In honor of the holiday season, Reuters tells us about a new campaign to deal with Santa’s unseemly weight. The campaign comes from a public relations firm, which must be getting into the holiday spirit. It is to “keep Santa fat.” Enjoy!
The Centers for Disease Control and Promotion (CDC) announces that obesity rates are leveling off, at least among white women. The data show less favorable trends among men and women of color. One reason for the slowing down of obesity trends may be another favorable trend: the prevalence of regular physical activity seems to be increasing.
If you want to see the latest research on environmental influences on childhood obesity, take a look at the current issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. It has a bunch of articles from top investigators about social factors that promote overeating and sedentary behavior in kids, along with some fascinating information about the role of advertising and foods in schools in promoting junk food. Beginners: start here.
And now we have an MSNBC report of a study just out in JAMA. The summary is a confusing mess to read but the bottom line is that being overweight increases the risk of death from some diseases but not others. Overweight, for example, cushions against pneumonia and other infectious diseases. Obesity increases the risk of death from cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancers considered to be obesity-related but not other types of cancers. Didn’t we know this already? The headline–and my guess is that we will see more of these–seems to be that it takes more than 25 pounds overweight to do this on average. Maybe, if risk factors like blood pressure, blood cholesterol, and blood sugar remain at reasonable levels.
City University and the Public Health Association of New York City have just released their long-awaited report, “Reversing the Diabetes and Obesity Epidemics in New York City: A Call to Action.” The report focuses on public health–rather than individual–causes of these problems and makes recommendations about how to change the environment to make it more conducive to eating better (less, I call it) and moving more. It’s a good place to go for data on the extent of these problems. Enjoy (?)
Glaxo, the company that makes Alli (a.k.a. Xenical), says it has sold 2 million packages of the diet drug since June when the FDA approved over-the-counter sales. How did Glaxo do this? In interesting ways, says the Wall Street Journal.
The New York Times says the company says 70% of people taking the drug say they are losing weight. Maybe so, but under some coercion. Eat too much fat while taking the drug and you can expect some messy side effects. There has to be a better way….
Personal responsibility won’t do the trick. A new report from the U.K. government describes the extent of environmental influences on obesity and warns that fixing the problem requires major intervention and is likely to take decades. Worth reading, no?
In case you missed CNN’s weekend investigative report on America’s obesity epidemic, you get another chance online. I was interviewed for it and appear for 5 seconds right at the beginning. I’m always suspicious of programs that show lots of pictures of overweight people (with heads discreetly cut off); they usually miss key points as well as being insensitive. I’m curious to know what you thought of it. CNN went to a lot of trouble to do all those interviews and all that filming. What did you learn from it? Do tell.
