Fighting Fat
Some interesting new research shows that increasing exercise regimes at school results in no overall increase in expenditure of energy in children. Essentially, it seems that increasing school activities just reduces the after-school energy levels of children, so that they do less than they already do. So it seems that school exercise programs are unlikely to reduce obesity.
The Obesity industry attempts to put a different spin on this:
“Tim Lobstein, director of childhood obesity program for the International Association for the Study of Obesity, said Wilkin’s study was “an interesting phenomenon” worthy of further research, but does not tell the whole story. Nor does it cover a wide enough range of subjects to be conclusive, he said.
“Lobstein said it was important to encourage physical activity at school so that children develop an affinity for it later on – “to set the thermostat, as it were, the activity-stat, at a high level.””
As usual, the answer to any research that contradicts the politically correct mantras of social engineers is to make utterly unfounded assertions like school activities sets “the thermostat, as it were, the activity-stat, at a high level”. It’s a nice theory, but there is absolutely no evidence that it is true. I have yet to see a properly formed study that demonstrates that schools with higher activity levels generate adults with higher activity levels.
It is true that schools with a good sports program are more likely to generate good athletes, but this is a very long way from suggesting that they generate more athletes or even more people interested in actively participating in sport. It would seem far more likely that one’s activity level is determined by a combination of personality, family upbringing and social mores.
I suspect this extends to the other part of the war on obesity - healthy eating. I strongly suspect that enforcing health foods in school tuck shops just moves the consumption of unhealthy foods to the corner dairy or increases consumption of garbage back at home. I would be interested in seeing a comparison of the obesity levels of schools with and without health tuck shops. I would not be surprised by little or no difference between the two.
Obesity is complex and multifactorial. There is no simple solution and most “solutions” are overly simplistic and pointless. Banning unhealthy foods just penalizes people who wish to occasionally eat unhealthily (because it is convenient and enjoyable). It does little to combat obesity because obesity is a lifestyle issue, rather than a consumption issue. Typically lifestyle issues are resolved by conviction rather than persuasion and by peer-pressure rather than government fiat.
Good information on the consequences of obesity plus social groups who actively promote exercise and healthy eating as “normal” are, in the long run, going to be far more effective than government scare campaigns and bans.
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May 11 09 4:12 pm
I do believe that it can be shown that obesity and childhood obesity in particular tends to be correlated with poverty for reasons that are only partially understood.
However to admit this would be to deny an opportunity for government busybodies to interfere in everybody’s life
Andrei’s last blog post..An oddity in English customary usage from the BBC
May 12 09 12:06 am
Andre: I do believe that it can be shown that obesity and childhood obesity in particular tends to be correlated with poverty for reasons that are only partially understood.
That is correct. The prevailing theory seems to be that it a combination of the use of cheap, unhealthy food, especially processed food, and simple ignorance. I subscribe to the former but think that latter is the more deliberate choosing of comfort foods as solace for boredom.
May 12 09 10:49 am
I think it also has to be acknowledged how much more sedentary our lifestyles have become.
When I got home from school, I spent 5-10 minutes on homework (say, copying the answers to a written question out of an encyclopedia) and then it was mostly outside stuff. Now my kids come home with a lot more homework, there’s TV, there’s play-stations, there’s the internet and the computer. There’s a lot more competition on time.
Office jobs have a lot more sitting down in front of computers. People are more likely to drive to work than to bike or walk.
Chthoniid’s last blog post..9 children killed by crocodiles in Angola
Indeed. I’ve noticed my friend’s kids do a lot more “activity” at school and then come home with much more homework. It is as if exercise has replaced tuition.
May 12 09 12:37 pm
I was a fat kid, but the level of physical activity I had would leave most kids today horrified. Perhaps not surprisingly I slimmed down later in almost direct relationship with physical distance from my family.
JC
May 12 09 3:29 pm
Part of the problem I suspect, is that for most of our species’ history, we have been hungry. People got by in 17th England largely on bread and cheese. As a species, we’ve become programmed to bulk out on food- especially high fat, high energy stuff- whenever the chance arises. (Refrigerators not being part of our evolutionary history).
Not sure that it helps us find any solutions, but it also implies that people buy fatty-foods and red-meat a lot because of our biology- not advertising by food companies or the presence/absence of healthy tuck-shops.
May 14 09 8:54 pm
I’ve stumbled over another interesting study, which seems very pertinent to this post.
“Increased Food Intake Alone Explains Rise In Obesity In United States, Study Finds: New research that uses an innovative approach to study, for the first time, the relative contributions of food and exercise habits to the development of the obesity epidemic has concluded that the rise in obesity in the United States since the 1970s was virtually all due to increased energy intake….To return to the average weights of the 1970s, we would need to reverse the increased food intake of about 350 calories a day for children (about one can of fizzy drink and a small portion of French fries) and 500 calories a day for adults (about one large hamburger),” Swinburn said. “Alternatively, we could achieve similar results by increasing physical activity by about 150 minutes a day of extra walking for children and 110 minutes for adults, but realistically, although a combination of both is needed, the focus would have to be on reducing calorie intake.” He emphasized that physical activity should not be ignored as a contributor to reducing obesity and should continue to be promoted because of its many other benefits, but that expectations regarding what can be achieved with exercise need to be lowered and public health policy shifted more toward encouraging people to eat less.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090508045321.htm
In a nut-shell, we’re all eating too much. I think they saw the same thing in Ireland in the period of economic prosperity it had during the ‘Celtic Tiger’ period, average weight rose quite markedly with the increasing affluence of the population. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be the ‘wrong’ foods, I’m surprised how modest the overall reduction is in terms of consumption in the article. Just get rid of the can of coke or whatever and reduce portion sizes and/or have less energy dense foods and that would do the trick. The exercise research just reinforces that exercise while part of the picture is not quite the right bit to focus on. The governments strategies to date would tend to work to muddy the waters, with missing looking at lifestyle, it’s focus on ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ foods and exercise making everything much more complicated than it really needs to be.