The number of families living on $2 or less per person per day for at least a month in the USA has more than doubled in 15 years to 1.46 million.

That’s up from 636,000 households in 1996, says a new study released by researchers at the University of Michigan and Harvard University.

Government benefits blunt the impact of such extreme poverty, but not completely, says one of the researchers, Luke Shaefer, a professor of social work at Michigan.

When food stamps are included as income, the number of households in extreme poverty, defined as living on $2 a day, drops to 800,000, Shaefer says. That’s up from 475,000 in 1996.

“This seems to be a group that has fallen through the cracks,” says Kathryn Edin, a Harvard researcher and professor of public policy.

The study found that among households in extreme poverty, one in five received rent vouchers or lived in public housing. Sixty-six percent had at least one child with public health insurance. The study did not factor in how those benefits affect household income.

Robert Rector, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, says most aid to the poor today is in non-cash assistance. Last year, he says, the federal and state government spent $900 billion on 70 programs that assist the poor, from health care and food stamps to energy assistance and college grants.

“When you look at that type of family, you don’t see the type of deprivation this study suggests,” he says.

Because the study shows households in extreme poverty for a month, it is more reflective of people losing jobs, getting divorced or having short-term crises, he says.

Shaefer says, “We are trying to document the growth in deep poverty. … Even one month living at this level is concerning.”

Magdalyn March, 30, of Birmingham, Ala., can relate to those living in extreme poverty. In 2006, she lost a seasonal job at a packing warehouse, split with an abusive boyfriend and was caring for her two children. She received about $200 a month in government cash assistance and $282 in food stamps.

March and her children lived in a motel when she was with her boyfriend. When he left, she couldn’t afford the room, and she and her children were kicked out. March stayed with friends and relatives for a few nights at a time but ended up in a homeless shelter.

She credits the shelter, First Light, with helping her find a job as a waitress at a chain restaurant and affordable day care. She says she still struggles. She needs glasses and has to go to the dentist but can’t afford it. March and her children are living with her mother now.

“You’ve got to come up with a system,” she says, “because you can’t live off of that. You really can’t.”

You guys, I am crushed by this. $2 a day? I mean, it’s one thing to eat $2 per meal per person per day… but $2 per person per day? And look at the number of people saved by food stamps.

This is why I constantly write about destigmatizing food stamps – people who are living on pennies per day are “afraid” to use the very system we all pay into with our taxes. C’mon… far too often, we find ourselves completely distanced from the people who have these struggles. I know the feeling…but I also know that had a few things not gone differently for me, I can’t imagine where my daughter and I would be today.

I cannot be the only person heartbroken by this. Please tell me I’m not.

More Than 1.4 Million Families Living On $2 A Day Or Less is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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Post tags:

Whether it’s Michelle Obama’s health initiatives or programs to make school lunches more healthy, there has been an increasing focus on America’s increasing waistline and obesity epidemic.

However, a suburban community is realizing that there are even more consequences to being overweight than simply high blood pressure and diabetes.

According to WREX in Rockford, Ill., a fire began in a one-story home just before 4:00 a.m. Monday. The two parents, Joe and Delores Herron, escaped, but when firefighters arrived, their daughter and two foster sons, ages 10 and 11, were still trapped inside.

Firefighters were able to get the 2 boys out through the window, but firefighters could not lift Jamaya

Investigators say she weighed more than 500 pounds. through.

Winnebago County Coroner Sue Fiduccia said, “That [the weight] did hamper the fire department and fire rescuers from taking her out a window. They did have to bring her out the door and in doing that, two firefighters we’re actually injured.”

By then, it was too late for Jamaya.

The daughter of a pastor and a singer at the church died at the scene. Fire Chief Derek Bergsten, stated:

“They gave 110 percent, did their best and sometimes we’re not able to save everyone, but we were able to get two individuals out of that structure alive.”

Investigators say Jamaya died from breathing smoke. There will be an autopsy later this week.

Fannie Barbee, a relative of the family, says, “She was very faithful in the church. Whenever I go over there, she was a really nice person.” [source]

Of course, I waited a few days to write about this just because I needed to think without the presence of anger or sadness…

..but then I realized that a little anger might be appropriate.

