Last time, Childhood Obesity News considered deep brain stimulation, or DBS. Now, we revisit the brain to look at other research where mice took center stage, concerning a change on the cellular level that “accompanies obesity.” ScienceDaily says:

The findings could explain the body’s tendency to maintain undesirable weight levels, rather than an ideal weight…

One head of the research team is Ken Mackie, who teaches psychology and brain sciences at IU Bloomington. He is also affiliated with the university’s Gill Center for Biomolecular Science, which has long collaborated with Italy’s Institute of Biomolecular Chemistry, academic home of the other leader, Vincenzo Di Marzo.

The hypothalamus is where the molecular drama takes place, involving neurons and a switch and a “massive shift of receptors.” The writer says:

This neurochemical system is involved in a variety of physiological processes, including appetite, pain, mood, stress responses and memory. Food consumption is controlled in part by the hypothalamus, a portion of the brain that regulates many essential behaviors. Like other important body systems, food consumption is regulated by multiple neurochemical systems, including the endocannabinoid system…

Leptin also enters the equation, contributing to the tendency of the molecular switch to go wonky. Various chemical events upset the delicate balance of this complicated network, which then makes our stubborn, traitorous meat vehicles want to be fat. The research has identified a mechanism that causes this to happen and hopefully will show where pharmaceutical intervention could potentially do some good.

Bad Tenants

Methanobrevibacter smithii (familiarly called M. smithii) live inside us, and they are up to no good. They consume hydrogen, which they get from more genteel and helpful gut bacteria. The M. smithii organisms, ingrates that they are, repay the favor by producing methane gas, which seems to somehow make us fatter. Maybe by slowing down the travel time through the intestines, giving the opportunity for more nutrients (soon to be calories) to be leached out of it, which leads eventually to overweight.

Scientists believe that a breath test can predict future obesity. Maggie Fox of NBC News says:

Researchers are trying to figure out if it’s possible to kill off the guilty germ and help people lose weight. But they know better than to just kill gut bacteria willy-nilly — studies have shown that taking antibiotics can alter the balance of microbes in a bad way, causing stomach upset, allowing deadly infections such as C. difficile to take hold and, perhaps, even allowing a takeover by the obesity-generating germs.

False Path

Here from LiveScience.com is the lowdown a certain substance:

Botox, short for Botulinum toxin, is a neurotoxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. Though it is one of the most poisonous substances in the world, specialists use it in very small amounts… [P]erhaps its most popular use is cosmetic: Botox can smooth out facial wrinkles by paralyzing the muscles that cause them to form.

At some time in the recent past, a study was performed that seemed to show that gastric Botox injections could facilitate weight loss by making the stomach muscles relax, so they wouldn’t squeeze as hard. Food stays there longer and, if all goes as planned, the patient feels full. This wouldn’t make much difference to the absorption of nutrients, because most of that action takes place in the small intestine.

The same stuff that plastic surgeons squirt into people’s facial frown lines, gastroenterologists now stick tubes down people’s gullets to give them shots of in the stomach. The subjects of early research felt increased sensations of fullness, because the Botox would delay the speed of the stomach emptying. There seems to be a flaw in that reasoning, because compulsive eaters will eat far beyond the feeling of repletion and well into the discomfort zone. They don’t care. What’s a little pain in the midsection, when you’re feeding your face?

Anyway, the Botox thing, forget about it. Newer research from the Mayo Clinic has refuted it. ScienceBlog.com says:

This study invalidates those findings because it is larger, used ultrasound to ensure injections were properly placed, and limited bias by ensuring that neither physicians nor patients knew who received Botox and who received placebo injections.

So, while Botox does delay the exit of partly broken-down food from the stomach, it doesn’t lead to weight loss. The admittedly inevitable risks, other than a mild sore throat from the esophageal tube, seem to remain largely unspecified.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Key Shift in Brain That Creates Drive to Overeat Identified,” ScienceDaily, 04/29/13
Source: “Breath test might show it’s not your fault you’re fat,” NBCNews.com, 03/26/13
Source: “Stomach Botox Injections Don’t Help Weight Loss,” LiveScience, 01/28/13
Source: “Injecting botox into stomach does not promote weight loss,” ScienceBlog.com, 01/29/13
Image by fekaylius (Jason Wilson).

This year has already produced some interesting news relating to childhood obesity, with a lot of help from little rodents.

