DooF » obesity

Exploring the Origins of Obesity: One Person’s POV

Dave Wong — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 22:40:06 +0000

I grew up in the 70′s and 80′s, and today, I’m a parent to two boys.

Neither of them are obese. Or even fat.

But obesity is a term that seemed to have come out of nowhere. Sure, I knew what obesity meant visually since I was a teen, but growing up, the issues of the day that I was aware of were about smoking, drinking, drugs, and AIDS.

Now, obesity has come to the forefront, judging by the amount of coverage it gets in the media.

Assuming that becoming obese is a process that occurs over a certain period of time — meaning one does not become obese overnight, or even over a week — it might be a good idea to explore in a somewhat unscientific, i.e. anecdotal manner the possible origins of modern obesity.

What’s the Problem with Obesity?

In many societies, and especially societies of the past, someone who had a suntan meant that person was someone who worked in the fields farming, or were out fishing every day. In short, having a tan meant you were barely eking out a living from the land or sea. Only the upper class could afford to have servants, workers (or serfs or slaves) and such, and could afford to stay indoors out of the harsh sun. How times have changed.

It can also be argued that the person who was considered fat (or today, obese) would be a person with means as well. He or she could afford to have plenty of food to eat, while the skinny person meant that he or she, again, was lower class, and struggled to make a living to even feed themselves.

Today, I bet one would be hard pressed to find an obese person in some of these societies (e.g. third-world country), but here in the United States, all you need to do is go to the local mall or Wal-Mart, and there would be plenty of examples.

Suffice it to say then that society changes most likely have a strong role in contributing to obesity.

In this first part, let’s explore my own life growing up in San Francisco, compared to how kids are growing up today.

Kids Growing Up

Playing today seems to mean getting on the web, spending time playing the Wii, X-Box or Playstation 3, or watching 100′s of cable channels on TV. Every activity seems to involve staring at a LCD/LED screen on some device. The result? A sedentary lifestyle that is instilled from childhood.

Playing Back in the Day meant that I played in the backyard, or in the park, or just out in the street. And there was usually only one cool friend who had the original Atari game console. A bunch of us would all go over to play for a few hours, taking turns playing those short casual games — and you know what else? — we had to walk the few blocks to get to his house. I also have to admit I watched a lot of TV, but this was the analog days of VHF and UHF signals. We were lucky to get, oh, 8-10 channels at most. For reading, I had to go to the local library, where we could only check out a handful of books (2 or 3?).

Adolescent and Teen Years

Today’s teens almost all have cellphones/smartphones, all equipped with cameras and vidcams. They’re on Facebook and MySpace, texting and IM’ing. I don’t know what the percentage is, but a fair number of kids get driven to and from school. I’m also guilty of this practice as well, but it just feels a little less safe these days?

Back in the Day meant one or two kids might have something called a…pager! But other than that, the only thing phone-related were the phone numbers we had in our personal RAM (our brains, remember those days?). Weekdays at lunch I’d be playing basketball, and weekends meant going to the local court for a game, or working in my parents’ backyard. There were also family picnics where we’d play frisbee or badminton. And going to school meant walking and taking the bus, and by walking, I meant I walked a round-trip of 20+ blocks everyday during middle school, and riding the bus and walking another 10 minutes in high school.

Just by comparing these experiences alone — there are a lot of differences between the life I led as a youngster, and those of today’s kids and youths.

We derive a lot of our pleasures and entertainment today from electronic media
We’re a connected society, with many members receiving these connecting devices when they’re yount
We feel the need to chauffer our kids around

Sedentary Lifestyle

So, it would seem that people today are more sedentary then only two or three decades ago.

Is that important?

We’ll try to answer that in Part 2. Stay tuned!

Do We Need an Obesity Drug?

Dave Wong — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:19:28 +0000

A recent article on NPR talks about upcoming drugs for treating obesity.

It sounds like the drugs will do one or a combination of the following:

curb or reduce the physiological desire to ingest food (aka appetite)
modify certain psychological behaviorial conditions (like depression)

However, it sounds to me like that’s the path to “treating the symptoms and not the cause” — here’s why:

While we can certainly agree that a constant desire to eat (the wrong kinds of food) without proper exercise will most likely result in obesity, and we probably know someone who, when depressed, will reach for so-called “comfort” foods, these new drugs do not treat the true underlying causes leading to obesity.

The drugs will not teach people that adequate physical activity is required to burn calories gained from eating
The drugs will not show people what good food is, and how fun preparing and eating good meals can be
The drugs will not address underlying psychological issues leading to depression, lack of self-esteem or self-control

In this author’s opinion, obesity is the result of a multitude of personal and social factors. A drug may temporarily have some effect, but in the end, it becomes an excuse for one to not deal with his or her true underlying mental and/or physiological issues.

Fast Food Proximities and Obesity?

Dave Wong — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 02:51:36 +0000

UC Berkeley Study

Late last week, an article came out discussing a UC Berkeley study that links fast food proximity to obesity: how restaurants like McDonald’s being close to high schools contribute to obesity levels of ninth graders (high school freshman).

Interestingly, the major point seems to be that such fast food joints need to be one-tenth of a mile to the school, meaning — at least here in San Francisco — within one block. If the restaurants are a quarter to one-half mile away from the school, there doesn’t seem to be any correlation.

Further, the study points out that

…while just 7 percent of California’s high schools have a fast food restaurant within a tenth of a mile, 65 percent have one within half a mile. Schools within a tenth of a mile of a fast food restaurant have more Hispanic students, slightly more students eligible for free lunches, lower test scores, tend to be in poorer and urban neighborhoods – and have a higher than average incidence of obesity among their students

What does it mean?

From the article, we can infer that socio-economic class plays a role in determining whether a child will grow up to be obese.

The study seems to suggest that city planners, if they want to help combat obesity, should consider zoning requirements in the areas immediately surrounding schools.

Treating a Symptom

Of course, zoning requirements for fast food restaurants is just a small piece in the overall strategy to combat obesity.

A lot of low-income households have parents who need to work all day, and so children, both young and old, are left unsupervised, exposed to TV’s multitude of advertising on junk and fast foods, and thus most likely uneducated about healthy choices.

Thus, it’s really no surprise to hear that having a fast-food restaurant one block away from school will be a magnet for kids to get a quick “snack” after school, whether it be fries or a full-on “happy” meal. The meals are certainly not healthy, but they are fast, convenient, and cheap.

To really fight obesity, we’re really going to have to attack the issue on many fronts.

In future articles, we’ll take a look at other strategies.

In the meantime, if you wish to see the original article, click here.

There is also a pdf of the UCB study here.