The video above is from the news clip regarding the events surrounding Jamaya’s passing. (If you’re a subscriber, you may want to visit this post on a computer to view it.)

Far be it for me to disrespect a grieving family, but we’re adults, here. Adults take situations and learn from them all the time. This needs to be one of those situations.

She was the daughter of a pastor and actively involved in her church. Obviously well-known.

All those people in her community… and no one was able to assist her before she reached the 300, 400 or 500lb mark? How does a teenager gain so much weight before they even reach adulthood?

Those of us who read this site know the importance of having a supportive environment full of people who care about us to help us reach our goals. What, in the world, is going on in a church when a girl can be “very faithful” yet still no one was as devoted to her as she was to them?

I mean, I get it – I’m the main one saying that we shouldn’t judge people who stand before us because we don’t know where they are on their journey to wellness. That’s my line. I know it by heart. But Jamaya passed away because no one bothered to stop her before it got to the point where her quality of life was so impacted that she couldn’t even be rushed to safety! This isn’t a young girl who we see outside walking and decide to judge from our cars. This is a girl who no one bothered to intervene with 200lbs ago. Major difference.

Now a while back, I wrote asking the readers of BGG2WL if there was anyone in their lives who was allowed to let them know their weight might be getting out of hand… and a lot of the messages I received publicly and privately implied that no one was allowed to tell them. No one was allowed to make them feel like something was wrong with them for gaining weight. And if you’re 140lbs at 5’8″, that makes sense. No one should be making you feel bad.

Having said that, those of us who are on the path to wellness and are experiencing positive results… You know how hard it was for you to obtain the knowledge you’ve developed. Be it from books, from your peers, even from this site. It is your responsibility to “be the change you wish to see” in your community and be a role model for better health. You don’t have to tell anyone “You’re getting fat” – in all my time, I’ve never used those words – but you can show people that good food doesn’t have to be full of sugar or fat or salt. You can be excited by your own loss and share with people how “easy” it’s been for you. (Maybe “simple” might be a better word.) You can let people know that your success has come from cooking more, being more active, and using less junk foods. People don’t want words, and they certainly don’t want insults. They want to see that something works, then they want to know what that something is. Do you think you’d be here reading MY words if you didn’t know that what I write about worked for me? I doubt it.

I question why no one in Jamaya’s community could be “that kind of person” for her. They had 200lbs worth of time to be there for her, and no one did it. I’ll even put it out there – what kind of emotional damage is a teenager going through that she’d rather continue harmful habits than try to get help? The same kind of emotional damage caused by parents who can get out of a house, yet leave their three children inside?

Sorry, I take that back. But I am a devoted parent and… let’s just say there better be a logical explanation for that part.

That is a beautiful girl lost because no one could save her. No one could get to her fast enough. In more ways than one. It is shameful that we have young girls in our community that need help and, apparently, aren’t getting it. It is shameful that they have no one to talk to about their insecurities and seek out some kind of guidance. It is a pain that we should  all feel that there are women who would rather endure the decreased quality of life than do what they need to do to be on a path to wellness.

Make no mistake about it – this isn’t about her dress size. This isn’t about her appearance, either – look at her, she’s a beautiful girl! This is about the fact that a girl, obviously devoted to her church community, was able to become so large that two individuals were harmed in an attempt to save her while she was impaired. That is a serious problem.

This should make us all look at ourselves. What do we do for those individuals who might be struggling? Do we talk to them, befriend them to see if they’re okay? Do we invite them over for dinner and, even though we might endure the “forget this – I want some real food!” comments, at least show them what healthier food looks like? Do we offer emotional support? Offer to go for a walk with them? Or are we just judging from afar, and make sure we can chip in on the casket?

I know that’s a bit sensationalist, but that’s real talk.What are we doing to stop this kind of silliness?