Deep Brain Stimulation, or DBS, for instance, involves inserting a devices into the brains of a mouse. Its home is stocked with low-calorie kibble 24/7, but high-fat food is made available for one hour per day. The mouse quickly catches on, and proceeds to pig out on the high-fat food before it can be taken away. “Get it while you can,” is the watchword.

But then… turn on the DBS and send some electrical impulses into the mouse’s nucleus accumbens, and equanimity is restored. The brain’s reward center feels like it has done something just as satisfying as an eating binge, and the critter remains uninterested by the opportunity to gorge itself. Next, turn the device off, and voila! The mouse reverts to its former self, lining up at the feeding trough when the daily offering of high-fat lunch appears.

Denise Chow wrote for The Huffington Post:

Since binge eating and other obesity-related behaviors have been linked to deficits of a chemical called dopamine, the researchers used deep brain stimulation to activate the dopamine type-2 receptor in the nucleus accumbens of mice.

One of this study’s senior authors is Tracy Bale, who teaches neuroscience to future veterinarians at the University of Pennsylvania, and the journalist quotes her, especially on the subject of the comparative safety of a neural implant, compared to bariatric surgery or even pharmaceuticals:

The things that drive people to overeat are part of the reward system. So, for example, if someone is under a lot of stress, or if they had a bad day, they might reward themselves with food. And bingeing is a component strongly linked with obesity… It sounds intimidating, but for this type of surgery, the morbidity rate is much less.

And this could be something for patients who don’t respond to drugs. Many drug companies are trying to target obesity by getting people to not feel hungry, but that doesn’t work. People aren’t overeating because they’re hungry. They’re eating because it tastes good, or makes them feel better. This treatment taps directly into that reward system.

This sounds awfully familiar, and not in a good way. In a creepy way. The original experiments on the pleasure centers of lab rats date from back in the 1950s, and speculative fiction writers glommed onto the idea. The “wirehead” became a character in the works of many different novelists. Like the rats, once supplied with the ability to stimulate their own brains’ pleasure centers, these fictional wireheads became addicts who would pretty much stimulate themselves to death via starvation and poor hygiene.

In Larry Niven’s imagined universe, the electronic brain implant is called a “droud,” and his character Louis Wu is the only human to have recovered from bondage to the droud. At least four other science fiction writers have included wireheading in their stories, but William S. Burroughs, in the 1959 novel Naked Lunch, may have been the first.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Brain & Obesity: Neural Implant Could Curb Overeating, Mouse Study Suggests,” The Huffington Post, 04/26/13
Image by Ramona Forcella.

New Jersey governor Chris Christie had “lap-band” surgery three months ago, and has since lost 40 pounds. He didn’t really intend to make headlines over this particular topic, but some pesky reporter called and said they had the story, and wouldn’t he like the opportunity to tell his side? Incredibly, this personal health choice ended up being the subject of a 40-minute press conference which the governor, to his credit, called ridiculous and silly.

Christie told the press he had tried “a whole bunch of other things” and also that the decision to have the surgery was more of a health and family issue than a political one. Maybe so, but it might be the most important political decision he ever made, because he wants to run for President next time around, and one of the things that has been stalling his political career, according to some advisers, is that he has been overweight his whole adult life.

Apparently the governor’s personality is not the most dulcet, and political enemies have taken advantage of that, plus his bulk, to characterize him as “throwing his weight around.” But he (or one of his image consultants) does have a sense of humor. Kate Zernike and Marc Santora reported for The New York Times:

In February, about a week before the surgery, Mr. Christie made light of the issue by munching on a doughnut in an appearance on the ‘Late Show With David Letterman.’

Going for the Homer Simpson fan demographic? Indeed, some supporters seem to regard the governor’s heft as part of his “brand,” making him “relatable,” and lending the “Everyman appeal.” A couple of days after the Christie press conference, Michelle Obama was a guest on the “Today” show. Like the classy First Lady she is, the leader of the Let’s Move! campaign declined to say more than that the governor’s surgery was a very personal matter, and proceeded to take the opportunity to make her own point:

We want to start working with kids when they’re young, so that they don’t have these challenges when they get older.

The NYT journalistic team also wrote:

The political pressures are real in a country that has not elected an obese president since William Howard Taft more than a century ago. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas lost more than a hundred pounds before seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. Former Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi told reporters interested in whether he would seek the 2012 Republican nomination to watch his waistline for clues.

