Pat Hartman | Childhood Obesity News

‘Tis the Season to be Traumatized

Pat Hartman December 24, 2020 No Comments

For an obese child, the holidays are when relatives who haven’t seen you all year say, “My goodness, how you have grown!” or worse. In some cases, much worse. People give you the wrong size clothes and insist you try them on, which you don’t want to do because you already know the item is too small, and besides, it’s not one of your colors.

Holidays are when people insist that you eat something, or too much of it, because otherwise, someone’s feelings will be hurt. As seen in this and many other examples, emotional blackmail is a seasonal specialty. Some types of abusive relationships thrive in the atmosphere of a holiday gathering, especially with the “social lubricant” of alcohol involved.

The emotionally abusive person takes advantage of the permissiveness of a celebratory atmosphere. A lot of cruelty is shrugged off as “just kidding around.” A lot of kids are told to not be such a sissy.

Unaggressive people are expected to be good sports, and go along with being ridiculed and mocked in the name of harmless fun. The victim is expected to cheerfully cooperate, or be scorned as a Debbie or Dougie Downer. These are some of the many reasons why experts increasingly realize the importance of psychological therapy in the prevention and treatment of obesity.

Rebellion against the status quo

Holiday feasts are total enablement festivals. Everyone is encouraged to violate their limits. “One piece of pie won’t kill you.”

“You may be right, but my not having it won’t kill you, either, so why don’t you just mind your own business?” Many readers of this page have known a 14-year-old who would say that, or at least would very much want to. Some can remember being that teenager. One or two might wish that their own mother, who was embarrassed about her weight, could have summoned up the backbone to say it to someone at the holiday dinner.

For anyone with a bona fide addiction, the holidays can be a chamber of horrors.

Here is an experiment to try over the holidays. Just monitor yourself for two things. First, if you find yourself about to say to someone else, “Have another drink” or “Have another candy cane,” don’t.

And any time you catch yourself rationalizing, “Oh why not have another drink or another candy cane? After all, it’s the holidays.” Give yourself the gift of deciding not to.

We have of course mentioned Dr. Pretlow’s Weigh2Rock website, where responses from thousands of kids informed his book, Overweight: What Kids Say. Holidays are one of the many subjects discussed in those locations. Let’s face it, for some people, having a less social holiday season this year could be a much-needed respite.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Image by Maria Eklind/CC BY-SA 2.0

Merry Christmas and/or Any Additional Holiday/s of Your Choice

Pat Hartman December 23, 2020 2 Comments

This post and the next two present a collection of bits and pieces from past Childhood Obesity News articles about the winter holidays. Because of where in geography and when in history we are, Christmas is mentioned a lot. But the basic principles of obesity avoidance naturally, and sadly, are relevant to the feasts and festivals of many religious traditions, at any time of year.

The insidious thing about Christmas is that it comes just a week before the new year begins. It seems like everybody in America has the same denial-driven mindset about the holidays — go for a big, double-whammy binge blowout over Christmas and New Year’s.

The bits and pieces may seem rather negative, and maybe this is a good thing. To be reminded about some of the annoying and hurtful aspects of the holidays can help us feel less sad about the features that are missing this year.

Nobody wants to be a catastrophe-predicting scold. But some words in the nature of a disclaimer are necessary here. Many of these past posts mention things like large family gatherings, travel, school parties, visiting relatives, faith-based and institutional events, and so on. This year, because of the pandemic, none of these activities can in good conscience be recommended. If we want to see people again in the next winter holiday season, maybe it’s not such a bad idea, this year, to give it a miss.

Not all the selections are grim. There is, for instance, some history:

In days of old, life was tough and boring, winter was dark, long, and cold, and any excuse was seized upon to fling mundane routine aside and boogie all night long. The tedium was relieved by raucous trick-or-treat type behavior, which later transmogrified into gentler customs, like the singing of Christmas carols beneath the neighbors’ windows.

There are tips on how to avoid and resist temptation, and here is a new one for the socially awkward. Somewhere in the group is the least persuadable person, who maintains autonomy, yet somehow manages to avoid the social penalty that non-cooperation sometimes extracts.

How does this mentor firmly, gracefully neutralize hostility? How do they say no, and get away with it? Observe the person’s demeanor. Watch them like a spy. Harken to their words, and take all that information away with you, and ponder it, and adapt it to your own personal style.