500lb Teen Unable To Be Rescued From Fire, and I Blame EVERYONE is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. My “Black Women Are To Blame For Everything” Rant
2. Teen Girls, Weight Loss Surgery, Body Image and Class Distinctions

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Post tags: obesity, teenage obesity

Meet 12 year old Brooke. A 5’5″ girl who weighed in at 220lbs. After putting on 40lbs in one year, her two slender parents decided it may be time to talk to the doctor about liposuction. In the documentary, you see the doctor cracking jokes about how “usually, when girls step on this scale, they take off their shoes, their earrings, their lipstick [in an effort to weigh less on the scale]” and you see Brooke discussing the downfalls of her added weight. The “smell” that she encounters from her apron. The way she’s known as “the nice girl,” never “the hot girl.”

The documentary takes you deep within the operating room, where the doctor then begins Brooke’s liposuction procedure. A bit of time passes, and then you see the doctor pointing to the giant vials of fat he’s removed from her body, and you hear someone (I believe the doctor) say, “You’ve lost more weight in one day than you’ve lost in your whole life.” Brooke’s father says, “If you kept coming back here, you’d be as skinny as your Mama.” You can see Brooke, still a little drowsy from the anesthesia, smiling and saying “Yup!”

That was 2006. Back then, ABC News wrote the following (important parts are in bold):

After watching a documentary on weight loss, 12-year-old Brooke decided on liposuction, a procedure thought to sculpt an imperfect body, not treat obesity.

She went to see Dr. Robert Ersek, a leading plastic surgeon in Austin. [...] Brooke’s interview with Ersek before surgery shed light on her fears and her hopes for a normal future.

“Maybe If I could do it I would look a little normal,” she told him.

Not only was the extra weight affecting Brooke’s self-esteem, but it was seriously affecting her health.

Her mother, Cindy, said that Brooke’s blood pressure was sky high, and doctors said she was at risk for a stroke. [source]

Keep the bold in mind. And remember.. that was 2006.

Fast forward to 2007 – only seven months later – where Brooke, now 13, regained 35 of those pounds. Again, ABC News reported the following:

Brooke said she has always struggled with her weight. At her heaviest, she weighed 220 pounds. By early 2006 she lost 40 pounds through liposuction and a tummy tuck. But, in less than a year, she regained 35 pounds.

After the liposuction and tummy tuck, which cost $25,000, Brooke said she “went from the big, fat girl to the popular girl.”

“Then I gained weight back and it was depressing,” Brooke said. “But now that I had the lap band done, everything is just working out great.”

[...]

Brooke’s mother, Cindy Bates, said she was sad for Brooke when she began gaining weight after her first round of surgeries, but she said she didn’t blame her daughter.

“It was the happiest year of her life and it was sad watching her, you know, struggle with trying to keep the weight off,” Cindy said. “So that’s the reason we did the lap band so she could control her hunger and how much food intake she was putting in her body every day.”

Most doctors in the United States usually don’t perform gastric lap-band surgery unless a patient is at least 18 years old, has a body mass index of 40 or higher or weighs at least twice his or her ideal weight.

So against the advice of their family doctor, the Bates traveled to Mexico to get the procedure done, without trying to find a local surgeon. The procedure cost $7,900.

From the same article, one more gem:

While Brooke likened her overeating to an addiction, her mother said that she didn’t believe the problem was psychological.

“I don’t really relate it to an emotional issue,” Cindy said. “I think it’s more of a hereditary characteristic in our family.” [source]

Now… this all happened in 2007. Fast forward to like… ten days ago:

A type of weight-loss surgery not approved for adolescents is becoming more and more common among teens in California, according to a report published today. Most of the patients are white girls, although they make up less than half of overweight youth, researchers say.

From 2005 to 2007, they found rates of so-called gastric banding, in which a silicone band is placed around the top portion of the stomach to restrict food intake, rose five-fold. However, use of gastric bypass — which surgically reduces the size of the stomach — dropped, leaving the overall rate of weight-loss procedures constant.

Despite not being approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in adolescents younger than age 18, gastric banding overtook gastric bypass as the most frequently performed weight-loss procedure in this age group, Dr. Daniel DeUgarte and colleagues from the University of California, Los Angeles, report in the journal Pediatrics.