Christie’s detractors are not the first to turn a politician’s weight problems against him. History is replete with rulers who were mocked, or maybe even despised and reviled for their fatness. King August III, known as Otyly, “the overweight one,” ruled Poland back in the 1700s and is mainly remembered for importing French chefs who made better doughnuts than the traditional Polish item. Described by historian Simon Winder as “pitiful” and “a helpless and catastrophic figure,” he nevertheless fathered 15 children while driving his country into ruin.

Louis XIV of France was called the Sun King, or Roi Soleil. Later on, Louis XVIII (pictured above) came along and was called, in mean-spirited rhyme, Roi Foteille. It means Armchair King, derived from the fact that because of his amazing girth and the gout he suffered from, servants carried or wheeled him around in a chair.

The Mongol leader Subedei, known as Genghis Khan’s Dog of War, was the only invader who ever conquered Russia. No horse could support his huge weight, and he had to be hauled to a position overlooking the battlefield in an iron chariot.

A ruler with a similar inability to ride a horse was Sancho I, king of Leon (part of Spain) back in the 900s. He couldn’t even draw his sword properly, because his flab got in the way. The nobles believed his obesity to be a sign of moral turpitude, and kicked him off the throne. But then… Here is how Tamim Ansary describes the situation, in his book Destiny Disrupted:

Sancho then heard about a Jewish physician named who reputedly knew how to cure obesity. Hisdai was employed by the Muslim ruler in Cordoba, so Sancho headed south [...] to seek treatments… Abdul Rahman the Third welcomed Sancho as an honored guest and had him stay at the royal palace until Hisdai had shrunk him down, whereupon Sancho returned to Leon, reclaimed his throne, and signed a treaty of friendship with Abdul Rahman.

Olaf II of Norway was known as “The Stout” or “The Fat,” but he later became an official saint according to the Catholic Church. So take that, skinny people.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Weight Led Governor to Surgery,” The New York Times, 05/07/13
Source: “First Lady: Christie’s struggle with weight,” NJ.com, 05/09/13
Image by Wikimedia.org.

Burger Addiction is a new restaurant chain starting up in Australia. Some highlights from online reviews: A woman who went on opening day waited half an hour, from order to first bite, and was disappointed by the meal. The burgers come with all sorts of trimmings, among them garlic aioli, kim chi, cucumber, pulled pork, blue cheese, caramelized onion, tomato, greens, and whiskey barbecue sauce. Despite the exotic ingredients and combinations, customers have found some flavors indistinguishable or insipid, and other flavors unpleasantly overpowering.

The best thing one person could find to say was that Burger Addiction burgers are not as greasy as McDonald’s. But then, another review, which references grease dripping from the wrapper, kind of cancels out that one. And there seems to be a general feeling that the product is a bit pricey for food-court fare.

But it’s the name that really wins a place in the annals of infamy. As Dr. Pretlow says, “The food industry obviously understands why consumers eat.” The definition of addiction seems still to be largely a matter of semantics, and the new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders doesn’t shed much light. Binge eating disorder is now recognized as a clinical entity, and the criteria for mild substance abuse disorder now require two or three symptoms instead of one. But more on that another time.

Whether it’s called compulsive eating, or a type of body-focused repetitive behavior that just happens to involve moving a handful of food to the mouth many more times than is necessary, or whether you go with the easily understandable tag of food addiction, something very real is going on. Let’s just throw in a quotation from Dr. Douglas Hunt, author of the 1988 book No More Cravings:

One cannot deny the pleasurable sensations that one receives when indulging, but this is the benefit, not the cause, of overeating.

In other words, the root of food addiction is in the person, and the hyperpalatable concoctions invented by food companies are standing by, ready and willing to aid and abet the tendency. It’s not new, of course. For just one little example, here’s a Pinterest page that combines burger addiction (not the restaurant, the plain old English phrase) and food porn!

Exactly how addictive are burgers, anyway? Can beef patties really be a substance of abuse? Decades ago, Dr. Hunt linked food allergies with food cravings, and cravings are indicative of addiction. Beef, he said, is something that people are commonly allergic to. People are often both allergic to, and hooked on, the same foods. For some reason, many anecdotal accounts name beef jerky as particularly and literally addictive.

George Pamplona-Roger, in Foods That Heal, writes:

The stimulant hypoxanthine, not any special properties of its protein, vitamins, or minerals is responsible for the satisfying and stimulating effects of meat… Hypoxanthine and other similar substances [...] are present in meat… They are central nervous system stimulants. They are addictive. Hypoxanthine explains the stimulating effect of meat and it’s capacity to create a certain level of addiction, which manifests itself when meat is given up abruptly.