Here is more prime advice for parents and other responsible adults at get-togethers:

It would really be nice if all grownups could just decide to never, ever make remarks about a child’s size. Not even to note that they have gotten skinnier. Just leave that subject alone, because you don’t know what kind of can of worms it might open. And if a parent wants to bore you with all the details of young Jenny’s weight control battle, think about how mortified poor Jenny must be. Don’t sit still for this discussion. Excuse yourself and go outside and chop some wood. Evade and escape, while at the same time working off some calories!

How to feel better about missing the holidays

In one way, it feels messed up to think about any of these “luxury problems,” these crises of excess, when so many Americans are hungry and broke. This year is different not just because of COVID-19, but because of the widespread unemployment and impoverishment that accompany the pandemic.

And here we are, worried about people who have too much to eat. But in reality, this is a sign of the greatest optimism. Hopefully, by this time next year, the danger of eating too much will outweigh the danger of not having enough to eat. Things will be so good, everybody’s biggest problem will be having too much.

Too optimistic? So optimistic, it might be sarcastic? Not at all. Just trying to let a bit of the bright side shine!

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Image by Charles Patrick Ewing/CC BY 2.0

Coronavirus Chronicles — The Slim Silver Lining

Pat Hartman December 22, 2020 No Comments

The summer of 2000 was not a complete disaster, because at least some useful research came out of it. As Childhood Obesity News has mentioned, the young and the very young are susceptible to a particularly miserable form and/or result of COVID-19.

At first, different researchers called it different names, but they seem to have settled into Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome, or MIS-C. It was driving the medical experts crazy, not knowing the parameters of this horror, or what it might do next week, let alone several years down the road, and on into the young victim’s adulthood.

Inflammation is an immune system defense

In August, Katherine J. Wu wrote for The New York Times about studies of the role of the immune system in the most severe COVID-19 cases. These topics appear to be related to the mystery of MIS-C and even to the question of whether someone who seems to catch the virus twice, might instead just have one long, recurring case of it.

Akiko Iwasaki, Ph.D., a Yale immunologist and leader of one of the studies considered here, is quoted as saying, “We are seeing some crazy things coming up at various stages of infection.” Journalist Ku expands,

In certain patients […] the virus appears to make the immune system go haywire. Unable to marshal the right cells and molecules to fight off the invader, the bodies of the infected instead launch an entire arsenal of weapons — a misguided barrage that can wreak havoc on healthy tissues…

There is some evidence that early recognition of their “telltale immune signatures” could enable this type of very susceptible patient to avoid the extreme effect.

The immune system reacts in two stages, the first a relatively crude and brute-force defense mechanism that buys time for the body to muster other, more sophisticated weapons to deal with specific targets. Cytokines are in charge of coordinating these stages, but sometimes, for some reason, they don’t know how to quit. Now, they attack the very organism they were supposed to rescue — their own human — your child.

How does the novel coronavirus carry out this mischief? Maybe by messing with the cytokine interferon. Also, the body’s B cells and T cells really need to “stay on the same page,” but the virus might have figured out a way to scramble their communication. Wu’s article contains a wealth of information as absorbable as this:

[T]he immune system’s responses to pathogens can be roughly grouped into three categories: type 1, which is directed against viruses and certain bacteria that infiltrate our cells; type 2, which fights parasites like worms that don’t invade cells; and type 3, which goes after fungi and bacteria that can survive outside of cells. Each branch uses different cytokines to rouse different subsets of molecular fighters.

A lot of complicated ramifications are involved, and the possibilities are fascinating.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Scientists Uncover Biological Signatures of the Worst Covid-19 Cases,” NYTimes.com, 08/04/20
Image by Šarūnas Burdulis/CC BY-SA 2.0

Coronavirus Chronicles — Transmission and Kids, Summer

Pat Hartman December 21, 2020 1 Comment

The summer of 2020 was just one thing after another. In four weeks, the country’s COVID-19 child cases grew by 90%. That’s not quite doubling, but it is pretty impressive for the work of a single month. After years of using the term “viral” to signify popularity that grows ferociously fast, it seems like, when an actual virus comes along, more recognition should be granted. This animated video provides a glimpse into the power of exponential growth.

