weighty issues
I normally don’t discuss such things here, but I’m truly curious to hear your take on this.
I read an article on Msnbc.com called “With Friends Like These” about a study that found that obesity is contagious and that it spreads through social networks of friends even if those friends live thousands of miles apart.
Seriously.
Let me give you my take:
Until we start accepting responsibility for our actions, owning all of our experiences and choices (good and bad), and really, truly respecting and honoring our bodies through our choices of what we put in them and do to them, the obesity problem will continue–and I’m not just talking about the United States here as it’s becoming a problem in many countries around the world, including Italy.
Let’s leave aside drug and alcohol issues for the moment while we also recognize that there are absolutely similarities in all types of addictions that harm the body.
I share the following as background, so you can understand where I’m coming from on this one:
You can’t tell much from my little head shot up there, but I’m not skinny. I don’t think I ever was (doctors put me on a diet when I was less than a year old–how’s that for setting someone up for life?), and I don’t imagine I ever will be. And that’s fine with me because I feel good and healthy and know that I’m doing my best to be good to my body.
Over the last few years, I’ve been working on developing a better relationship with food, understanding nutrition, listening to what my body tells me it needs, and doing more physical exercise than I’ve ever done in my life. I’ve lost a good bit of weight, but the best thing about all this is that I feel like I’m taking better care of the only thing that’s really mine in the world.
And it feels wonderful.
And no, I’m not perfect–last night for dinner I had a big ole steak and french fries. And it was delicious. I’ll probably have a gelato later. And I’ll probably never lose the last 5-10 pounds I should, according to the Body Mass Index because of it. So be it. A lot of people are at so-called healthy weights but they aren’t healthy in the least (so many skinnies that I know smoke more than the Marlboro Man), so who’s really to say what’s best for me but me?
But enough about me. I’m interested in what you think about the study.
Was it worth studying? Do friends make somebody fat? Family? How much influence do your family and friends have over what you do?
Obviously certain medical disorders cause weight gain, but aside from such causes, what are the real reasons for obesity? Who or what really is to blame? How can we stop this epidemic?
Do you care? Should the government care? If so, how should it go about caring, so to speak?
I’d love to hear some of your experiences and opinions on this issue.
This is a touchy subject, so I do ask that you be as kind as possible if you decide to share your thoughts. I look forward to reading them.
—————
[tags]weight, losing weight, gaining weight[/tags]
65 Beans of Wisdom to “weighty issues”
« Older CommentsAdd your two beans of wisdom.
Michelle Fabio is an American attorney-turned-freelance writer living in her family's ancestral village in Calabria, Italy and savoring simplicity one sip at a time.
Affiliates, Sponsors & Supporters
Nutella E-book for Sale
Recipes
As an ex-anorexic I would like this whole subject to be removed from food and to activity. In olden times people ate heavier, fattier foods and much more of it but they used their bodies more.
Food is good. You must eat. Eat well and spend more on food than you do on fads and cars and gas. Then move your body!
I am not thin either, mostly because my face goes to hell if I diet nowadays. But I think I can be if I climb the mountain across the street everyday. Why do I have 1001 excuses not to? Mental illness, probably.
[Reply]
Sara, thanks for your thoughtful comment–again, no need to apologize for length. This issue is far from easy and, unfortunately, most of us have intimate experiences with it. I’m the “victim” of a naturally skinny OH too, although thank goodness he doesn’t have health problems with it. We do eat the same things–he just eats way more of it than I can. I certainly hope any future kids get *his* metabolism!
You’re right, though–it does seem so simple, and yet it’s *so* not.
Judith, I agree that the sedentary lifestyle is a huge part of the problem, but when we’re talking about fats and whatnot, we’re also talking about cholesterol, so what we eat still makes a difference. Like you said, though, we need calories to function; in many ways, I probably eat more food by volume than I used to, but it’s just in a different proportion regarding healthy and junk.
I’m the same with exercise though. I know that I could be at my target weight in probably a month or two if I would just get off my bum and do more. And yes, I think then we’re back to the emotional/psychological issues. Mah.
