"Obesity is not the fault of its many victims, but they should not be laughing about it either."

Who's laughing? As far as the author knows, they could have been crying inside. Ever hear about gallows humor?

A fellow obese chorister told me I looked nice in pants last time around. I said I rarely wear them because not much in my closet fits anymore. He sighed, and said, "Yeah, I know the feeling". I floated home on that remark. Just acceptance and fellow-feeling.

"And they certainly should not be propagating it and its harms among children."

Agreed. But the people who really, truly know what children should be fed are few and far between, and that's getting worse all the time. In a singe generation, from my mother's farm upbringing, to my former flatmates goggling at my cooking skills, noone seems to even cook anymore.

If we can't cook for our selves, how can we better cook for our children? New parents are discouraged from making their own formula, the path from there to stuffing the little tyke with sugary canned baby foods from a name-brand company is short, because they "know what the child needs" better than the parents, right? That's where it starts.

It continues in kindergarten, in school, and in family meals often taken in restaurants, busy schedules becoming as important a reason as a failure of confidence in being able to properly feed them.

Children are drawing rectangles when asked to draw a fish.

My old flatmates (a year ago) were amazed that I knew how to chop up veggies for a quick chicken salad. Not to mention put stuff into my crockpot and turn it on, let alone make chicken soup from scratch. I think they would be hard put to even fry a chicken themselves.

I'm sorry, but I have a real problem with a person who repeats over and over "...I'm not advocated pressing my views on everyone else" OR "..I'm not trying to tell them what to do...."

While doing just that.

I totally agree with this article. As he points out, if this were tobacco or drugs, we would all have something to say, so why not in regards to obesity?

We all know that their food choices are damaging and will potentially be just as damaging to the child, but shame shame on anyone who dares say anything about it? We should just sit back and let them do as they wish, right because it is so tabboo otherwise. It's time something does change. And to say it's not their fault........ when was the last time you were told that junk food was healthy? When was the last time you were told that you will lose weight if you eat cheese puffs?

I was told by a whole group of nurses at a blood bank (I used to work at) that I would lose weight if I quit eating meat (specifically 'reduce protein a lot and avoid fat') and started eating things like pasta, fruit smoothies and store bought lowfat yogurt. This greatly contributed to making a very bad problem worse.

I don't think people need to live on junk food to ruin their metabolism or gain fat. I certainly did during long periods, but I gained a helluva lot of weight even during the periods when I was allegedly "trying to eat healthy". Whole grain pasta don'tcha know. Corn and peas with margarine, must have 'veggies'.

I agree that eating badly in any parent perpetuates to the kids--but I don't think most people know what is right. They pick up the 'conglomerate indoctrination' of the culture and apply it from mildly to occasionally heavily, but since this is generally more harmful to a torqued metabolism than helpful, there seems to be no answer. The kid gets greatly skewed toward obesity in the womb, and every cycle of 'healthy low-fat high-carb eating' does about as much damage to the kids' metabolism as living on fast food does, and then the parents drop that unsustainable approach and go back to eating whatever is fast and tasty. Until the cumulative damage is visible and the kid is now gaining weight even on less or allegedly healthy LF/HC food. At that point a person doesn't need to eat junk food to be fat or get fatter. Just more of a lot of whole wheat toast with margarine and orange juice is effective for fat-growth.

Until we can educate people as to what is *really* healthy eating, and get people eating fat and protein so food intolerance addictive-reactions drop and malnutrition reduces or vanishes and the body's chronic drive to eat and usually carb-rich food diminishes, I think all the moralizing about Think Of The Children is pretty pointless. You cannot save the children unless you save the adults. Much like emergencies in airplanes, the parent needs to put that oxygen on first, so they are capable of helping the child.

PJ

The lack of cooking skills and the busy lifestyle that is idolized both contribute to our poor diets. The easy and fast stuff is high carb.

We've eliminated home economics from schools, but by doing so we've doomed kids to the cooking of their upbringing. If the parents don't cook, how is a kid supposed to learn?

Look the author up. He has a diet to sell.

I'm sure this article has absolutely nothing to do with that....yeah.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that most of the physicians who are involved with decrying the obesity epidemic have financial ties to the weight loss industry via a diet or a pharmaceutical.


This was one man's observation during a very short time on a flight that just may have been a vacation for those women. Unless one never, ever eats something that is not "on their diet," I don't think they're entitled to sit in judgment of someone based on one short encounter. It is presumptuous and Pharisaical to do so.

As for your argument -

First, everyone must eat. We can't go cold turkey.

Second, the general public has followed the diet prescription of doctors and the government. We have reduced fats and upped vegetables and "healthy" grains. As a result of following that, we've experienced increasing BMIs

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.c...iet-trends.html

The so-called experts got it wrong. Rather than fessing up, they're blaming the victims of their misguided policies.

Third, research has shown that diets do not work. Yet, most diet doctors think that prescribing diets "is better than nothing" - wrong. The very act of losing weight increases the risk of death, especially if that is part of weight cycling (aka yo-yo dieting). See Paul Campos' The Obesity Myth p.30 for that and much, much more.

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en...epage&q&f=false

Fourth, weight has a very strong genetic component. Stunkard's twin studies and adoption studies have shown that. If BMI was about habits, the twin studies would have shown at least some correlation with the adoptive parents' BMI. Instead, Stunkard found no relationship with adoptive parents' BMI and a strong correlation with the birth parents' BMIs.

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/314/4/193



Well said!

Too bad that TPTB have determined that what we know to be a healthy diet is loaded with "artery clogging saturated fats" and deficient in "healthy whole grains".

