The Historical Psychology of Fat

Over the centuries of human life on Earth, obesity has always been a judgment magnet. Through a long chapter of European history, vast populations of serfs were ruled by a tiny minority of “nobles,” or people with inherited wealth. To the average peasant, a wealthy person’s obesity translated as a painful reminder that peasants were always expected to get along on almost nothing.

For a rich man to be fat was the classic example of adding insult to injury. For him to have a fat wife was what we today would call a “flex,” the cultural equivalent of owning a car that every man who saw it would envy. He was telling the world, “I can afford to support a human who does nothing but eat, and pop out a kid once in a while.”

An overweight member of the royal family was a man whose appearance publicly and proudly announced, “I spend half my day devouring rare, expensive, and fattening foods that you peasants can’t even dream of tasting. Furthermore, there is no such thing as an overweight duke, because however much a duke weighs is, by definition, the correct amount. And oh, by the way, I have never done a day’s actual work in my life.”

Times were hard

Long before money as we know it had arrived on the scene, there were many possible reasons for the lack of food. Maybe no seeds were available to plant because their storage space flooded, or rodents ate them. Maybe there was a drought, or an insect invasion. Or all the healthy men were taken from their fields and sent off to fight the king’s stupid war.

At a different stage of history, there might be no harvest because farm machinery parts were unavailable. Or the civilian population’s food resources might be limited because of rationing, necessary due to another king’s unnecessary war.

At any rate, if some people looked emaciated, the reasons for lack of nutrition were widely comprehended. Regular people understood that only the rich could afford to be well-nourished. Also, the rich could get away with insulting the poor for not carrying much body fat, and thus publicly announcing their low status in the class system, as if it wasn’t clear enough already. In various times and places, this attitude persisted through the centuries.

Bad attitudes

The sight of a skinny person could inspire such cruel reactions as, “You are not worthy of the expenditure of food required to keep you alive” (which would, of course, be verbalized in a much cruder and crueler way). On the most basic level, the obvious implication of pointing out someone’s thinness is “Your mother didn’t love you enough to feed you.” That universally applicable insult is a rude assertion that can be expressed in numerous ways and cause a literal gut reaction.

At the level of least ugliness, the hidden meaning behind insulting someone’s thinness is, “Obviously, you are too lazy to work for your daily bread.” (Otherwise, there would be some meat on your bones.) Some societies do try to feed people.

And of course, there are always a certain number of citizens who hate to be taxed just for the sake of feeding children. Such folks may not even recognize why they feel so strongly about it. But the subconscious mind of this person may be putting up an objection like, “Why should I care about, and be financially responsible for, babies whose own parents don’t even care enough to nourish them?” The thought process here is, “People are required to deserve every bite of food, and if they can’t manage to do that, too bad for them; it’s not my problem.”

There is plenty of blame to go around. A well-fed person might look at a starveling and think, “You don’t work, so why should you eat?” In other contexts, no such resentment has occurred. In India, over the centuries, millions of people have earned spiritual merit by filling the rice bowls of monks who give up everything to spend their whole lives praying for the world and every creature in it.

Nowadays

Recent history has shown us that, counterintuitively, poverty can cause obesity because of the weird ingredients added to hundreds of food products. When it comes to emotions about body size, a lot of deep subconscious material is involved. In recent history, it has been relatively easy to understand why a low income has so readily caused people to be underweight. Quite obviously, the main cause of malnourishment is: not enough money for groceries.

During what is called the Great Depression, for instance, Americans understood this equation all too well. By and large, on the whole, it was a pretty well-settled and comprehensible fact that poor people tended to be thin and rich people tended to be obese.

There seems to be an overwhelming number of reasons to scorn people who are visibly obese. It used to make more sense when it meant, “I hate you because you obviously are rich, and probably keep all the food for yourself, and don’t share.” Except now, that instinct misses the mark, and it is actually more probable that an obese person is not rich. Of course, in some quarters, it is considered okay to hate skinny people.

According to one study,

[I]ncome […] is linked to higher health literacy which, in turn, is positively related to health-promoting behaviors (ie, healthy nutrition, physical activity).