Here is an interesting testimonial from the website MeatJunkie.com, from a man whose doctor laughed at him:

My name is Tyler Cole, and I’m a recovering meat addict… [M]y own first attempt at quitting wrecked me… Again and again I tried to quit, but for several years breakfast meats in particular continued to get the best of me. Finally in early 1999 I kicked the habit for good, and just this past year I realized that my repeated failures were nothing more than the agony of withdrawal followed by the joy of relapse. And upon recognizing this classic cycle of addiction, I finally knew something for certain. Meat can be just as addictive as any other drug.

Health journalist Robert Rister has advised readers to “Kick Your Meat Addiction“:

The proteins in beef blood [...] activate the same receptors in the brain and spinal cord that respond to oxycodone, hydroxycodone, opium, and heroin. Hamburgers, cheeseburgers [...] are literally addictive… The way these foods trap our appetites is through their action on specialized sites known as mu-opioid receptors on cells in part of the spinal cord known as the substantia gelatinosa of Rolando… This part of the spinal cord transmits poorly localized, vague aches and pains. When these cells are activated, we feel bad, but we don’t know why… The rush of happiness we feel after we eat is so strong that our brains start looking for more of the meat (more specifically, beef blood)…

And one more, from troubled citizen Steve Heilig:

I am a meat addict. [...] Our ancestors were able to eat more animals 80,000 years ago, and the increased protein allowed our brains to grow bigger. With that meat, we also got heavy hits of amino acids like l-tyrosine, needed to synthesize dopamine — the neurotransmitter that controls our brain’s reward and pleasure functions. Addiction experts say it’s all about dopamine. And meat is one way to get that rush.

Burger Addiction offers “grain-fed cattle” as a selling point. We won’t go into the whys and wherefores of the grain-fed versus grass-fed debate here, but rest assured, plenty of researchers stand prepared to give multiple reasons why stuffing beef cattle with grain is a bad idea. While “grass-fed cattle” would be an attractive and meaningful selling point for many people, “grain-fed cattle” is a big yawn.

Burger Addiction’s corporate logo depicts what appears to be a burger, consuming a stylized heart. Huh? The reasons behind that artistic choice shall remain forever obscure, but might be worth giving some thought.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Foods That Heal,” Google.com
Source: “What is Meat Addiction?,” Meat Junkie.com
Source: “Kick Your Meat Addiction,” SteadyHealth.com, 08/17/11
Source: “Confessions of a Meat Addict,” The Huffington Post, 05/08/12
Image by Stephen Allison, M.D.

Did you know that YouTube offers over 12,000 items under the heading of “Food Porn”? It comes right through the computer screen, and a person can stare at food porn all day long without being ostracized by the community. The consumption of food porn has probably never been the grounds for a single divorce. It is not sent to the traditional mailbox in a plain brown wrapper, to frustrate the curiosity of neighbors and the postman, as was the custom in the days of relatively innocuous girlie magazines.

A couple of years ago, encouraged by the success of a campaign to require that tobacco products be sold in plain, rather than colorful, packaging, a group of Australian activists suggested doing the same with junk food. Generic packaging, they believe, should be more widely employed, along with yucky pictures of the end results of overindulgence in the product.

The Adam Smith Research Trust issued a report about all of this, noting that:

The most obvious targets would be alcohol, fatty foods and sugary drinks…

Imagine grabbing a can of cola, bringing its condensation-rimmed brim up to your mouth, and catching sight of the graphic on the side of the cylinder – bariatric surgery in progress. Would it make a difference?

While this topic was trending in the southern hemisphere, The Atlantic published a huge article by Marc Ambinder, which was a sort of “state of obesity” report. Among many other aspects and facets of world obesity, he demonstrated that people have different definitions of fat porn:

Obesity has become not just a scientific fad of sorts, generating intense research, curiosity, and public concern, but also a commercial gold mine that draws on the same kind of audiences that used to go to circus carnivals a century ago to peer at freakishly obese men and women.

Family TV Examples

The writer went on to describe various television shows and episodes that struck him as particularly objectionable, because despite their declared purpose of public service or education, they really seemed to be just presenting obese people as targets of ridicule. Ambinder wrote:

The impact of ‘fat porn’ on fat people is counterproductive… [T]here is little evidence that increasing stigma actually reduces obesity rates. And plenty of evidence shows that stigma makes fat people more likely to feel depressed, to experience stress, to receive poorer medical care, to experience discrimination in the workplace, to go on eating binges, and to duck exercise.

