The Sydney Morning Herald of 16 December 2007 published a letter by Tanya Law complaining about discrimination against, and humiliation of, people who are overweight and obese.
The letter made (or, more accurately, restated) a range of valid criticisms which have been made over the years by feminists, amongst others, regarding societal prejudice and negative stereotyping directed against people whose body shape and dimensions don’t conform to an aesthetic ideal. I have no problem agreeing with these points.
Where Tanya Law and I part company is in relation to her contention that Federal Government plans for compulsory weighing of four year old children would, in itself, constitute another element of such discrimination and humiliation. Without getting into the specifics of this proposal and how useful it would be, what this points to is a wider issue of whether public health policies and programs which are based on the assumption that overweight and obesity are a health problem, and which therefore seek to promote ways to avoid or reduce the incidence of overweight and obesity in children, necessarily conduce to the message that “fat people are bad/lazy/foolish/etc.”. As Tanya Law rightly notes, our culture, including our popular and media culture, are constantly sending such messages, and there is therefore a risk that such public health policies and programs, unless sensitively designed and communicated, could be co-opted into the discourse of discrimination on the basis of size and shape. However, she seems to also imply that such co-optation is inevitable, and that such policies are discriminatory per se. I disagree.
It can’t be seriously disputed that overweight is a health problem in its own right, a consequence of behaviours and conditions which, in some cases, are also health problems, and a causal factor in other health problems. I speak from personal experience. As a child, adolescent and young adult, I was a somewhat leaner and taller than average person who was in my school’s AFL football, criss-country and athletics teams. In my mid-twenties and thirties I “filled out” and stabilised at what was a pretty good weight for my height (mid-80 kilograms and 186 centimetres) and was still physically fit (able to run half marathons, and cycle extreme distances in a day). Since 1999, due partly to a medical condition cited by Tanya Law towards the end of her letter, and associated medication, and partly to lifestyle factors, my weight has increased again from the mid-80s to over 100 kilograms (reaching 110 kg late last year). With weight gain has come reduced physical abilities (e.g. in terms of being able to run and cycle distances and/or up hills), reduced fitness and a reduced feeling of physical wellbeing. The unfortunate fact is that the 100kg-plus me is not as capable, healthy or happy as the 80-odd kilogram me.
Therefore I am now working on trying to get back towards my old weight – not because I’m trying to avoid discrimination or ridicule, much less legitimise the social stigma attached to overweight and obese people, but because I want to regain something of my former abilities and sense of wellbeing, as well as reduce the risk of conditions such as diabetes and coronary disease which have something of an incidence in my family. For these reasons, amongst others, I support public health policies which are aimed at empowering citizens to attain and retain a healthy weight (taking due account all the factors which vary from one individual to another) and to engage in behaviours which conduce to this goal. It is very important that such policies be designed to empower, and to avoid moral stigmatisation of the individuals who such policies are meant to help, but IMHO it is not helpful to suggest that the very existence of such policies constitutes discrimination.
Hopefully we can discuss this issue without some of the crassly judgemental responses which Tanya Law’s letter attracted from some SMH readers here and here.
I hope the coming high petrol prices will do something to solve the problem by forcing to use their legs a little more!!
There is one (or two) very totalitarian steps that could solve the problem in a matter a few years, but I suggest it only in jest.Shut down McDonalds, KFC. wendy’s, Burger king etc etc wetc permanently right across the country, and make it ilegal for such obesity producing franchises to exist. Of course, any Government that did it would be turfed out on their ear at the next election. But its a thought.
@3 No govt who did this would be turfed out. We’d all be too weak from hunger =)
How about tax increases for sugar based products. Alcohol and tobacco are taxed to pay for the medical/social costs of consumption. Tax sugar the same way, most consumer when going into a supermarket if faced with the choice of a low/zero sugar item at $2 a unit or a sugared product at $5 a unit would pick according to price.
No need to ban McDonalds etc lifestyle choices would have a cost.
Testing’s not going to solve the obesity problem in Australia just like it doesn’t solve our education problems. It merely allows us to understand what sort of state we’re in as a nation and where our priorities need to be. I’m all for testing the weight of children to allow schools to fix up their P.E. curriculum and I would hope that parents of overweight children would care enough about their child’s wellbeing as to help the child maintain a steady weight.
It’s not like Rudd and Roxon are going to force overweight children to attend “Fat Camp” to lose weight.
Still, being underweight is also a problem and our various governments could be doing a lot more to promote healthy eating, pull fast food joints in to line and plan our cities and neighbourhoods to faciliate active transport like walking and cycling. A nation of fatties driving oversized cars is something we ought to be avoiding on a whole bunch of levels.
Well said, Paul.
The fact is that being obese (as distinct from mildly overweight), as well as heavily restricting one’s range of activities, poses severe health risks. It’s not being discriminatory to want to help reduce the level of these problems throughout the community.
One interesting thing that’s just come up in relation to obesity issues is the AMA’s proposal to make stomach banding far more widely available under Medicare.
Health problems require healthcare solutions.
Primary among these is surely diagnosis.
What’s the problem again?
One that is seldom brought up that could use a look is how many vegetables and fruits have had their sugar levels increased through selective breeding. How much of the advertising on new lines of fruits emphasises their “sweetness” ar “tastiness” for vegies?
Its not a big plot by anyone to make people fat though, just a natrual byproduct of peoples inborn preference for sweetness.
It may not be the major factor in obesity, but any upward nudge in sugars would have an effect.
People should be able to buy lard on a stick for all I care, government has no place in peoples diets. It can inform and cajole, but setting min/max this or that? No way, these are the people who cant get a public transport system to run properly, so the last thing I want is their telling me how to run my circulatory system.
I don’t think I’d ever support purposefully humiliating someone, however if someone becomes offended due acknowledgment of a simple truth (i.e being grossly overweight) then I don’t think denying the truth is the way to go. A persons weight is basically under their own control. As long as they are in control of what and how much they eat, their weight is their responsibility. I don’t think there’s a single ailment that actually causes obesity. There are plenty that make weight management more difficult, but it is more than possible to still control weight gain or loss. Just as the alcoholic is responsible for not drinking, the depressed diabetic with thyroid problems is responsible for healthy eating. I think that overweight people should be encouraged to lose weight as much as possible, while acknowledging that simply calling them ‘fat’ is unlikely to do any good.
It’s evident Tanya Law doesn’t even understand what discrimination is.
Nor does she understand the concept of health.
The message is you’re fat, fat is unhealthy, you can change it, and you should try to change it.