My way or the highway

What the public really needs to understand about the virus is its single-minded sense of purpose. If the virus were a musician, it would produce a symphony every day. If the virus cared about climate change, there would be no more forest fires. It is excellent at what it does, and it knows what it wants.

It wants to use you as raw material to make more of itself. It wants to get into you, dismantle you like an old car, and sell the parts. The virus doesn’t have to fill out its tax forms or pay back its student loans, or even feed its kids. The virus only has one job — to reproduce.

It is a master of focus and intent, and it’s on a mission. Against all odds, the virus even seems to have been running its own PR campaign, because for a long time it did a great job of convincing most of America that children and teenagers were somehow magically exempt. Even after months, there are still people who think that the only victims are geezers in retirement homes.

Social media provides plenty of evidence to the contrary. From anonymous strangers, we hear about such cases as the 20-year-old “girl next door” who apparently recovered from an apparently mild case of COVID-19, and then dropped dead from a heart attack.

Younger children at risk

The American Academy of Pediatrics kept track of the summer toll of kids:

There were 179,990 new Covid-19 cases among US children between July 9 and August 6, according to the report. At least 380,174 total child Covid-19 cases have been reported as of August 6.

When children are sick enough to be hospitalized, one in three wind up in the Intensive Care Unit. Just for the sake of example, as this is being written, Southern California’s ICUs are full. (See a helpful map of ICU capacity in your area.)

The only upside is that in such a regimented setting, the sick ones can be studied more closely, in an effort to keep other kids out of there. Mitchell Tsai wrote for Quora,

We’ve learned younger children and teenagers shouldn’t be lumped together when it comes to Covid. Teens seem to shed virus — emit it from their throats and nasal passages — at about the same rates as adults. Kids under 5 have high levels of virus in their respiratory tracts, but it’s still not clear how much they spread it or why they don’t develop symptoms as often as adults do.

And like adults, children with other health conditions — obesity, chronic lung diseases, or infants who were born premature — are at higher risk than otherwise healthy children.

But foundational good health is no guarantee. Also in August, we heard about a 19-year-old in desperate shape, described by writer Gilbert Magallon as “fighting for his life for the last two months after contracting the coronavirus twice.” This was a robust youth, a football player and homecoming king. Not your typical person who needs emergency surgery to prevent imminent heart failure. No, a young man who was basically fine — until suddenly, he wasn’t.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “There has been a 90% increase in Covid-19 cases in US children in the last four weeks, report says,” CNN.com, 08/11/20
Source: “Seven months later, what we know about Covid-19 — and the pressing questions that remain,” quora.com, 08/19/20
Source: “‘It’s a parent’s worst nightmare:’,” ABC7NY.com, 08/19/20
Image by Nenad Stojkovic/CC BY 2.0

Coronavirus Chronicles — Transmission and Kids, Continued

Pat Hartman December 18, 2020 1 Comment

A few months into the pandemic, the initial optimism about youthful invulnerability was crumbling. It became increasingly clear that young people could both catch and transmit COVID-19.

In July, a news report said that one-third of Florida’s children tested positive for the virus. In August, a California teenager became the state’s “official first juvenile fatality.” In a Georgia elementary school, a first-grader tested positive for the virus. In another of the state’s schools, an eighth-grader tested positive.

The notion that children were not “significant carriers” bit the dust. South Korean research indicated that “infected individuals as young as 10 can be as contagious as adults.” Another study showed that children, yes, even the ones younger than five, might have noses and throats more highly populated with SARS-CoV-2 than those of adults.

Kids might not even show signs of being sick, but apparently, they can be instrumental in making others sick. Journalist Robert Roy Britt wrote in his article for Medium.com,

In an outbreak at a June sleepover camp in Georgia, at least 260 children and adults contracted Covid-19 — about 44% of all kids and counselors. Among kids ages six to 10, 51% tested positive (the actual figure might be much higher because not all campers were tested).

Also early in August, the World Health Organization made an unsettling announcement:

The proportion of cases in teens and young adults has gone up six-fold, and in very young children and babies the proportion has increased seven-fold…

Georgia just couldn’t catch a break. A seven-year-old Black male child, with no underlying medical conditions, became the state’s youngest COVID-19 fatality. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association collaborated on a report, and announced that pediatric cases “grew 40% in the last half of July […] bringing the total number of child infections to 8.8% of all U.S. cases.”