The sassy pop culture journalists of Jezebel have been on the case for a long time. Writer Irin Carmon was particularly interested in the fact that Marc Ambinder had bariatric surgery and noted:

[...] Ambinder does strike the delicate balance between raising concerns about obesity’s public and personal health repercussions, and staying away from fat-shaming. He also does a good job of clearly noting his class privilege — the money to sink into diet and exercise solutions, and then to have a $30,000 surgery not covered by insurance — and contrasting it with an analysis of the sociopolitical factors that contribute to childhood obesity in various low-income groups.

Real Fat Porn

But watching fat people bounce around trying to exercise, or struggling into and out of airplane seats, is only one kind of fat porn, the milder and socially acceptable kind. Out there in the wilds of cyberspace, the searcher can find every kind of fat porn subspecialty — pregnant, drunk, mature, hairy, even Australian. One website offers “chubby galls” [sic], typical of the general level of ignorance in the field.

Elsewhere, a young woman, Kelly Shibari, reveals how she is both a fat porn star and a role model. In Los Angeles, she was doing fine as a freelance production designer, until a major film industry strike caused jobs to disappear. A friend in the “adult” industry turned her on to the world of websites featuring overweight women glamorously dressed (or undressed) and made up like movie stars.

The rest is second-career history, and also where the role model claim enters the picture. Shibari writes:

[T]he number one thing I’ve always maintained is to be true to myself — and that means I’m a confident, brainy, nerdy, slightly dorky (okay, mostly dorky) fat Asian girl who doesn’t mind being naked… I’ve been able to use my status as a performer to run fundraisers, speak at marketing conferences, produce and direct my own projects… Where my ‘role-modeling’ comes in is to share the importance of being confident in yourself, to try as many things as possible, be open to life changes, and don’t let a little thing like what other people think of you get you down.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Beating Obesity,” The Atlantic, 04/13/10
Source: “On Obesity: Fat Chicks And Fat ‘Porn’ As Entertainment,” Jezebel, 04/13/10
Source: “It Happened to me: I’m a Fat Porn Star,” xoJane, 11/16/12
Image by birgerking.

Before returning to the fascinating subject of food porn, excuse us for a moment while we pat ourselves on the back for being astute spotters of talent and relevance. Yes, Childhood Obesity News covered ChopChop way before it was chosen “Publication of the Year” by the prestigious James Beard Foundation.

As J. M Hirsch reported for Foster’s Daily Democrat:

The foundation’s awards honor those who follow in the footsteps of Beard, considered the dean of American cooking when he died in 1985… The pages of this year’s top food publication don’t read like your average gourmet glossy. That’s because the only trend ChopChop magazine [...] cares about is how to get America’s children eating healthier. Billed as the ‘fun cooking magazine for families,’ ChopChop was launched in 2010 by cookbook author Sally Sampson to give parents and kids the tools to fight childhood obesity.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are “foodie magazines” which are sternly indicted by Susan J. Douglas of In These Times. She describes their covers as lurid and their contents as pornography. Although there are numerous examples from which to choose, she begins by mentioning the covers of recent issues of Saveur (donuts) and The New York Times Magazine (a fried item entering somebody’s mouth).

The NY Times photo seems to particularly annoy this writer because the article to which it is connected purports to lament what the magazine calls the “addiction-creating battle for American ‘stomach share.’” It is, in other words, an exposé of the food industry’s evil ways. So maybe it could have avoided using such a suggestive picture.

America, Douglas opines, may have the sickest relationship with food that can be found anywhere on the planet. And what about the confusion, the contradictions, the cognitive dissonance involved in all this conflict between health and rewarding our wonderful selves with garbage dressed up as food? Douglas writes:

Advertisers equate fatty and sugar-laden food with having fun, making friends, rewarding oneself and, indeed, even having ersatz sex — while public health officials say eat more carrots and celery… Food manufacturers hire experts on the relationship between the brain and food cravings, which has led some companies to elevate the amount of sugar or salt in a product until they find consumers’ ‘bliss point.’ [...] So what is Saveur, allegedly a gourmet magazine, doing wetting its pants over globs of dough, fat and sugar? Why doesn’t it just call this ‘the Diabetes Issue’?