[...]Among the 590 California youths between 13 and 20 years of age who underwent weight-loss procedures over three years, no one died and the rate of in-hospital complications were comparable at less than six percent.

[...]While white people account for just over a quarter of overweight adolescents in California, they made up about two-thirds of those who had surgery. There could be many reasons for these findings, according to the researchers, who note that only severely obese people who have failed diet and exercise programs are considered for weight-loss surgery.

“I do think that has something to do with the difference between male and female body image perception,” said Dr. Marc P. Michalsky, surgical director for the Center for Healthy Weight and Nutrition at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who was not involved in the research.

But, he added, “We try very, very hard to dispel any notion that this is a cosmetic procedure.”

Michalsky said he wasn’t surprised by the new findings, but noted that solid evidence for gastric banding has yet to be produced.

“Why do we feel it is necessary to operate on a bunch of 15-year-olds?” he told Reuters Health. “The theory is, and we have yet to prove this, that early intervention will result in a substantial difference in the outcomes regarding obesity-related diseases,” such as diabetes and heart disease.

While weight-loss surgery may cost up to $50,000, for some individuals, he said, it appears to be the only way to achieve durable results. [source]

I have so many questions. I don’t even know where to begin. Wait, yes I do.

“Not only was the extra weight affecting Brooke’s self-esteem, but it was seriously affecting her health. Her mother, Cindy, said that Brooke’s blood pressure was sky high, and doctors said she was at risk for a stroke.” Was it not the duty of her doctor to tell her that this is not a causal relationship? High blood pressure isn’t caused by “being fat.” Both high blood pressure and “being fat” are caused by unhealthy food. I imagine Brooke finally learned this lesson after her surgery, though.

What is going on in that home where there’s so much focus on “looking normal” as opposed to embracing who she is? It’s one thing to want to work on yourself, but it is another thing entirely to think you need work because you are less than. The jokes the Father and the doctor made after the young girl’s surgery? C’mon, man. I already know why no one taught her to embrace who she is. They were just as disgusted by her as her peers proclaimed to be… and caused Brooke to develop that very same disgust for herself, as evidenced by her interviews… which leads me to my next question.

The girl gained back 35 of the 40lbs she had sucked out through lipo. Thirty-five. Of forty. 87.5%. Her parents paid $25,000 for Brooke to lose 5lbs, basically. After all of that, the Mother still has the audacity to say, “I don’t really relate it to an emotional issue.” [insert blank stare] Let’s think about this. You endure an invasive procedure to lose weight. You, essentially, get “everything you wanted” because all the little girl wanted was “to look normal,” and then you sabotage it by gaining back all but five pounds. That doesn’t appear to have a psychological issue attached to it? I remember seeing the Mom answer that question – her answer felt more like she was trying to avoid an attack on her parenting than actually interested in a conversation on the well-being of her child. Take it a step back – Brooke, herself, said that her overeating was an addiction. How on Earth did the Mom presume that’s not emotional?

Now, when I first saw this story, I was mortified. The documentary showed Brooke discussing how she realized she was an emotional eater — that she’d react to her parents’ fights by stuffing herself to make herself feel better (which lets me know that her parents would rather spend several thousand dollars to make her daughter “look okay” by way of liposuction than buy non-processed foods, but I digress) and was really sad about the way she had “let herself go.” The entire process matured her, but I still lament the fact that she grew up with placing her self-worth in her body.. something that young girls suffer from in ways we don’t like to imagine.

During the same time frame, approximately 600 teens in California underwent some form of weight loss procedure. Since California is a state with one of the ten best obesity rates in the nation (24.8%), I’m quite surprised to read that “While white people account for just over a quarter of overweight adolescents in California, they made up about two-thirds of those who had surgery.”

There is something so very wrong with this. Let’s face it – America likes “easy answers” and regardless of whatever post-surgery complications one faces with weight loss surgery, the reality is that the problem as America sees it (read: the weight) is gone. If the non-whites in California could afford to free themselves of the social stigma of weight… wouldn’t they? Brooke’s family paid to rid Brooke of her “problem” twice. They even travelled to Mexico to handle “it.” So again, the difference between the overweight and the thin? Money. Money, money, money. This isn’t even about food at this point… and it certainly isn’t about health. Is this why we keep assuming that those who are fat obviously don’t have any money? Because, well, if they did, they’d pay to get rid of “all that?” Sigh.