There is said to be “conflicting data about how Covid-19 is transmitted to and from children.” There is also confusion about other matters, partly because the various institutions and governmental jurisdictions have their own definitions of when youth ends, so the compilation of relevant statistics is not an exact science. But all in all,

97,078 new child cases were reported from July 16-30, bringing the total number since the pandemic began to 338,982… California, Florida and Arizona had the highest number of total child cases in the U.S., with more than 20,000 each, the report found. By population, Arizona had the highest count, with more than 1,000 cases per 100,000 children…

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “US teen dies from coronavirus, becoming first juvenile death in California,” News.com.au, 08/01/20
Source: “Kids in Classrooms Could Make the Pandemic Much Worse,” Medium.com, 08/04/20
Source: “Masks could save 70,000 Americans by December,” CNN.com, 08/07/20
Source: “7-year-old becomes youngest to die of coronavirus in Georgia,” TheHill.com, 08/07/20
Source: “Covid-19 Cases Among U.S. Children Jumped 40% in Late July,” Bloomberg.com, 08/09/20
Image by Rawpixel Ltd/Public Domain

Coronavirus Chronicles — Transmission and Kids

Pat Hartman December 17, 2020 1 Comment

Let’s look at the history of bad news about how this particular disease gets around, with special emphasis on beliefs about children. The coronavirus era began with the widespread belief that children were pretty much invulnerable. The media reported anomalous cases — a first-grader here, an eighth-grader there. A nine-year-old in one state, a five-year-old in another. Bits of knowledge trickled into consciousness and then changed from a trickle to a stream as scientifically certified facts insisted on pushing their way to the foreground.

Early on, in the spring, there was the consciousness of one of the many ways in which the pandemic indirectly affected children. The sequestration of minors to protect them from the virus is defended by some and pooh-poohed by others. To figure out these dilemmas with what might be called “normal” children is difficult enough. In May the British press explored the problem of what to do about children whose normality consists of being locked away.

The government investigated carceral institutions, including child detention facilities, where the lockdown rules grew even stricter and some kids are allowed only 40 minutes a day outside their cells. Children in official custody still have all the problems that regular children have, including obesity and susceptibility to COVID-19. Journalist Michael Savage reported:

Children reported that they were struggling with the lack of visits, with some facilities having no video-call facilities… Children in custody have been subject to restricted activities for the past eight weeks, as institutions attempt to comply with official social-distancing guidance. Face-to-face education sessions have stopped in most centres, and visits have been hugely reduced. “Access to time out of cell, education, activities and family and professional visits have been severely curtailed,” the investigation finds.

By July, the word was going around that the test showing the presence of antibodies, if positive, does not imply that the disease will not recur in the future. As Rachel Schraer put it,

[H]aving antibodies does not mean you are immune. Your immune system does use antibodies to fight but it has a short memory with some viruses.

For some reason, early on, it was thought that because children’s respiratory tracts are sparsely populated with ACE2 receptors, the virus could not establish a foothold there. And then, this came along:

[C]hildren have as much — and in some cases up to a hundred times more — virus RNA present in their nose and throat… [The] virus was still able to get into enough cells to turn them into highly productive factories to produce just as much virus.

July brought many COVID-19 outbreaks in the daycare centers of Texas. Oregon reported that its caseload of children under 10 had multiplied by five. It became increasingly clear that, yes, this disease can afflict children. There is no reason why not. Journalist Robert Roy Britt quoted Robert Salata, M.D., a specialist in both epidemiology and international health, who teaches at Case Western Reserve University:

The most remarkable thing for me is the fact that we are learning of the catastrophic consequences of this viral infection from strokes in younger persons, multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, cardiac and renal complications, and the long-lasting consequences of symptoms related to a post-Covid syndrome.

For months, a citadel of wishful thinking had been constructed. Now it began to crumble.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Covid causes child detention crisis, and a ‘timebomb’ in adult prisons,” TheGuardian.com, 05/31//20
Source: “Coronavirus: Majority testing positive have no symptoms,” BBC.com, 07/07/20
Source: “What’s the Deal With Kids and the Coronavirus: Five Leading Theories,” Medium.com, 08/02/20
Source: “9 Things Experts Have Learned About Covid-19 So Far,” Medium.com, 08/28/20
Image by Shelby L. Bell/CC BY 2.0

Coronavirus Chronicles — The Mutual Aid Pact Between Obesity and COVID-19

Pat Hartman December 16, 2020 1 Comment

To the novel coronavirus, an obese human looks like a sweet treat. The virus, whose formal name is SARS-CoV-2, likes to hang out with fat cells. A person with a lot of them is ripe for invasion.

