where milk isn't on the menu and a couple rounds of antibiotics. Since I came home, I've found that my tolerance improves a lot when I eat yogurt with a ton of lactose digesting bacteria. It's still a bit unclear whether any of the bacteria are managing to set up shop in my gut, or if it's simply the left over lactase from when they're doing their thing turning milk into yogurt.
I do think that prior to all the science experiments being offered as food that the body was a lot better informed about what to eat and what to avoid than it is now. Even things like chicken are routinely adulterated with things that the body wouldn't expect to be in there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19, @05:46AM
The dietary advice on leafy vegetables is fine. Practically all the good stuff you can get from fruit you can get from leafy vegetables minus the sugar. The dietary advice on fruit is fine if the objective is to fatten up.
For many animals fruit is a good way to fatten up for a season of scarcity (e.g. winter).
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 12, @05:14PM
You never see obese great apes in the wild. Maybe we should eat like they do. Surprise surprise [sciencedaily.com]!
The incidence of obesity in human children only proves that we are living in an age of ignorance.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 12, @06:13PM (6 children)
But in reality, the AAP points out, they are complex medical conditions that involve combinations of genetic, physiologic, socioeconomic, and environmental factors.
The guidance discusses the increased risk children face due to special health needs, low socioeconomic status, and structural racism.
No, it's not complex and the solution is not surgery and not more pills. Nor is race, poverty, or events that happened 150 years ago, which is so long ago that everyone alive today is four or more generations removed, the cause. That's just pasing the buck and blaming the boogyman while ignoring the fact that obesity is self-inflicted and the solution to obesity is burning more calories than what is consumed.
Today babies are being born so overweight and with livers so fatty they are comparable to the livers seen in chronic alcoholics after decades of drinking. Fatty liver babies were rarely seen even as recently as the turn of the millennium.
Except for hard street drugs, being fat is the most unhealthy thing you can do to your body because it puts every system in your body under undo and constant stress. Your heart, your lungs, endocrine system, immune system, pancreas, kidneys, liver. And your joints wear out. Hip replacements used to be only for the elderly but now fat people in their 30s and 40s require it because their frame cannot handle carrying a perpetual extra "body positive" 50-100lbs. Obesity is probably even worse than smoking if it wasn't for the dangers of second hand smoke.
If your 8 year old is obese that is the mom's fault for shoving crap food down her child's mouth. Parents that allow their kids to become obese shouldb e charged with child abuse and neglect and have their kids taken away.
Look at a clip some John Candy movie from the 1980s. He was considered horribly overweight and a giant tub-of-lard back then, and he used his weight as an advantage in moves as an humor prop, but today he wouldn't even stand out as fat and he would probably be considered 'healthy" . Same with Jackie Gleason from the Honeymooners-he'd be one of today's least fat obese people. That is how fat the general population is today-1980s John Candy and 1950s Jackie Gleason actually don't look very fat in 2023. That is insane!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 12, @07:05PM
I blame weak morals. We need rules. Lists of rules. Lists of lists dammit. Those dumb, weak inferior LOSERS need to realize how dumb, weak and inferior they are before they are REBUILT as productive, efficient gladiators fit for service at the nation's call SIR, YES SIR.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by SingularityPhoenix on Thursday January 12, @07:18PM
>the fact that obesity is self-inflicted and the solution to obesity is burning more calories than what is consumed.
I'm very happy you said something I can agree with. Kudos. Tho I must add that I have no problem with adults choosing to be fat, anymore than I have a problem with rec drugs, or tats. With kids I'm not so sure I can stand by self-inflicted, but otherwise, yes, probably not good parenting to let your kids get fat.
>Today babies are being born so overweight
Have you seen a newborn baby? They come out skinny as a beam but fatten up really quick. And they should fatten up. Its like the one time life when we should be a fatties.
>Except for hard street drugs, being fat is the most unhealthy thing you can do to your body
I can think of a lot of things between drugs and obesity in terms of unhealthiness. For example, prescription drugs, steroids, anorexia, bulimia, not getting off my lawn,
I disagree with calling fat children child abuse. While too much food and too little activity is certainly not the best parenting, it certainly isn't in line with starving kids, beating kids, emotional abuse, or molestation.
Look back farther than the 50s. It used to be considered attractive to be fat. Because only the rich could afford enough food and ease to get fat.
Quite the collection of inflammatory arguments you got, if you're trolling, keep it up!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 13, @03:03AM (3 children)
50 million Americans didn't wake up in 1975 and hold a secret meeting where they all agreed to start overeating and stop moving. So the obesity epidemic from the 70s to now is a bit more complex than lazy overeaters.
When my dad was in high school in the 1960s, he ran a mile in gym class twice a week. When I was in high school in the 1990s, I ran a mile in gym twice a school year and had gym class once a week. What changed? The government decided gym class was less important than increasing math and science classes so we could catch up with the education systems in Japan and Germany.
I can't speak for other schools, but at the ones I attended the fresh produce wasn't fit for livestock so everyone ate processed junk. Because you can store a warehouse full of canned corn and use it as needed, while stocking shelves with fresh berries or slicing cucumbers every day requires a lot of work. But why staff the cafeteria when you can hire another bureaucrat?
And our national obsession with competition hurts and does not help the obesity crisis. "Be the best or stay home" means most people stay home. Kids play for fun is dead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 13, @03:09PM (1 child)
The brain uses 30% of our energy. Perhaps we could increase that to 40%. Think about it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aafcac on Friday January 13, @06:33PM
It's also programmed to be lazy whenever possible. It was a bit of a mindblower when I found out that tiredness is an emotion caused by the brain to try and avoid having to waste a bunch of calories on something that might not work out. In retrospect, it does make sense and many people have had the experience of the "2nd wind" which isn't really extra energy so much as the brain giving up and just giving you the energy to continue something that you're clearly not going to stop doing any time soon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14, @03:43AM
Has the USA got closer to catching up? See a lot of very fat uneducated stupid Americans.
Maybe those in power figured it's actually better for them to have fewer smart elites with many under their control (harder to control the smart ones) and then the rest can be dumb and fat and just work enough to keep their share of the economy going.
After all you need very similar amounts of top scientists and top engineers whether you're building 10 ICBMs or 100,000. You might need more lower end engineers for 100,000.
(Score: 3, Funny) by acid andy on Thursday January 12, @10:53PM (1 child)
<gallows-humor>
Give it a few
decadesyears more of rising inequality and poverty, collapsing ecosystems and eventually failing agriculture and supply chains, and we won't be able to afford enough of any kind of food to remain obese anymore. Not even the HFCS. Come that time the fatties will have the edge. There's a reason it was considered attractive a few hundred years ago.</gallows-humor>
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Friday January 13, @12:39AM
+1 "Heh"