Even the Most Fortunate Must Struggle

In the past, Childhood Obesity News published a series of posts around the theme of “wider education,” a corny pun on the well-known phrase “higher education” which means going to college. That qualification alone can include different life situations. One kid stays with the family, or at least in the hometown, and commutes to school. Another travels to the opposite end of the country and takes up residence in a totally different environment, among mainly strangers.

Generally, we tend to think of young adults as a pretty hardy species, which is borne out by their tendency to subject themselves to extreme environmental conditions, like clubbing for several hours a night.

Yet, many people of that age are adversely sensitive to overstimulation by noise and light, and tend to find it difficult to adjust to the unremittingly boisterous atmosphere that might be encountered in, for instance, a university dormitory. For this reason (among countless others) they might feel enough stress to self-medicate with the wrong kinds of food, and too much of it.

Noise is apparently an appetite stimulant, just when one is least needed:

Researcher Dipayan Biswas conducted a study of noise in restaurants and concluded, “If ambient music played in a restaurant is louder, the customers are more susceptible to choose unhealthful foods… When the music was louder… 20 percent more customers ordered something that was not good for them, compared to those who dined during the lower-volume times.

There are, of course, other factors. With young folks in a new situation, among their own kind, and out from under parental supervision, it is likely that drinking plays a much larger part in weight gain than eating does. Alcohol is able to sabotage weight goals in five different ways.

It not only contains calories but stimulates the appetite and is a disruptor of the body’s fat-processing routines. It impedes judgment (making healthy choices less likely) and interferes with the hormones. There are few sadder sights than a 19-year-old with a beer belly.

The environment

For someone raised in more spacious climes, the residential density either on or off campus could be a problem, with its general inescapable background noise and light pollution and consequent sleep disruption. Some engage in overeating as a cure. Of course, other kids thrive on the stimulation of tumult, confusion, and constant novelty.

A factor that seems to grow exponentially every year is screen use. A 2020 report said,

New research reveals that media use before bedtime translates to less sleep for children who generally struggle to self-regulate their behavior. Children who scored high on measures of effortful control, however, were able to enjoy a restful night, regardless of their pre-sleep media use.

At the same time, however, it has been difficult for researchers to put their finger on exactly why a link exists between television and overweight kids.

Academic scrutiny

A 2008 electronic survey of 131 respondents found that only 5% of the freshmen had gained 15 pounds or more, which pretty well invalidated the old saying. For the entire sample, the average gain was just under three pounds. The male students tended to gain more than the females. Anyway, nobody got too excited because, among other reasons, a study of 18-to 24-year-olds at around the same time found that non-students gained more than students.

With students, it is quite possible that thinking hard makes them burn calories rather than conserve them. We are far from knowing everything there is to know about the connection between brain usage and energy expenditure. The whole relationship between age and the body’s fuel requirements is variable and subject to change.

Look at very young kids, like five-year-olds, whose “brains use almost half of their bodies’ energy.” According to a Northwestern University study,

[V]ariation in the energy needs of brain development across kids in terms of the timing, intensity and duration of energy use could influence patterns of energy expenditure and weight gain.

[W]e have no idea how much the brain’s energy expenditure varies between kids. This is a huge hole in our understanding of energy expenditure.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Loud music at restaurants could be leading you to order burgers over salads, study says,” WashingtonPost.com, 05/29/18
Source: “Think of it as turning off fat burning’: 5 ways drinking alcohol sabotages weight loss goals,” BusinessInsider.com, 07/29/22
Source: “Does Bedtime Media Use Harm Children’s Sleep? Only if They Struggle to Self-Regulate Behavior,” PsychologicalScience.org, 06/23/20
Source: “The Freshman 15: Is it Real?,” NIH.gov, 2008
Source: “The brain consumes half of a child’s energy — and that could matter for weight gain,” ScienceDaily.com, 06/17/19
Image by Mihnea Maftei/CC BY 2.0 DEED

In With the New: Waist-to-Height Ratio

For over a decade, there has been a growing conviction that using BMI as the obesity measurement standard is unrealistic, especially where females are concerned. And people with a lot of lean body mass. And in field settings where accurate scales are not available. And among some ethnic groups. One study found that as many as one-quarter of the kids with excess body fat were not being identified in a timely and appropriate manner.

