On The Whole

Decrease in Physical Activity May Not Be a Factor in Increased Obesity Rates among Adolescents

Interesting, giving the common assumption that weight gain is caused by sedentary lifestyles as well as "over"eating (ignoring the influence of medication/drugs, stress, yoyo dieting, and a myriad of other factors besides genetics).

I've also heard that the population as a whole isn't eating significantly more (calorie-wise) that it was a few decades ago -- again, despite common linkage of the so-called "obesity epidemic" (a diseasemongering concept that only benefits those whose income/funding comes from treating, researching, or fighting dread "diseases") with "over" or increased eating. Wonder if someone is researching that as well?

Decrease in Physical Activity May Not Be a Factor in Increased Obesity Rates among Adolescents.

Sumo vs. soccer

Check out this Pepsi commercial in which a group of magnificent sumo wrestlers challenge a soccer team.

I love watching these big & proud men having fun -- and beating the pants -- err, shirts -- off the soccer team.

Government-sanctioned video game for children promotes body shame and nutritional confusion in the name of health

Kaiser Permanente and Scholastic have teamed up to produce and market a video game for children that purports to teach "healthy" eating and exercise, but instead promotes body shame (including fat hatred), confusing and inaccurate nutritional messages (orange juice is OK for some kids, apparently, but not others), exercise as a panacea and always a better choice than reading, and -- well, check it out yourself.

And be forewarned: Kaiser and Scholastic are aiming the "game" at public schools throughout the nation. (Home schooling, anyone?) The Centers for Disease Control is also helping to spread the nonsense, according to Lisa Baertlein of Reuters.

Sandy Swzarc has a couple of excellent posts on this at her Junkfood Science blog (here and here). Kell Brigan at Disturbing Brew is organizing protests and providing contact info (here and here and here). Paul at Big Fat Blog has also issued a call to action with contact info (here).

MegaYoga retreat at Kripalu

Megan Garcia -- plus-size model, author of MegaYoga and creator of the Just My Size Yoga DVD -- is leading a yoga retreat at Kripalu Retreat Center in western Massachusetts Aug, 27-31, 2007.

See the Kripalu website for details: http://www.kripalu.org/program/view/ALL/MYPS71/megayoga.

Garcia's website is http://www.MegaYoga.com.

Bicycling at any size

Gina Kolata writes about "the bicycling paradox" in the New York Times today. The alleged paradox? That fit, serious cyclists can be -- um -- fat.

"When I first got into cycling, I would see cyclists and say, 'O.K., that's not what I perceive a cyclist to be,' said Michael Berry, an exercise physiologist at Wake Forest University. Dr. Berry had been a competitive runner, and he thought good cyclists would look like good runners -- rail-thin and young.

But, Dr. Berry added, "I quickly learned that when I was riding with someone with a 36-inch waist, I could be looking at the back of their waist when they rode away from me."

He came to realize, he said, that cycling is a lot more forgiving of body type and age than running. The best cyclists going up hills are those with the best weight-to-strength ratio, which generally means being thin and strong. But heavier cyclists go faster downhill. And being light does not help much on flat roads.

Guess Kolata and Dr. Berry have never heard of the Potbelly Cycling Association.

Read the New York Times article here.

Eat Right Montana Healthy Families on moving away from diets with The Joy of Movement and Feeding Your Body Well

Eat Right Montana, a coalition of individuals and organizations promoting healthy eating and active lifestyles, has a great Health At Every Size oriented PDF covering a new review of diet research (short version: diets don't work and are often counterproductive) and guidance on moving away from diets. The PDF contains reproducible handouts on The Joy of Movement and Feeding Your Body Well.

Download the PDF here.

Print out the handouts for yourself as reminders or pass them out to clients, colleagues, friends and family. (It's OK -- you don't have to live in Montana to use these materials! Their website gives permission for the materials to be used for "any educational, noncommercial purposes -- with credit given to Eat Right Montana." Contact them if you'd like to use the materials for any commercial purposes.)

The Eat Right Montana Healthy Families Media Campaign is "a monthly packet that includes a press release and nutrition and physical activity handouts with up-to-date, simple, and positive messages to help Montanans live healthy lifestyles."  The materials are distributed electronically to media outlets, Eat Right Montana Coalition members, public health agencies, schools and interested parties in Montana and throughout the U.S.

Contact rmb@montana.edu if you'd like to get on their emailing list for the monthly packets.

Extreme dancing

Get a load of the "extreme" (or macho?) dancing in the videos of this troupe: http://www.strebusa.org/pages/archive.html

The New York Times reports that a female dancer recently crushed a vertebra in a fall during a performance. She had reparative surgery (a rod was implanted in her spine) and expects to once again became physically active -- rock climbing is mentioned -- and even to dance again. Although not with the Streb Extreme Action dance company.

Pretty amazing. I think I'll stick to tamer moves myself, though.

Big Brother is watching you, fatso -- and wants to make sure you keep moving

That's what came to mind when I read reports of research conducted on a "specially designed vertical workstation" that "can be locked in place over a treadmill, allowing employees to work at a computer while simultaneously walking on the spot."

The Mayo Clinic researchers who designed the "walk-and-work" desk aren't interested in the health of all sedentary workers in cubicle farms across the globe, though. Oh, no. They're pitching the the contraption as a way to "help overweight workers" lose weight.

Doesn't this conjure up images of overseers -- um, I mean supervisors -- with whips standing behind rows of corpulent workers on treadmills?

Note that in the CBC article the principal researcher, Dr. James Levine, is reported to have claimed that by using the "vertical workstation" an "obese employee could shed 45 to 65 pounds over the course of a year." Thereby proving that he is ignorant of the current state of the science about weight and weight loss, in which it is now understood that the old "calories in minus calories out" formula is woefully inadequate at predicting weight loss. (Never mind, also, that there's absolutely no research indicating anyone who loses weight will keep it off long-term -- the body fights to defend what it, not what society or science or medicine, thinks is natural.)

Perhaps the saddest thing about this line of research, though, and the media reports it will spawn, is that it misses the opportunity to promote healthy activity for ALL desk jockeys. If the opportunity to walk while computing is so great, why not offer it to all sedentary workers? Which, of course, would include many slender people...and NOT all fat people. (Of course, anorexics and anorexic-wanna-bes would love it.)

Researching and promoting treadmill workstations as a "bariatric" or weight-focused intervention just furthers prejudice, discrimination, and stigma about fatness. Sadly, though, that's where the money is.