I would say that someone who exercises regularly is healthy. Someone who is 180 and works out (IMO) is healthier than someone who is 180 and DOESN'T work out or exercise. Just my opinion though, as someone who works out will generally have better cardiac health (was that the right word..?).

But of course what if the runner is also a smoker and a drinker.

The sedentry bloke is neither.

I guess my point is that health cannot be gained on weight alone.

Somewhat aside from the other more personal and social issues here, is a pretty gargantuan socio-political issue (and some harder core political issues, but I won't go there on this forum).

Fat is the last allowed -ISM in our culture and as such, is a very handy "leverage" for legislation which could not be imposed on individuals in a democracy through any other means.

We have a large body of science which does not at all agree unanimously on nearly any issue related to human health including what causes someone to be fat. So we begin with a "popular" mindset being used for political police enforcement; that's a serious problem right off the bat. What is popular is what is most funded. Nabisco has more right to parent your kids than you do, is the end-result of this line of logic. Back in the 30's and 40's there were some experiments on our planet with government 'popular science' implemented as political tools. Let's hope we don't need to go through fascist situations like that to learn, yet again, what history should already teach us.

More worrisome to me is the fundamental of this. Every thing that government does sets a "precedent" which expands at light speed toward more government power and less individual rights. This is not specific to Western culture; as one of my favorite sayings goes, "Government is like some hideous plastic contrivance. You can shape it any way you like, but relax for a moment and it snaps back into ancient forms." The far more disturbing aspect of this is "the state owns your children" element.

We all knew that when the government claimed the right to arbitrarily and unequally impose taxation upon products, that it was only the beginning. Pretty soon we may have cigarette-level taxes imposed upon protein foods because they "are high in fat which everybody knows is bad for you and makes you fat and the obesity epidemic is economically harming our country so the government should tax foods that cause obesity." Which would be ideal, yes?--since high-carb cereals and flour tortillas and frito's corn chips are heart-healthy you know, according to official government popular science and legal labeling, but eggs, cheese and sausage will kill you according to this same science. Do we want the more "popular"--meaning most funding provided by marketing interests--science to become, far more than it already is, a tool of control more powerful than any "democracy" would dream a given political leverage could become?

Why don't we just elect a body of scientists to be a coalition dictatorship and skip democracy altogether? Because that's the direction that making "some" scientists and "popular" science into unquestionable authorities with police-state powers is going.

When we institutionalize seizure of children from parents who 'make them fat', do we gradually create a culture that sees parents buying cheese and bacon at the store as likely child abusers, while those feeding their kids diet coke in the bottle and ramen noodles as a staple are low-fat low-calorie nurturing heroes?

I've seen children put on ritalin and similar drugs around the age of 18 months even, to calm them down so their mother, who had 5 kids from 5 fathers, would have an easier time with the lot of 'em. This is what the government considers ok. (There is a collection of quotes from around the web regarding medication of children here for those interested.)

The statistics on the death rate of people after gastric bypass surgery are so lousy they carefully refuse to keep them past 5 years, not counting how many die on the operating table, or for the most part just have horrible side effects and severe health problems and end up just as fat again -- yet this kind of treatment is what the government considers ok.

What evidence is there that "the government" is going to be a better "parent" than the parent?


Until now, children allegedly could only be seized from a home if they were considered in danger. The current 'danger' is that of a child being obese. I am here to tell you that we are going to have to send kids in Oklahoma to China for parenting or something because there are way too many kids at 30% overweight.

A more relevent question that should be asked if this were any other topic is: what evidence do we have that seizure of a child from its parents and institutionalizing their care (because there'll be a lot of 'em) is successful in improving the health of the child?

What evidence do we have that reducing the overall body weight of an individual through a low-fat starvation diet is in fact "healthy" for them? This science of obesity, which requires a BMI rating, does not take into account increase or decrease in muscle mass, as one of many elements.
If the people agree to this overall political control issue, what's next? Do people lose their children because they do poorly in school? Because their parents don't want to stuff a ton of vaccinations into their incomplete immune system as babies, especially when the family is known to have a high % of medical reaction to such (the increase of childhood RA and autism is staggering, and a good deal of it is onset immediately after vaccinations; this is not the thread for that kind of politics, but I mention it to point out that what the government both considers ok and sponsors and even conceals, has little to do with health as a rule and a great deal to do with corporate money).

