Fat Children Took My Life

A provocative piece on the obesity epidemic via Slate's new Hive project, in which author Daniel Engbar compiles a startling amount of data about the ineffectiveness of 'tough love' when it comes to dealing with this issue. In fact, the evidence of "the law increasing the trespass" (Romans 5:20) is pretty egregious here. A classic example of the civil use of the law (healthy weight being undeniably in the best interest of individuals and society as whole) backfiring completely, i.e. regardless of the intention, the law in this area is only ever heard/received in its moral capacity, therefore producing its opposite. At least, if the data is to be trusted... Take that, tiger mothers!

If it's really true that America suffers from a lack of tough love, and that's why we got so fat in the first place, then you might expect the nation's swelling obesity rates to have arrived on a wave of warm fuzzies. But we've seen just the opposite, says Rebecca Puhl of Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity (a leading advocate for the soda tax, among many other aggressive anti-obesity interventions). No one has been giving fat people a free ride. In fact, the prevalence of weight-based discrimination has increased by two-thirds since the mid-1990s; even middle-schoolers are getting meaner. The Hive tells us that to fight obesity we must "go on the offensive against obese people." Just look at the data. We tried that approach, and it didn't work.

As I've argued before, it could even be the case that all this stigma is making things worse. Columbia University epidemiologist Peter Muennig has found evidence that the life-shortening effects of obesity are more severe among women than men, and more severe among white women than black women. Women and whites also happen to be the two groups most affected by weight-based discrimination. According to Muennig, it makes sense that the more shame you feel as a result of being fat, the greater the toll on your body. So a widespread war on obesity, or indeed an effort to "fix" the nation's fat children, could serve to exacerbate the problem.

But you don't have to buy into the idea that fat shame is killing us. Research also shows that stigma doesn't help anyone slim down. Nor does it encourage healthy behavior (which is, after all, very different from weight loss). At the University of Minnesota, Dianne Neumark-Sztainer recruited nearly 5,000 adolescents for a long-term study of weight- and food-related issues, and according to her data, the teenage girls who were most dissatisfied with their bodies gained more weight over a five-year stretch than their classmates. In fact, these dissatisfied girls showed triple the increase in body-mass index, controlling for the possibility that they were fatter to begin with. All that self-hate didn't turn them into gym rats, either: The same group ended up getting less exercise than their peers.

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Self-Control?

This morning the New York Times contained an article entitled "Conflict on the Menu". The topic was controversy over new legislation that will require all fast-food restaurants in New York City to put caloric information next to the items on their menu. The legislation is an attempt to curb obesity in the city.

Now, laws like this always seem to raise debate over the size of government and its involvement in our daily lives and decision making, but the controversy in this article is actually within the anti-obesity movement itself. There is disagreement over how effective putting caloric info on menus will be. For more details, check out the full article.

The irony of this story is when asked about the controversy over this subject existing within the obesity field Dr. Kelly D. Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale, said, "The field is incapable of policing itself."

It makes me wonder that if the very group pushing for such legislation cannot "police itself" how do they expect the average person to do the same even with such information in front of them? All of the legislation attempting to stop people from smoking in the city doesn't seem to have worked. Maybe this time we'll be able to control ourselves.

The Futility of "Out-Educating" Fat

Another insightful blurb on the failure of Pelagian-minded methodologies to solve the American obesity issue. According to Clotaire Rapaille, the "If Americans just knew more..." mentality seems to fly in the face of what's actually happening. Cited by Ramit Sethi (ht JD):

“Years ago, Tufts University invited me to lecture during a symposium on obesity…

Lecturer after lecturer offered solutions for America’s obesity problem, all of which revolved around education. Americans would be thinner if only they knew about good nutrition and the benefits of exercise, they told us. Slimming down the entire country was possible through an aggressive public awareness campaign…

When it was my turn to speak, I couldn’t help beginning with an observation. “I think it is fascinating that the other speakers today have suggested that education is the answer to our country’s obesity problem,” I said. I slowly gestured around the room. “If education is the answer, then why hasn’t it helped more of you?”

There were audible gasps in the auditorium when I said this, quite a few snickers, and five times as many sneers. Unsurprisingly, Tufts never invited me to lecture again.’”

From The New Yorker: Obesity, the Bondage of the Will and Antinomianism

From an article reviewing a few recent books on obesity:

...The elasticity of the human appetite is the subject of Brian Wansink’s “Mindless Eating” (2006). Wansink is the director of Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab, and he has performed all sorts of experiments to test how much people will eat under varying circumstances. These have convinced him that people are—to put it politely—rather dim. They have no idea how much they want to eat or, once they have eaten, how much they’ve consumed. Instead, they rely on external cues, like portion size, to tell them when to stop. The result is that as French-fry bags get bigger, so, too, do French-fry eaters...