So, for quite a while now, it has become increasingly apparent that waist-to-height ratio is the way to go. Recently, there has been a resurgence of this sentiment. For instance, in recommending a promising program to keep grade-school children from putting on fat, an official did not even mention BMI, but announced,“Our study shows that this can lead to a recognizable improvement in their waist-to-height ratio.”

As childhood obesity just grows and grows, the need for a precise obesity metric is more crucial than ever. Pushing the issue along, of course, there are also more recent studies to cite. Andrew Agbaje, a medical researcher with a startling number of degrees and titles, has caused a stir with a publication titled “Waist-circumference-to-height-ratio had better longitudinal agreement with DEXA-measured fat mass than BMI in 7237 children.”

In a less formal setting, for Easo.org, he explains various aspects of this work. For quite some time, research has shown that body mass index or BMI “misidentifies and misclassifies children and adolescents as overweight or having obesity even when their weight is largely driven by muscle mass.”

One of the main factors in the change in thought has been the availability of much more accurate methods of measuring body composition. Still, convincing the establishment was not easy, and his research was rejected several times over a two-year period because it did not agree with what was already “known.”

Limitations of BMI

The old measurement standard does not distinguish between fat mass and muscle mass. BMI varies significantly with age and sex, and is unreliable. Important to understand is that adequate muscle mass should be encouraged in childhood, for the protection of the cardiovascular system. And,

Emerging studies in children and adolescents report that the waist-to-height ratio predicts cardiometabolic risks such as dyslipidemia, blood pressure, metabolic syndrome, and insulin resistance far better than BMI.

The new work has derived its legitimacy from the highly-regarded Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Dr. Agbaje says,

The project has cost millions, but has produced a remarkable body composition database that will correct the anomalies of BMI… An extraordinary dataset is required for a paradigm shift, and we are extremely grateful to the children of the 90’s and their parents for their continued participation in this project over the past three decades.

This research has resulted in the discovery of “an inexpensive tool that could replace BMI, and overcome the limitations of misclassification and overdiagnosis of obesity in children and adolescents.” In this field of study, certain things must be kept in mind. For instance, four essential words are “within a normal range”:

[N]ature has endowed females with more fat mass than males, which is perfectly normal. We must also remember that not all fat is bad for health but excess adiposity is. We need a certain amount of fat mass for the normal physiological function of cells and organs. So we should not aim to drain our body completely of fat…

At the end of the interview, complete instructions are given to parents, who are encouraged to try measuring the waist-to-height ratio at home. Increasing numbers of health professionals agree. For instance, at NursinginPractice.com, Helen Quinn writes,

The new measurement can make it easier for parents and caregivers to assess childhood weight quickly and easily, enabling timely interventions for obese children.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “One Way to Reduce Child Obesity: Get Kids Moving More in Class,” USNews.com, 02/27/24
Source: “Changing the way we measure childhood obesity: in conversation with Andrew Agbaje,” Easo.org, 03/09/24
Source: “Waist-to-height ratio better obesity measure in children and adolescents,” NursinginPractice.com, 03/07/24
Image by idalingi/CC BY 2.0 DEED

How Be Pro-Active and Protective

This is an interesting topic because when parents think about protecting their children, they have a certain gallery of pictures in their minds, concerning the events and people that children need to be protected from. They tend to visualize a car accident, a fire, a kidnapper, or a rogue grizzly bear escaped from the zoo. But kids in a room, peacefully watching television? Not so much.

And yet, an astonishing number of those parents absorbed monumental amounts of television advertising, and look where it brought them. In many cases, they are as big as two or three healthy-weight people. TV junk food ads got right into their heads, and they grew up thinking it was normal to add food to every social occasion, and to carry a sugary beverage with them at all times.

Of course, food abuse has occurred throughout history. There was always the occasional King Henry VIII who could afford to eat as much as he wanted, and who, it just so happened, wanted a lot. And they didn’t even have the alchemical miracle of processed food back then. It was all natural and organic, and sure, people got fat on that, simply from eating too much of it — just as they are so easily able to do today.

Dangerous change

But eventually, along came the food business revolution that involved laboratories and molecular-level tinkering, and all kinds of sinister changes transpired. You pick up a package of something and you don’t know what’s in there anymore. We finally got mandatory informational labels, which turned out to be a joke because even college graduates can’t decipher them. All this happened concurrently with the Age of Advertising, when we learned that anybody can be talked into anything.