The journalist, a communications professor, is not a fan of such cultural artifacts as donut-eating and milkshake-drinking contests. People win prizes for disgustingly stuffing themselves with pseudo-food? Indecency can be found on about half a dozen levels. She also condemns the food industry’s online strategies for bringing the joy of junk food to children in the form of video games and the like. The perversion of a lot of scientific and medical (and publishing) talent into the production of food porn is in itself obscene. Douglas writes:

It’s no surprise that Big Food uses every medium at its disposal to stoke Americans’ addiction to crap foods. But when allegedly high-toned food magazines and various food networks legitimate behaviors that contribute to a costly public health problem, it is time to call them out.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Beards name ChopChop top food publication of 2013,” Fosters.com, 05/08/13
Source: “Bingeing on Food Porn,” InTheseTimes.com, 03/13/13
Image by EvelynGiggles.

As posts flow by on the Facebook stream, there are occasional pictures of food — and if you pick the right crowd, you don’t see too many of them. If someone invents a new dish, or a charming presentation, or makes an unusual combination, sure, fine, show it off. But the pictures of “What I Ate For Lunch,” or the ones that have no meaning, purpose, or connection with the person — what’s up with that?

Dr. Valerie Taylor is chief of psychiatry at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, and she recently spoke at the Canadian Obesity Summit about the deep connections between pictorial representations of food and the individual psyche. Sending friends and strangers photos of what you ate, or are about to eat, or wish you could eat, can be a sign of struggle. The senders might be fighting against the tendency of the food to take over and become, rather than the companionship or the conversation, the central facet of every social interaction.

As Tyler Kingkade reported for The Huffington Post, Dr. Taylor sees the obsessive documentation of one’s meals via Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media as possibly indicative of big trouble. Contributors to the photo-sharing service Flickr have devoted a whole huge category to food porn. If it was only there for the convenience of bloggers writing about the perversity of food porn, that would be one thing.

But there are far more food porn pictures available than writers writing about it. Dr. Taylor also mentioned body art, the permanent kind. Tattoos of food seem to be gaining in popularity. A quick Google Image search for “food tattoo” produces appalling results. Kingkade writes:

While Taylor admitted that sharing photos of food on social media is relatively common, she said that in some cases it can come at the exclusion of everything else. The concern becomes when all they do is send pictures of food. We take pictures of things that are important to us, and for some people, the food itself becomes central and the rest -– the venue, the company, et cetera — is background.

Television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz has featured the subject of “food porn” on his show, and believes that shiny, ultra-attractive pictures of food are a contributing factor to the increasing obesity of our society in general. It seems to be a subject worth looking into.

We are constantly exposed to photos that make us drool. Do the two-dimensional representations somehow take the place of actual consumption and help prevent overeating, as proposed by one of the theories around the other kind of pornography? Or do the photos stimulate us to jump right up and eat something, anything?

Is it different for different people? Is it different for children and adults? Should people fighting obesity make an active effort to avoid running into all these enticing, inviting visuals? Should there be a law against them? And what about the First Amendment?

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Instagramming Your Food May Signal Bigger Problem, Researcher Says,” The Huffington Post, 05/07/13
Image by ChefMattRock.

We saw how fathers can genetically influence the weight of their children, or at least the weight of their daughters, as shown by an Australian study.

Medical Xpress recently wrote about the work being done at University College London with genome-wide complex trait analysis, or GTCA. This is a technique that “estimates the combined effects of all known common genes across the whole genome, associated with childhood body weight.”

The subjects were 2,269 children aged 8 to 11. The study’s lead author, Clare Llewellyn, of the Health Behaviour Research Centre, is quoted as saying:

These findings are important because they confirm that in children genes play a very important role in determining body weight. At present only a few genetic variants have been discovered, and these explain a very small amount of individual differences in body weight (~2%). These findings suggest there are hundreds of other genetic variants influencing body weight that are yet to be discovered.

The article explains the concept of “missing heritability,” saying:

32 genes have been identified as risk factors for obesity but previous analyses suggest that these genes alone cannot fully explain the high level of heritability in childhood obesity, as together they explain only 2% of individual differences in childhood body weight.

Four genes associated with severe childhood obesity were discovered by a Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute study whose first author is Dr. Eleanor Wheeler, who is quoted by Science Codex:

We’ve known for a long time that changes to our genes can increase our risk of obesity. For example, the gene FTO has been unequivocally associated with BMI, obesity and other obesity-related traits. In our study of severely obese children, we found that variations in or near two of the newly associated genes seem to have a comparable or greater effect on obesity than the FTO gene…

The article also quotes co-lead author, Professor Sadaf Farooqi, of the University of Cambridge:

Some children will be obese because they have severe mutations, but our research indicates that some may have a combination of severe mutations and milder acting variants that in combination contribute to their obesity.

