Pat Hartman | Childhood Obesity News

What Needs to be Said?

Pat Hartman January 23, 2023 No Comments

A social media site recently included a story by a plus-size person who ordered a certain treat at a restaurant. Reportedly the server asked, “Do you really need that? It’s fried and so unhealthy. I don’t think you should order that.” The customer immediately called the manager, who apologized, and together they agreed that the staff member would not only bring the treat, but pay for it herself, and not receive a tip from that table.

The customer was happy to see the accused fat-shamer being shamed and reprimanded, which seems to be a sentiment shared by many. Nicole Saphier, M.D., has some things to say about the trend. Sure, she lays accountability for the current high rate of child obesity on electronic devices and pandemic precautions, but doctors also come in for a share of censure because they are now, allegedly, afraid to discuss the matter with their patients on account of the fear that they will be accused of fat-shaming. She says,

Doctors have been told to refrain from using words such as “overweight” and “obese,” widely accepted medical terms, and to instead replace them with phrases like “above a healthy weight” in an effort not to make someone feel bad about excess weight.

The American Academy of Pediatrics urges avoidance of shaming and asks for sensitive and non-stigmatizing language to be used, which in Dr. Saphier’s opinion, does nobody any favors. In her view, this tip-toeing around focuses more on the potential emotional damage that children might suffer from being told they are fat, and ignores the importance of doing something about their ballooning weight statistics. She warns against social media influencers who attempt to “cultivate a platform to promote plus-sized bodies,” and has stern words for “the trending movement advocating for body positivity and self-love.”

She advocates better access to unprocessed foods and is in favor of a home-based approach to reducing childhood obesity, which should include improved eating and exercise habits among the entire family.

Dr. Saphier also mentions a convoluted mini-conspiracy theory apparently shared by others. This consists of a notion that the body-positivity people are denigrating exercise because it was first suggested to Americans as a way to protect themselves against the flood of immigrants who arrived in the early 1900s. According to this mindset, people are being brainwashed into thinking that exercise is a white supremacist activity (remember, Hitler was all for it!) so now, weak-minded Americans have been persuaded that it is better for them to get fat than to appear racist.

While acknowledging that body positivity is important for individual mental health, the writer says,

The key message should not be fat versus thin, rather, the focus should be on lowering the risk of preventable chronic conditions… Ultimately, it is vital to acknowledge excess body fat is risky… From a medical standpoint, the normalizing of obesity must end to prevent the overwhelming amount of chronic illness that is sure to ensue.

The doctor does have a point, in that people’s opinions on these issues have become increasingly polarized, as exemplified by this anonymous social media protest:

If you somehow think that fatphobia isn’t as bad as other types of oppression and don’t even realize how it’s literally intertwined with racism, sexiism, classism, homophobia, etc. please just do this world a favor and leave.

Source: “I’m a mom and a physician. ‘Fat-shaming’ fears are putting our kids in danger,” FoxNews.com, 01/10/23
Images by Tadson Bussey and heymrleej/CC BY-SA 2.0

No Name-Calling, Please!

Pat Hartman January 20, 2023 No Comments

The illustration expresses an emotion felt by many overweight people. Some who are not even obese, but just a bit hefty, are very sensitive about public taunts. Today is the last day of this year’s National No Name-Calling Week. The exact dates change annually, but everywhere and all the time, people are called names and subjected to many sorts of bullying, for far too many reasons. Not surprisingly, Childhood Obesity News concentrates on the plight of obese children.

What should not even need to be stated, is that every week ought to be devoid of name-calling, fat-shaming, teasing, bullying, and the entire spectrum of behavior that involves making someone feel “less than” for being “more than.”

In 2004, the Week was founded by students and teachers, of kindergarten through the senior year of high school, with the goal of ending bullying and name-calling. Parents can help too, by looking up the how-to-take-action ideas.