Being a little bit presumptuous here, but it sounds like she’s fat and frustrated about it.
I think Neil’s solution of ensuring the full cost of eating the unhealthy food is reflected in the price, is a better solution than an outright ban as suggested by Paul. It keeps people freedom to choose to eat unhealthy food as often as they want, while ensuring they pay the full cost of their choice.
I also think that the knee jerk reaction to underweight models, declaring fat to be ‘ok’, is somewhat to blame for the widespread acceptance of obesity lifestyles. Not everyone has to have an amazing body, but everyone should try to maintain their health. Weighing kids from a young age will help remove the sigma from obesity by getting it out in the open. There’s nothing wrong with identifying an unhealthy aspect of someone’s life. Very few issues are solved by making them taboo. “S/he’s look like s/he’s put on a lot of weight, but I’d better not talk about it.” is as useful as “S/he’s looks like s/he’s depressed and suicidal, but I’d better not talk about it.”
It’s not good to be overweight, and if you’re humiliated about your weight, you should do something about it, not try to make people deny the truth.
These issues have absolutely no role in our schools. They are issues for public health clinics.
John, have fun getting parents to take their kids to health clinics for something less life than a matter of life and death. All the kids (minus those being home-schooled) are at school and are already having their eyes and ears tested anyway.
I’d rather that the Govt put money into sports programs for schools to get the kids moving and active, instead of standing them on scales. Also, standing kids on scales won’t find the slender kids who still have fat packed around their vital organs and who are quite unhealthy, although slender.
We should be wary of how we would conduct weighing in schools because of the potential for secondary humiliation at the hands of peers which will only exacerbate psychological causes. Compulsory health assessment – which should involve, but not be limited to, weighing – seems eminently reasonable as a public health measure however, and could be usefully integrated into physical education programs in schools.
I am suspicious of the raw number ‘weight’, as opposed to more useful measures of health which assess body fat and fitness, because I have always been overweight for my height according to normal scales (ie from early childhood), but until a few years ago was fitter than maybe 8/10 of my ‘thin’ peers, playing sport regularly, swimming etc. Being ‘large’ caused me a great deal of anxiety and shame, in part because of the lovely way in which that observation tends to be made, but in retrospect I was fighting fit and should have been told so. Now that I am genuinely at the edge of unhealth, I prefer offers of help (ie a gym companion, or somebody to take a walk with) to being told ‘the facts’. I feel that the same should go for public health initiatives: the numbers need to be put to use, and not just put out there.
“It can’t be seriously disputed that overweight is a health problem in its own right”
Well, it is a decade since the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine questioned the usefulness of epidemiological studies of obesity. Calculations of body-mass-index currently serve as an arbitrary indicator of ‘obesity’, and ‘obesity’ in turn as a poor proxy for overall fitness and well-being.
There’s a distinction between Paul wanting to return to a certain body size and getting otherwise healthy but technically overweight people to chase after a body shape that they will only obtain and maintain through dubious dieting and yo-yoing between weights. The arbitrary nature of the BMI and its use in the manner suggested – to evaluate and critique the diverse body shapes of our toddlers -spells trouble.
FDB,
Diagnosis of obesity does not require a set of scales – a quick look normally does it.
The scales are not needed for diagnosis, but for statistical purposes. Following on from the statistics will be further government programs (after a minister or two declares themselves “shocked” at the results) and whatever else they can excuse under these “shocking” results.
I would (partially) agree with Mindy – get the kids out and exercising. The school my kids go to has large playing fields, a strong sports program and virtually no obese kids. Put an hour into Phys Ed every day and the obesity issue would disappear, along with providing lots of other benefits for the kids’ studies and attention.
A quick google of “skinny but unfit” shows that in the latest research being fit is more important than being skinny. (I am not however, dismissing the health problems associated with obesity). So even though Paul may not reach his original weight, he can feel better and healthier by increasing his fitness. The same goes for school children, and the best way to ensure that they are getting their daily dose of activity is to get them moving at school.
“The scales are not needed for diagnosis, but for statistical purposes. Following on from the statistics will be further government programs (after a minister or two declares themselves “shockedâ€? at the results) and whatever else they can excuse under these “shockingâ€? results.”
I think this is an important point. The government may be drafting the score-card, drawing up the boxes that they can tick at the end of the term to show the problems they’ve dealt with.
That sounds very much like a Rudd thing. There’ll be metrics and spreadsheets for all these sort of programs.
Wasn’t it Howard who was pushing for standardised testing across all schools to be able to compare their performance? Then again, I guess that does make it a Rudd thing too.
I think that’s part of Labor policy too from last year but not 100%.
I’ve been putting on the pounds since Xmas. Think I’ll stop eatin’ take up smokin’ again.
It certainly speaks to Rudd’s image as a nuts and bolts policy man who is trying to make measurable changes in areas of public concern. I just hope that it doesn’t end up being a different way of playing politics with health and that the information is available, with an appropriate degree of anonymity, for schools to plan programs for the incoming student body (bodies?).
Dr Rudy had it sussed: “Don’t eat.”
If you check the ingredients list on processed food packaging, you’ll find that sugar usually appears halfway along. Tomato sauce has sugar and salt somewhere at the top, yeah, just what tomato’s need to be, sweeter and saltier.
Try and find something that hasn’t had sugar added.
They’re out to kill us.
Klaus,
A better metric would be hours spent actually doing something about the problem, which, as Mindy points out, is not weight but the level of fitness. As fitness cannot (easily) be directly measured it would be much better just having the kids out exercising than having more bureaucrats sitting around doing up spreadsheets.
Better than any of that, though, would be to leave health and education to the proper authorities: the States. Disband the entire Federal Departments of Health and Education and get them all out there doing something useful rather than adding to the bureaucratic effort that is in the proper domain of the States.
One of my concerns would be what happens when they find a kid who is overweight? Children can’t be held too responsible for what they eat. So, what’s the plan? How will the kid’s problem be solved? I’m also worried about the public humiliation factor when it comes to kids. They’re cruel little buggers and it could only make the life of a fat kid worse.
As for making foods with high sugar content more expensive, that will just punish poor people as they’re the people more likely to be buying cheap, sugar ridden rubbish. In many places in Australia, it’s easier to buy a McDonalds than fresh fruit and veg and that’s a disgrace.
Ever been into the fresh produce section of a supermarket? Seen raw meat? Basics such as rice, pasta? It’s also usually cheaper than buying prepared food too. But I guess cooking would take effort and there’s TV to watch and the Xbox to play.
Fat kids are identified within seconds, putting them on the scales isn’t going to do anything to the level of humiliation that goes on.