When it became ok to unequally tax cigarettes, for example, it set the stage of also heavily taxing steak and chocolate and so on. When it becomes ok to mandate state orphanage as primary parenting for every kid with body fat over X %, it sets the stage of also enforcing this for a myriad of other "parenting issues".

***

Now back to a health topic:

Dr. Michael Eades recently blogged about Leptin, and how a deficiency in it (let alone a severe deficiency) could cause obesity; over time in his blog, he has addressed a myriad of biochemical issues that greatly contribute to obesity.

Prior to the government making children political prisoners "for their own good" and force feeding them whole grains and school lunches, which is highly likely to make obese children far more obese, has anybody asked: what steps are being taken to "determine the health" of the allegedly endangered child, and what considerations (like lowcarb??) or treatments (if such exist) could be applied while the child is in the home -- and if the parents can't afford it, then what? And if the child is genetically prone to obesity much more than his rail-thin cousin, then what?

If the government is truly so interested in sponsoring health nation-wide, why not prevent food stamps from being used for potato chips and sodas? (I am not advocating this at all by the way, since IMO the official government belief about "what's healthy" is a far scarier precedent than giving people freedom with their food stamps.) Why not create a nationwide YMCA-style series of funded community gyms so children can exercise safely?

In my city, we have no bike lanes. No sidewalks. There are a couple extremely small parks that are really only of interest to children about 7 and under. And we, like every city, faces a constant growing number of convicted child molesters and others in the community. Do you want to know who's in your community? Visit http://www.familywatchdog.us/ ... you might be surprised. If a parent has money, and if they have time, and if they have transportation, they can sponsor their kid in a sport. For health, I had my little girl in soccor, baseball, basketball, and dance -- all of which wanted to meet on Tuesday nights at the same time (seasons varied tho) and all of which amounted to about one hour of some exercise per week. Not remotely enough to matter "that much" frankly (better than nothing but not noticeably different) and many parents I know are lacking one of those three resources to make that kind of thing possible for them.

So what is left? Buy the kid a trampoline; uses it occasionally. Buy the kid a small swimming pool (the community pool costs money and is so crowded not much swimming can be done) for the backyard; kids/neighbors use them when they can. Buy the kids skates and bikes they can't use because there is no place to use them and the parks, in order to facilitate 'walking', outlaw things with wheels. Let the kid roam the neighborhood? See considerations, above. Now if the kid lives in an apartment complex surrounded by other kids, they will probably find ways to play tag and more. But what if like my little girl, they don't? Or what if the parents worked nights or something so taking the kid somewhere in the day was unworkable? The list goes on.

I am not making excuses for why kids don't get enough exercise, I am giving REASONS why kids legitimately in today's culture often do not. When I was a kid we ran until we dropped, and then ran some more, and didn't come in until our parents made us. But that was a different neighborhood -- and that was a different world. It wasn't merely that we didn't have X-Box. It was that we had actual "neighborhoods", and did not worry that letting our kid walk three blocks to the store could result in their rape and murder.

I pay a tidy sum to put my kid in karate so she can get two hours of exercise per week guaranteed. Most people in my surroundings, a poor county in a poor state, can't really afford that.

So if the government were to come and look at someone in my town, who could not afford the sports/MA I pay for, who didn't have a vehicle or other resources needed for community sports, and their child was overweight, then what?

If they want to put mega money into positive health-oriented options, why don't they make a huge push for YMCA/YWCA-style youth sports and activities in a safe environment *affordably*?

(By the way, we have a YMCA. It consists of a single room with a couch and a pool table. Their logo goes on the t-shirts of the city's basketball league. Obviously, I am referring to the sort that have actual gyms, pools, tennis and racquetball courts, offers self-defense training and aerobics or whatever.)

