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Wow! The Government Says We're Fat! Now What?
Wilmington, NC
Tuesday, July 22, 2003
When the Surgeon General talks, people listen. He says that obesity is our number one health problem.
Television is running obesity stories every night. You don't even need the sound to know when these stories are coming up. Every network has its own "Parade of Big Bellies and Butts" footage that they run with every obesity story. Later on in the evening you can catch the infomercials for exercise videos and equipment.
The experts and attorneys are getting ready for the inevitable litigation and legislation. They're warming up their hyperbole muscles and upgrading the college they think they can afford for their children.
That lets us common people know there's a crisis. Not being scientists, generally, we translate what we hear into something like the following: "We're really fat and getting fatter and that's not good for us" Everybody seems to agree. And when everybody seems to agree, it's usually a good idea to step back and take stock of the situation.
Early in the last century a fellow named Louis Dublin began gathering information that might determine what a healthy weight was. Lots of scientist were doing that, too, but Dublin had a commercial incentive. Louis Dublin was the chief actuary for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
Metropolitan published its first set of height/weight charts in the 1940s. They established, "thinness" as a goal. Right after their publication the first of many diet crazes swept the country. Purveyors of diet books and exercise videos and all that equipment that's supposed to "melt off pounds instantly" should get down on their knees every night and thank God for Louis Dublin.
The Met charts established the weight to beat if you wanted to be slim. But they're no longer the official standard for determining when a person is overweight. That is now something called the Body Mass Index which is basically the ratio of height to weight. It doesn't measure how fat you are.
To take an extreme example, let us consider Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger. You probably wouldn't call him obese.. But, according to his current bios, six-foot-two Arnold weighs 257 pounds. That computes to a BMI of 33 which is well into the obese range according to the CDC.
The problem here is that BMI doesn't take into account how much of that body is fat and how much is muscle. It's just a fancier form of the height/weight chart.
Just to add to the fun the government changed the definition of overweight. Before 1998 a man with a BMI of 27.8 or higher was considered overweight. That threshold was dropped to 25 to bring it in line with the World Health Organization standards.
Remember that when you hear about an "epidemic" of obesity. By changing the definition the government, with the stroke of a pen, drastically increased the number of people considered overweight.
A lot of us may be overweight. But the problem almost certainly isn't as bad as it's being portrayed.
Are we getting fatter? Probably. We're probably not as fit as we should be either.
More than half of us don't exercise at all, not even regular walking. If we exercised more, even moderately, we'd probably feel better.
We eat a lot of fast food filled with refined sugars and fats of all kinds. The portion size for those meals has been getting bigger and bigger.
I love cheeseburgers. Twenty years ago the average cheeseburger added 333 calories to my diet. Today's cheeseburgers average 590 calories and the fries I like to have with mine have rocketed upward from 210 calories to 610. That's the kind of statistic that makes some folks want to sue.
That's what two teenagers did. They sued McDonald's because they said the company made them fat. That suit was thrown out, but we'll see more like it. In fact, there are at least seven different lawsuits currently working their way through the courts.
We'll also see legislators battling to get in front of the cameras to sponsor a bill that will become a law that will solve the fat problem. Already there have been a dozen or so obesity-related bills introduced in the House and Senate, and many more in various state legislatures.
Here's my advice. Don't believe all that stuff about how we're all getting so much fatter fast. Figure out if you're fatter than you should be by evaluating how you feel, how you feel about yourself, and how you look in the mirror.
###
Wally Bock is the Digital Age Storyteller. You can reach him by phone at 910-538-5656 or via email at wally@wallybock.com. You can find out more about Wally and his books, speeches and consulting by visiting his Web site http://www.wallybock.com/
Television is running obesity stories every night. You don't even need the sound to know when these stories are coming up. Every network has its own "Parade of Big Bellies and Butts" footage that they run with every obesity story. Later on in the evening you can catch the infomercials for exercise videos and equipment.
The experts and attorneys are getting ready for the inevitable litigation and legislation. They're warming up their hyperbole muscles and upgrading the college they think they can afford for their children.
That lets us common people know there's a crisis. Not being scientists, generally, we translate what we hear into something like the following: "We're really fat and getting fatter and that's not good for us" Everybody seems to agree. And when everybody seems to agree, it's usually a good idea to step back and take stock of the situation.
Early in the last century a fellow named Louis Dublin began gathering information that might determine what a healthy weight was. Lots of scientist were doing that, too, but Dublin had a commercial incentive. Louis Dublin was the chief actuary for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
Metropolitan published its first set of height/weight charts in the 1940s. They established, "thinness" as a goal. Right after their publication the first of many diet crazes swept the country. Purveyors of diet books and exercise videos and all that equipment that's supposed to "melt off pounds instantly" should get down on their knees every night and thank God for Louis Dublin.
The Met charts established the weight to beat if you wanted to be slim. But they're no longer the official standard for determining when a person is overweight. That is now something called the Body Mass Index which is basically the ratio of height to weight. It doesn't measure how fat you are.
To take an extreme example, let us consider Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger. You probably wouldn't call him obese.. But, according to his current bios, six-foot-two Arnold weighs 257 pounds. That computes to a BMI of 33 which is well into the obese range according to the CDC.
The problem here is that BMI doesn't take into account how much of that body is fat and how much is muscle. It's just a fancier form of the height/weight chart.
Just to add to the fun the government changed the definition of overweight. Before 1998 a man with a BMI of 27.8 or higher was considered overweight. That threshold was dropped to 25 to bring it in line with the World Health Organization standards.
Remember that when you hear about an "epidemic" of obesity. By changing the definition the government, with the stroke of a pen, drastically increased the number of people considered overweight.
A lot of us may be overweight. But the problem almost certainly isn't as bad as it's being portrayed.
Are we getting fatter? Probably. We're probably not as fit as we should be either.
More than half of us don't exercise at all, not even regular walking. If we exercised more, even moderately, we'd probably feel better.
We eat a lot of fast food filled with refined sugars and fats of all kinds. The portion size for those meals has been getting bigger and bigger.
I love cheeseburgers. Twenty years ago the average cheeseburger added 333 calories to my diet. Today's cheeseburgers average 590 calories and the fries I like to have with mine have rocketed upward from 210 calories to 610. That's the kind of statistic that makes some folks want to sue.
That's what two teenagers did. They sued McDonald's because they said the company made them fat. That suit was thrown out, but we'll see more like it. In fact, there are at least seven different lawsuits currently working their way through the courts.
We'll also see legislators battling to get in front of the cameras to sponsor a bill that will become a law that will solve the fat problem. Already there have been a dozen or so obesity-related bills introduced in the House and Senate, and many more in various state legislatures.
Here's my advice. Don't believe all that stuff about how we're all getting so much fatter fast. Figure out if you're fatter than you should be by evaluating how you feel, how you feel about yourself, and how you look in the mirror.
###
Wally Bock is the Digital Age Storyteller. You can reach him by phone at 910-538-5656 or via email at wally@wallybock.com. You can find out more about Wally and his books, speeches and consulting by visiting his Web site http://www.wallybock.com/
Wally Bock
Wilmington, NC
910-538-5656
First Url: Wally Bock's Resource Website