Today we still have television, and several other kinds of screens as well. They are blessings and curses. They are why a caring parent can peruse collections of hints, tips, and inspirations from several sources, about ways to shape a child’s path and avoid the fate of food addiction, or indeed, any addiction. What makes this so hard sometimes is that different kids react differently to things in the world. Studying martial arts might be the thing that saves one child, while playing the piano saves another.

Childhood is the time to spread out before a young human the smorgasbord of possibilities, consisting not of food items but of experience items. Kids are born with curiosity, imagination, ingenuity, and a raft of other splendid qualities. We can help them discover the things — other than edible commodities — that life offers. We can spread out the banquet of healthy displacement activities, and let them discover alternatives to “turning to food.”

Another way

As previously mentioned, this is why Dr. Pretlow has developed BrainWeighve, “based on the displacement mechanism, adaptable for any addiction.” As Childhood Obesity News has previously indicated, the object is to get out in front of cravings. In an extreme example, the legendary hero Odysseus directed his crew members to tie him to the ship’s mast. This was to render him incapable of responding to cravings, in the form of beautiful women playing enticing music, that called out to tempt him.

Now, we do not need to resort to such a primitive measure. We help people become figuratively, and metaphorically, “tied” to constructive and healthy displacements that are so satisfying, the siren songs of destructive habits do not even have a chance.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Image by Dennis Jarvis/CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED

Life Hacks for Parents

We have computer professionals to thank for the term “hack.” It’s a quick and probably inelegant solution whose chief virtue is that it works. From there, the word grew to signify any strategy that gets the chores done fast. In more respectable language, it’s a time management technique; an efficiency aid fulfilling the criterion of “Work smart, not hard.” It used to go by a more genteel name, like “helpful hint,” but by now, most people are familiar with the term “life hack.”

A life hack is a useful shortcut or fix, the sort of everyday remedy our parents might have passed on to us, if we had not been so busy fending off their concerns and rejecting their efforts to teach us something. We probably all went through a stage of not wanting to be told a darn thing, and in some cases that became a prolonged stage. Anyway, we’re all grown up now with kids of our own, and have entered the stage of shouting into the abyss, “Help! Help!”

And then, along comes an expert who can solve all our problems and with no pain or friction, lead those young’uns onto the right track! Well, not quite, because very few techniques ever work in every case. That’s just the multifactorial nature of life, which can become ornery. Still, it never hurts to choose one of the reliable, time-tested tricks of the trade, and give it a whirl.

For instance, there is the old standby, the fake choice. As a blogger Adriadne Brill described it,

Let’s say your child is doing something completely unacceptable. Provide her with two alternatives that are safe, respectful and acceptable, and let her choose what she will do from there. By receiving two choices, the child can keep some control over her decisions while still learning about boundaries.

So, the kid scoops a handful of crunchy nuggets out of the dog’s dish. The parent can offer, instead, the choice of a graham cracker or a handful of dry cereal. Often a parent can be surprised by how easy it is to divert a naive child’s attention and preserve the peace.

Childhood Obesity News has previously offered “hacks” for particular situations, like Halloween and the pandemic.

In fact, they might be worth looking at again, because of the adaptability factor. And never underestimate the power of a deepfake. If your very young and innocent child is in love with a certain brand of cereal because of the character depicted on the box, it might be possible to buy a more nourishing and/or economical brand instead, and just keep pouring it into the same box for about six months. Who knows? A motivated parent could get away with this ruse until the child starts kindergarten.

Some might call this deception; others might affirm that it is perfectly okay to go with a gentler, more forgiving expression, and “pull the wool over a child’s eyes” for the child’s own good.

Schedule = excellent idea

For a straightforward and totally frank household rule, the standard of consistent meal times is a good one to set, and important for more than one reason. First, a meal schedule implies the absence of snacking, whose banishment is always desirable. If a child is consistently hungry before mealtime, some research needs to be done into the possible reasons.

Together, the parent and the child could look up the facts on what kind of food is likely to promote that feeling of satiety the longest. A parent could keep track of the results, or it could be a mutual science project, with its own clipboard. When that child gets older, she or he could help a sibling do the why-am-I-still-hungry? research.

Who knows? Thirty years from now, you might look back and marvel that this DIY project led to your child winning a world-class science award. Try to look at every parenting annoyance as a challenge, and every challenge as an opportunity, and see what happens.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “12 alternatives to spanking and timeout,” AttachmentParenting.org, 10/02/14
Image by Marco Verch/CC BY 2.0 DEED

Parents, Proactive and Protective, Continued

Although the corporate magnates exert pressure on us to eat worthless pseudo-food, parents do not have to surrender to that pressure. The easiest time to push back is in the first few years of a child’s life, when there are fewer influences at work, and those that do exist are easier for parents to control.