As a bonus, if that obese human is hospitalized, their bulk is much more difficult for medical staff to cope with in such matters as a transfer from the gurney to bed, or positioning for X-rays and other procedures. In a bulky patient, significant structures and landmarks are harder to locate, impeding many sorts of medical intervention. To aid breathing, a human does better if placed in a prone position, which is a challenge when a sizable belly is in the way.

Thanks to body fat, the disease can score a lot more points. If the patient gets well enough to be discharged home, obesity will impede any amount of healthful movement, so for the ambitious virus, additional projects like blood clot formation are more easily accomplished. The virus has every reason to embrace obesity as the optimal human condition for its purposes. And of course, the harmful alliance between the disease and unhealthy body weight works both ways.

Scratching each other’s backs

To the ever-present threat of obesity, the virus is a willing accomplice. When it comes to piling on the pounds, a person suffering from the effects of COVID-19 is a sitting duck. Even after what is officially deemed recovery, that human may feel lousy for months.

One frequently mentioned long-term effect is chronic fatigue. Another often-used expression is “exercise intolerance,” an overall decreased capacity for exertion, combined with a feeling of fragility. This can have many contributory elements including joint pain, chest pain, shortness of breath, runaway heartbeat, headache, dizziness, loss of feeling in the limbs, muscle atrophy, sores on the feet, light sensitivity, weakness, and even paralysis.

Everything hurts, and different organs and body parts hurt on different days. The uncertainty is debilitating, as is the teasing, non-linear nature of what is said to be recovery. Each presumed step toward wellness turns out to be a false start, followed by a relapse, or worse yet, an entirely fresh hell where a new symptom shows up.

The pattern is stressful, repeatedly discouraging, and always anxiety-producing. Maybe a caregiver suspects malingering. Maybe family members, friends, and medical personnel simply fail to grasp the victim’s certainty about the overwhelming impossibility of trying to improve, or even of believing that improvement is possible.

The psychological components are awful. There’s the inability to concentrate, the brain fog, the confusion, the depression, the PTSD. A person in this condition is unlikely to do healthful things like get even a minimal amount of exercise, or go outside to absorb some Vitamin D-producing sun rays. (Most COVID-19 sufferers are severely deficient.)

This individual does not feel like standing around in a kitchen peeling vegetables, or stirring a nutrient-packed soup. Everything is too much, except giving in to the temptation to not even try. Disrupted sleep can cultivate eating disorders, and the meal of choice is, of course, comfort food.

These examples of how obesity and the virus are in league against humans were drawn from the following sources:

“Children Are Covid-19 Long-Haulers, Too” by Ashley Zlatopolsky, Medium.com, 11/11/20
Thread by Dani Oliver, Twitter.com, 07/03/20
“When Children’s Covid-19 Symptoms Won’t Go Away” by Megan Doherty, Undark.org, 09/02/20
“Long Haul Covid-19 Symptom Compendium,” Robotistry.org, undated
“‘Dying not only worry’: Coronavirus ‘long-hauler’ details horrific symptoms” by Nick Whigham, Yahoo.com, August 2020
“New Survey Identifies 98 Long-Lasting Covid Symptoms” by Robert Roy Britt, Medium.com, 08/13/20

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Images by N G/CC BY-ND 2.0; Jeff Stevens/CC BY 2.0; Scott Maxwell/CC BY-SA 2.0

Coronavirus Chronicles — This Moment in History

Pat Hartman December 15, 2020 No Comments

The final month of 2020 is nobody’s idea of a good time. As we have extensively pointed out, just about anything that’s good for COVID-19 is indirectly good for obesity, and vice versa. Obesity and the virus are like comic book villains, evil twins who spur each other on to ever-intensifying malice, and who always have each other’s backs. Consequently, the virus takes up a lot of attention. It refuses to settle down into a stodgy, reliable entity but continues to adapt and invent. It always pulls another surprise from its pocket.

Who put the “mission” in transmission?