Easier? Yes. Cheaper? No. It cost about $6 for a meal from McDonald’s, while you can have a healthy meal you make yourself for about $2 to $3.
Desipis, judge much?
Surely there is a difference between ordinary school-yard humiliation, and that which appears to be sanctioned by teachers, administrators and the government? As with all initiatives to do with early childhood, this one requires care and attention be paid to avoid unintended consequences.
The connection between being Overweight (BMI greater than 25) or Obese (BMI greater than 30) and a wide range of cardiovascular and endocrinological conditions is undeniable. The biggest factor concerning weight gain is not exercise as much as diet (ie. caloric intake). It is entirely possible to be both clinically obese and have a relatively good level of physical fitness. Very generally speaking, cardiovascular fitness is not a protection factor against type 2 diabetes or heart disease.
The biggest factor with childhood overweight and obesity is parental dietary guidance. There also appears to be some evidence to show that there is a connection between childhood overweight/obesity and poverty as foods with a high glycemic/saturated fat content are often much cheaper and require less preparation time than those without.
Personally I would generally support social welfare food stamps for “healthy foods” and vouchers for childrens sporting groups over family benefit payments. The childhood overweight/obesity epidemic is very real and will be a massive burden on our Health System in years to come unless some very serious steps are taken to address the problem at home, in schools and in the wider community.
I agree that steps should be made to reduce humiliation of overweight/obesity as well due to the connection between depression and obesity.
Desipis, sadly there are many people who don’t know how to make those healthy meals. My question still stands; what happens once they identify the fat kid?
@30 how about we eat them?
BMI is unreliable even with adults, as it does not take body shape and size into account, aside from height. With children aged around 4-5, who may well be growing at different rates, who may be carrying a significant amount of baby-fat naturally? It’s hopeless, and can only do harm.
Let’s see the production of healthy foods subsidised so as to reduce costs, and start looking at ways to encourage physical activity as part of everyday life more– better walking tracks, bicycle paths, and organised physical activities for kids that don’t involve humiliation for kids who aren’t so good at sport (for instance, bushwalking, rather than competitive sport).
“how about we eat them?”
Ba-boom tish!
“The connection between being Overweight (BMI greater than 25) or Obese (BMI greater than 30) and a wide range of cardiovascular and endocrinological conditions is undeniable.”
Most epidemiological studies of BMI suggest a very broad U-shaped risk curve. Very fat and very thin people tend to die sooner than average, but there’s a broad range, from those with a BMI in the high teens to the low thirties where there appears to be little correlation bewteen weight and early mortality.
Further, even where there appears to be a correlation between BMI and bad health or increased mortality, it doesn’t follow that such persons’ health would improve if they tried to alter their body shape by losing weight.
From recent blog pics I would say that Mark needs to get his diet in order, flabby and with all those gaspers definitely unfit.
Get thee to a none_ery and then you might get to breed a few sinners.
Further is the problem of focussing on toddlers. Is toddler BMI an indicator of their adult BMI? There’s evidence that adults’ BMI is increasing but current levels of obesity amongst adults tell us nothing about the same adults’ childhood weight.
Conversely, we don’t know whether overweight children will becoome overweight adults unless we track cohorts of children over time. A recent study reported in the Age in Melbourne tracked kids from kindergarten for a couple of years to early school, but remarkably the results were reported as showing that fat toddlers become fat adolescents! Existing cohort studies in fact suggest that while childhood BMI is a good predictor of adult BMI, it is not a good predictor of either adult fat or adult cardiovascular disease (see British Medical Journal 2001; 323: 1280-84)
What would be interesting to see is whether children being raised in the
current climate of panic around body shape will exhibit higher levels of
eating disorders in adolescence. Anorexia is one of the deadliest mental
illnesses for adolescents, and surely anorexia is related to a
culturally ingrained intolerance of diverse body shapes amongst children
and teenagers.
I will admit to being overweight and underexercised,and believing this is the most boring subject that eventuates.Now, remarkably that womans experience has been well presented..so that serves a purpose of tolerating and accepting people who explain themselves well.It may not be MacDonalds,but other factors I will readily admit I am boring about,and many others too.Micro wave cooking,first developed by the Nazis.And say Aspartame partially owned by whats his face,the fellow that was retired out of the U.S.A Administration.Let me try a word association for memory sake.Grog will burn your liver and pancreas out,and tend to make you diabetic,there is hardly any point in being a paraplegic ,as a outcome of being so inebriated that even the sugars in Bundaberg Ginger Beer act as a sobering agent.Ah!Yes! Rumsfeld, the fellow with Ru to his name like the dd.And the eating of rhubarb as sugars isnt a bad thing.See you on the dark side of the medically accepted moon.Cant we just let people decide that maybe,in their own way and pace to decide to lose weight!?And when it comes to,a problem,if it is a problem,of overweight kids, the parents are not given the Guilty treatment.I know overweight people are sort of confronting,but I have had that experience myself on all sides, and there is so much crap going on its ridiculous.So I am having a meal tonight of spuds organic olive oil brushed with curry powder.Telstra rules the roost.
I don’t want my kid weighed at school. I don’t want him taught that scales are important. I want his school, and his government, to support me in teaching him to enjoy healthy fresh food. I want to know that it’s not only the rich kids who can afford fresh fruit. I want him to understand why we don’t have hamburgers every day. I want him to learn that without panic.
Stephanie Alexander helped set up a program at Collingwood teaching kids about how food grows, how to cook, and how much variety and pleasure one can get from food. They’re already reportedly having great results teaching kids about food from different cultures and engaging their families. So why the hell are the federal government going to reinvent the wheel, do something that eating disorder experts consider damaging, and ignore something that already bloody working?
Heh!
You might be surprised about the fitness – you can be fit without having a “hard” body which I’m by no means wrapped up in (both senses intended) – I’m walking at least an hour a day at the moment and cutting down on the ciggies. And my diet and weight are both tons better than they’ve been in the past. And you can rest assured that I’m having organic daal for dinner tonight – or at least the IGA deli’s version thereof…
Desipis @9 suggests that telling someone “the truth” that they are ‘overweight’ is not going to hurt.
If someone told me on the street that “truth” I would be offended. It would hurt, even though I know that person has no idea why I might be ‘heavier’ than the airbrushed images held up for our intimidation. (I also observe that it is something typically shouted at passing women, but not usually at passing men.)
There are many reasons why one’s shape might change from one state to another. The biggest one is probably genetics, closely followed by medication and the inevitable toll of years. Particularly for women who no longer know what a mature figure looks like and get pressured to return to a figure that is long gone due to all those reasons.