The last question I have, involves the following:

“The theory is, and we have yet to prove this, that early intervention will result in a substantial difference in the outcomes regarding obesity-related diseases,”

Early intervention into what? Into what, exactly, are you intervening? Weight gain? Does weight loss surgery performed on someone who isn’t even fully capable of understanding the consequences magically stop weight from being added? Does weight loss surgery magically unclog arteries? Does it insert a chip into your brain to cause you to eat in a fashion that prevents you from gaining weight in the first place? Or does it even place a little tiny fairy on your shoulder to tell you “Ahh, ahh, ahh, you shouldn’t be eating that?” Didn’t we learn anything from Brooke?

That 12 year old girl teaches us a powerful lesson – regardless of how you lose the weight, if you don’t have a plan in action to work to help you keep it off and prevent yourself from gaining every again… then guess what? You’re going to wind up right back where you started. Do yourself a favor and get it right the first time.

Teen Girls, Weight Loss Surgery, Body Image and Class Distinctions is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. MSNBC: Gaining Weight To Quality For Lap-Band Surgery?
2. Body Image: Feeling Like You’re Never Enough
3. The Quest For Healthy Body Image

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: liposuction, teenage obesity, teenagers, weight loss surgery

blockquoteNever leave a waitress scorned.

Beware of the dangers associated with having a common name in the Internet age.

Those two lessons were learned the hard way by all parties involved in “tippergate,” the Seattle tipping scandal that sparked a social media-fueled manhunt, and an apology.

It all began Friday night when a male customer at the city’s Bimbo’s Cantina restaurant left waitress Victoria Liss no tip, just this insult directly below the tip line on his credit-card receipt:

“P.S. You could stand to loose (sic) a few pounds.”

Angry and armed with the receipt as evidence, Liss began a virtual manhunt, posting a picture of the receipt, with the man’s name, Andrew Meyer, clearly visible, on her Facebook page.

With that, the search was underway for the man Liss called “yuppie scum.” Comments poured in and soon the photo and Facebook page of one “Andrew Meyer” were tracked down and posted and reposted through social media and on news sites.

Seattle area bars even posted photos of the man, like the “Wanted” posters of old.

One small problem. The angry mob marshaled by Liss had nabbed their wrong Andrew Meyer.

The Andrew Meyer in the photos, and now at the end of countless angry emails and posts, was, in fact, an Andrew Meyer living innocently in Texas, not Seattle.

By Tuesday, Liss’s angry posts seeking revenge were replaced with remorseful words seeking forgiveness.

“So sorry to the wrong guy, everyone please just drop it?” she wrote Tuesday.

“Honestly I have been hiding in bed with the covers over my head for 2 days so upset for the Wrong Andrew Meyers getting hate mail. I still feel so sick over it,” Liss followed up with on Wednesday.

“Beyond sorry, believe you me, just tried to make a point about the (expletive) way food service staff are treated. Threw the wrong guy under the bus,” she added.

While the real Andrew Meyer of “tippergate” fame has yet to be identified, or come forward, another Andrew Meyer, from California, stepped in to save the day for all the Andrew Meyers of the world.

This Andrew Meyer sent Liss a 100 percent tip for the Seattle Andrew Meyer’s Bimbo’s Cantina bill, which was $28.98.