(To be continued…)

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Income and obesity: what is the direction of the relationship? A systematic review and meta-analysis,” NIH.gov, January 2018
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That Reciprocal Causation Trap

Journalists in the obesity field have written about why poor people become overweight, and also about how overweight people can become economically disadvantaged. Between those two inconvenient facts, a mutual causative relationship exists, which has been mentioned previously by Childhood Obesity News.

To say “mentioned” is an understatement, because the issue has many facets, and to effectively illustrate them all requires more than a few words.

Brief generalization: People on the lower end of the economic scale are vulnerable to obesity because financial conditions often restrict their access to health-inducing foods, and also preclude many sorts of healthcare, both preventive and curative.

Limits and caution

When some thought is invested in the issue, it is easy to pinpoint specifics. For example, people with low or no income are unlikely to travel across town for more reasonable food prices. Volume discounts are tempting, but even if all three of the kids wear backpacks, there is a limit to how many cans of beans can be transported home on the bus.

Vegetables can last a long time in a freezer, if a family is fortunate enough to have one. If the opportunity arises to get hold of multiple large bags of peas or corn on sale, a supply of low-calorie veggies is a wonderful asset for a health-conscious family. But first… You need to have a freezer.

Low-income people often have no choice other than to live in a dangerous neighborhood. A walk after supper, to burn a few calories, sounds like a swell idea, until you get mugged. Low-income people generally can’t afford gym memberships, and while there is no guarantee that a person with that opportunity will make the best use of it, the odds are certainly better than when they are not even allowed through the door.

Official documentation

Let’s look at a typical, fairly recent government-published report on a systematic review and meta-analysis that explored the phenomenon in depth, pointing out that obesity can be a causative factor of poverty, as “obese people drift into lower-income jobs due to labor–market discrimination and public stigmatization.” It was by no means the first document to highlight this reciprocal effect, and will certainly not be the last.

That meta-analysis encompassed 21 studies: two from Canada, three from the United Kingdom, and 16 originating in the United States. Its conclusions did not cause worldwide headlines, but indicated that persistent examination of the topic could potentially lead to a meaningful increase in attention, especially when a growing awareness of what goes into food products does not correlate with any serious efforts to change the habits of food manufacturers.

Society’s ability to ignore signs of corporate malfeasance is only one roadblock. Individuals are acutely aware of inequities in their everyday lives. Even when other factors are equal, obese people tend to be passed over for job opportunities. Clothes that fit may be prohibitively expensive. Even if people can afford gym memberships, the embarrassment factor may prevent them from doing so.

Thousands of individuals, if asked, could add thousands of examples of how body weight and size can turn everyday life into an ordeal:

Findings suggest that there is more consistent evidence for reverse causality. Therefore, there is a need to examine reverse causality processes in more detail to understand the relation between income and obesity… Obesity is a major risk factor for all-cause mortality, a number of non-communicable diseases and reduced quality of life.

Why does this even matter? Because in general, all the associated numbers are going up, with no indication of reversal any time soon. A very specific possibility on the horizon is the shadow of a reinstated military draft, along with hints of war that are more than subtle. Once America wakes up to the reality of how few conscription-ready individuals are suitable to be trained as soldiers, there might be a problem.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Income and obesity: what is the direction of the relationship? A systematic review and meta-analysis,” NIH.gov, January 2018
Images by hellbergstina and Mohamed_hassan/Pixabay

It’s Sodi-licious

A recent post observed that, rather than decreasing, the amounts of fat, sodium, and sugar in manufactured breakfast cereals have only continued to increase. Over the past decade, journalists in the health field have unrelentingly noted that such products — especially those aimed at children — inevitably include more and more sugar, sodium, and fat. It is almost as if attentive reporting on the topic has perversely led the situation to become even worse.

Plenty of information appears printed on food packaging, and an abundance of articles about the contents of those packages are published through various media. Regarding the boxes, cans, bottles, and other food packages, along with the journalism about what is inside them, why don’t all these information sources just go ahead and say, “Salt”? Is someone just showing off with fancy words, or what? Sodium and salt, aren’t they the same?

As it turns out…

After consulting Sharon Small, a dietitian who specializes in counseling patients about their cardiovascular health, journalist Wendy Bazilian reported:

Sodium is a mineral and a key component of salt. Salt is actually called sodium chloride because it is made up of 40% sodium and 60% chloride… [W]hile your body needs sodium to function properly, too much (typically consumed as salt) can increase the risk of certain health issues.