“Give me a child until age 7 and I will have him for a lifetime.” Throughout history, leaders and organizations have proclaimed variations of that idea, and for a very good reason — because it is valid. The lessons that are taught to a child, and even more importantly, the behavior that is modeled to a child in the earliest years, will stick.

Whether we like it or not, this is how human beings function. The psyche is formed early, and often indelibly. First impressions sink in the deepest, and are very difficult (if not impossible) to uproot in later years.

Before saying “I do…”

The most difficult influences to resist are family members, and this is something to think about before hooking up with the intention of raising children together. One problem here is our erroneous concept of compatibility. When pondering on whether or not to meld our life with another person’s, we tend to take the wrong factors into consideration. Do we enjoy the same movies? Do we agree on vacation destinations? Do we vote for the same political candidates?

The thing is, once you are married, you might refinish a floor together, or set up the backyard for straw-bale gardening. Collaborating on real-world projects takes a whole different skill set. It may turn out that you and the prospective partner will view very few cinematic masterpieces in each other’s company. There are plenty of happy, successful marriages in which the two people never watch a movie together.

When people really love each other, they figure it out. They vacation in the mountains one year, and at the beach the next year. And regardless of which candidate wins the election, this couple, just like everyone else, will still live in a world full of challenges and injustices that need to be met one at a time.

Get right down to the real nitty-gritty

If you contemplate co-parenting with someone, it is a lot more important to discuss your thoughts about what your children should eat. Are you both convinced of the importance of breastfeeding? Do you both understand the amount of cooperation and selflessness required to make that program a success? Do you share the same thoughts about when solid food should be introduced? Are you on the same page about the importance of teaching by example?

Even when parents are in strong agreement, as time goes on it becomes more difficult to stand by their beliefs. Have you talked about how to handle the suggestions and the actions of each other’s relatives, and your own? Are you ready to tell your babysitting sister not to give your kid any candy? Practice the sentence, “We agreed, no ice cream until age 5, and that’s how it’s going to be.” Can you stand up to your own mother and say it?

A parent can, to a certain extent, limit exposure to relatives who encourage inappropriate eating habits. There are surely books about how to do that, and no doubt videos too. And there is live help, through phone and online counseling services that a person can sign up for to address one particular issue.

This is not spending years on a couch talking to a bearded man about your nightmares. This is hiring a professional for a limited amount of time to address a specific problem: “How do we deal with relatives who want to feed junk to our kids?” It is a suggestion worth considering.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Image by Scott Raymond/CC BY 2.0 DEED

Parents, Proactive and Protective

This post continues to meditate on a piece by Julia Olech, who is trying to scare us. Listen to this:

Some parents begin exposing their children to junk food when they’re as young as five months. According to a UNICEF study, almost two in three children between six months and three years of age don’t get appropriate nutrition due to overconsumption of junk food. This can heavily stunt their development and lead to poor brain growth, slow learning, low immunity, risks of increased infections, and, in some cases, death.

But that is not all. Even if these individuals do attain average or near-average lifespans, the odds are greater than 50/50 that they will always be overweight or obese. When obesity gains a foothold in the early years, the prognosis does not inspire joy.

In a world where so many dangers lurk, and in which parents are often unable to effect real change, the good news is that they can actually do quite a lot. Take, for instance, the attitude of resistance to junk food. Yes, the global marketing machine is powerful, but parents do not have to hopelessly surrender to it.

Construct a shield

The lives of most children begin with a limited period of time during which their caregiving adults can exert the utmost control over what these brand-new humans see, hear, taste, and generally experience. It helps to be conscious of this grace period and make the best of the all-too-brief opportunity to flex our omnipotence.

Every 24 hours, it becomes more difficult to block out the world at large, so it’s a good idea to start really young and take advantage of each day in which children are unable to consume either meals or media based on their own fallible choices. With even the youngest of babies, a parent can begin to show healthy intent. Start with an action seemingly small, but always meaningful. Maybe just choose to mute the TV during ads, limiting exposure to the obnoxious, hectoring, yet somehow nearly irresistible siren song.