Anyway, this waxes on, but my point is that a child could be raised on carbs because the government says, and could get fatter and fatter fed more of them because the government says, and the parents and CHILD would suffer horribly for this. Instead of getting nutritional info that will help them they will get the official government 'popular science' that greatly contributed to making the child fat in the first place. Instead of getting useful medical examination that will help potential treatment, they will get the official medical 'party line' that they just eat too damn much and need to drop fat and protein and increase grains. And instead of getting opportunities for exercise they are able to pursue or that result in enough time of it to matter, they get very little; there's quite a movement already to continue reducing and even abolish school recess in some areas.

There is just nothing good about it at all. It's very easy for people to hand over the power and rights of an entire civilization with "the government knows better." But as anybody on lowcarb should know, the government is generally far more harm than help nutritionally, which on the whole makes sense, since this defines any form of government historically (just the nature of the thing).

I suspect they'll start seizing severely obese kids with obvious metabolic disorders and doing surgery on them and drugging them and near-starving them on low-fat high-carb diets. And there will be news stories about it that make it seem really ghastly how fat they are and how wonderful the 'programs' are. And then in 10, let alone 20, years we will see that this was about as moronic and destructive as all the women they sterilized in Oregon a few decades ago because economically or socially they were not desireable. (True story, look it up.)

It is never ok to allow ANY source, including a governing body, to set a precedent that renders "the cohesion of family" a non-issue. If we had ONE science consensus, if we had preliminary stuff that established and treated the myriad of chemical issues that can cause and maintain obesity, if we had other opportunities for fitness than exist for so many, then maybe there would be a better argument on the evil-empire side. But at the moment it is little more than political control being exercised "in the name of the children" -- which has been a handy leverage for quite a few political control issues (such as immunizations, new ones now number in the multiple hundreds, and cover even "symptoms" that are necessary for healthy venting such a diarrhea, not communicable diseases -- but on the bright side, even though the more we have the more 'sudden autism' descends on previously perfectly healthy 3 year olds, we should all be happy to know that some drug conglomerate is making a bloody fortune off selling it thanks to government mandates).

It's just asking for a whole orwellian kind of system eventually. The precedent is terrifying.

PJ

"I guess framing the example - Does sports and activity make you thin? Lisa even said she was very active in her youth, yet was overweight."

This is a crucial point. I was always my heaviest when I was most active and in the best shape and have to work hard now to break that cycle because I want to be thin. When I see women who are almost 300 pounds running marathons, I cannot equate thin with fit - sorry. Most of the people I see at the gym are overweight and very fit.

I think there is a difference in kids who are naturally overweight and kids who are over weight because they spend too much time watching tv, playing video games and surffing the net. There was overweight kids when I was growing up, but if you looked at their family so were they, but just today when I went to walmart there was a mom who was very thin and two little girls who were normal then another little girl eating a candy bar who was with them and she was 3 times the size of the other two girls. That was when I walked in to walmart, now when I was leaving there was a family getting out of a mini van, a mom and 3 little blond girls, same thing mom and two girls were normal weight and the heavy little girl had a super sized chocolate shake.

I think the bottom line is that the point is being missing. Kids today, weather it is only 17% more over weight kids (or however much it was posted) than it was when we were growing up, the fact is you will always have children who are naturally overweight, but the problem is more kids are overweight because lack of activity (more computers & video games) and lack of home cooked balanced diets. Yes the food pyramid seems to be wishy washy now days, but more familys eat convienience foods which is added carbs & sugars, plus processed to heck.

When I was growing up I was not allowed in the house. Bottom line, if it was nice outside I had to go out and play. We had an attari then a nintendo, but we were limited, we HAD to be active. Once I "grew up" and stopped being active (still ate the same) guess what...yep...on came the weight. Its no guessing game!