It is far more appropriate to be fit and healthy, if heavier than actuarial tables proscribe.
And to pick out young children for being not sufficiently slender to fit some criteria, and then not expect others not to pick on them is to fly in the face of everything I ever remember from either being in school or teaching children!
I appreciate the desire, just despair at the proposed solution.
The principal food that makes children overweight is sugar-laden soft drinks, especially COCA COLA.
1. Take soft drink vending machines out of schools.
2. Give kids milk instead.
Silkworm,
There is no silver bullet with childhood obesity. Sugar-laden soft drinks contribute to the problem, however diets very high in dairy can also contribute to obesity. Added to this are increasing incidences of IBS, lactose intolerance and severe dairy allergy (of which I am a sufferer) which may not automatically suggest that giving kids milk (and which milk – A1 or A2?!!!) is the answer. I think the key is the involvement of parents and community in evidence-based dietary counselling, caloric control and exercise.
Curi-Oz says:
“It is far more appropriate to be fit and healthy, if heavier than actuarial tables proscribe.”
This is not entirely correct and rather simplistic. Increased adiposity has emerged as a key predictor of death in both men and women in addition to reduced physical activity.
Mark says:
“I’m walking at least an hour a day at the moment and cutting down on the ciggies. And my diet and weight are both tons better than they’ve been in the past. And you can rest assured that I’m having organic daal for dinner tonight – or at least the IGA deli’s version thereof…”
Walking is ok but for someone of your age bracket but I would strongly recommend higher level physical activity at least three times per week and caloric reduction via lessening portion size. A very good summary of fitness courtesy of President Bush’s fitness council(!!) is here: http://www.fitness.gov/fitness.htm
Kate says:
“I want his school, and his government, to support me in teaching him to enjoy healthy fresh food. I want to know that it’s not only the rich kids who can afford fresh fruit… Stephanie Alexander helped set up a program at Collingwood teaching kids about how food grows, how to cook, and how much variety and pleasure one can get from food. They’re already reportedly having great results teaching kids about food from different cultures and engaging their families.”
Unfortunately a “healthy” diet and cultural relativism do not always go hand in hand. A “heart-healthy” mediterranean diet high in unsaturated fats with controlled portion size, limited red meat and dairy has been shown in a number of studies to have significant benefit. Deep fry, ghee, very high red meat intake etc while popular in some cultures have been found to have deleterious health effects. Again, portion size (ie. caloric intake) and a regular exercise program are the key. Working in the field of Health Research, I am also largely unconvinced by the purported economic price of “eating healthy”. Pastas,many fresh vegetables, legumes, canned fish and nuts are relatively inexpensive compared to the price of red meats and processed foods, although I do acknowledge the relatively high price of olive oil, fresh fruit and fish.
PhilipTravers says:
“Grog will burn your liver and pancreas out,and tend to make you diabetic…”
Moderate intake of alcohol (in particular red wine) every day is cardio-protective.
Anthony says:
“Further is the problem of focussing on toddlers. Is toddler BMI an indicator of their adult BMI? There’s evidence that adults’ BMI is increasing but current levels of obesity amongst adults tell us nothing about the same adults’ childhood weight.”
I wasn’t aware we were discussing toddlers. I agree that childhood obesity may not NECESSARILY translate to adult obesity but it does tend to. Perhaps the most detailed evidence-based policy discussion of the issue is here: http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/10931.html Ignoring childhood obesity in the hope that it will not translate to adult obesity is socially irresponsible. Certainly BMI is not a perfect tool but it is a fairly useful diagnostic indicator of obesity and overall health – particular when used in combination with E/LFT and FBC bloodwork. The BMJ study you cite has been quite severely criticised and is not generally cited in public policy generation in this area. Cf: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1122590
Beppie says:
“Let’s see the production of healthy foods subsidised so as to reduce costs…”
More subsidies to inefficient farmers – great policy work, just ask the French farmers. The key is educating people on a low budget how to eat a diet high in saturated fat with a low glycemic index and a smaller portion size. Part of this process may need to be coercive by way of food stamps for certain foodstuffs in lieu of a proportion of family benefits payments. Projects need to be instituted in schools to encourage higher level exercise and vouchers for extra-curricular/out-of-school sporting or exercise programs should be investigated.
I do not understand why public schools in particular have taxpayer funded chaplains and guidance counsellors but no dietary/health counsellors!
As a survivor of school milk ripened all morning in the hot Aussie sun and its emetic consequences…..NOOOOO!
If it’s cold and fresh…maybe…
There are probably a multiplicity of reasons why people are overweight. Blaming the victim as some have done here does not take account of biomedical factors such as:
* the possibility and extent of microbial involvement, both in the gut and as a consequence of sub-clinical infection.
* long-term use of commonly prescribed medications known to increase weight in many individuals (cortisone, contraceptive pills, some anti-depressants and anti-psychotics)
*an apparent increase in thyroid disorders, some of which are initially difficult to diagnose without detailed testing.
*neurological factors such as neurotransmitter levels, which may be affected by sugar levels and food additives.
There are cultural factors as well. For instance some Pacific Islander communities relate body size to prosperity.
Public schools have had both sport and PE programmes for many years, the Catholics have followed (particularly in football) and most of the independents have pushed sport heavily with state-of-the-art facilities to match. So what’s the problem? .
School and club sport are great for the minority of the already physically agile and gifted to strut their stuff. The majority mediocrities, especially those with poor gross motor skills, more often than not look upon it with dread as two hours of humiliation and boredom in a hot sun or freezing winds, beset by flies and discomfort.
No use pushing the “sport for everyone” line either. The kids know from an early age that there are winners and losers. They only have to watch the gifted on TV and see the sort of money and prestige these sportspeople command, particularly in Australia. No one wins at the pool or the footy or on the track just for being there. No one gets trophies for coming last. Spectators want winners.
In sport more so than just about everything else they learn at school this is the case.
Nice post Paul – needless to say that I agree with the gist of your argument. I guess that special care would need to be taken to minimise the embarrassment experienced by overweight young tykes during the process, but surely that is something that could be handled without too much difficulty.
I think we have reached a new low point in human life when stomach banding is seen as a solution to what is in the main a lifestyle/willpower problem. How come obesity wasn’t an issue in the 1800’s? – because we weren’t such a lazy pathetic society back then.
As a teacher of four year olds, I didn’t like this idea when I first heard it. It seems like another test on children to assess whether they are acceptable or not, on factors that they have very little control over. Klaus K at 28 I feel makes a valid point, about humiliation endorsed by teachers.