For anyone who’s still following along, I just saw another article on msnbc.com called Tip of the Week: You Are Where You Eat, which discusses the seven worst ways to eat, e.g., standing up over the sink, at work, etc.
[Reply]
I read that article too. haha
I thought I would let you know that today I went for a 22k bike ride. Woooo
You know, I was never one who enjoyed exercise (heck I can’t even spell it half the time) but I might have finally found something I really enjoy doing! Biking (I have a city bike, with 21 gears) and we go on the new, wonderful bicycle path they built along the river here. You get the wind in your hair, there is always a breeze, you go fast, and you get out and see new things. I even have a basket and a bell. And we usually stop for gelato. (ok, whatever, I worked to get that gelato! haha)
So, if you haven’t been on a bike in years (like me), I recommend giving it a try. You feel like a kid again! (I recommend buying those padded shorts though, or you will remember that you are not a kid anymore… hahaa)
But, I got out and moved! And had fun!
[Reply]
An interesting topic – sorry I missed the major part of it. I’ve struggled with my weight since puberty. I was skinny as a child and once puberty hit I ballooned up in a matter of weeks and have had trouble ever since. Yes, it’s frustrating for those of us who have to watch everything we put in our mouths when we go out with friends who can eat anything. I think there is much to be said for body type, but personal choice is definitely a factor.
The number of obese children is disheartening. O and I went to the US at Christmas and he was amazed at how many obese children there were and further amazed at the amount of crappy food in the supermarket. From his few trips through, he has a terrible impression of American cuisine, basically considering it all pre-packaged junk food or “schifezze”, as he likes to call it. Healthy food, fresh vegetables, etc. is definitely easier to come by here, but I also think it has to do with the market responding to the demands of the people. In the States, everything is rush, rush, and people don’t seem to want to take the extra five minutes to chop fresh vegetables when they can open a bag full of preservatives and dump it in some hot water, or worse, drive through the drive-through for a burger and fries.
[Reply]
I’m not sure they needed a study on it – look at locations. When I was growing up in NYC everyone was skinny, or trying to be. I moved out to the Midwest, and things were very, very different.
With globalization, obesity is spreading.
But I like your attitude about learning about your body and choices and trying to be healthy.
I’ve been heavy on and off my whole life. On, the last 15 years or so. And it’s been a struggle.
FWIW, I think our processed foods, especially corn syrup, have something to do with all this, too.
[Reply]
YES CORN SYRUP! I agree with JEN! A MAJOR problem here in the US. Isn’t it still subsidized by the government!
I talked about this topic with my husband over a SUPER NICE Meal at a restaurant called CRAFT, in LA. hmmmm
They even had superb cheese!
[Reply]
I find the idea that someone studied friends to see if they were all fat somewhat repulsive. My friends were always thinner than I was, and often thought they were fat when they weren’t. Try being a 300 pound teenager, listening to your two 140 pound best friends complain about how fat they are. That was fun.
Everyone in my family struggles with their weight. We know there’s a genetic component, so even if we don’t live in the same house, does it matter much? Also, the bizarre relationships with food are established at such a young age… and my family has major food issues (nothing makes my grandmother happier than if someone goes on vacation and brings her back menus. Seriously.).
Is obesity an issue? Yes. Is it as big as issue as the media wants us to believe? No way. Penn & Teller have this show on Showtime called Bullsh!t. They did an episode on this, which is probably on You Tube, and it was awesome.
I am not saying being as fat as I am is good… obviously, it’s not. But I will argue that there isn’t nearly the problem they want us to believe, and that they don’t take into consideration things like how much a 200 pound woman might work out, vs. how much a 120 pound woman might. You can be overweight and be healthier than skinny people, just as you said in your post.
One thing I love about living in Colorado (one of the “thinnest” states in the US, btw) is that doctors here don’t act like I’m a heart attack waiting to happen. I am treated based on my symptoms and based on what is wrong with me, rather than being judged by the number on the scale. That doesn’t mean my doctor doesn’t encourage me to lose weight… but it does mean she doesn’t try to push weight loss surgery down my throat, either. Doctors in NYC were always doing that.