Do not hesitate to seek help

More than anything, a parent should endeavor to set a good example, which is harder than a person might think. One thing we need to face is that it may not be easy. We might have to “shop around,” seek additional advice, and try a couple of different approaches. We have to work within existing reality, like the tendency of some teenagers to remain inert, no matter what. Olech writes,

Be a role model: Children often mimic adults, so show them you also choose healthy options. When you make good food choices and limit your junk food intake, they’re more likely to do the same.

Yes, 1,000%. Kids often resist instruction and they always detest hypocrisy. If the grownups are playing “Do as I say, not as I do,” the effort will not go well. Role modeling is susceptible to many hazards. Some kids admire and willingly imitate their parents’ best habits, attitudes, and principles. But (and this is supported by copious evidence) there are ways of setting an example that can cause a child to bitterly resolve never to become anything like that parent.

If one sincerely desires to inspire and not repel the young, various types of counseling are available. There are support groups and other social arrangements to help people learn the skills. There are how-to books, and recordings of very competent teachers saying extraordinarily helpful things.

Some find this hard to believe, but in random instances even the government has been found to offer some pretty awesome resources. In seeking a better way to proceed, a person will learn useful skills and interesting facts, like how incredibly clever a reference librarian can be at finding information.

An appallingly negative example gives hope

History teaches us that it is all too possible for parents whose evil purpose is spreading hate, to indoctrinate their children into, for instance, a Ku Klux Klan mindset. To pick a less drastic example, an entire family will probably be united in glorifying a given sports team (and despising another one).

Surely they could as easily be convinced to participate in communal hatred for the corporate overlords who hope to sell us poison disguised as nourishment. A lot of kids arrive on the planet with a strong innate need to rebel against the status quo. Maybe you don’t want them rebelling against school, church, or family. The discreet introduction of Big Food as the designated enemy could be a real game-changer!

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Junk Food Marketing Study: What Are Kids Being Fed?,” CyberGhostVPN.com, 02/13/24
Image by Mike Lowe/CC BY 2.0 DEED

The Washing of the Brains

A brand-new study, published only last month, reveals the folk whose profession is to influence children to nag their parents until the grownups give up and buy Product B instead of Product A. We don’t want those to be our children; or ourselves to be those parents. And yet, entire battalions of silver-tongued orators are at work “shaping a whole generation’s unhealthy eating habits.” We’re talking about (alleged) food with high taste and low nutrition; with high convenience, and (usually) low cost.

The stuff is everywhere. Julia Olech writes,

Studies show children see about 13 food ads every day, while teens see 16. Only 1 out of 10 of these ads are for healthy foods like fruit and vegetables — the rest are all for junk food. These can come in the form of short ad segments slotted into breaks in favorite shows, but also as product placement marketing in movies, TV shows, music videos, and other forms of entertainment.

It has been shown that teens, after hearing pitches delivered by “influencers,” will actually eat 26% more junk food. On social media, a child or a teen might easily encounter more than a hundred junk food promotions in a single week. Multiplied by the number of weeks, that comes out to well over 5,000 doses of brainwashing per year.

Children and teens might be variously described as vulnerable, innocent, dumb, or, as the author says, not having “the cognitive skills needed to understand the intent of junk food adverts.” No matter how you slice it, the baloney is hip-deep and rising. The author gives many examples, and when it comes to YouTube? Don’t get her started!

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, 90% of food promotions on YouTube are for types of junk food. Just a quick search on the platform reveals hundreds of videos of kids unboxing new Happy Meal toys, reviewing new Hershey’s chocolates, and receiving PR packages from big junk food brands.

And, no surprise here, adults are also vulnerable to having their lives negatively impacted by this advertising. After all, we were once children, and in most of our lives, no influence has arisen to counteract all the harmful propaganda injected into our heads in the name of entertainment. Olech writes,

According to Cancer Research UK, watching any food content makes children (and adults alike) feel hungry, pushing them to snack between mealtimes. It usually also impacts their food preferences, as marketing teams spend a lot of time and money making their products look delicious on screen.

To make sure the point gets made, Olech lists all the many and varied ill effects to which the marketing of junk food to kids can indirectly lead, including but not limited to:

[…] kidney diseases, Type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, malnutirtion, obesity, low self-esteem, heart attack, high blood pressure, stroke, bone issues, low immunity, concentration problems, depression and mood swings, eating disorders, poor brain development, tooth decay…

Of course, the beguiling shills and the corporations that pay them never set out with the intention of making every kid on the planet obese. They are just trying to raise a new generation of consumers, that’s all.

