Dieting and Health
Tuesday, July 31, 2007 at 11:27 An article Advocacy for Whom? on Sandy Szwarc’s blog Junkfood Science has given me furiously to think. An excerpt:
… the strongest evidence for more than half a century is that voluntary weight loss, regardless of the method, is associated with increased rates of premature deaths, heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and cancers — by as much as several hundred percent, as the National Institutes of Health found in 1992 and the medical literature continues to support. The other problems that have been documented include the physiological effects of restrictive eating, dieting and weight loss, such as eating disorders, diminished mental acuity and work productivity, loss of concentration, nutritional shortages, reduced bone mass, cardiac arrhythmias, long-term exacerbation of high blood pressure and long-term weight gain.
The medically-documented consequences of inadequate calories, protein and deficiencies in nutrients, especially being seen among older people, include delayed wound healing, increased risks of infection, damaged heart and intestinal functions, longer hospital stays and higher rates of complications and higher mortality rates, depression, apathy, functional decline, loss of muscle strength, falls and increased fractures.
No one dies of fat, but they do from weight stigma. And they do die from bariatric surgeries, which bring objectively documented risks of dying far and above those even associated with the most “morbid obesity.”
The whole article is well worth reading.
Reader Comments (10)
The only people I know who are diabetic aren't particularly fat. Nor were the people I have known who died of heart attacks - in fact I was just this morning talking to the widow of a man who dropped dead in the street ten years ago and he was like a bean-pole.
And the fat people I know/knew are neither diabetic nor have any of them died of a heart attack. My father-in-law was pretty rotund and alcoholic too, and he died at the age of 84, basically of old age.
So how do I know? I don't know!
Art de Vany has a pugnacious blog at his site where he talks about 'evolutionary fitness', eating and exercising like a paleolithic human. He's more about eating right than dieting.
Here's a typical entry on his EF ideas (he blogs about other topics too):
http://www.arthurdevany.com/2007/07/a_study_of_the.html
He also includes photos of his meals sometimes. He advocates meat, veg, fruit, but no potatoes, bread, or dairy.
Not an endorsement or anything! Just another data point and more food for thought (heh).
is about following what makes your body feel good and at it's best. In our indulgent western society people don't follow their instincts any longer when it comes to what is the best food to eat for their particular physiolgy and we have lost our sensitivity to choosing the right things - we find it hard to listen to our bodies and really learn what makes them feel good because we are bombarded with messages about what we should and shouldn't be doing constantly. If you listened to all these messages you would never eat anything! Everyone is different - this means that most people will have to do some experimenting with different foods and lifestyles to find things that suit them. I don't think that anyone can convince me that being fat is really healthy. It's just not natural to have so much food and so little exercise. Our bodies were built for action not sitting in offices all day long clicking a mouse. That is just my personal opinion. Here is a link that gives a bit of information about why obesity isn't good for your heart.http://www.world-heart-federation.org/cardiovascular-health/cardiovascular-disease-risk-factors/obesity/
I wasn't trying to suggest that examples of a few people would prove things one way or another. What I meant to say was that it seems very obvious that being fat is bad for one's health, but when I look at it I realise that I didn't get that idea from my own experience.
Therefore I must have got the idea from somewhere else. And I come back to the question "How do I know it's so?"
In fact, according to Sandy, who appears to know a lot more about it than I do, the figures actually show that fatness has survival value among the elderly (among whom I am getting close to being numbered!).
Try it: it's surprising how often I find myself with a chocolate bar when, if I'm honest, the taste of chocolate is not what I really want.
true, BUT
Our perception of what looks fat has changed over the last 30 years. (The BBC did a lifestyle series a couple of years ago with some silhouette's of typical children, as I recall.) It is almost a tautology that the people around us will always look normal.
Do I trust the Beeb? Probably rather m,ore than the Daily Mail but less than a probing conversation with an expert in the field. My mind is drifting towards the sort of questions we should be asking Dr Swarc, if we really thought this important.
I think our perception of the *importance* of the way we look has changed enormously. Women have always had pressure on them to look "pretty" or "beautiful", but in the 1950s with the emphasis on quite rounded film stars like Marilyn Monroe, there wasn't anything like the pressure to be thin.
When I grew up in the 1950s (I was 17 at the end of the decade) there was virtually no pressure on men to look good. It was important to look smart certainly, but that was just a matter of tidy conventional clothing and that was it. I think that has now changed completely.
Some foods that appear to have the "I'd love to eat that" factor appear to be part of a joyful experience; with more discernment one can see the experience is actually an "I feel so empty/anxious I have to put this in my body to feel better temporarily"!
The temptation is to gloss over the current emptiness feeling and focus on the anticipated pleasure. You have to be honest with yourself, and not afraid to hear it.