People here generally don’t make me feel like a freak… whereas back east, everyone looks at me like I’m some sort of monster, or, well… like it might just be contagious, and they’d better stay away, just in case my fat cells are looking to jump ship.
[Reply]
Taking about possible ways in which we are all connected and how the ideas we share, or the zeitgeist we generate, might affect us individuallly and collectively does not equate to shirking personal responsibility. The “should you/could you blame your friends?” question just reflects the spin–which I might, were I a more cranky person, refer to as the crappy dumbing down–of the press coverage. The whole question of how we are each a part of a whole in ways that we perhaps haven’t yet imagined is fascinating.
The original study report is available in the New England Journal of Medicine, here: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/357/4/370. Its conclusions aren’t novel ideas; they’ve just not previously been applied to medicine and health. If you read it, don’t neglect to read the commentary; it’s good.
Sognitrice, the researchers did attempt to control for your chicken or egg question.
As to the issue of weight…we’re stupid about it. (I guess I AM cranky!) We don’t allow for reasonable variance. The influence of genetic factors gets ignored (notice I didn’t say the ABSOLUTE PREDICTABLE RESULTS of genetic factors, but rather the influence).
Obesity is one thing, but the social pressure, particularly for women, to be whatever it is that we consider ideal is another and has little or nothing to do with health. That’s part of what gets us all twisted up when we try to talk about weight. So is the fact that when we’re talking about weight we’re talking about food, with all its connotations and pleasures and necessities and guilt. And because women so often serve as our cultural artifacts, women also bear the brunt of our notions about the body and our complexes about food. Within that context, it’s difficult to discern what’s reasonable and what’s not. If it were simply a question of health, most of us wouldn’t be as interested as we are. And this story wouldn’t have gotten the play it did.
All that being said…what IS going on in America?!? It’s clear obesity (not just a little more weight than one might want, but morbid obesity) is on the rise: http://www.cortland.edu/esss/biomechanics/review%20of%20exercise-4.ppt#289,2,Slide 2. Like most of you suggested, there’s no one single cause. We eat too much of the wrong things. We don’t move enough. We have an unhealthy relationship with the pleasures of eating–we don’t, as someone said earlier, seem to be able to relax and ‘enjoy the life’ (consistent overeating usually doesn’t coexist with a relaxed frame of mind). And it may be true that government policies share part of the blame–ever compared what we offer in our school lunches versus what is offered in, say, France? Did you notice where the subsidies in the recently passed farm bill are going and what type of agribusiness that helps support and how that in turn might translate to how we eat? Have you read about the correlation between the use of high fructose corn syrup and the obesity epidemic in Pollen’s book or, for example, in this interview of a specialist in pediatric endocrinology? http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/stories/2007/1969924.htm.
Whoops. Too much chat, not enough work. I’ll have to leave this for now.
[Reply]
Sara, good for you! For me, at least, it’s important that I keep trying different ways of “moving” because I get bored easily–the only one that’s stuck has been yoga, and I just love it, but I know many people don’t/can’t do it. The trick is to find something you actually enjoy and look forward to doing, I suppose, although I can’t imagine ever really *wanting* to exercise every day. Just not me unfortunately.
MB, I completely agree about the problem of obesity in children–to me that’s the real issue. Adults can make their own decisions based on knowledge and information but children really don’t have that same opportunity. Health risks are great and are the most important problem that can arise, but so is teasing from other kids–that’s certainly not a fun road to go down (as many of the parents obese children well know).
Jen, Sabine, I haven’t read too much on corn syrup, but you do have me curious. Sounds like just as likely a culprit to me as any, though, from the little I do know. So much blame, there’s plenty to go around
Mae, I’m so happy that you’ve been able to find a place and a doctor that doesn’t make you feel like a freak, as you say–that is certainly not the way to get people to change their eating/exercising habits. I just talked with a friend about how many dentists are fond of scare tactics and condescending remarks that don’t make going to the dentist any easier–same with doctors, it seems, from what you say.
Anyway, I agree that the focus of this entire discussion needs to be on being healthy, which leads us to Born in Carbondale….