There can be sodium without salt, but not salt without sodium. A food or drink may contain sodium but no salt. Sodium is an element and a metal. Salt is made of two things, sodium and chlorine, and is not as bad for the body as sodium alone. Sodium does vital things for the body, but unaccompanied and in too large a quantity, it can damage the kidneys and can lead to high blood pressure and stroke risk.

The two main sources, and an additive

Sea salt comes from the ocean and is less processed than table salt. Table salt comes not from tables, but from mines, and is more processed. For many years, sellers of salt have included iodine with their product. Because salt is consumed almost universally, it was seen as the ideal vehicle through which to slip in enough iodine to prevent a massive public health crisis.

If a human thyroid gland is to function effectively, it needs iodine. Without it, the thyroid is unable to properly do its job regarding “metabolic rate, heart and digestive functions, muscle control, brain development, and bone health.” If a fetus does not get enough iodine, the results can include physical deformities and cognitive impairment.

Even with salt vendors doing their best, it is estimated that around two billion members of the earth’s human population experience health issues due to iodine insufficiency.

The food industry

In the USA, the average adult absorbs about 3,400 milligrams per day of sodium, but 2,300 mg (about a teaspoonful) is widely acknowledged to be quite enough. The stodgy old American Heart Association, however, would actually prefer no more than 1,500 mg per day, or less than half the amount actually consumed by the average grownup.

Most of the incoming sodium uses packaged foods and restaurant meals for its delivery system, concentrating on 10 main popular products. Few of those choices contain any form of vegetation, unless you count the sauce on pizza.

Even a responsible eater who never even picks up a salt shaker most likely absorbs way too much sodium. This causes the professionals who spend their lives studying these matters to mention such topics as hypertension, heart disease, and stroke. Oh, and kidney stones. Often, the effects do not manifest until the window of opportunity for redemption has passed.

A question that a reasonable person might ask is, “If sodium is problematic, why don’t the manufacturers just leave it out, and let people salt their food according to taste?” Apparently, because some other, less civic-minded manufacturer will go ahead and include salt, and consequently sell more product.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “ Salt vs. Sodium: What’s the Difference? Health Experts Explain,” EatingWell.com, 12/31/25
Source: “Why Does Salt Have Iodine Added To It?,” SeaSalt.com, undated
Image by Couleur/Pixabay

It’s the Newsiest — Breakfast, Cereal, and Kids

A particular news story appeared almost exactly a year ago, in response to a major journal’s publication of “Nutritional Content of Ready-to-Eat Breakfast Cereals Marketed to Children.” That all-too-typical piece announced that breakfast cereals are “filled with increasing amounts of sugar, fat and sodium,” a statement equally true at this very moment in time.

Does anyone out there believe that the situation has improved since then? If so, we have a very attractive bridge to sell you. Sorry, but no, the shameful trend has not reversed. Oh, and guess what? “The study also found that cereals’ protein and fiber content — nutrients essential for a healthy diet — have been in decline.” That sobering fact is just as true today as it was 12 months ago, and we feel confident in betting that it will be even more true a year in the future.

The original article concerned the analysis of 1,200 new or reformulated cereal products that had appeared on the market over the previous decade and a half. Most of them were products that had already existed, with a few minor tweaks thrown into the mix. Not improvements, just inconsequential changes. Study co-author Shuoli Zhao mentioned the existence of “evolving consumer awareness about the links between excess consumption of sugar, salt and saturated fat and chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension and cancer.”

And yet…

But somehow, marketing strategy has not reflected any awareness of increasing customer intelligence, or of elevated industrial integrity. Professor Zhao is quoted as saying,

What’s most surprising to me is that the healthy claims made on the front of these products and the nutritional facts on the back are actually going in the opposite direction.

The study found that the total fat content per serving of newly launched breakfast cereals increased nearly 34% between 2010 and 2023, and sodium content climbed by 32%. Sugar content in the newly introduced products rose by nearly 11%, according to the analysis. Kellogg Company, General Mills and Post Holdings, the three largest makers of breakfast cereals in the United States, did not respond to requests for comment.