“My ‘name’ can’t be shamed anymore,” he wrote Liss./blockquote

Personally, I intend to file this under rude and disgraceful. I spent a good chunk of my college years waiting tables in both franchise and fine dining establishments and even though Ive had horrible experiences – shoutout to the confederate-flag wearing racists who were unbelievably rude to me during their stay and left me a nickel and a penny CASH on a credit card-paid $90 bill – Ive never had anything as crazy as this.

a href=http://blackgirlsguidetoweightloss.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/abc_gma_receipt_ll_111013_wblog.jpgimg src=http://blackgirlsguidetoweightloss.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/abc_gma_receipt_ll_111013_wblog.jpg alt= title=abc_gma_receipt_ll_111013_wblog width=478 height=269 class=aligncenter size-full wp-image-20865 //a

Was she a bit cruel for releasing all this to the public? Perhaps a bit unprofessional? Or was it justified because he was a TOTAL jerk? The Today Show coverage tells more of the story:

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I mean, social media is making it hard out here for jerks to be jerks… I have to wonder: is that such a bad thing? What do you think?

Restaurant Patron Leaves Tip: You Could Stand To Lose A Few Pounds is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Q&A Wednesday: I Can’t Stand My “Know-It-All” Spouse!
2. Paula Deen, Her Alleged Diabetes, And Why I Can’t Stand Her
3. Video Vault: How Fresh Is Your Favorite Restaurant Or Grocery Store’s Food?

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 22 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: restaurant dining, seattle, society, tipping, victoria liss, waitstaff

Seems like maybe the message is getting attention:

A calorie is just a calorie, right? So just dig in! from thisiswhyyourefat.com

[...]

But experts like Jonny Bowden, a certified nutritionist and author of Living Low Carb, (Sterling, 2010) insist that all calories are most certainly not created equal. As proof, he points to studies like this 2009 Swedish investigation where volunteers snacked on candy or peanuts to the tune of about 20 extra calories per each half pound of body weight. For example, someone weighing 150 pounds would overindulge by eating a gut busting 1,300 calories a day.After two weeks, you might expect that both groups were popping the buttons on their pants but this was the case with just the sweet eaters. The peanut snackers did gain a small amount of weight but only about a third of what the candy eaters gained and only the candy group showed an increase in waist circumference, cholesterol and overall blood fats.

“The reason for this is that the simple carbohydrate calories found in candy kept goosing the levels of the hormone insulin,” Bowden explains. “Insulin signals sharp increases in blood sugar and enhances the storage of body fat, so when it’s constantly elevated you’re primed for weight gain.”

Bowden says that, because peanuts contain virtually no carbohydrates, they don’t trigger the same effect on insulin and the body doesn’t rush to pack on the pounds. Even more interesting is that peanut eating group alone experienced a significant rise in their resting metabolism. This could indicate that the fats and proteins from the nuts rev up the body’s ability to burn calories which might also help suppress weight gain.

Researcher Richard Feinman, a professor of biochemistry at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, notes that insulin sensitivity impacts how you experience hunger as well. “It’s a well established fact that eating protein increases satiety and if you feel fuller on fewer calories then you are going to eat less,” he points out.

Numerous recent studies have established that dieters do initially lose more weight when they eat the same number of calories but fewer carbs and more protein. What’s more they seem to do it without ill health effects. Even after two years, a 2010 Temple University study reported that those who eat a diet higher in protein had blood fat profiles and other cardiovascular markers that were just as healthy as those who stuck with the traditionally recommended low fat, high fiber diet.

Additionally, Feinman says there is also a small but very real and meaningful effect in how you digest, absorb and metabolize the energy in different types of nutrients — and it’s greater for proteins than it is for carbs.

“For the same number of calories, you add fewer from protein to the body because they get burned during the digestion process,” says Feinman.

What irritates Feinman, Bowden and others who agree with their line of thinking, is that the ADA and most mainstream nutritional organizations refuse to acknowledge that the composition of your diet and not just the calorie count can impact your waistline, even though there’s plenty of evidence to back up these claims. [source]

To many, that point about “fewer carbs and more protein” might sound like “Oh, you mean I’ve got to get on Atkins?!” To that I say, no… and to me, that’s the problem with a lot of nutrition science. To put someone on a diet means to change their eating habits. But, what differed? What kind of carb is the person no longer eating? Refined carbs from french fries and white breads? Wheat bread? The two consist of very different kinds of ingredients (for starters, white bread is full of sugar), and that needs to be noted. That lack of consideration (or, rather, the lack of information detailed in the article) annoys me to no end. Details matter.