BIC, I have to disagree with the idea that this study couldn’t be used by some as yet another excuse to remain obese–or, on the flip side, to drop their obese friends because they’re making them fat (allegedly).
For example, a lot of people *do* have genetic dispositions for being overweight, but I think there are also a good-sized group of people who use that as an excuse as well–myself included until a few years ago. Since most of my family is overweight, I would tell myself that I just wasn’t meant to be thin, and to a certain extent that’s true as I can see my bones aren’t slight and they need some meat to keep them up.
But cheesesteaks, pizza, fatty salad dressings, and spinach and artichoke dip really weren’t helping either.
So in that sense, I think that publicizing a study like this really does more harm than good–it tells us something we already know as you said (it’s common sense that we hang out with people like us), but is presented in such a way so as to put up one more reason why people are obese.
I think if taken, as you suggest, as an exploration of our relationships, it’s a valid social experiment–otherwise it’s irresponsible, and, I agree, a crappy dumbing down of the study, but you know what? It’s what we have and it’s sparked discussion, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
On the other hand, perhaps the idea that national media should just stay out of science journals is the moral of this story.
[Reply]
Sorry it’s taken me so long to get to this. I have, as you know, been occupied with silliness elsewhere.
I think calling obesity “contagious” is sensationalistic and gratuitously inflammatory, and I am not at all surprised that MSNBC would resort to that type of rhetoric. The thing is, however, we do mimic each other’s behavior. As others here have mentioned, we mimic each other’s good behavior as well as each other’s bad behavior. It’s just part of being human.
You are right. We must accept responsibility for our own behavior. As a result, I do not accept total responsibility, for example, for other people bingeing on any cookie or cake or pie recipe I post on my blog. However, I do accept responsibility for the fact that how I interact with other people has some effect on them. I understand that what I say and do, what I so much as suggest, can both positively and negatively impact others, even if I’m not holding a gun to anybody’s head saying, “Eat, dammit!” or, worse, “Don’t you like what I made for you? I slaved for hours over a hot stove, only because I wanted to please you,” or, worst of all, “Oh, GOD this is good. Too bad you can’t have any.”
As a not skinny person who has never fit medical standards even when I was low-level fashion modeling as a teenager, and as a cancer patient who’s statistically not supposed to be alive as of, oh, 20+ years ago, I tend to look askance at numbers like the BMI. Not entirely, just a little. Fitness isn’t about fitting an iconic image or a specific number; it’s about being able to live the life you want to live with the real body you have. Plump is not obese. Visible ribs are not necessarily a sign of health, though they are not necessarily a sign of ill health, either. Can you go up a flight of stairs without keeling over? Do you have the strength to lift something heavier than your cellphone? Do you get sick a lot? Do you have the strength to fight illness when you do get sick? Will you be alive for your daughter’s wedding and not dead of a heart attack or stroke caused by bad nutrition and not enough exercise (not the only ways to get these things)? Will you be able to carry your dog to the vet if s/he gets hurt? These are things that matter, not whether you fit a particular size jeans or look good in a photograph.
However, though I am not above telling people if I think they are going the way of the crackpot, I respect other people’s goals for their own lives. I share nutritional information which I have obtained from credible sources. I warn people when I post an unhealthful recipe, try to tell them ways to make it less unhealthful, and advise practices that prevent bingeing, like sharing, like not making more than you can safely enjoy and, when you have no way of cutting a recipe, distributing what you make that’s fun but naughty outward so everyone can have a little but nobody has the opportunity to gorge. I make jokes about my true love “making” me do this, and some of this has been his idea, but really, it’s better.
If I have a friend who’s trying to change her eating habits, I will not meet her around food. We will go for a walk or to a museum, or some other not-food-centered event. If food comes up, like if we get healthily hungry not just mouth-bored or idea-of-hunger-piqued by the presence of a cooking smell or an obvious fast food joint, I will encourage and support her or him in making healthy choices. Without making a big deal about it, I’ll watch my own choices in his or her presence. I won’t order cake if s/he’s just been diagnosed a diabetic, for example. I will have lots of opportunities to eat cake with other people, and there will be events we both attend that will have cake where his or her willpower will have been built and informed by prior experience. I can be part of this person’s record of strength, or I can undermine it. I know and accept this. I strongly feel that this is part of what it is to really love someone, and also part of what it is to be an adult.