Just a short little digressive item to think about

One of the things that advertising sells is the credo that sports and junk food must go together, whether in person or while viewing electronically. Olech writes,

Another issue with junk food marketing in the US is the misinformation present in a lot of ads. Many companies use celebrity or athlete endorsements, perpetuating the idea that their products are healthier than they are. They also normalize consuming higher amounts of junk food while watching sports or TV, further contributing to the growing obesity pandemic.

Currently, a sports book website called FanDuel builds its commercials around the slogan, “Every night is a watch party!” which tidily encompasses seven evenings of three distinct potential addiction opportunities. You got the booze, you got the junk food, and you got the gambling. How did this racket slip past the War on Drugs?

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Junk Food Marketing Study: What Are Kids Being Fed?,” CyberGhostVPN.com, 02/13/24
Image by Francisco Orsorio/CC BY 2.0 DEED

Sometimes You Don’t Know What to Think

For anyone who wonders exactly how many pediatric patients were prescribed weight-loss drugs in 2023, the headline “Doctors Gave 4,000 Kids Weight-Loss Drugs In 2023” might seem to promise an answer, but similar to many headlines, it leaves out an essential fact. Are these 4,000 kids in the USA, the Northern Hemisphere, the membership of the World Health Organization, or what? (Presumably, it is inside the United States, and in reference to research published in January of this year.)

In the same article, journalist Julianna Frieman names Dr. Joan Han of the Mt. Sinai Health System as an endorser of the idea that “changing one’s lifestyle is often fruitless in fixing obesity due to the significant role of genetics.” Like so many other obesity-related topics, that one has large numbers of both supporters and detractors.

Dr. Han gives a rationale that is often heard from others of the same mindset, especially when they have additional reasons to favor bariatric surgery or a pharmaceutical solution:

It would make sense that sheer willpower is not necessarily going to fix excess weight gain.

Here’s the problem. It may be a Straw Man or it may be Begging the Question, but that statement involves a fallacious premise, namely, that there is only one other possible answer besides drugs or surgery, which would be the Sheer Willpower Cure. If that were the case, it would be reasonable to concede, “That’s right. The Sheer Willpower Cure does not seem to be effective.” But that is not the case at all. Exploring a program like BrainWeighve, for instance, reveals that it suggests and facilitates many additional choices besides Sheer Willpower.

Contemporary relevance

However, the reason for bringing it up now is that it relates to the general question of how and why the “trendy” GLP-1 drugs are prescribed. The reasons are many, and the attempts to make them stand are sometimes less than scholarly and far from impartial. But other times, one has to ask oneself, “What’s wrong with that?”

As an example of the genre, and the sometimes very positive reports, semaglutide is credited with the ability to reduce cardiovascular risks in a particular subgroup:

It is the first such approval from the Food and Drug Administration for a weight loss drug. The approval comes after a five-year study found Wegovy led to a 20% reduction in heart attacks, strokes, and cardiac arrest…

Granted, this is only in one patient demographic, “obese patients over the age of 45 who have heart disease,” but still…

Other suggestions

Only a couple of weeks ago, Dennis Thompson reported on the British initiative to encourage more movement among school-age children. The Active Movement program requires no fancy equipment, gym attire, or specialized environment. It encourages the kids to stand up when speaking, and walk around in the classroom more. Somehow, overall, it encourages 10% more participation in voluntary sports activities and an 8% reduction in the children’s waist-to-height ratio.

Not only that, but senior researcher Mike Loosemore is quoted as saying:

Our results show that reducing sedentary behaviors during school time can be an effective obesity-reduction strategy for primary school children who are overweight. What’s even more encouraging is that this method was effective regardless of the child’s socioeconomic status, age or gender. It is something that schools could introduce without needing to invest heavily in equipment or staff, and everyone will benefit.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Doctors Gave 4,000 Kids Weight-Loss Drugs In 2023,” DailyCaller.com, 02/21/24
Source: “United States of Ozempic: Where anti-obesity drugs are taking off,” Axios.com, 01/18/24
Source: “FDA approves weight-loss drug Wegovy for reducing cardiovascular risks,” Join1440.com, 03/09/24
Source: “One Way to Reduce Child Obesity: Get Kids Moving More in Class,” USNews.com, 02/27/24
Image by John K. Thorne/Public Domain

Tempest in a Very Large Teapot

The huge story of the past year has been the explosion in the use of a whole new genre of weight-loss drugs. Like any such gigantic, all-encompassing development, this one has brought innumerable minor stories in its wake. One such side-piece is the voluntary demotion of superstar Oprah Winfrey from her almost decade-long seat as a Weight Watchers board member. Rather than replace her, the board will reduce its membership to nine seats.