...So what’s wrong with putting on an extra pound, or ten pounds, or, for that matter, a hundred and ten? According to the contributors to “The Fat Studies Reader” (forthcoming from New York University; $27), nothing... According to the authors of “The Fat Studies Reader,” the real problem isn’t the sudden surge in obesity in this country but the surge in stories about obesity. Weight, by their account, is, like race or sex or bone structure, a biological trait over which individuals have no—or, in the case of fat, very limited—control...

Obesity and the Bound Will

NEWS FLASH: there's a really interesting Mockingbird thread going on right now, started by Jeff Dean and Dave Browder, on a proposed tax on sugar sweetened drinks like Coke. It's already quite long -- take a look!

The thoughtful comments started by Herr Browder made me think of an extraordinary cover article in THE ATLANTIC a couple months ago called Beating Obesity. It touches on a huge number of things, including all the different public health strategies being considered -- one of which is the soda tax. But even more important it is written almost in the form of a personal essay and it has a touching awareness of the problem of the bound will and cruel judgment. Some excerpts from the article:

Putting individual solutions and free will up against the increase in portion sizes, massive technological and societal changes, food-company taste-engineering, and the ubiquity of effective television advertisements is like asking Ecuador to conquer China....

This jumble of circumstances and effects is what Thomas Frieden means when he says that just being an American can naturally lead you to be obese: obesity is an almost inevitable consequence of living with our cultural norms, our history of agricultural production and subsidies, our long-standing socioeconomic inequalities, and the impact of technology on our behavior and bodies. Against this formidable dynamic, America has erected two lines of defense: name-calling, and hectoring about diet and exercise.

For the average fat person, life can be an endless chain of humiliating experiences. On a flight to Denver not too long ago, I watched as a very large woman struggled to settle into her seat. Next to her, a much skinnier man curled his lip in disgust. The woman softly asked a passing flight attendant for a seat-belt extender. The flight attendant didn’t hear her over the roar of the engines, so the woman had to ask again, and this time, everyone looked at her. Grocery shopping, eating at restaurants, going to the movies, having drinks at a crowded bar—for the fat person, these are situations to be negotiated and survived, not enjoyed. The workplace is no different: a television executive once remarked to me that my career as a political analyst would “really take off if [I] would just lose a few pounds.” When I was fat, I avoided meeting people’s eyes. I didn’t want to subject them to my ugliness.

PS. This isn't the first time that this subject has come up at Mockingbird! Click here (and scroll down) to see a lot more.

Obesity Now A Lifestyle Choice

[Mbird friend John Stamper recently forwarded me a fascinating article about the book, The Fattening Of America. Among other things, the book relates the findings of a study which claims that, "many individuals are making a conscious decision to engage in a lifestyle that is obesity-promoting." What follows is Stamper's commentary on the issues raised by the article.]


When the article was posted on the [Angilcan news-] website TitusOneNine, it lead to a thread of responses, which largely fell into two categories. One group claimed that obesity was fine or it didn’t have anything to do with overeating; and the other side pointed out how people only got fat as a result of their “choice” and therefore should be condemned for it. The two groups were also mirrored inside the article itself.

As always, what is missing in many of these kinds of discussions, certainly those in the secular press but also elsewhere, is the Pauline appreciation of the bound will (e.g. in Romans 7). The two classic postures in every such debate are repeated: one side denies the existence of sin (the weight tables are wrong, the extra pounds have no relation to me overeating) and the other (in this case thinner) side Pharasaically condemns the sinners for failing to “just say no” to gluttony—why can’t they exercise their glorious Pelagian free will—why are they CHOOSING this?

The most poignant passage in the whole article to my mind was: “For many, this is a problem they have struggled with for many years… it gets discouraging after a while,” [Dr. Linda Gotthelf (ed. - great name!!)] said. "I would not doubt that if you asked obese people if they could push a button and not be obese, close to 100 percent would say they would push the button."

It’s the closest the article gets to a touching compassionate appreciation of the human problem of sin, which never gets “fixed” in this life, even for Christians. (See Article IX of the Thirty Nine Articles!)

Thank God that Christ Jesus is the Friend of Sinners, and his love is showered especially upon the unrighteous, those unable to keep the law. And thank God for the comfortable words repeated in the old Anglican liturgies.