Dr. Erica Lee, a psychologist at Boston Children’s Hospital, talks about the impact that childhood obesity can have on a child’s mental and overall health:

Weight and physical attractiveness are pretty strongly linked here in America and there’s a lot of negative stigma around being overweight or obese… This means there’s a lot of pressure and often negative attention on kids who are overweight or don’t fit that typical mold.

For any child, she recommends conversation about healthy habits. For those already experiencing weight problems,

Try to shift the conversation away from appearance or comparison to other people. Rather than focusing on a child’s weight or appearance, try to teach kids things like engaging in regular exercise and trying to have a relatively balanced diet… You can try to link it to whatever their goals are. If kids talk about wanting to be taller or doing better in school, you can explain to them that they need to eat lots of fruits and vegetables, and exercise.

Regularly acknowledge that their feelings are real. Try to avoid making any negative comments about your own weight or other people’s weight, and help your kids build strong self-esteem that has absolutely nothing at all to do with their appearance.

But objections to perceived fatphobia can go too far, as shown by an anonymous social media entry by a mother who took a group of children to a trampoline park. To use the equipment, a person had to weigh in at less than 250 pounds. This woman was livid with rage at being excluded, and warned her readers, “Thin privilege is a real thing! Stop saying it doesn’t exist!”

Perhaps, but the laws of physics do exist, despite our feelings about them. If a trampoline (or Ferris wheel seat, or bicycle, or pogo stick) is determined by its manufacturer to be unsafe for anyone above a certain weight, shouldn’t we all just relax and be grateful that regulations are in place to guarantee that we are warned about such safety hazards?

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “National No Name-Calling Week,” OK2bMe.ca, undated
Source: “No Name-Calling Week Activity Guide,” UnitedWayBroward.org, undated
Source: “Mass. psychologist on emotional impact on childhood obesity,” WCVB.com, 01/09/23
Image: Public Domain

Healthy Weight Week and BrainWeighve, Part 2

Pat Hartman January 19, 2023 No Comments

This post continues to focus on the Healthy Weight Week suggestions made by the medical staff of Flushing Hospital in relation to what the BrainWeighve phone app offers, to turn ideas into reality.

Make a deal to indulge

So says Flushing Hospital, but it might not be a good suggestion for everybody. Although many successful losers of weight have felt that, without the occasional “cheat day,” they could not have made it, others must strictly follow a program without deviation, or else they will, in Alcoholics Anonymous parlance, fall off.

This term comes from the old days, when the Temperance crusaders, who were against alcohol, would board a horse-drawn wagon and proceed through town, displaying banners and speaking through bullhorns to their neighbors. Anyone who agreed to take the non-drinking pledge was welcome to climb onto the wagon and ride with them, to show the townspeople that one more citizen had decided to get sober. To renege on that pledge was to “fall off the wagon.”

Once you fall off the wagon, another AA phrase takes over, the one called stinkin’ thinkin’. How does it work? Your sneaky brain says, “As long as we opened that bag of chips, might as well finish it off so they don’t, you know, go stale. It’s shameful to waste food. My mom worked hard to buy those chips. If I don’t eat them all, it would be a disrespectful insult to my dear mother.” You see the problem, right?

Now let’s back up for a moment and look at the expression, “cheat day.” Whom are we actually cheating? Mainly and mostly, ourselves. So, here is another idea instead. How about if we decide to indulge in something other than food? What if we strictly adhere to our plans for four weeks, and indulge in the reward of a spectacular pair of shoes?

Begin a manageable workout program

A workout program for many people will be most successful if it is convenient, which for some means home, and for others means any place but home. This could come under the heading of Rechanneling, which of course is redirecting overflow brain energy to non-food behavior. Needless to say, the app helps out with this part. It affirms that “you can control your displacement mechanism,” which of course is a feature of the brain that causes people to overeat. Rather than dwell in the land of harmful eating behavior, that process can be redirected to healthy movement instead.