The talk-show star was elected to office in 2015 but will not be running again this May. She has owned a massive amount of WeightWatchers stock, the value of which has fluctuated over the years. Variety says, “Her initial investment for 6.4 million shares of the company totaled $43.2 million.” A few years later, all the new weight-loss drugs showed up on the market, and many investors took their dollars elsewhere. And then, last week, the announcement of her departure from the board caused the stock price to decrease by more than 20%.

According to Variety,

Winfrey owns about 1.1 million shares of WW International, representing a 1.43% stake in the company, according to data provider FactSet. At the current stock price, that’s worth less than $3.5 million.

These remaining shares and all future income from them are being donated to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. It is said that Winfrey will continue to work hand-in-hand with WeightWatchers in “elevating the conversation around recognizing obesity as a chronic condition, working to reduce stigma, and advocating for health equity.” The announcement was made in December via People magazine, “after coming to the realization that weight management does not hinge solely on a person’s self-control.”

Contradiction

In every report of this story, statements are made that do not clarify but confuse the issue. On one hand, it seems as if Winfrey’s personal decision, some months ago, to start taking a weight-loss drug is looked upon as treachery. It is said that in seeking and accepting a leadership position, she had undertaken to “not engage in any other weight loss or weight management business, program, products or services.”

So, were people angry because she started injecting herself with one of the new drugs? That would be understandable. But there is more information to assimilate:

Last year, Weight Watchers acquired Sequence, a subscription telehealth platform that offers, among other benefits, access to healthcare providers who can prescribe weight-loss drugs including Ozempic, for $106 million. (Users pay $99 a month, not including prescription costs.)

For NPR, Vanessa Romo wrote,

The move to embrace the drugs as part of its weight management program is a massive shift for the company’s behavior-based program. For 60 years, WeightWatchers coaches have told members that the path to a thinner, healthier version of themselves consisted of exercise, counting calories, points — and, perhaps most of all, willpower.

How can this seeming contradiction be reconciled? Romo says, “That reversal has left many current and former members struggling with their own weight feeling betrayed.” It would seem that, if such were the case, having a prominent authority like Winfrey tell them that drugs are okay would eliminate the conflict.

WeightWatchers announced that Winfrey’s decision not to run for the position “was not the result of any disagreement with the company on any matter relating to the company’s operations, policies or practices.” That seems clear enough, because the company is now in the business of hooking up customers with doctors who will prescribe, and sources that will supply the GLP-1 medications.

Yet somehow, there was perceived to be a conflict of interest if a WeightWatchers board member, and owner of a large amount of stock, happened to personally use a weight-loss drug. According to The New York Times,

Kelsey Merkel, a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers, said that Ms. Winfrey wanted to “advocate authentically” for the weight-loss measures she believed to be most effective, without anyone questioning her profit motive.

Meanwhile, it appears that what faithful members regret most is not the former drugless approach, but the fellowship and sense of community provided by live gatherings in real time. The entire huge Weight Watchers International organization started as a meeting of seven people in a housewife’s basement.

Says The New York Times, “Before the pandemic there were 3,300 in-person workshops throughout the United States.” The COVID crisis spurred “premium members” to pay close to $50 per month for “unlimited access to virtual meetings and other digital tools.”

Really feeling slighted are the so-called lifetime members, “who are rewarded with free access to premium-tier benefits if they stay within two pounds of their goal weight — but who must weigh in at an official workshop at least once a month.” Now, there are fewer than 1,000 local workshops, and even some of those are online.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Oprah Winfrey to Exit WeightWatchers Board After She Announced Use of Weight-Loss Drug,” Variety.com, 02/29/24
Source: “Oprah to Leave Weight Watchers Board,” NYTimes.com, 02/29/24
Source: “After nearly a decade, Oprah Winfrey is set to depart the board of WeightWatchers,” NPR.org, 03/01/24
Source: “When WeightWatchers Ended In-Person Meetings, They Held Their Own,” NYTimes.com, 02/02/24
Image by Mike Mozart/CC BY 2.0 DEED

Landmark — Junk Food Legally Defined

It is one thing to intuitively notice the correlation between increasing child obesity and the ever-mounting abundance of ultra-processed foods on supermarket shelves and in the kitchens of families. To show a cause-and-effect relationship is another thing entirely. It has of course become obvious, in a general way, that what a person consumes in the early years of life will have a great deal of impact on future health. Actionable proof, however, calls for the discipline of science.