Well, what remains to be said? Do we really want them to speak aloud the painful truth? “Hey, you virtuous protectors of the consumer have insisted that all information be revealed. Full disclosure has been duly made. We are as revealing as a striptease artist. The public knows everything about our measurements, and ya know what? The public doesn’t give a tinker’s dam.”

There was some talk of attempting to remove some artificial dyes from the U.S. food supply, but whether any serious attempt will be made to back up the notion with legislation is unclear. Speaking of law, no statute anywhere insists that breakfast cereal must be moistened with milk. Try wetting it down with fruit juice and see what happens.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition advocacy group not involved in the study, published some words from its executive director, Peter Lurie, who was surprised to learn that “large food companies have not made a more concerted effort to reduce the sugar, salt and fat content of their breakfast cereals.”

Well, why should they? If there is a word that describes an attitude more apathetic than apathy, that word would describe the industry’s mental state regarding this issue.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “American Breakfast Cereals Are Becoming Less Healthy, Study Finds,” NYTimes.com, 05/21/25
Source: “Nutritional Content of Ready-to-Eat Breakfast Cereals Marketed to Children,” JAMNetwork.com, 05/21/25
Image by Picdream/Pixabay

Ultra-Processed Foods Cover-up? Part 2

Recommended at this point is to catch up by reviewing Part 1, “Is There an Ultra-Processed Foods Coverup?” What makes information about Dr. Dhruv Khullar’s controversial article even more interesting and relevant is this quotation published less than four months previously:

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who may soon lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has made common cause with some lawmakers by railing against ultra-processed food, pledging to remove it from public schools and limit the use of pesticides, artificial dyes, and, perhaps more dubiously, seed oils.

So apparently, Kennedy underwent some changes of opinion about the matter during the few weeks between that publication and his being made head of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Meanwhile, National Institutes of Health investigator Kevin Hall was recalibrating some of his theories based on the advanced work that he had been doing with volunteers, testing four different diets in turn. Dr. Khullar explains:

When the team served ultra-processed foods that were neither calorie-dense nor hyper-palatable — for example, liquid eggs, flavored yogurt and oatmeal, turkey bacon, and burrito bowls with beans — people ate essentially as much as they did on the minimally processed diet. They even lost weight.

Hall had no choice but to conclude that “Weight gain is not a necessary component of a highly ultra-processed diet,” to which Dr. Khullar appended, “He had, in a sense, refuted his hypothesis again.” And that is exactly what any genuine and honest scientist is delighted to do — to discover that he or she had guessed wrong, or drawn conclusions from incomplete data. A true scientist does not care how many times research has to start over, or how often his or her theories need to be revised, as long as truth is reached in the end.

Dr. Khullar also spoke with the venerable Marion Nestle, and introduces her to readers with this description:

[…] a molecular biologist and nutritionist who started the country’s first academic food-studies program, at N.Y.U., helping to bring attention to the roles that culture, capitalism, and politics play in what and how much we eat.

That apparently is exactly the crux of the whole food policy problem: the role being played by factors politely termed culture, capitalism, and politics, when the clashes of opinion are worthy of cruder but more accurate terms for controversy, that some critics would prefer to use. Dr. Khullar recounts how Nestle reminded him of a historical fact:

During the Second World War, U.S. military leaders were alarmed that many recruits, having grown up during the Great Depression, couldn’t join the war effort because of conditions caused by a lack of nutrients, such as rickets, scurvy, anemia, and tooth decay. “That came as a shock, and the military became heavily concerned with nutrition.”

This is very significant in the light of today’s situation, which includes the ineligibility of many young Americans to join the military because they are simply too fat.

At any rate, Nestle is not entirely on board with heaping blame upon ultra-processed food; but is not a big fan of it, either. (She is, incidentally, enthusiastic about Shredded Wheat, and even dusts it with a bit of sugar — to celebrate the fact that she, and not some corporation, is in charge of deciding the amount.)

Together, the two visited some places where food is produced, learning incidental facts, like how giant blocks of cheese should only be grated at the last minute, because “Pre-shredded cheese spoils faster. This way we can avoid preservatives.” This is exactly the sort of knowledge that leaves in the grim landscape some space for hope.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Why Is the American Diet So Deadly?”, Archive.is, 01/06/25
Source: “RFK Jr. aides accused of censoring NIH’s top ultra-processed food scientist,” CBSNews.com, 04/17/25
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