Have a friend help you

Here is wonderful news! With Brainweighve, you can make a ton of friends, who all face the same difficulties that you do, and who just might have a good idea or two about how to make your journey a bit easier. They will share their struggles and listen to yours. They can hold you accountable, with a supportive expectation that you are a person whose word means something. And in return, you can share with and support them — which of course are important aspects of friendship. It goes both ways. The coaches are there too, prepared to offer extra insights and suggestions to keep a person on the path.

Drink plenty of water

This should go without saying, for just about everybody, all the time. Have a headache? Drink water. Too many beers? Drink water. Constipated? Drink water. Feel hungry? Fill up the tummy with water, it will probably help. There is barely a human ailment that can’t be helped by H2O absorption.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “National Healthy Weight Week,” flushinghospital.org, 01/20/21

Healthy Weight Week and BrainWeighve, Part 1

Pat Hartman January 18, 2023 No Comments

We mentioned National Healthy Weight Week, and today’s post focuses on the to-do list provided by Flushing Hospital, in aid of making it the healthiest. Let’s look at their suggestions and see how the BrainWeighve phone app can help to apply these helpful ideas.

Weigh yourself

As the Flushing Hospital experts say, “Regular weight check-ins can help you maintain your desired weight.” BrainWeighve encourages daily weighing, and keeping track of it is one of the functions the app performs excellently. But this does not seem to be required, and there are plenty of ways to benefit from the app while establishing a firm footing. A person might want to wait for a while, and maybe start weighing in at some future date.

Set a goal

The source article suggests a goal that is “specific, measurable and realistic,” so in this context it will probably be measured in pounds. If pinning down your intention too precisely makes you nervous, this is not mandatory. Or, you could set one goal now and then revise it at a future time. If you aim for a goal weight, is it realistic? Your doctor is the best guide in this department, so ask. To have the goal be measurable is the easy part. That is what scales are for!

But maybe being poundage-focused is simply not a good fit for you, and that’s okay. There are a number of possible goals to choose from. Maybe your goal is to be absolutely strict about portion control, to concentrate on that aspect above everything else, and to amass an enormous number of days in a row where you have practiced impeccable portion control. Nothing is wrong with that.

If your goal is No Snacking, the app has got your back. There are solid plans for snack avoidance, which attack from many angles. Make a complete survey of your particular problem foods. By examining and cataloging your Triggers, become intimately acquainted with the weak spots where problems crawl in. Be honest about the occasions and circumstances that make you a likely target for the insidious pleasurable foods that lie in wait to fell you and drown you in quicksand. Make plans to avoid or face down those occasions and circumstances.

Any discussion of goals must segue neatly into the area of Motivation and, not surprisingly the BrainWeighve app has that angle covered too. It suggests ways to rescue yourself from sticky situations, and if you screw up, it has methods of helping you recover and turn the debacle into a learning experience so that next time, you can only do better.

It has ways to control any damage already done, and ways to face problems head-on and get them solved. There is advice about decision-making, dealing with bullies, studying for academic tests, and many more contingencies.

Be patient

In this case, patience consists of satisfaction with gradual, steady progress. There will be no fireworks, no marching band — it’s just quiet advancement, one step at a time, to the ultimate desired condition. And it can be done. It’s not like we never get any practice. We are used to waiting for some things — for vacation, for a new game to be released, for the day when we can get a learner’s permit and finally start driving. Hopefully, the things we patiently wait for turn out to be worthwhile. Re-making your body into one that you wear happily is definitely worth spending some patience on.

How does BrainWeighve reward patience? By keeping track of what shape you were in when you started, so you can look back and gloat about your progress. Also, patience may be strengthened by checking out the Meditation screen, the Serenity prayer screen, and other areas.

