Category: News
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HAES in the News
10 comments on HAES in the NewsMarianne Kirby & Kate Harding are interviewed in Newsweek’s blog The Human Condition about their book and HAES. Hopefully it will make some people think! In the UK, The Guardian had a piece about Health At Every Size. As Big Fat Blog notes, it’s all HAES 101 stuff, but that’s why it’s good to get it out in the mainstream anyway. (Oh, and I would avoid the…
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Hydroxycut, FDA, and “Diet Supplements”
Hydroxycut, produced by Iovate Health Sciences of Oakville, Ontario, is the latest diet supplement that has been volunarily recalled at the urging of the US FDA. In all, the Food and Drug Administration said it had received 23 reports of significant adverse health effects in people who used Hydroxycut, including one person who required a liver transplant. Other complications included heart problems and a kind of muscle damage that…
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Using Colonics to Avoid Flu?
Laurel has a post today on this topic and why it’s insane. [H]ave we not given up on the idea that flushing warm water up your backdoor does nothing but clean out feces that was on its way out anyway, just a bit faster? And that for some people, it’s actually bad to persist in high pressure “colonic irrigation” (diverticulitis, IBS, Crohn’s, Coeliac) because it can cause…
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Fat Acceptance in the News
Obese anti-dieting crusaders lead charge for overweight civil rights – not bad, though as Kate noted she’s co-author of Lessons from the Fat-o-spherewith Marianne Kirby. TV host: Style could boost healthier image – mostly about What Not To Wear but includes a few paragraphs about Dr Linda Bacon’s book Health At Every Size. Club nights for plus-size Valley patrons prove popular – about nightlife promoters in Long Beach and…
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Clipping: Size Doesn’t Matter in Diversity Woman
Size Doesn’t Matter (PDF), published in Diversity Woman magazine, discusses size discrimination in the workplace. Some of it’s pretty grim, such as the statistic that “[w]omen who are classified as obese generally earn 12 percent less than thin women” and are less likely to be hired. It also notes that “biggest loser” contests are not helpful, and has tips on how to create a “size-diverse workplace”, including: Create…
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Ah, the 70s…
Not to detract from Fillyjonk’s post, but this rant of Meowser’s on the 70s is spot-on. I didn’t know any vegetarians in the 70s. Yes, “whole wheat” bread was weird, and veggies were limp. A “diet plate” was a hamburger patty, cottage cheese, and a tomato slice. Yes, the diagnosis criteria for diabetes and heart disease and obesity were a lot higher then. Yes, people smoked everywhere…
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Mixed Links
A nice piece on beating stress & angst Contraceptive pills may reduce or prevent muscle growth. From an article on being fat and fit: As long as people see physical activity primarily as a way of losing weight, they are unlikely to keep it up, either because it doesn’t achieve that objective quickly or because they think they have to lose weight before they can take up…
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Sweetener Wars
In the news: the “Sweetener Wars” continue as the blue, pink, and yellow packets are being joined with green Stevia packets. Also there’s more “combination” sweeteners coming out. What I find interesting is the mix of preferences. Those who avoid sugar for medical reasons. Those who find avoiding aspartame, HFCS, sugar, or sucralose reduces headaches or other problems. Those who prefer the taste of one sweetenter or another.…
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More: How Very Obese People Are Almost Completely Sedentary…
Or rather, on how the “almost completely sedentary” in “Very Obese Adults Almost Completely Sedentary” is defined. The full text of the study isn’t freely available, but the abstract is linked in here. The results include: On average, subjects took 3,763 ± 2,223 steps. That implies a range between 1,430 and 5,986 steps a day. That’s a pretty wide range of data, and makes me…
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Very Obese Adults Almost Completely Sedentary?
For all the freaking out in the media about the obesity crisis, there’s not much research on folks who are very fat. So a study on folks with an average BMI of 53 shows some promise…right? Sorry. The headline: “Very Obese Adults Almost Completely Sedentary“. I’m not sure how many people are going to read beyond that, but if they do, here’s what they’ll find: Only 10 participants.…
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What I’m Reading…
An article on public policy vs academic research tackles salt, but I wonder if the same thing could not be said about dieting. If you were an academic researcher, you’d have to persuade your institutional review board that you had considered the risks and obtained informed consent from the participants. […] But if you are the mayor of New York, no such constraints apply. You can simply…
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Things Worth Reading
Do you know your upper arm size in centimeters? Well-Rounded Mama has a great post on how the wrong blood-pressure-cuff size can cause misdiagnosis and over- or under-treatment. (Mine is 48.) Margaret Cho’s “diet” where you eat what you want, you don’t have to eat anything you don’t want, and you can buy clothes that fit you now. Body dissatisfaction increases risk of suicide in…
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Chronic Stress Tied to Obesity? Hey, Let’s Make Them Thin…
So I was reading about a study that says kids of families with chronic stress were maybe a little more likely to be fat and wondering what else there is about chronic stress and being fat. I run into: Researchers found a molecule the body releases when stressed called NPY (neuropeptide Y). NPY appears to unlock certain receptors in fat cells, causing them to grow in both size…
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Optimism
It’s getting tougher these days to think of the glass as half full rather than half empty, but if you’re going to survive this economic crisis – literally – you might as well try. – Time Optimism. This can be hard when 2 people you know lost their job in the last week and a third got a layoff notice. Or when everyone’s ready to throw their…
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Açaí hits the mainstream…
In this case, The New York Times. Some highlights: Both Oprah Winfrey and Rachel Ray have posted disclaimers on their websites that they do not endorse any açaí product. No studies have shown specific health benefits to eating açaí berries or products. No studies have shown açaí helps in weight loss. The Better Business Bureau has warned consumers “to be wary of online ads relying on celebrity endorsements of…
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Sleep Quote
“It’s a bell-shaped curve,” she said, with just 2.5 percent of the population needing significantly less sleep than average. “The problem,” she went on, “is that 95 percent of us think we’re in that 2.5 percent.”
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How Goes Daylight Savings Time?
Most of the US switched our clocks forward an hour over the weekend. At the moment, I’m mostly enjoying that it’s not getting light before 7am and the sun doesn’t set until about 7pm. (Remember, I’m up at latitude 47 – we get almost 16 hours of sunlight in late June, and less than 9 in late December.) Usually I hate the switch back to standard time…
Living ~400lbs 