Raison d'Etre
Richard sends in this Slate article, discussing some less obvious supporting reasons for the trend towards overweight. The article addresses those "reasons you haven't thought of," for example, that there are fewer smokers these days. I've seen this study floating around for a while now, but I guess I haven't posted about it! My bad.
I did enjoy my own personal philosophy being validated by a doctor who treats overweight teenagers. The doctor noted that:
"...adolescents who lose weight are more likely to have acquired a positive sense of themselves, because they've had some academic or athletic success, or some other notable accomplishment. Sometimes they have embarked on a successful romantic relationship. And often parents and other adults in their life focus on their strengths rather than harping on weight and appearance."
In other words, feeling good about yourself helps you lose weight. And that's why we're here, right? High fives, everyone.
I did enjoy my own personal philosophy being validated by a doctor who treats overweight teenagers. The doctor noted that:
"...adolescents who lose weight are more likely to have acquired a positive sense of themselves, because they've had some academic or athletic success, or some other notable accomplishment. Sometimes they have embarked on a successful romantic relationship. And often parents and other adults in their life focus on their strengths rather than harping on weight and appearance."
In other words, feeling good about yourself helps you lose weight. And that's why we're here, right? High fives, everyone.
posted by mo pie at 5:02 PM
1 Comments:
Hah! Yes! I win!
I've always said the influx of new medications has something to do with the "obesity epidemic". I live in a suburb, heavy on cars, heavy on calories, short on exercise, but many of the people I know who got badly overweight living here did so at the hands of antidepressants, hormonal birth control, or that old-fashioned biochemical rollercoaster, pregnancy. I gain weight living here every summer (and loose some of it when I go back to campus) but the year I took hormonal birth control I gained fully twice as much, and it stuck.
My common sense does disagree with the assertion that basic activity levels don't change. Maybe in children they don't, but I'm certainly more active in some living environments (campus, field assignments) and less active in others (suburbia). It shows in my weight, resting heart rate, etc.
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