(To be continued…)

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “National Healthy Weight Week,” FlushingHospital.org, 01/20/21

National Healthy Weight Week

Pat Hartman January 17, 2023 No Comments

Hold on, didn’t we just have this? Actually, no. The recent observance was Lose Weight, Feel Great Week.

Confused by “This-That-and-the-Other” Week? Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger! Many different industries and organizations have staked their claims on days, weeks, or months, and designated them as having something to do with reducing the sum total of obesity. The third week of this month, January 15-21, is National Healthy Weight Week. The week, which has a noticeable social media presence, was ordained by unknown parties in 1994, in response to the shocking increase in so-called lifestyle diseases:

The number of people suffering from being overweight is at an all-time high. Diabetes, stroke, heart attack, and cancer follow obesity. It was widely believed that a healthy diet and consistent workouts could prevent obesity. We are no longer moving our muscles as much as we used to. The stagnant work style and the fast-food culture essentially destroyed our healthy lifestyle.

The purpose of the Week is not only to increase awareness of these societal ills but to encourage each individual to recommit to the goal of not becoming obese. Another source adds that the purpose is “to reinforce healthy eating as a way of life instead of dieting to lose weight. It also encourages movement and physical activity…” They also make the point that mid-winter, an occasion that reminds us to burn off some energy is much needed.

Another site connects interested people with workshops, providers (including corporate wellness services), and virtual health fairs. Matching “provider’s benefits with employees’ benefits” could prove to be very useful to any company that cares about the well-being of its workers.

“How to Get Your Weight in the Healthy Zone with National Healthy Weight Week” is from an organization that describes itself as an online college for the healthcare industry. They begin by flat-out declaring that diets don’t work, which is always a problematic phrasing, because all the things a person eats become, cumulatively, that person’s diet. Everyone has a diet, even if it only consists of french fries and gummy bears. Besides, a pureed diet works for someone unable to chew. A diabetic diet works for someone whose body has an impaired relationship with insulin. A low-sodium diet is good for someone who retains a lot of fluid — and so forth.

This site also establishes that there are uncontrollable elements that affect weight: they are “height, bone density, body type (endomorph, mesomorph, ectomorph), and body composition (the innate ratio of body muscle to fat).” Yet another site offers “non-invasive, medically managed surgical weight loss options” which leaves the reader wondering how a treatment could be both surgical and non-invasive.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “National Healthy Weight Week,” NationalToday.com, undated
Source: “National Healthy Weight Week,” WhitneyRehab.com, undated
Source: “Healthy Weight Week,” Iabhp.com, undated
Source: “How to Get Your Weight in the Healthy Zone with National Healthy Weight Week,” WeCareOnlineClasses.com, undated
Source: “National Healthy Weight Week,” FlushingHospital.org, 01/20/21
Image by Thank You/CC BY 2.0

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

Pat Hartman January 16, 2023 No Comments

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

We will return with our regular post tomorrow.

Image by belchonock/123RF Stock Photo.

Displacement, a Partial Roundup

Pat Hartman January 13, 2023 No Comments

The Mysteries of Displacement Behavior

Any one of the oddball facts about animals might be the key to the kingdom, somehow. If we understand a bird that picks out its own feathers, maybe we can understand a girl who pulls out her own hair.

All addictions have one purpose — to avoid pain. All displacement behaviors also have the same purpose. Any one of them, if disentangled from the mass, might lead to a magical clue or a silver-bullet cure. The whole subject of displacement activities is so tantalizing because it is like a ball of twine with many loose threads sticking out. Which one do we pull?

Displacement As a Concept

Many creatures have been getting along for millennia without human opinions to guide them. Maybe we don’t know everything about why animals do the things they do. They have successfully navigated the world and stayed alive to reproduce their kind for millennia, whereas the “displacement mechanism” was not heard of until Freud invented it in 1913. Quite possibly, displacement theory belongs squarely in the realm of human psychology, and animals should just be left out of it.