Or maybe it’s just that the humans are kind of backward. We think we know something about how the virus jumps from one victim to another, and why. And then, the things we think we know turn out to be as quaintly superstitious as hanging a horseshoe above a house door to bring good luck.

For instance, most Americans seem to have accepted certain levels of mealtime fraternization within walls. A lot of people took the “pod” concept and ran with it. Rather than holding every pod member to strict rules of the association, people seem to have redefined their pod as “anyone I’m related to or friendly with.” People seem to have actually convinced themselves that the virus will respect their definitions, and not let itself be carried around by anyone who is within their circle of relatives and friends. This delusion, paired with current statistics, explains a lot.

Earnest efforts

Some restaurants have erected outdoor enclosures, huts or tents that are hard to distinguish from homeless encampments, and are probably no more healthful, coronavirus-wise. Or they set up concrete barriers, and the customers eat at tables adjacent to passing traffic.

Many, many more have initiated distancing rules, and fiddled with their HVAC systems, in order to let diners sit indoors. Plenty of people always thought this was okay, and many still do. But new evidence has come in, and many experts believe that indoor restaurant dining is one of the riskiest activities a human being can engage in, in this day and age.

Reportedly, an unimaginably small moisture droplet, capable of carrying a viral load, is also able to travel 20 feet through the atmosphere. For instance, from one person to another, even when the distance between them is more than three times the currently recommended six-foot safety zone.

Another illusion shattered

In a very fresh LATimes.com article, Victoria Kim explains for non-scientists some startling events. Proving once again that the young are by no means immune to the disease, a high school student caught it “after five minutes of exposure from more than 20 feet away.”

The epidemiologists were not just theorizing about the gravity of the situation. The surveillance video footage is decisively clear. The virus carrier and the girl who caught it were far apart. They touched none of the same objects or surfaces, and they never spoke. Another person in the room also became infected. South Korea’s “meticulous and often invasive contact tracing regime” annoys those who cherish possibly spurious freedom above life, but it gets the detective job done. Kim found reports of similar cases, such as…

[…] a July study out of Guangzhou, China, which looked at infections among three families who dined at a restaurant along the flow of air conditioning at tables that were three feet apart, overlapping for about an hour. Ten of the diners tested positive for the coronavirus. Contact tracers in South Korea similarly mapped out a large outbreak at a Starbucks in Paju in August, when 27 people were infected by a woman sitting under a second-floor ceiling air conditioning unit.

This revised estimate of dangerous proximity, if the world takes it seriously, could change a lot of things, including the possibility of schools ever opening again.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Infected after 5 minutes, from 20 feet away: South Korea study shows coronavirus’ spread indoors,” LATimes.com, 12/09/20
Image by Elvert Barnes/CC BY-SA 2.0

Coronavirus Chronicles — Exercise Deprivation and Baby Steps

Pat Hartman December 14, 2020 1 Comment

In this virus-saturated environment, a major theme of public discussion is the harm being done to children who are unable to get enough exercise. It is a serious problem that is not going away any time soon.

Let’s mention Alasdair Wilkins, who published “I lost 100 pounds in a year. My ‘weight loss secret’ is really dumb.” His secret? He walked an uphill treadmill for an hour each day while watching movies.

How is this relevant? The actual numbers are slippery, but it seems safe to say that treadmills are present in only a very small percentage of American homes. They are costly; they consume a lot of valuable indoor real estate; they are unsuitable and dangerous for children. So, a grownup achieved a weight loss goal using that tool. What does that have to do with children who are cooped up inside?

As unrelated as the story might seem, the kernel of a good idea can be found anywhere. For instance, when so many families are restricted to home for excruciatingly long periods, there is a temptation to let kids (and ourselves) consume unlimited hours of entertainment. And yet we are constantly told that screen time is one of the most heinous childhood obesity villains. Could there be a way to slightly reduce the toxicity of screen time?

How many soup cans are in the cabinet?

What if a family picked a day when a special condition would be in effect? What if, on Saturday, the first half-hour of TV anyone watched, would be done with soup cans in hand, to circulate some blood, build some muscle, and burn off some calories? How many calories? It doesn’t matter. The concept is “baby steps,” just doing a little something that is better than nothing and (who knows?) might lead to great accomplishments.