Another Week Begins: God vs Science, R.Crumb, Chris Christie, Social Justice, The Amazing Race and Dr. Null

1. On the off chance that you didn't see William McGurn's powerful editorial in last week's Wall Street Journal, "God vs. Science isn't the issue", here's a few lines from it:

Here's the problem: Almost no one really believes [that human beings do not possess some form of "special dignity" in comparison to other life forms]. Not, at least, when it comes to how we behave. And the dichotomy between scientific theory and human action may itself have something to tell us about truth.

Many Americans who are indifferent to faith will confess they find themselves challenged as they try to raise good and decent children without the religious confidence their parents had. The result may not be a return to religion but a healthy agnosticism about agnosticism itself.

[On a somewhat-related note - the discussion revolving around the Dawkins craze - check out Caleb Maskell's excellent recent post, "Terry Eagleton on Performatives and Propositions".]

2. Renowned/infamous underground comic artist R.Crumb published his long-awaited The Book Of Genesis Illustrated last week. Not a huge Crumb fan myself, but this project has my interest for obvious reasons. A particularly priceless portion of the review in the Washington Post (ht PW):

Crumb himself has written: "I am constantly disgusted by reality, horrified and afraid. I cling desperately to the few things that give me some solace, that make me feel good. For me to be human is, for the most part, to hate what I am. When I suddenly realize I am one of them, I want to scream in horror."

Not unlike the God of Genesis beholding the depravity of his children, even his greatest servants. Abraham pimps his wife, Sarah, Jacob cheats his brother, Esau.

3. Anyone interested in the free will/obesity/health care discussion would do well to read Daniel Engber's highly insightful (and often irritatingly smug) assessment over at Slate. The latest installment, "Is Chris Christie too fat to win an election in New Jersey?" contained a number of gems about identity and self-righteousness and the bound will (ht J. Stamper). The final two paragraphs read:

A couple of months ago, I asked [Esther Rothblum, editor of the Fat Studies Reader] why she thought the fat rights movement aroused so much ire from across the political spectrum. Thin people tend to think they've controlled their weight through hard work and strength of character, she said. That makes the idea of size acceptance seem like a personal affront to anyone who's not severely obese. If we're all OK with being fat, then there's no pride in being thin.

So what does this mean for Chris Christie? Most of the country is overweight or obese, according to government standards, yet there's no constituency for a fat politician. Conservatives see excess weight as a sign of moral failing or a breach of personal responsibility. Liberals sneer at the bloated American lifestyle, even while imagining the war on obesity as a fight for social justice. A size-blind culture is clearly a long way off. Until we get there, it's the thin candidates who will be throwing their weight around.

4. An interesting and very personal account from author Chris Rice about the sometimes tense relationship between grace and social justice [just ask this man], aptly titled "From Trying Harder and Doing More to a Culture of Grace" (ht AZ):

For us, “telling the truth” had so much become telling the church and each other how you need to change and be more radical. But now we saw that the greatest truth was telling and showing each other how much God loves us. Our paradigm for daily life had shifted to John’s mantra, “Caring for each other, forgiving each other, and keeping the dishes washed. We are forgiven. All the rest is details.”

5. Blogroll: Over at Andy Whitman's fantastic blog, Razing The Bar, check out "The Jerk Factory", a brief look at contemporary evangelicalism through the lens of... The Amazing Race. Then, in anticipation of the return on Wednesday night of the best show on (direct)TV - besides Mad Men of course - be sure to read "Now Go Out There And Take It!" on Heather Gregorio's 15 Shekels.

6. Here in NYC, Christ Church's ministry conference kicks off tomorrow night (10/27) at 6pm with a talk on Thomas Cranmer from Mbird favorite Dr. Ashley Null. Highly recommended! For more details, go here.

The Mockingpolitics of Soda Tax (or Co-Cola if you live in my neck of the woods)

"...we have a problem with "sin taxes," such as the penny-per-ounce surcharge on sweetened beverages championed by CDC Director Thomas Frieden. Most of us would probably agree that we'd be better off if we drank less soda, but any government action designed to control consumption puts us on alert. A tax is far less likely to induce reactance than an outright ban, but we feel queasy whenever we think The Man is trying to influence our behavior. In the case of the sugar-sweetened-beverage tax, which has often been referred to as a "fat tax," our discomfort is greater because the measure seems to encourage finger-pointing. In defense of the proposal, New York Gov. David Paterson has said, "Someone has got to contribute to the $7.6 billion the state spends every year to treat diseases from obesity." Those who are not obese may feel that they should not have to pay for the "sins" of the fat people over there, the ones creating the problem. Those who are obese are likely to feel shamed and persecuted. And we all recoil at the thought of the government trying to regulate our bodies."

Read the whole article here.