Displacement Phenomena, Questions, and Problems

Even decades ago, researchers faced many potential complications in their quest to pin down the notion of displacement. Dr. Dalbir Bindra was not satisfied with the party line about animals and displacement behavior, and asked some rather pointed questions. He suggested bringing in all kinds of variables, like how animal responses line up with such factors as arousal level, habit strength, and sensory cues.

Displacement Thoughts

Even the most dedicated scientists might not always have a handle on what animals are up to. As in any other field, previous theories were built upon or revised, or quietly discarded. Authorities disagree on how much animal behavior is actually what humans call displacement activity. Part of the difficulty is that many humans have been programmed to believe there are only two possible responses to a perceived threat, those being “fight or flight.”

The idea expanded into a doctrinal tenet that anything else an animal might do in such a situation is wrong or “inappropriate.” But some prominent researchers resist the trend toward anthropomorphizing animals, and think that ascribing to them such human emotions as “embarrassment” is a mistake. (See the photo on this page, which the artist titled “Embarrassed.”)

Displacement Is a Multifactorial Thing

Like everything else in psychology, the “displacement mechanism” started with Freud. A well-known quotation from a later authority pointed out that a thwarted animal who is prevented from engaging in a particular activity tends “either to direct the same activity toward another object or to engage in a completely different activity.” It would be difficult to envision a third alternative. Other than doing the same or different, what additional possibility exists? And doing anything different might include… anything.

Yet, many researchers in this area insist that the only orthodox responses to a threat situation are “fight or flight.” This throws every other possible response into the category of displacement behavior, which in turn signifies wrong, inappropriate, futile, and silly behavior.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Image by Paulo Lins/CC BY 2.0

Displacement Thoughts With Particular Slants

Pat Hartman January 12, 2023 No Comments

Coronavirus Chronicles — Boredom and Distraction

For anyone whose go-to stress response is eating, times of enforced isolation and heightened anxiety are particularly bad times. This seems to be the case whether eating is a chemical addiction or a behavioral addiction. In addition to all the other problems inherent in the pandemic, to prevent their children from eating constantly, parents were called upon to devise means of capturing their attention and filling their time.

Coronavirus Chronicles — Depression, Boredom, and Eatertainment

The rogue displacement mechanism of overeating can be overcome by distractions, but distraction only works if the subject is interested in the distractor. This piece addresses the triple threat of depression, boredom, and eatertainment when kids are required to spend too much time at home.

Coronavirus Chronicles — Displacement Is Substitution

Displacement activity occurs in many forms, of which eating is one. But what happens when there just isn’t any food? This was the situation faced by many parents at the height of the pandemic. Dr. Pretlow says,

Displacement activity is an innate, hard-wired, instinctual, automatic biobehavioral mechanism… Displacement activity is rechanneling of overflow energy from conflicted or thwarted drives into another drive.

Displacement — Definitions and Examples

Dr. Pretlow explains how displacement, or rechanneling overflow brain energy to another drive (feeding) unbalances the equilibrium between two other opposing drives, and how this can resolve a stressful situation at the moment. Of course, it sets up another threatening situation in slow motion, creating obesity that will in turn become a stressful situation

Some Displacement Background

This post looked at Niko Tinbergen’s ideas on displacement theories, and how other experts questioned his methods and conclusions.

Tapping the Source of Malaise

This post examines the idea that it is not food that causes overeating, but the life situations the person is facing. It introduces Carly Hurt, the young woman who has played such a big part in the advancement of Dr. Pretlow’s work with adolescents.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Image by Julija Rauluševičiūtė/CC BY 2.0

Displacement Mechanism Posts

Pat Hartman January 11, 2023 No Comments

Addiction and Displacement Theory Presentation 1-8

An eight-post series that takes a deep dive into one of Dr. Pretlow’s writings.

Addiction and Displacement

It’s not the food that is addictive, it’s the eating. This offers hope that the displacement mechanism may be useful in the treatment of eating addiction.