It just breaks my heart when I see the kids who are overweight and it can be helped and that sticks with them. Its no fun being picked on as a kid because you are overweight. It also makes me made that the parents now days dont think twice about the cookies and the cakes and all the junk food then let their kid sit at the computer for 4 hours a day. There is no controll now days with parents. The things I see with kids today just blows my mind. Its sad. I just recently saw a little boy (about 2 or 3) smack his mama in the fact and tell her no. All she did was say "dont smack mommy, thats not nice". WHAT?!?!?! Just blows my mind!!!

2 or 3 and smacking? Sounds normal for that age to me.. Not for most kids, certainly, but a lot of kids go through a hitting stage around that age. My sister did and it took her a while to grow out of it, and my boss's daughter is going through it and also some other coworker's children are going through it with their children. I always understood it was a 'normal' phase with young children.

Obesity used to be about the very over-weight,

Now it's a term to describe anyone who isn't in some arbitrary guideline.

I defintitely agree. It seems people want to use the ugliest word possibly to describe some things, and overweight people are one of them.

Yes, but I also said that while I was overweight, I was very fit; a person can't play 5 sets of competitive tennis in 85 degree weather without being fit. The article doesn't say exercise makes you thin; I don't think they even imply it, really. It encourages kids to be more active to be healthier and have more energy to do other things they may want to do. The article equated excercise and less junk food with greater health, not greater thinness with greater health.



No, Dave, you aren't supposed to have full adult emotional coping skills as a child. The thing is, you're not a child anymore.
I think many of us can identify with the hurt caused by childhood teasing, myself included. But re-living those childhood hurts over and over as an adult is unconstructive at best.
I got teased about my weight as a kid and it hurt, but you know what? I grew up, looked at my past through adult eyes, forgave those children for being what they were...ignorant children who also could not have been expected to exhibit 'adult' behavior..and moved on with my life. I made the conscious choice to stop giving them permission to keep hurting me.
Think about it this way; when we keep dredging up those hurts and re-living them over and over, we are giving the people who hurt us in the past permission to keep on hurting us in the present. Why do we do this to ourselves? We can't change the past, we can't change what others did to us in the past and we can't control what others may say or do in the present. What we can, every one of us, control is how we choose to react and feel right here and now...today.

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Eleanor Roosevelt

Maybe it was just where I grew up, but no one ever made fun of me for being fat. Ever. In fact I had LOTS of friends. I didn't realize this until now. Actually, the first person (and that's only one of TWO people) that made a comment about my weight was my mother, right in front of my fiance, at the beach, when I was 17.. like she had room to talk.

LStump, after reading many, many posts from members who carry the scars of childhood hurts, I think you were very fortunate. I can tell you from experience with my own kids that teasing still happens. My youngest dd gets teased because she is 4' 5" tall, weighs 70 pounds soaking wet and is going into the 7th grade; she's petite (her martial arts instructor calls her 'fun sized' and we refer to her as 'concentrated' ). I found her a Yoda poster that says 'size matters not' that she has hanging on the wall of her bedroom.

That is SO cute! Size Matters Not. I think its true for all people, not just smaller people. After reading other stories of people who were tormented when they were younger, I do feel fortunate. I don't exactly live in the skinniest part of the U.S., but I don't live in the fattest, either. There is a healthy (for lack of a better word) mix of all of us here.

Hey Lisa,
I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, your statement is pretty much my way of life. IMO, it should be incredibly important for everyone who has been through rough times to realize the importance of growing up and taking personal responsibility for one's own happiness.
Probably at least 70% of the people on this board have been overweight as children and were mercilessly teased and not helped (enough, or in the right ways,) by their family. You know what? I know that if I can get over it, probably just about everyone else here has, or is working on it. Life is too short to let the past destroy us. Taking personal responsibilty is a great way out of many emotional and physical nightmares.

I am literally stunned!

I guess I lived in a different place.

It was literally hellish for me.

I could forgive, but I was humilated, beaten, teased for so long, that I think I had all the forgiveness for them (the tormenters) tortured out of me.

I actually saw no reason for it or justification. And the adults who should of helped, actually condoned and join in. So yeah......

Obviously people's experiences varied.

Actually this thread has made me realise why I shouldn't talk about what happenned or share my experiences.

At least I've learnt that from posting here.