The other co-lead author, Dr. Inȇs Barroso, of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, says:

Our study adds evidence that a range of both rare and common genetic variants are responsible for severe childhood obesity.

But then, other scientists maintain that genetics count for very little, and the obesogenic environment is the main villain, or rather comprises a whole collection of villains — fast food on every corner, technological innovations, hardly anyone cooking at home anymore, cheap junk food, giant sugary drinks, vending machines, etc., etc.

Scientific American writer Tara Haelle says:

New evidence is confirming that the environment kids live in has a greater impact than factors such as genetics, insufficient physical activity or other elements in efforts to control child obesity. Three new studies, published in the April 8 Pediatrics, land on the import of the ‘nurture’ side of the equation and focus on specific circumstances in children’s or teen’s lives that potentially contribute to unhealthy bulk.

Three studies are mentioned here, chosen from a larger number of possible indictments. One study found that the size of the plate on which food is served makes a difference. Going against the theory that obesity is a disease of inactivity, Prof. David Bickham, Harvard Medical School, says that video games and computer screen time have no effect on a child’s body mass index, and television only does if watching it is the main activity and the child isn’t doing something else at the same time. Another study explored sleep, and found that if teenagers would get more of it, they would be less obese.

The writer also quotes Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, the University of Ottowa, who says:

This is a lot more complicated than ‘eat less, exercise more. If weight management or childhood obesity prevention and treatment were intuitive, we’d have a lot of skinny kids running around. If we had a time machine, it would be the world’s best weight-loss program. It’s the world that has changed, not people.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Study finds strong genetic component to childhood obesity,” Medical Xpress, 03/26/13
Source: “Finding genes for childhood obesity,” Science Codex, 04/07/13
Source: “Consumption Junction: Childhood Obesity Determined Largely by Environmental Factors, Not Genes or Sloth,” Scientific American, 04/09/13
Image by Aaron McIntyre.

There are studies showing that poverty correlates with childhood obesity. For instance, in 2010 Harvard Medical School issued study results that showed:

[...] black and Hispanic children were more likely than white children to have gained weight rapidly during infancy. What’s more, they spent less time breast-feeding, were introduced to solid foods sooner, consumed more fast foods and sugar-sweetened beverages, slept less, and had television sets in their bedrooms during the first three years of life — all risk factors for childhood obesity. Black and Hispanic mothers were also more likely to begin their pregnancies overweight or obese…

Childhood Obesity News has talked a lot about the EarlyBird Diabetes Study, which brought a lot of interesting facts to life. But there is a drawback — it’s almost all white. The subjects are 250 kids, of whom only five are mixed-race and the rest are Caucasian. Is this why they produced different results?

The EarlyBird Study results declared that social inequality is not associated with physical inactivity, and that kids who have green spaces and sports centers do not gain from their privileges because having those facilities available doesn’t influence the level of a child’s activity. The report said:

Like most things biological, a child’s activity level seems to be ‘set’ by the brain, and therefore strongly defended against change… The assumption that children of lower socio-economic status suffer from their lack of structured opportunity for physical activity is not reflected in the evidence. Indeed, analysis suggests that poorer boys may be marginally more, rather than less, active than those who are wealthier.

Social inequalities no longer a major factor in obesity. All children today are at risk, regardless of family income or postcode.

The EarlyBird Study is undeniably right about its main conclusion — the importance of early intervention. Why? The study authors state unequivocally:

EarlyBird finds that over 90% of the excess weight in girls, and over 70% in boys, is gained before the child ever gets to school age… Most excess weight is gained before the child ever starts school. School initiatives are probably too late.

Some parents are anxious to know what they can do right now, for babies and preschool-age children. The InteliHealth website recommends several courses of action — breastfeed if possible, avoid overfeeding a baby, and leave the fruit juice in the supermarket.

Another suggestion is, don’t take along juice or milk on outings. Water is fine, and everybody needs plenty of it every day, but except under unusual circumstances, it shouldn’t be necessary to take along other drinks or food.

Many American children never have the chance to discover that, if they are hungry for a little while, the world won’t end. MedPage Today recommends pretty much the same list, and adds this interesting thought:

Seeking solutions from ‘positive deviants,’ i.e., families who have succeeded where many others have not to change their health behaviors, maintain their child’s body mass index, and develop resilience in the context of sometimes adverse environments, could provide strategies for interventions that can be generalized and promoted to improve the outcomes of other children.