You didn’t want to hear about other drugs, but I just have to tell this one story. My uncle never quit smoking even after my aunt lost a lung to smoking-related cancer. He was too selfish. I smoked for 22 years, and I know how hard it is to quit, but it boils down to motivation. Can you be bigger than your impulses? Can you make other people more important than your own immediate gratification? Is it not possible that in doing this you yourself might also benefit and become more healthy? (Obviously — at least, I hope it’s obvious — I mean the editorial “you,” not you specifically, Sognatrice.)
Are you really interested in being someone’s friend, or are you only interested in enabling and being enabled, in not being made to feel bad about yourself, and therefore getting permission to be chronically bad to yourself, and others? This is what it boils down to. It doesn’t boil down to avoiding fat people to get thin. It boils down to what it means to really care about the people you are with — and being able to tell whether they really care about you.
I think thinking about this is more important than blaming or numbering. It’s taken me my whole life to get to precisely this place, but there you have it.
***
By the way, and just because there has been so much talk here about processed food (and this is so ironic since I recently used that food meme to talk about all-natural/organic convenience foods), my sister came to visit for the first time in five years this weekend. In her mid-50s, she has battled weight gain her entire middle age, and only recently wrestled it to the ground. How did she do it? She knocked all prepared foods out of her diet. All of them. If she or someone else doesn’t make it from scratch right now, it doesn’t go in her mouth.
She’s lost 30 lbs. and kept it off. She was already exercising and eating numerically healthy, if you know what I mean; none of it made a difference until she took this one, last little step. Then, BAM! It just melted off. Or so she says.
So, yes, yay fresh foods. Always the best choice, always.
And for the person who was comparing the price of frozen french fries to raw peaches, I would suggest that you go look at the prices of raw potatoes and frozen peaches, by weight. It could be most instructive. Thinking we have to eat either raw peaches or frozen french fries when more than just those two choices are available is also part of the problem. Teaching each other to see more is part of the solution.
[Reply]
Sara, there’s no way I can add anything useful to what you’ve just written so I won’t even try. You’ve put it perfectly, my friend, and may we all teach each other as you suggest.
Just came across another pertinent article–this one by Star Jones Reynolds who writes of her gastric bypass surgery. I’m not a huge Star Jones Reynolds fan, but this piece is really wonderful from the perspective of someone who’s been there; although I’ve never been obese, but almost always overweight, I can identify with a lot of what she’s saying:
I’m Ready to Open Up by Star Jones Reynolds on Glamour.com.
[Reply]
Sognatrice, I don’t think we’re disagreeing; it’s just a matter of emphasis. I didn’t mean to say that the study couldn’t be used in the way you described; that’s exactly how most of the media coverage framed it. The coverage was, as Sara aptly characterized it, “sensationalistic and gratuitously inflammatory.” Or as I called it, using my special and highly esoteric genetics research nomenclature, “crappy.” I was trying to point to the notion that the focus of the study was not obesity per se, but network science and its possible application to issues of public health. The structure of social networks and their role in our lives is more complicated than the “is your best friend making you fat?” spin. I was put off by the spin, not, as I hope you realized, by you using the article as a takeoff point to discuss personal responsibility. BTW, the comment in the NEJM is by Barabasi, a physicist whose particular interest is network science. His book “Linked: How Everything is Connected to Everything Else” is getting a lot of coverage.
[Reply]
BIC, yes, re-reading I saw that perhaps I wasn’t so much disagreeing at all; I do agree that network science is fascinating. I was just talking to my mom on the phone about all this, and I began to get really fired up again about how this article was presented–not, as you said, the info inside it. I suppose I, too, was sucked in by the “crap” (I like your word too!), and resent it, and that’s why I even posted this in the first place.
And I’m so glad I did; thanks for checking back here and commenting again. I can’t express how excited I am to see how people have followed along with this discussion.