Displacement Behavior in the Animal Kingdom

Displacement activity, universal in the animal kingdom, stems from situations of major opposing or thwarted behavioral drives, e.g. fight or flight. However, some researchers have said that in regard to many animals, we simply do not know enough about their natural behavior to make unwarranted assumptions about deviant or out-of-context behavior.

Some Thoughts on Displacement Behavior

Displacement behavior in animals may become compulsive and destructive, like the excessive grooming of the fur in response to stress or social isolation.

Laughter As Displacement Behavior

In addition to the half dozen or so recognized types of displacement behavior, zoologist Basil Hugh Hall proposes that laughter, as an effective stress alleviator, is a legit displacement response. He also suggests that the notion of laughing “with” and “at” individual people or groups is a flawed concept. This quotation is interesting:

I do not believe we laugh at, or laugh with, anyone, as the disinhibition of laughter is an involuntary response to conflict during event processing on a neurological level.

More About Laughter As a Displacement Behavior

Laughter could serve as a displacement activity, with the same function as several other behavioral alternatives, including fight, flee, freeze, and feed. This piece discussed the ability to provoke laughter which, even for children, can be an effective defense against bullying. It works for grownups too, where a rough crowd will tolerate someone for her or his ability to make others laugh.

It also works for children, to disarm classroom teachers, who are not even trying to bully anyone, but merely to maintain order and teach the kids something. Authority figures who permit humor every so often have to walk a fine line between tolerance and permissiveness. Humor can get people out of threatening situations, and that alone would seem to qualify it as an effective displacement mechanism.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Laughter as an exapted displacement activity: the implications for humor theory,” ResearchGate.net, June 2009
Image by Scouse Smurf/CC BY-ND 2.0

Some Posts About Displacement

Pat Hartman January 10, 2023 No Comments

Animals, People, and Displacement Behaviors

If eating makes us feel safe, then in an effort to erase our bad feelings, we can eat until it turns into something that looks very much like an addiction. This post also talks about the difficulty of separating apparent displacement activity from normal life activities in the animal kingdom. How do we know that other creatures perceive and react to stimuli in ways that correspond to human reactions?

Displacement Activities in Animals and Humans

There are behaviors that animals and people might engage in to relieve the discomfort of a threat, whether physical or intangible. What do they have in common? Apparently, the tendency to engage in comfort eating. A dog trainer looks at some of the displacement behaviors that her canine clients might engage in.

Some experts place a great deal of credence in conclusions they have drawn from studying dogs. However, the case around canines could be argued. They all started as wolves, and they have all been purposefully bred, for hundreds of generations, to keep the traits that please humans (for whatever purpose) and to diminish the natural traits that humans do not find useful or attractive. So, how much of what we learn by observing dogs can honestly be extrapolated to any meaningful knowledge about human behavior?

Responses to Perceived Threat

There are reasons to think that ideas about displacement activities in dogs are not quite relevant to humans. Well then, how about wild chimpanzees? What can be learned from them about human psychology, addiction-proneness, or anything else?
This post also talks about yet another threat response — freeze. It is similar to another recognized displacement behavior, fainting, except the person is still conscious, although the state of that consciousness is altered.

Displacement Behavior and the Many Related Fs

Can a bee have a nervous breakdown? Is an octopus capable of experiencing anxiety, and if so, how does it manifest? The F’s referenced in the title are fight, flee, freeze, feed, fornicate, fool around, fidget (which seems pretty close to fooling around), and faint (which at first glance could be just a more intense form of freezing, but is probably something entirely different.) The problem is that, except with well-studied species like canines, humans just do not know enough about normal animal behavior to make assumptions about their motivations and intentions.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Image by Bureau of Land Management/Public Domain

Make a deal to indulge

Begin a manageable workout program

Have a friend help you

Drink plenty of water

Weigh yourself

Set a goal

Be patient

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