Legislating Weight Loss: Is Fatness a Federal Affair?

Legislating Weight Loss: Is Fatness a Federal Affair?

Thursday, August 31 2006 @ 08:33 AM PDT

HealthPull up the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) homepage these days, and it looks frighteningly like the latest copy of "Glamour" or “‘O’ Magazine.” At www.fda.gov/loseweight, we're told, "You Can Lose Weight—Here's How!" followed by instructions on counting calories, setting weight-loss goals and "giving ethnic foods a try."

Legislating Weight Loss: Is Fatness a Federal Affair?

By Maya Schenwar

Pull up the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) homepage these days, and it looks frighteningly like the latest copy of "Glamour" or “‘O’ Magazine.” At www.fda.gov/loseweight, we're told, "You Can Lose Weight—Here's How!" followed by instructions on counting calories, setting weight-loss goals and "giving ethnic foods a try." The goal is to combat what the FDA calls the "obesity epidemic," which supposedly claims the lives of 400,000 Americans per year. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) 2005 Dietary Guidelines target weight loss as America's number one health goal. The war on drugs is old news, ladies and gentlemen. It's time to rally the troops for the war on fat.

The FDA is spreading the message through a variety of obesity awareness advertisements and programs in schools and workplaces. Government intervention in weight loss doesn't stop at "educational" efforts, though. In many states, including Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee and West Virginia, schools are required by law to weigh students each year and report their weight and Body Mass Index (BMI) to their parents, in a format much like an academic report card.

Meanwhile, at home, government health agencies claim that over 30 percent of Americans are obese, endangering their health and shortening their lives. However, many health professionals are questioning the link between body fat, illness and death.

Dr. Glenn A. Gaesser, a professor of kinesiology at the University of Virginia and author of Big Fat Lies: The Truth About Your Weight and Your Health , calls the FDA's standards for morbid obesity "arbitrary," noting that people do not die of fat.

“There are 'healthy obese' people who are in no need of 'treatment,'” he said. "Furthermore, most of the health problems of the 'unhealthy obese' (i.e., blood pressure, lipids, insulin and glucose) can be remedied by changes in diet and physical activity independent of weight loss." In his recent study, "Obesity, Health, and Metabolic Fitness," Gaesser reports that fat people are no more likely to have clogged arteries than thin people, and that body weight and BMI are not indicative of death rates. In fact, according to a study by the federal Center for Disease Control (CDC) itself, "excess" body fat does NOT claim 400,000 lives per year; people categorized as "overweight" (BMI 25-30) actually tallied 86,000 fewer deaths per year than those categorized as thin.

The rigid standards set by the government are outdated and are not based on sound science, says Peggy Howell, public affairs chair of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA). The height/weight charts that determine BMI were created in the 1970s, with only a slight revision in 1998. "I don't question the statistics that 30 percent of the American population is over a particular weight," Howell said. "I do, however, take exception to the yardstick they are using."

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Lose Weight with these Products? Slim Chance!

The "Worst" of 2004 weight loss products cop 16th Annual Slim Chance Awards

Green tea continues to cast an aura of Oriental slimness. This year’s worst diet gimmick takes it one step farther – not only do you drink this tea, but you attach a green tea patch to the thigh, and miracles begin to happen. Or so the advertiser claims. The worst diet pills of 2004 take narrow aim at specific targets: people with abdominal fat, low-carb dieters, and women experiencing menopausal weight gain.

These are just a few of the weight loss schemes highlighted by Frances M. Berg, chair of the Weight Loss Abuse Task Force for the National Council on Health Fraud, in announcing the 16th annual Slim Chance Awards. "These products and countless others promise quick weight loss with no effort," she says. "They need to be exposed as foolish scams that lighten your wallet but not your body. Diets don’t work. Neither do pills or potions."

It’s not just adults who fall prey to these scams. "Children and adolescents, especially teenage girls, are buying all sorts of weight loss products," says Berg. "This is especially disturbing because many are harmful to their health."

Berg, whose new book Underage & Overweight includes a 7-point plan for raising healthy weight children, offers this advice to parents who fear their child may be trying to lose weight in dangerous ways. "The key to raising a healthy weight child is leading by example," she says. "What works is to model a sound, healthy lifestyle that allows excess weight to come off naturally, as a by-product. It’s the healthy and lasting way to lose weight."

Berg’s organization, the Healthy Weight Network, started the Slim Chance Awards 16 years ago as a reaction to the glut of unsafe products on the market. They are part of the lead-up to "Rid the World of Fad Diets and Gimmicks Day" during Healthy Weight Week, January 16 to 22.

"We want to shift our national focus to health and wellness, to acceptance, respect, and an appreciation of diversity," says Berg. "It’s time to move on from the war so many Americans are waging against their own bodies. The obsession with thinness is causing tragic problems for both children and adults."