Also, as someone else pointed out, what happens with this information then? I work hard to develop working relationships with the families I work with. As a rather skinny person (though not at all fit, it’s genetics.) it would be really difficult to convey this information to the parents (it’s likely they are also overweight) without it being taken as a judgement of them as a parent. What if there are other concerns whose impact will be more immediate, that I need to discusss?
Also 4 year olds are part of the world and are figuring out where they fit. They are a lot more aware and perceptive than people usually think. I suspect those that are overweight would know what this weighing thing is all about… Quite a few of my friends who consider themselves overweight, weigh themselves often and obsess about the food they eat. Some of these children would be seeing this at home on a daily basis. This would have an impact on how they see themselves. I, as an adored kinder teacher (!), don’t want to be the authority figure, (or another one) that says you’re not good enough. Especially when they don’t have a lot of control over the food they are offered.
I think there are better ways to deal with the issue. Not sure what they are though!
Is this an argument for raising petrol excise?
It took me most of my twenties to get my diet right, and when I did, I dropped 10kg. Riding my bike everywhere instead of driving was a big factor too. Now there’s hardly a day when I don’t ride to work and whenever im in the car I feel stressed and frustrated more by traffic.
Exercise seems to improve my mindset which in turn makes me more motivated to eat well.
Silkworm do you mean unadulterated cows milk collected from a dairy in a pail? Any other is milk in name only.
“I wasn’t aware we were discussing toddlers”.
Fair call; we’re actually discussing four year olds, so my apologies. Thanks for the links. In the second, the authors of the original BMJ study defend their research.
I’m not in favour of ignoring childhood obesity ‘in the hope that it will go away’. Like many other commenter s on this post, I’m asking whether using BMI calculations to evauate four-year-olds’ body shape may produce more harm than good.
I never said it wouldn’t hurt. I just claimed that being in denial isn’t going to help. If you’re fat, you’re fat. Either accept it or take action to change it. Don’t attack others for acknowledging the elephant in the room.
There is only one reason one’s shape would significantly increase, and that is eating ‘too much’. There are many factors, the major one being behavioral lifestyle, that go into determining how much is too much, but if you don’t eat ‘too much’ then you won’t gain weight.
Yes, health is the name of the game. In the same way our justice system focuses on identifying guilt, not declaring innocence, a persons weight is able to identify if they are clearly unhealthy, rather than able to say they are.
I don’t expect them not to be picked on. I expect they’ll be picked on anyway. Weighing kids won’t increase the number of kids being teased, because the fat ones stand out anyway. What it will do is aid in reducing the number of overweight kids, and hence potentially reduce the number of kids being teased.
If their kid is overweight, then their kid is unhealthy. If their kid is unhealthy, they’re not particularly good parents. I’m struggling to think of something of more concern than the child’s health, but I’m sure you’re given some discretion with how you deal with parents.
If you saw a kid sitting in the corner stabbing himself with a pen, would you tell him he’s doing something bad, or would you congratulate him on what a good job he’s doing putting holes in himself because you don’t want to hurt his feelings? If you saw a kid coming in everyday with cuts and bruises, would you just ignore it or talk to the parents to find out if there’s a problem or ignore it because the kid my feel bad? Obesity is bad. It’s not a problem we should ignore because some feelings might get hurt.
Desipis, you have a very simplistic view of the situation indeed, and your comparison of weight with evidence of criminal guilt says a great deal more about your particular view of this problem than you may have intended.
Klaus K My view of the whole situation isn’t particularly simplistic. My view that obesity is primarily a symptom of behavioral issues I guess may be simplistic, but correcting behavioral problems is not simple at all. There is I guess also the simple argument that a problem must be identified before it can be solved.
I didn’t originally intend to compare crime to obesity in any more depth than I stated. That is that weight can identify problem, not rule out the presence of one. I think there is a further comparison that can be made. Obesity, like crime, causes harm. Sometimes one make technically break the law but is not convicted because of the circumstances. We don’t ignore all crime simply because sometimes what appear to be criminal actions are actually justified. Similarly we shouldn’t ignore obesity because sometimes the person may not be in control of the issues affect their weight. I wasn’t intending to say that obesity implies someone is a bad person.
Niz@46, the fuel excise is currently a flat charge rather than being indexed to the price of fuel. I’d be in favour of raising the fuel excise, indexing it to petrol price and using the money to build bike and walking infrastructure.
Fair enough, Desipis. My main concern is that lack of fitness and excessive weight be treated by public health policy in a way that is effective in dealing with those problems, but does not create undue negative emotional effects, or indeed a judgemental culture of excessive scrutiny of physical fitness.
Surely the best (and least expensive) way to deal with this would be similar to the program at my kids’ school:
1. Banish high fat/sodium foods from the tuck shop;
2. Advise parents that such foods are not appropriate for lunch boxes and include discussions on this in any parent/teacher meetings;
3. Include at least one period of physical activity in each day, probably in the morning; and
4. Parents are encouraged to have their kids walk or ride to school where this is feasible.
This is not rocket science, requiring more spending, oversight and teacher time that could be better spent actually teaching rather than weighing kids and filling in forms before they actually do something about it.
Sam Clifford
John, have fun getting parents to take their kids to health clinics for something less life than a matter of life and death.
Tragically, you are spot on. On this point, I will go into bat for the teachers. Teachers are there to TEACH. You know, literacy, maths, science, and stuff. NOT bring up children, wipe their bums, dispense condoms, and lessons on sex-changes!.
If parents want the school to move beyond in locus parentis to actually BECOME the parents, they should send their kids to fricking boarding school.
The AEU needs to tell whoever is floating these loony ideads to Get Stuffed! That is what Unions are supposed to do, not spend 24/7 lying about funding and trying to dumb the curriculum down so far that people vote for John Howard four elections in a row.
Desipis, I didn’t mean to imply that we should ignore obesity, I think there are probably ways to deal with the issue that don’t make the children feel bad for something they have little control over and also makes parents feel like failures at the same time. You might argue that they are bad parents for not feeding their children well, but just because I hurt their feelings by telling their children are overweight, doesn’t necessarily mean they are going to change the behaviours that caused the problem. The direct, “here’s the facts” approach works for some people, it doesn’t for a lot of others. I don’t have the answers, I just don’t see this as a solution to the problem. The children are most likely aware that they are overweight, why add another voice, and an influence voice, to the chorus?
