Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Get Out Of My Life!
The "obesity is a huge national problem" crowd is really getting on my nerves. Paul Krugman had a piece in the NYTimes Monday that was just awful
And what is truly abominable is that this same anti-fat crowd wants us to provide care for people with AIDS -- a disease, not just a syndrome or condition, that is wholly behaviorally dependent. So the bottom line is this -- you can tell me what to do with my weight, when you are willing to tell gay people to stop engaging in far more risky and life threatening behavior. Fat people may die in their 70's rather than their 80's, but people with AIDS die much, much younger than that. How come I am not reading editorials about controlling them?
Speaking of obesity, I hope this works.
And then there is this.
More important, however, is the role of the food industry. The debate over obesity, it turns out, is a lot like the debate over global warming. In both cases, major companies protect their profits not only by lobbying against policies they don't like, but also by financing advocacy groups devoted to debunking research whose conclusions they don't like.Do you see the parallels to the fight against smoking here? When people started to fight back on the basis of their individual right to smoke, the anti-smoking crowd started to demonize tobacco companies. These tactics are nauseating. Then there is this
The growing availability of such treatment probably explains why the strong relationship between obesity and mortality visible in data from the 1970's has weakened. But the cost of treating the obese is helping to break the back of our health care system.The problem here is not the cost of treating the obese, but the fact that health care is paid for by someone other than the patient. By so paying, they just create an opportunity to tell us what to do, in very personal and intimate ways.
And what is truly abominable is that this same anti-fat crowd wants us to provide care for people with AIDS -- a disease, not just a syndrome or condition, that is wholly behaviorally dependent. So the bottom line is this -- you can tell me what to do with my weight, when you are willing to tell gay people to stop engaging in far more risky and life threatening behavior. Fat people may die in their 70's rather than their 80's, but people with AIDS die much, much younger than that. How come I am not reading editorials about controlling them?
Speaking of obesity, I hope this works.
Obese people can be fitted with a device that fools their brain into thinking they have eaten to help them lose weight.This is the same principle as the gastric bypass without the permanent disfiguration. I really hope it pans out because that surgery is just awful in my book. I was a candidate and refused. No way am I going to spend the rest of my life robbed of even the possibility of a decent meal.
The technology, by Transneuronix, comprises a matchbox-sized pacemaker implanted into the abdomen, linked to electrodes in the stomach wall.
And then there is this.
Leading groups of family doctors and pediatricians endorse routine screening using the height-weight ratio of the body-mass index. But there's no evidence that all children with high BMIs need to lose weight to be healthy ? and there's no evidence that pediatricians' weight counseling results in weight loss and better health, according to a report from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a non-governmental panel of researchers....Oh No, we need to make children's lives miserable by ranting at them about their diet. God forbid, they might actually enjoy their childhood.
...BMI can be fairly effective at identifying children who likely have weight problems, said task force member Dr. Virginia Moyer. But it can't determine if body mass is mostly fat or lean tissue, and not all children with high BMIs need to lose weight, said Moyer, a pediatrics professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston.