Here are the Slim Chance Awards from the "worst" of the 2004 crop:

* Worst Gimmick: Green Tea300 patches. This scheme includes not just Green Tea Patches of "high potency extract" to attach to your skin, but also green tea drinking. In fact four patches come free when you buy $59.99 worth of tea. It’s a combination claimed to burn fat, suppress appetite, increase thermogenesis, and speed the metaboic rate, all without increasing hypertension or heart rate. Can you believe you’ll benefit from "Asian wisdom … lose 5-27 pounds … 30 times more potent than regular green tea"? Advertised online through email spam.

* Most Outrageous: EstrinD. Billed as the first and only diet pill for menopausal and pre-menopausal weight gain, EstrinD hits a market of baby boomers. Targeted are "a whole generation of women … [who are] redefining age, beauty and sexuality, proving that life doesn’t end at 40." Touted to increase metabolic rate, reduce calorie intake, stop binge eating, provide energy, control mood swings, and give a sense of well being, EstrinD costs $59.00 for 30-day supply (and "as demand continues to outpace supply, don’t be surprised if you see the price go up"). Promoted with nearly full-page ad in USA WEEKEND.

* Worst Product: CortiSlim. The gimmick here falsely claims that reducing cortisol, the stress hormone, with CortiSlim will reduce abdominal and other fat. Nationally aired infomercials that began in August 2003 state that continually elevated levels of cortisol are the underlying cause of weight gain, especially abdominal obesity, and that CortiSlim causes rapid weight loss of 10 to 50 pounds from the abdomen, stomach and thighs by reducing these levels. In October 2004 the Federal Trade Commission charged the marketers of CortiSllim with false claims, and with using deceptive format in their TV infomercials, which appear to be episodes of a talk show called Breakthroughs, with the two marketers posing as host and guest, and without required "paid advertising" disclaimers. Sold through widely aired infomercials and short TV commercials, radio and print ads and Internet web sites.

* Worst Claim: Carboburn. Keying in to the waning popularity of tiresome low-carb diets, Carboburn promoters assure dieters who are still believers that cutting carbs from the diet is no longer necessary. "It doesn’t matter if you eat pizza, pasta, baked potatoes, or potato chips. CarboBurn will neutralize the carbohydrates in those foods or most any other…guaranteeing you become thinner, leaner, and maintain a good-looking youthful shape." Furthermore, it will "block the storage of fat before it attaches to your stomach, waist, thighs, buns and other trouble areas … and it doesn’t matter if you hate exercise, or can’t exercise … CarboBurn will chisel your fat away and let lean muscle shine through." Just $39.00 for one bottle of pills or three for $79.99. Advertised online through email spam.


Hospitals, health centers and educational groups across the country observe Healthy Weight Week as a welcome antidote to the unhealthy dieting and bingeing that typically begin the New Year. They encourage active healthy lifestyles through mall displays, health fairs, seminars, recreational events, radio and TV shows, and internet chat lines, says Berg.

In addition to the Slim Chance Awards, co-sponsored by Healthy Weight Network and the National Council Against Health Fraud, the week features the Women’s Diversity Awards, which honor businesses that portray an appreciation of size diversity.

For more information or for handouts and posters visit www.healthyweight.net (click Healthy Weight Week).

Obese Women Start Diets Young

Obese Women Start Diets Young
Research Indicates that Semi-Starvation Leads to Weight Gain

BY Allison Young
Contribution Writer
Wednesday, September 1, 2004

A fat person is not necessarily a lazy person.

A recent study by Joanna Ikeda, co-director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Weight and Health, indicated that of 149 women surveyed, all of whom are considered clinically obese, two-thirds had been on their first diet by the age of 14.

This dispels the myth that the condition of overweight people is caused by laziness and inattention to their health and appearance. In fact, those who had gone on more diets tended to have higher body mass indexes.

A person is considered obese if hisbody mass index (BMI) is 30 or above. An index of 18.5 to 24.9 is considered normal.

The women who participated in this survey had BMIs of 55 to 70 and ranged from 250 to 600 pounds.

“Many of these women started out at weights that were not necessarily considered overweight. By reducing their calorie intake to levels of semi-starvation, they were able to temporarily reduce their weight,” Ikeda said. “However, because your body cannot maintain itself at calorie levels below 1400, many women end up bingeing on food, returning their weight to its original level, and often, even increasing on their original size.”

This creates a vicious cycle of yo-yo dieting, often ultimately propelling the individual’s weight far beyond its original level.

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The Truth About Obesity

The Truth About Obesity

By Sandy Szwarc
Published 07/14/2003
TCS

In the fight against obesity, we're told: 'Being fat is simply a matter of energy balance. It's easy to lose weight, just eat 3,500 calories less than you burn and you'll lose a pound. We've become a fat nation because we're eating more than ever before, and too much fat and junk food, and not moving.'

Of course, the real message is one of blame: 'You fat slobs! You are irresponsible, lazy, gluttons. You wouldn't be fat if you just didn't eat so much (or so much fat, sugar, and junk food) and got off the couch!'

If it were only that simple.

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