Sam Clifford: Firstly, as far as I’m aware there is quite a surplus in the government coffers at the moment so a new tax is not needed. Secondly, the recent rises in fuel price have demonstrated that demand for petrol (i.e. how much people drive) is impacted little on how much they drive. Unfortunately all you’d be doing is unfairly taxing people not in a position to change their driving habits. It’s the poor who are unable to afford housing that is near employment, public transport or in safe neighbourhoods. But yes, there are plenty of people who can cut back on driving, and I think the government needs to do more to encourage it, such as through the spending measures you suggest.
Klaus K: I’m not advocating undue negative emotional effects. I do worry about the push to remove any sort of judgement from the education system though. It’s important that students (and their parents) know their strengths and weaknesses, and if diet/exercise/health is a weakness then it needs to be identified and addressed.
Andrew Reynolds: I think you’ve got some good ideas there. But how good are they? How much impact will they have? Will they solve the problem, or do we need to do more? Statistical data will enable an objective assessment of any measures, such as yours, that are adopted.
John, the teachers also do playground duty and supervise the pick-up of students at the end of the day. The role of teachers goes beyond instilling knowledge in the classroom. Anyway, weight testing would be done by government health staff rather than teachers.
Desipis, things like walking buses are great places to start, as are regular “ride to school” days. West End State School (Brisbane) has set aside Wednesdays as a sort of “car free” day for the families who attend the school. Not only do kids ride or walk to school on Wednesdays, they end up riding/walking other days of the week, too. For those who have trouble walking or riding, car pooling is organised. Given that any primary school (public or private) draws its students from the surrounding area, walking buses and other active transport measures are a great idea.
Many high schools are accessible by public transport and there’s no real excuse for dropping the kids off; if you’re rich, you’ve got the money for the train/bus to the Grammar School in the city. If you’re poor, you’re generally going to the local state school and can walk. If you’re an aspirational battler luvvie you can ride the mountain bike your parents bought you for Christmas as a show of their wealth.
John Greenfield: We don’t teach school students things for the mere sake of it. The whole purpose of the school system is to produce young adults who are better able to function and perform within society. Historically, the average set of parents had strong life skills but weaker academic ability. So the school system complemented the things taught by parents, teaching classical academic subjects, to ensure a well rounded up bringing. Unfortunately children these days aren’t learning as many life skills (such as healthy eating) from their parents, so in order to serve its function the education system should cover these issues. I don’t think resources should be diverted from the academic subjects though, but rather additional resources allocated to cover new teachings.
marymary: I’m not suggesting you just simply tell them and be done with it. But children who are identified as overweight could, for example, be invited to additional exercise/sports programs or classes, or encouraged to join a healthy lunch program, provide the parents with educational resources if they lack the skills or knowledge to provide healthy food at home. There are many paths that can be taken beyond just passing the information along, but it will be more efficient and effective to target such programs at those that can be identified as needing it, rather than everyone.
but it will be more efficient and effective to target such programs at those that can be identified as needing it, rather than everyone.
I disagree. Just because a child is skinny doesn’t mean they are fit or healthy. By introducing programs that are teaching all children good eating habits and exercise habits, you are teaching all possible future parents as well, rather than just those you have identified on the grounds of body shape and size.
As far as I am aware, most schools have taken the tack outlined by Andrew Reynolds above and taken fatty and sugary foods out of the canteen and introduced more movement into the kids day. At primary level at least, which are the kids being targetted anyway. I also agree with marymary that singling out children is adding another layer of low self esteem to their already low self esteem. They know they are fat, they don’t need people who should be on their side judging them too.
Desipis,
I spend my working life with these sorts of metrics – as a consultant to banks. For these sorts of things a data collection process is necessary, the statistics calculable and risk / benefit ratios useful.
The measures we are talking about, though, have results that are measured in decades. The benefits of weighing someone are very small – the science around getting them onto a healthier diet and more physically active is, as far as I know, unarguable.
All that collecting data on weight will do is give us statistics we already have (on a sample basis) on childhood obesity. Useless. Getting kids onto better diets and more exercise – Useful.
Stats we have lots of. Exercise programs: not enough. Where should any effort be going?
I was commenting under the assumption that these types of programs are already in place, and that it wasn’t generating the desired outcome in all cases. Like children who have trouble learning particular subjects, we need to identify those who are having trouble with eating and exercise habits. You sound like the kind of person who advocates not failing students, in the hope they can get through life blissfully unaware of their weaknesses.
Is there any harm in letting them know just how fat they are? Like any decent weight management plan, the measurements aren’t about comparing students to each other, but comparing the student to themselves over time. Use it to show them that by following healthy diet and exercise plans they have the power change their body. Show them they have the power to change the shape of their body and thus shed the weight that is weighing down their self esteem. Much of the emotional problem stems from the fact they identify themselves as the ‘fat’ one and don’t see any hope of change.
Justin, back in the fifties of blessed memory the Anglosphere here would have grown up on roast dinners cooked in dripping, possibly bread and dripping as an after-school snack and an array of lovingly home-made cakes full of butter, cream and sugar. Couple that with the corner shop with its jars of lollies and Arnott’s bickies for play-lunch and you should have had a major obesity epidemic among children. After all we had less PE than kids these days and more opportunities to skive off on sports afternoons.
The truth was that obesity was very rare indeed, and when encountered in one of our unfortunate classmates was usually explained in hushed tones by our mothers as probably due to “glands”.
So given that the boomer generation were no more or less physically active than their kids, and sports were not as super-organised as they are now – why is there a seeming obesity “epidemic” among the young?
And guess what – there is no such thing as “willpower”. It’s a magical thinking word, and if nothing else research and treatment of an important health issue such as obesity in young people should be as rigidly scientific and evidence-based as possible.
“So given that the boomer generation were no more or less physically active than their kids, and sports were not as super-organised as they are now – why is there a seeming obesity “epidemicâ€? among the young?”
TV, DVDs, computer games and the internet. There’s a simple solution however. Just ensure all electronic goods in the kids bedrooms and rumpus rooms are pedal-powered.
And this would reduce carbon emissions too. Bonus!
Damn, is there is anything one can’t solve after a few bracing sundowners?
And re kids getting physically active these days, here’s an interesting little infotaiment nugget from their potential future.
Damn, is there is anything one can’t solve after a few bracing sundowners?
Free will?
FWIW I think childhood obesity has a strong correlation to unhappiness. Morbidly obese people eat huge amounts of food because they are trying to eat their way into a feeling of emotional fulfillment. Unhappiness, lack of fulfillment, acceptance and sensing any valuable meaning in life is the real epidemic. The relatively tangible symptom is being targeted while the more difficult to deal with and intangible cause is overlooked. Its all too hard to deal with. ‘Nother chip-buttie dear?