You're going to have to peel my cold, dead hands off my Co-Cola. - DOB

Another Week Ends: The (Non-)Commercialization of Easter, Realism vs. Despair, Childhood Favorites, LOST, Fat Albert

1. A truly remarkable piece by James Martin over at Slate entitled, "How Easter Stubbornly Resists Commercialization". A few notable excerpts (ht AZ):

"What enables Easter to maintain its religious purity and not devolve into the consumerist nightmare that is Christmas? Well, for one thing, it's hard to make a palatable consumerist holiday out of Easter when its back story is, at least in part, so gruesome. 

The Christmas story, with its friendly resonances of marriage, family, babies, animals, angels, and—thanks to the wise men—gifts, is eminently marketable to popular culture. It's a Thomas Kinkade painting come to life.

On the other hand, a card bearing the image of a near-naked man being stripped, beaten, tortured, and nailed through his hands and feet onto a wooden crucifix is a markedly less pleasant piece of mail. 

To his followers, therefore, [Christ's] execution was not only tragic and terrifying but shameful. It is difficult not to wonder what the Apostles would have thought of a crucifix as a fashion accessory. Imagine wearing an image of a hooded Abu Ghraib victim around your neck as holiday bling.

Easter is an event that demands a "yes" or a "no." There is no "whatever." 

2. Along those lines, if you can overlook the continued nepotism, one doozie of a Good Friday sermon is PZ's 2003 "The Thin Line Between Realism And Suicide":
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Plus-Size Models and Self-Esteem

A new study from Arizona State University has found that advertisements featuring plus-size models actually decrease women's self-esteem rather than increase it. Not quite sure what this means but definitely something legal, if you catch my drift. Perhaps something about how shifting the expectations of Law doesn't ameliorate its affect/nature? ht JD:

“We found that overweight consumers demonstrated lower self-esteem – and therefore probably less enthusiasm about buying products – after exposure to any size models in ads (versus ads with no models). Also, normal-weight consumers experienced lower self-esteem after exposure to moderately heavy models, such as those in Dove soap’s ‘Real Women’ campaign, than after exposure to moderately thin models. 

Thinner women tended to experience a boost in self-esteem when they viewed all models because they identified positively with the thinner models and saw themselves as different from the heavier models. Heavier women dropped in self-esteem when looking at all models because they saw themselves as different from the thinner, idealized ones and similar to the overweight models. 'Normal' women had the most shifts in self-esteem, depending on what types of images they saw and could therefore be the most influenced by pictures in ads. For example, if they viewed a moderately thin model, they felt similar and good; if they saw a moderately heavy model, they worried they were similar and overweight.

These findings could be used to prompt changes in behavior. For example, if a normal-size woman sees moderately heavy images in ads for weight-loss products, she might feel overweight and be more inclined to buy a diet plan or gym membership. The same premise could apply to using heavy images in public service announcements aimed at fighting the obesity epidemic.

PZ's Podcast Double-Feature, Part One: Inside Looking Out

EPISODE 23

So I was standing in line at the Hess Station the other day and began to be critical of everyone else who was standing in line with me. I thought about lottery tickets and poor people, Jerry Springer, obesity, 'Joe Six-Pack', the few free individuals who were purchasing cigarettes, Little Debbie, Black Coffee (in Bed), the Spanish language, the excellent Mexican restaurant I frequent Mondays because of the Lunch Specials, the ads blaring from the gas pumps themselves, and so on and so forth.

Talk, Talk ("It's My Life"); and What is the Meaning of Life? (I even got that far in my talk.)

This week's podcast attempts to understand what's going on with this inner dialogue.  Or is it monologue? It is actually a "conversation", to use the dreaded word, and it's between me, myself, and I.

The text for the podcast is the passage from By Love Possessed in which Arthur Winner is 'interviewed' by Mrs. Pratt. Mrs. Pratt is a fearsomely articulate Roman Catholic who, with her pleasant questions, has an agenda for which even the 'man of reason', Arthur Winner, is unprepared. We come in on his inward realization that she is beginning to stir some deep waters.  First, a yellow flight begins to flicker.  Then it turns to red, going quickly from 'a whisper to a scream' (Icicle Works).

In a second passage,  Cozzens takes us from the squadrons of inward associations which go on in human beings during such difficult conversations, some of them unconscious; to the great questions of purpose and meaning, and God.  The second passage is taken from the climax of Guard of Honor.  

"What Goes On (In your Heart)?  What Goes On (In your Mind)? It is tearing me apart. " 

This is all in service of understanding better the divided man of Romans, Chapter Seven.

To listen, click here.