The above is the main reason that the government must stay out of people's diets. They don't always know best. Individuals are the ones that need to decide what they eat.

I'm of two minds about this article. The author comes off as a jerk IMO. But to disagree with him seems to favor feeding Cheetos to three year olds.

First, I agree with PJ that we don't know enough about what constitutes a healthy diet - especially for people with the kind of metabolism these ladies probably have - to advise how they should eat much less how they should feed the kid in order to avoid wrecking her metabolism too. [Although I'd concede that laying off the junk food seems like a no-brainer. His choice - what was it, homemade granola? - would probably pork the little one up too.]

Second, the humor thing: for God's sake what's the lady supposed to do? Weep? Maybe she was embarrassed she almost couldn't fit into the john.

Third, do people really eat on an airplane the way they eat in "real life"?

Fourth, the watching what fat people eat and expressing disapproval thing: my son's sister (adopted by a different family) was participating in Special Olympics this weekend and we went to watch her run. I thought about this article as I watched everyone - fat and thin - guzzle pop and chomp on chips. When thin people do it, no one comments.

And finally, he starts his essay "A few years back, ..." For heaven's sake, has this incident been preying on his mind all this time? Or did he have to cast his mind back so far to come up with an anecdote to illustrate his thesis? Has he not seen fat people corrupting their innocent babes more recently? If not, maybe it isn't the huge problem he seems to think it is.

As a fairly opinionated person - who tends to believe that her way is the best way - I can say that this line of reasoning would have me running around instructing strangers on how to conduct themselves all the time. I keep my opinions to myself, generally, even when I really, really, really believe I'm right and the other person would profit from my wisdom.

(Sometimes I slip however. Last night a mom drove out to the country to pick up her 16 yo daughter from my house after the girl and my 18 yo son had lied to her to convince her to bring the girl out and leave her alone there with my boy - apparently I was present and we were having a b-day party . When the girl spoke rudely to her mom, the words "Don't you talk to your mother that way" were out of my mouth before I could stop myself. )

And parents are already such victims of this kind of thing: random advice from strangers who think they know what's best. Trouble is I might disapprove of the mom in the produce section smacking her 6 year old, and the guy next to me might think it's the best idea in the world.

We live in a free and diverse society, and personally I try to leave other people alone if they're not breaking the law, disturbing the peace, or hurting me in some way.

I've gained 30 pounds on a low(er) fat diet over the last few years. I've also reawakened my PCOS and started having irregular blood glucose.

For the last two weeks I've rededicated myself to a low carb diet. For the last 6 days I've lost no weight, but I'm staying focused on the positive health indicators I'm experiencing. (lower blood glucose, no hypoglycemic events, less acne, lower blood pressure, no water retention...)

Right now I'm trying to convince myself that I'll be happy with a 5 pound weight loss a month... Not easy! lol!

Any article on obesity that makes an idiotic statement like that does not deserve to be considered seriously.

With extremely rare exceptions, we get fat because we eat improperly and don't get enough exercise.

Like alcoholics and drug users, its a choice that we made, sometimes unwittingly, but it was a choice.

We are all responsible for our own behavior, including our diet. It is our fault, and until we accept that and modify our behavior to deal with it, nothing is going to change.

Ha, Ha, Ha -- this is so hysterically funny.

I just so want to be fat -- and by this author's standard, I am very, very, very, LARGE.

Doesn't this guy know anything about humor? It is used by many people to cover up pain. Probably this woman was uncomfortable with her situation, and used humor as a way to deal with it. I am sure she knew he was looking at what she was eating and judging her, and I am positive she would much rather be thin. She does not know that sugars killed off her natural metabolism and made her eat the way she is, and that her fat cells are probably crying out for more energy. And it wouldn't help her to eat dried fruit and granola bars like he is -- that's the last thing an insulin resistant person should be eating.

I found this story extremely insensitive and I'm sorry it was published by a doctor who should know better. As most doctors I know, they think they have the secret key to health and knowledge -- and the rest of us minions should bow to their greatness (you can tell I worked for them for several years).

I find that some people who say obesity is a societal issue are just closeted fat-haters -- they use it as an excuse to judge others and feel better about themselves (present company excluded from this comment).

Disturbing.

Are you sure?

I would say lack of exercise is not a cause of obesity.

I agree that eating improperly is a cause in the vast majority of cases. Unfortunately the standard advice we've been given about diet has exacerbated the problem.

Sure but what does it mean to eat properly? And why is it that some people don't exercise enough?

The answer to those questions explains a lot more obesity than the statement "we get fat because we eat improperly and don't get enough exercise" itself.

Patrick

I think this doctor's heart was breaking for these two women and the little child. He knew their food was destructive but could not say anything constructive that would not also be hurtful. I like this article - it certainly provokes discussion.

Nowhere did I say he should have begun criticizing these two women right there on the plane. Instead, he wrote an article about what happened and his observations.

Yes, I know that nutritionist can give some wrong info on how to lose weight, but find me one that say eating cheese puffs is good? I have a personal friend who is constantly eating junk food (ice cream, little debbies, chips, etc.) and I know this because I see her do it with my own eyes, but if you listen to her tell her story of why she cannot lose weight, she swears she eats almost nothing and diets constantly, but yet she seems to be eating everytime I am around her. Do I say something to her? No, of course not, that is her choice. Do I know why she is overweight and can't lose any weight, you betcha! Now was it wrong of me to mention that here? Does that make me a jerk or does it make me rude? NO, it doesn't.