It doesn’t matter if the person stays seated, as long as they spend the 30 minutes in movement. Even one soup can in one hand, up and down. It’s a teeny, tiny baby step, and worth trying. It could branch out in many directions. A decision might be made to do this three days a week, instead of just one. Or every day. Or twice a day. The lesson is, combining even this modest amount of activity with the privilege of screen time can lead to better things.

When people discover that an activity makes them feel better in some way, they often (and not surprisingly) do more of it. Any kid can look in a mirror and see the development of a shapely bicep, and become inspired. Any kid (or adult) can search YouTube for soup can workout and discover an amazing number of activities utilizing these small weights that most people have around the house.

The point is, to model a starting place, consider a doable amount of activity combined with the reward of watching something interesting. When interviewed, Alasdair Wilkins said a number of noteworthy things, such as…

The very small initial movement, without adding any larger expectations, allowed me to start going to the gym every day and to do a little bit more each time. I was thinking about my weight loss on a very small scale: I just wanted to feel better…

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “How Did Alasdair Wilkins Lose 100 lbs in a Year?,” Diatribe.org, 10/5/15
Image by Rukia13/CC BY-ND 2.0

Government Alarm and Even Weirder Mukbang

Pat Hartman December 11, 2020 No Comments

As we have seen, reactions to the mukbang fad vary. Some are for it, some abhor it, and others, like the Swedish researchers previously mentioned, find mixed results:

For some, mukbang appears to be a constructive tool in increasing food intake, preventing binge eating, or reducing loneliness; for others, it is clearly a destructive force that may motivate restrictive eating or trigger a relapse into loss-of-control eating.

Just when it seemed that the mukbang scene could not get any more bizarre, a new wrinkle appeared, and if it seems too crazy to be true, the reader is invited to search for “invisible mukbang” or “mukbang without food.” Performers with hefty followings on YouTube and other platforms have pioneered a sub-genre of mukbang, featuring only the sound effects of biting, chewing, gulping, and slurping that so captivate ASMR devotees. That’s right, they pretend to eat invisible food, and make the appropriate noises.

This appears to have started when the Chinese government revived a 2013 “Clean Your Plate” campaign (which originally targeted the lavish banquets held by politicians and the operatives who surround them). Now, of course, conditions are even worse than they were seven years ago, and top officials decry the “shocking and distressing” amount of food waste, with good reason. Iris Deng and Yujie Xue report,

Since last year, the Chinese leadership has repeatedly stressed the importance of food security and assured the public the nation is producing enough to feed its 1.4 billion people. This year, floods ravaged China’s traditional rice production and the coronavirus pandemic disrupted food supply.

China urges its citizens to “maintain a sense of crisis on food security.” There are individual health concerns, too. Apparently, a Chinese mukbang star gained 90 pounds in six months, and died. There have also been accusations of fakery. It is said that some of the well-paid online “big stomachs” actually cheat in various ways, and don’t actually retain the enormous amounts of food in their bodies. Another factor is that some mukbangers are said to be dishonest about the sponsorships that enrich them.

The Chinese government, which operates with different standards from some others, feels free to interfere with search results. If internet users seek such topics as “eating show” or “competitive eating” they are firmly redirected. Journalist Chloe Yorke says,

For instance, on Douyin, when users search for relevant terms such as “big stomach king” (大胃王), they are instead greeted with the message “refuse waste and eat reasonably.”

Other groups also favor the limiting of such videos, and it is easy to see why classically trained actors, singers, and musicians would be repelled by mukbang, which is very difficult to justify as an art form:

The Chinese Association of Performing Arts took measures a step further by issuing a statement stating that it would “resolutely prohibit fake eating, vomiting, overeating, and other extravagant and wasteful live broadcasts.”

As September rolled around, things got more serious. Yujie Xue reported that the Cyberspace Administration of China had shut down more than 13,000 video and live-stream accounts. There are very strong indications that other countries are prepared to follow this example.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Mukbang and Disordered Eating: A Netnographic Analysis of Online Eating Broadcasts,” Springer.com, 04/10/20
Source: “China’s online eating shows under scrutiny after state media criticism of food waste,” SCMP.com. 08/13/20
Source: “Does China’s “Clean Plate” Campaign Spell the End for Mukbang Livestreamers?,” RadiiChina.com, 08/16/2020
Source: “China’s internet watchdog shuts down 13,600 mukbang accounts for promoting food waste,” SCMP.com, 09/03/20
Image by Matt Brown/CC BY 2.0

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