“FWIW I think childhood obesity has a strong correlation to unhappiness.”
Nah, I reckon it’s ‘cos they’re not out scampering barefoot around the neighbourhood, leaping from a tyre on a rope into the local swimming hole, pegging tops and flying kites, pulling the pigtails of the little girl down the road, using safety pins, string and a bit of mince to go yabbying, cycling off for picnics with lashings of ginger beer, messing around in sloops and hobies, using Dad’s Ben Hogan driver to tee off on cane toads, driving the local dogs mad with slingshots, pinching booze from the liquor cabinet, hotwiring the family station wagon, setting fire to the PE teacher’s lawn, breaking into holiday shacks, doing bucket bongs and getting Mrs Robinsoned by the local MILF.
No, such innocent idealized childhood days are over. Now they all sit around on their fat arses discussing Brazilians, Yes or No? on Facebook and reworking their World of Warcraft avatars.
If only I was thirty years younger…on second thoughts maybe not. As I recall it back then, I had a permanent erection, nowhere socially sanctioned to put it and acne. The booze, pot and arson were good though.
1. Helping kids avoid unhealthy habits earlier in life actually helps them avoid more ridicule later on, apart from the health benefits.
2. Ballooning through non-choice medical conditions or medication (I ballooned when on valproate – and lost it when moved to lamotrigine) is often hard for others to differentiate from those who are merely overconsumers, but …
3. If we can criticise/ridicule overconsumers of non-renewable energy (Hummer drivers), water wasters (“Wallies”), then it is also valid to criticize overconsumers because of their unnecessarily high carbon footprint.
BTW: Nabokov said “There’s a simple solution however. Just ensure all electronic goods in the kids bedrooms and rumpus rooms are pedal-powered.” Note that some crank-handle-powered consumer items are available, even when initially designed for the third world. Crank-powered radios were latte-sipper fashion statements a few years ago in britain, and the “One Laptop Per Child” project has a pretty cute and cheap laptop with a crank.
On a lighter note: The grumpy old men like me, aware that a neuron uses more energy than any other tissue type, will correlate average youth obesity with indolence not only of body but of brain.
Nabakov wrote:
Spare us the nostalgia trip Nabakov. Most kids grow up in cities and don’t have your elegaic Tom Sawyer swimming hole, yabbie spot, loaded dog or handy hobie location.
There’s no simple answer. Sure, parents today drive their kids to school rather than have them walk there by themselves, but they don’t feel safe any more (traffic intensity, the fear of predators etc). Kids don’t ride bikes any more (again, traffic). Their parents are subjecting themselves to horrible working hours and using fast food as a substitute for time (and yes, Mickey D’s has far higher sugar/fat contents and much less fibre than ye olde sausage/egg/chips/gravy/greens combo that suburban mums used to serve up, not to mention Coke as a regular drink rather than a treat). Fat is basically fear consumed. Modern life is living in fear (of missing mortgage payments/sexual predation/traffic accidents involving kids and bikes).
Last winter when Tim Dunlop rounded up Gary Sauer-Thompson and me to be official Adelaide Festival of Ideas bloggers I went to hear US nutritionist Prof Marion Nestle (NB no acute accent and no relation) speak on this subject. Warning: long post — but she was very interesting, and brought up several points I hadn’t thought of.
“Spare us the nostalgia trip Nabakov. Most kids grow up in cities and don’t have your elegaic Tom Sawyer swimming hole, yabbie spot, loaded dog or handy hobie location.”
Didn’t read through to the punchline did you? I was parodying the kinda nostaglia trip you were accusing me of.
Radio National’s Health report had an episode on obesity where one researcher pointed the finger at added sucrose and fructose in prepackaged foods leading to insulin resistance etc. I think this is a serious consideration despite its association with Atkins. Almost the same week however there was a programme which pointed out that in the US, the average weight gain has only amounted to a couple of kilos overall and mostly that increase occurred in already overweight and obese adults, not children. And I’m pretty sure I’ve heard studies that say that australian children are not in fact exercising less than 30 years ago, although perhaps they are moving less when they are not playing sport or exercising. They also pointed out that lowering the BMI limit for overweight created millions of ‘overweight’ people overnight.
Interesting post, Pavlov’s Cat. I think the ubiquity of food has something to do with it. You’re waiting for a train, you’re bored, eat a packet of Twisties. Put this together with an increase in serving size and less movement and you have a recipe for the slow but inexorable piling on of the kilos. I’m sure some of us have experienced this.
For most people, eating too much is simply about too much of the wrong food and too little exercise. I suspect the invocation of obscure diseases as the reason is a load of tosh, in most cases.
But I still think the cure is complex. We live in a culture that means a lot of sit on our collective arses all day and fatty food is cheap and luscious. What to do, except to be mindful and slowly change our habits. I’m not invoking ‘willpower’ here, but change, which is often difficult. What helped me lose weight is getting a dog, who needs to be exercised. Hence, I exercise. It’s made a big differerence and one I barely noticed at first.
Fine: I wonder if there’s more to the cultural aspects that you list. I’ve noticed a trend in associating ‘good times’ with ‘bad food’. For a birthday you eat cake, after work it’s pizza and beer, having a party you eat chips and lollies and chocolates, etc. I not only think it’s an issue given the frequency of ‘good times’ we have but I also think it leads to an association between the two, and hence leads people to eat ‘bad food’ in pursuit of ‘good times’.
Well so many comments but none with their weight put up in bright lights. I’ll start, I’m currently 132.5kgs. I was 148kgs 7 years ago then lost 20kgs put back 10kgs and now am on the way to losing that. The 10kgs went on through stress eating. I don’t drink, don’t smoke, vegetarian and walk 3kms two or three times a week.
The 148kgs wasn’t due to any illness, just a period of extreme sadness and unhappiness which is behind me but the addiction to food isn’t and never will be.
JahTeh, good on you for putting up the numbers and for resuming the fight – I have a mother and aunt in the same boat and have watched their struggle for many years, with concern and sympathy.
Having the same build as aunt and mother, I joined a gym four years ago – I’m 73 kg at present, have only lost four in as many years, and have almost put them back on just over Christmas through drinking and the eats that go with. The weight is definitely related to alcohol and fats as well as body type – when Oprah says she is hanging out for a black tea with a slice of lemon, I know exactly what she’s talking about. The emotional pull of food is enormous. I stand in front of the cupboard talking to myself sometimes and rattling around for biscuits.
PC, I will go read that post now.