Positive deviants are people like the Talifero family, who believe not only in starting early, but in setting the bar really high. They advocate the Garden Diet  — “100% raw organic vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts and sprouts.” The mother, Jinjee, experienced two births when living on a cooked vegan diet, and two births when on a raw-vegan diet, and says the latter two were painless. They made a fascinating indie film, Breakthrough (available by subscription), which features such marvels as these:

Storm’s 300 lb. nephew is filmed over a three month period losing 75 lbs. on the raw vegan diet. In an exhilarating sequence of scenes Storm’s eldest son Snow who was born raw-vegan and spent much of his life as a raw-vegan is shown climbing 7-story high Gibraltar Rock in Santa Barbara with no ropes.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Targeting childhood obesity early,” Harvard Gazette, 09/18/12
Source: “Key Findings from EarlyBird,” EarlyBirdDiabetes.org
Source: “Study: Kids’ Weight Gain Comes Early,” InteliHealth.com, 01/05/09
Source: “Target Obesity Early to Succeed in Kids,” MedPage Today, 10/29/12
Image by lecates.

Last time, Childhood Obesity News considered a study that showed the stress of poverty leading to depressed mothers and overfed, obese infants. Now, what about the effect of financial rewards on adults? The Mayo Clinic did a study that included 100 employees or dependents of employees and followed them for a year, which is longer than previous financial motivation studies have lasted.

The study’s lead author, Dr. Steven Driver, M.D., and team divided the subjects into four groups. Two were offered financial rewards and two groups were not. The Mayo Clinic says:

All participants were given a goal of losing 4 pounds per month up to a predetermined goal weight… Participants in the incentive groups who met their goals received $20 per month, while those who failed to meet their targets paid $20 each month into a bonus pool. Participants in both incentive groups who completed the study were eligible to win the pool by lottery.

Study completion rates for the incentive groups were significant compared with the non-incentive groups: 62 percent versus 26 percent. In the incentive groups, participants’ mean weight loss was 9.08 pounds, compared with 2.34 pounds for the non-incentive groups.

The weird part is, even the participants who had to pay penalties — who lost money — were more likely to stick with the program than the control groups who didn’t have the lure and reward of $20. This may show that human responses to situations involving both food and money are far from rational.

Importance of Early Intervention

These side trails are interesting and revealing, but tangential to the main subject of recent posts — the importance of early intervention in preventing childhood obesity. We have also looked at the many reasons why this is so important. Here is another one, from the University of Illinois, whose recent study:

[...] established a possible link between high-fat diets and such childhood brain-based conditions as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and memory-dependent learning disabilities.

Experiments with mice indicate that a high intake of fat affects the metabolism of dopamine in the brain. Anxiety and learning deficiencies are the results. Naturally, anything that affects a child’s ability to do well in school must be addressed, and the anxiety factor is just as serious if not more so.

Anxiety is a cause of compulsive eating, and compulsive eating is a road down which we don’t want kids to go. Here are some details, quoted in ScienceDaily, from Prof. Gregory Freund:

After only one week of the high-fat diet, even before we were able to see any weight gain, the behavior of the mice in the first group began to change.

One of the effects was memory loss, which was able to be reversed by putting the mice back on a low-fat diet. Here is the ominous part:

In mice that continued on the high-fat diet, impaired object recognition remained three weeks after the onset of symptoms. But Freund knows from other studies that brain biochemistry normalizes after 10 weeks as the body appears to compensate for the diet. At that point, brain dopamine has returned to normal, and mice have become obese and developed diabetes…

The researchers [...] saw evidence that a high-fat diet initiates chemical responses that are similar to the ones seen in addiction, with dopamine, the chemical important to the addict’s pleasurable experiences, increasing in the brain.

This may fit in with one of the findings of the EarlyBird Diabetes Study, which contradicts some of the established beliefs about insulin resistance. This problem was previously thought to be linked to the onset of puberty, triggering a tendency to develop diabetes. The EarlyBird researchers say that on the contrary, insulin resistance begins many years before. This is a major piece of knowledge, they say, because because while puberty can’t be helped, obesity can be prevented, and the earlier the better.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Money Talks When It Comes to Losing Weight, Mayo Clinic Study Finds,” Multibriefs.com, 03/07/13
Source: “Is There a Link Between Childhood Obesity and ADHD, Learning Disabilities?,” ScienceDaily, 02/19/13
Source: “Key Findings from EarlyBird,” EarlyBirdDiabetes.org
Image by MissMessie.