Thanks to everyone
[Reply]
I understand an effect with people you hang out with, but I don’t think I buy it, when you live far apart, certainly not more than a 5 pound influence anyway. I don’t understand how a long distance friend becoming obese could make me more prone to doing so, or visa versa.
Like Christina, I have been influenced when out, by those I have been out with. If everyone gets dessert, everyone gets dessert (me too). And I had a very skinny best friend in college (she weighed around 100 pounds) and I went to an all you can eat buffet with her once, she ate almost nothing, so I only felt comfortable eating almost nothing as well.
I think women do influence each other a bit, those that hang out together, either to be a bit skinnier or a bit heavier (but I mean a bit, 5 pounds tops) because you influence each others behavior. Either setting up a standard of super fit workout girl to be compared to wherever you go, or hey we are mothers now, lets relax about our weight, to be compared to.
In the extremes mentioned in the study, I just have trouble believing it.
I’m in the states, and I so wish fruit and veg were cheaper. I love white flesh nectarines, and watermelon, and avocados, et cetera, and it is all so expensive. And if you get a bad one (I have had plenty of bad avocados lately) well then you are just out of the money. Hot dogs and twinkies are much cheaper. I don’t know why fruit and veg are not subsidized. If the government and health care industry really believe eating more of them would stem off millions of people getting sick and needing more health care later, you would think they would do it.
I am often surprised at what the schools consider to be healty meals. I have such a hard time getting my son to eat any fruit and veg at all. Should I force him? I did once and he threw it up, right onto his plate.
Personally I do struggle with weight. I know how to be in good shape, eat a set amount and work out- but then that becomes my whole life, all my energy is focused on that (counting calores, countng miles on a treadmill, numbers on a scale). I want to be more relaxed and balanced. So I work out off and on, try to do more real walking, and yard work, and…since my trouble is I don’t often feel full after a normal amount of food, I have developed the bad habit, of eating fruit for breakfast (I feel the same as I would if I ate cereal, or pancakes, eggs and bacon. I wouldn’t feel fuller at that time or less hungry for the day if I ate more) and then eating a late lunch/early supper ( one meal but has the calories of two, so I feel full) then I top it off with a dessert of sorts (sometimes healthy sometimes not) then I am done for the day. It could be 5pm at this point, or it could even be 1:30 pm. Whenever I try to break the meals into two, I over-eat. And if I eat more than fruit for breakfast, then I just can’t seem to stop eating. Sometimes I think this style works well for me, and sometimes I feel so stuffed and sick afterward I think I really need to find a better way of eating. (I know 6 mini-meals are often recommended, no one recommends eating one great big meal. But seriously I don’t know how people manage this)
kc,
yes, 14 BMI isn’t healthy, yikes!
I have weight issues, I have them when I am over-weight, I have them when I am becoming under-weight, I have them when I am at an “ideal” weight.
More than anything else, it is the weight/food issues themselves I would like to lose. And just eat real food.
I’m currently reading Real Food, by Nina Planck. I don’t know if I agree with it or not, as I am only on page 50. But I find it interesting. I do think there is something to eating mostly real food, instead of pre-packaged stuff. And I know that milk from grass fed cows does taste better (from personal experience) than those fed grains. But I am afraid of raw milk so I doubt I will be special ordering any of that. Hopefully I will get some ideas and insights that will help me in forming my own ideas about healthy eating for my family.
[Reply]
Taffiny, thanks so much for weighing in (hah!); I think the most important thing any of us can do is to make eating healthier and moving more just a natural part of the day–forget counting calories (whether you’re eating them or burning them) and just do what you just know is the better choice. Things like you mentioned–walking more and eating “real food” (book sounds great!). Every little bit of effort helps
I’d also like to point out here that I just came across two posts on this on another site called Lively Women by Kristen King, showing that I wasn’t the only one who found this study’s findings a bit questionable:
More Obesity News: Obesity Spreads Through Social Networks and
Study Calling Obesity ‘Socially Contagious’ Criticized.
And the debate continues….
[Reply]