To demonstrate the harm caused by ultra-processed foods (familiarly known as UPFs) requires ambitious, long-term projects like the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. From 1998 through 2017, this study gathered information about more than 9,000 British kids, tracking them from age 7 up through age 24, recording their weight, waist circumference, fat mass index, and BMI.

The UPFs common in the subjects’ diets included “frozen pizza, soda, packaged bread, cakes, and pre-packaged meals.” The researchers arrived at stern conclusions regarding the need for policy revisions and stricter regulations.

There are facts that people know (or should know) intuitively, and accept as common sense. But for the information to be acceptable and actionable, it must be phrased in a prescribed academic manner and format. For instance, as study co-author Eszter Vamos, Ph.D., was quoted as saying,

One of the key things we uncover here is a dose-response relationship. This means that it’s not only the children who eat the most ultra-processed foods have the worst weight gain, but also the more they eat, the worse this gets.

In 2020, a European Childhood Obesity Group publication by authors from eight institutions recognized the concept of food addiction. They stated that reliance on ultra-processed foods for a child under two years old “can lead to one or more forms of malnutrition.” Before they even reach the status of toddlers, they can develop overweight and obesity in addition to micronutrient deficiencies:

A tendency of higher consumption of added sugar (refined sugar, honey, corn syrup) and UPF was found among children with overweight, diagnosed with food addiction.

Two months later, several Tufts University researchers published a report about UPF consumption and obesity in American kids. Their particular mission was to “estimate the potential impact of reducing UPF consumption on childhood obesity in the U.S.” In a randomized, controlled trial, they studied the records of 5804 children of ages ranging from 7 to 18 years. The non-UPF consumers reduced their caloric intake by 17%.

According to the report,

Working from this assumption, they “projected weight loss based on estimated weight reduction due to calorie reduction in children accounting for potential changes in energy expenditure and appetite.”

The document also discussed a United Kingdom initiative in 2006 to ban advertisements for specific food types, during children’s typical TV viewing hours. This was considered a major advance because, among other things, using a formula based on food product nutrient profiles, it introduced a legal definition of junk food.

The Conclusions section of the paper noted that…

Reducing current levels of UPF consumption among US children has the potential to reduce the childhood obesity rate in the US to a great extent, especially among adolescents.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children,” University of Bristol, undated
Source: “Ultra-Processed Food Consumption among the Paediatric Population: An Overview and Call to Action from the European Childhood Obesity Group,” Karger.com, 04/28/20
Source: “Ultra-Processed Food Consumption and Obesity Among US Children,” NIH.gov, 06/04/20
Image by Knowing Roger/Public Domain

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Profiles: Kids Struggling with Weight

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The Book

OVERWEIGHT: What Kids Say explores the obesity problem from the often-overlooked perspective of children struggling with being overweight.

About Dr. Robert A. Pretlow

Dr. Robert A. Pretlow is a pediatrician and childhood obesity specialist. He has been researching and spreading awareness on the childhood obesity epidemic in the US for more than a decade.
You can contact Dr. Pretlow at:

Presentations

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the American Society of Animal Science 2020 Conference
What’s Causing Obesity in Companion Animals and What Can We Do About It

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the World Obesity Federation 2019 Conference:
Food/Eating Addiction and the Displacement Mechanism

Dr. Pretlow’s Multi-Center Clinical Trial Kick-off Speech 2018:
Obesity: Tackling the Root Cause

Dr. Pretlow’s 2017 Workshop on
Treatment of Obesity Using the Addiction Model

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation for
TEC and UNC 2016

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the 2015 Obesity Summit in London, UK.

Dr. Pretlow’s invited keynote at the 2014 European Childhood Obesity Group Congress in Salzburg, Austria.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2013 European Congress on Obesity in Liverpool, UK.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2011 International Conference on Childhood Obesity in Lisbon, Portugal.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2010 Uniting Against Childhood Obesity Conference in Houston, TX.

Food & Health Resources