And with regard to kids – there is definitely a computer connection. We didn’t have the Internet till mine were in their mid-teens – no love handles on my young ‘uns like the kids I see in the gym now.
I am seeing more and more obviously unexercised kids in shopping centres all the time. ALL the time, and it scares me. Doesn’t make me run to the gym any faster with my autistic 23 yr old son, though, who does have quite a tummy, but needs a running partner.
Despipis, you’re probably right and I’d rather eat pizza than a salad any day. There is something about the ‘mouth feel’ of fat. Another thing is that if I want takeaways I can afford to go to a good Asian takeaway place. If you’re poor then you go to Maccas or KFC.
JahTeh, I don’t know my weight. It’s been years since I’ve weighed my self.
Fine,
You do know if you are fat or not though – right? So do the kids and anyone looking at them. An hour’s exercise a day would probably do us all a world of good.
True, Andrew. I know whether I’m fat or not. I wonder if kids do? However, to go back ot the first premise of the thread, I don’t think weighing kids is a great idea. People need to make changes to how they live. The question is; how do you get kids to do that?
Wrong. “Fatness” exists along a spectrum, not on one side of a boundary.
Anorexia and other body-dysmorphic states are precisely about not knowing whether you’re “fat” or not. It’s also incredibly common for pregnant women to perceive themselves, and other people to perceive them, as “fat”. Part of the whole problem in the contemporary Western weight thing is that women in particular have lost all clear sense of what constitutes “fat”. And those who are slaves to projected ideals are prone to judge themselves or someone else “fat” by totally unrealistic standards.
All that said, I couldn’t agree more about the exercise. Fine at #74 has the right idea — I know someone who got a dog and lost 12 kilos in 3 months without changing her diet at all.
But remembering the appalling torture that was inflicted on fat kids when I was at school by sadistic and mostly very stupid PE teachers, plus by the more cruelty-prone of the other kids, this needs to be addressed as well.
I don’t think that this discussion can be moved forward without reference to the failure pile in a sadness bowl (via metafilter).
OMG. That looks revolting. Eeerghghhgh.
PC, I well remember the sadistic PE teacher I had. She almost broke my neck on the vaulting horse and didn’t worry when I fell from the uneven bars. I was hopeless at sport, hated gymnastics and couldn’t run to catch a bus but I walked 3 miles home from High School nearly every day, carrying an enormous bag on one shoulder but that didn’t make me lose weight.
When I was married I rode a bicycle for 20 years, that didn’t lose me any weight either.
I’ve also been thinking about willpower which skinny people say you should apply to lose weight but I’ll turn it around. If I had had the willpower to face up to the problems I had in the first place, I wouldn’t have turned to the drug of my choice, food.
Yep, exactly, JahTeh — I remember teachers forcing kids over bloody dangerous equipment in a gym with a cement floor. I was reasonably normal-sized and a good tennis player and swimmer at school (loathed team sports and gym), but my best mate was a bit of a fatty boombah and some of the things the PE teacher used to force her to do were just cruel. The kids who were asthmatic, short-sighted or a bit unco were humiliated as well. Thank dog it was an all-girl school, at least.
I think the problem is that it’s gung-ho types with athletic genes they take for granted who become PE teachers in the first place. They moralise exercise and fitness and they don’t know or care that some kids just aren’t like that, so compulsory PE as taught at school is miserable torture for a fair proportion of the kids.
Liam, the beige glop is inspiring in a negative sort of way. Scuse me while I whip up a bowl of brightly coloured raw veg for dinner.
Liam, you a regular mefite or a lurker?
Man that KFC ‘meal’ is hideous. I’d like to think it wouldn’t go down well in Australia, but…
The thing that gets me about obesity is how rapidly it has ballooned as a problem. I just don’t know what is so different between now and 10 years ago, 20 years ago. There are a lot of pet theories, but no compelling evidence for one or the other.
The social normalisation of fatness is inevitable. A few mixed messages in there,makes it all a bit hard to sort out what we’re supposed to think these days to be PC.
Strictly an interested lurker, wilful. I know my limitations, and if I were to go down the mefi path, my drug of choice—semi-anonymous confrontation—would devour me.
I reckon the Famous Bowl would go down pretty well in lots of places in Australia, and come up again in a few too.
I too remember the ghastliness of PE, so I’m deeply suspicious of compulsory PE. I was one of those short-sighted, un-co kids. Luckily, I went to a school where no-one cared if I hid in the library.
I got my own back when we there was a horse-riding camp one weekend, because I ws a very experienced horsey girl and I loved it that I coud do something so easily, that the athletic girls couldn’t do at all. My little bit of revenge.
I agree with only one thing Desipis has said, and that is that there’s no point hiding your opinions from people under the guise of self-evident truth.
Desipis, your contributions here have been both shallow and pompous.
People talk about yo-yoing weight and blah blah. Makes me wonder how many on here have personal experience on this.
From me:
At school I was overweight. Poor eating. Late development (testosterone) didn’t help.
Not knowing how to fix it didn’t help. Had I someone in school to encourage me, and a class to show how, I could have loved to have tackled this.
Anyway. Late year 12, took matters into my own hands – started running, surfing, working at a newsagents – carting papers early mornings etc. Weight fell off. Uni came, more surfing, eating well, work etc. Lost more. 5′7″, got to around 75kg. Finished uni, started work (office), stacked it on. Bad relationship, stopped exercising, blew out to 88kg.
One day, I just woke up, stopped the morose self hate (that’s what it is, really) – joined a gym. Started smashing weights, riding to work, cut carbs (initially only), running. 88kg July 04. I am 61kg now. I lost 3kg over xmas. Eating chocolate etc, but running everyday, swimming, cycling, surfing.
See, it’s pretty simple – you only have to want to change and then do it. I woke at 6am today and punched 170km out on the bike. This week I’ll commute 250km on the bike, run 25 km or so, and do weights and swim about 3km. I’m addicted.
people don’t understand the power of eating well, looking effing fantastic and feeling incredible. I want everyone who is overweight to realise this. Yes, it’s hard. There are no easy fixes. But, you don’t have to yo-yo. You cannot crash (it is not sustainable).
But, You. Can. Change.
Factors to losing weight. Self respect. Recognising it’s an issue. Constructive encouragement. Education (eating).
get this info into schools to kids. Start there. They’ll go home and hopefully shopping habits change from mum and dad. Maybe the kids do some weights and start running. Maybe dad takes them surfing.
It’s a holistic thing. Everyone needs to get involved but ultimately the individual has to want to change, next step is they need to know how to do it, then where to go.
Adults know to go to the gym.
Kids need help.