A body cannot thrive on cheez-twisterz. A body cannot thrive on double-freaking-downs. A body cannot operate optimally on poor nutrition, and a body that cannot operate optimally will experience difficulty with efforts to lose weight. The quality of the nutrition is absolutely determined by not only the quality of the calorie, but its origins as well. I don’t understand why this is not base level common sense, but then again I suppose most scientists haven’t experimented with this philosophy with their own bodies like a lot of us who are losing weight and trying to keep it off.

The problem with the mentality that says “the quality of calories doesn’t matter, it’s just the quantity!!!” is the fact that its advantageous to a ginormous food industry that doesn’t want the quality of its product called into question. It’s no surprise that the largest factions of nutrition science (which I have huge problems with, personally) are the ones also aligned with the USDA (and their ridiculous food pyramid) among other entities that seek to refute any claims that the quality of the product matters. Take this gem, from the article:

“While I don’t disagree that the body may not process all calories the same in theory, in practical terms it means very little to the average person,” he says. “There really isn’t much you can do with this information that will help you manage your weight. Your best — and healthiest — strategy is still to eat variety of foods and cut back on total calories.” [source]

Flag on the play. Seriously.

I hope you realize how far-reaching this debate is. Sure, on an individual level, we can process this information as proof that we need to be better stewards of our kitchens and seek to improve the foods we eat… but it’s about more than us as individuals, too. As long as we continue to devalue the claim that the quality and kind of calorie is more important than monitoring the quantity of calories… there is no reason for the government (or anyone) to take action to improve the access to calories of better quality for us all. The very thing that we need to thrive successfully will continue to be seen as a luxury, only for the things that simply keep us “belly-full” to continue to harm us.

I’m a cynic. I’m not sorry about it, either. I don’t believe this conversation will ever change… because for the conversation to change means that the policy would have to change, and there’s too much money to be lost if change happens. Oh well… until then, it’ll just be me and my broccoli.

Science Catches Up: A Calorie Is Not A Calorie is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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2. Weekend WTF: The 98,824 Calorie Taco Night & The 71,000 Calorie Lasagna
3. Understanding Calorie Counting: What is it? Calorie Counting Defined

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: calories, nutrition, science, study

Should you not feel like clicking that link, I’ll pull some of the more interesting quotes from the article to share below:

But the full-figured African-American nominee is also under fire for being overweight in a nation where 34 percent of all Americans aged 20 and over are obese.

Critics and supporters across the blogsphere have commented on photos of Benjamin’s round cheeks, saying she sends the wrong message as the public face of America’s health initiatives.

Here’s another good one:

“I think it is an issue, but then the president is said to still smoke cigarettes,” said Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine who is now a senior lecturer at Harvard University Medical School. “It tends to undermine her credibility.”

“We don’t know how much she weighs and just looking at her I would not say she is grotesquely obese or even overweight enough to affect her health,” Angell told ABCNews.com.

“But I do think at a time when a lot of public health concern is about the national epidemic of obesity, having a surgeon general who is noticeably overweight raises questions in people’s minds,” she added.

I’m overlooking the “sexist” aspect of this situation simply because I don’t buy that. It feels like an excuse to discuss something other than the fact that the woman appears to be physically unfit. My question is… does the physical appearance really make that much of a difference? Do you really pay that much attention to the Surgeon General to define them as or look to them to be a pillar of health? Is it that serious to you?

One last quote for the road:

Dr. Sarah Lester, a pediatrician from Andover, N.H., told ABCNews.com she lost 30 pounds, setting a good example for her patients’ families.

“I do think it makes a big difference,” said the 38-year-old. “Many ask me how I did it and when I tell them more exercise and eating less many are disappointed. However when they hear even for me there isn’t a magic bullet, I think it helps.”

What do you think?

What Does An Overweight Surgeon General Mean To America? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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2. News: Telling Parents About Overweight Kids Has Little Impact?
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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: government, health policy, obesity, surgeon general

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — Michelle Fonville said her experience at Natural Nails on Covington Highway in DeKalb County turned from pleasant to painful in a matter of moments.

“I was humiliated. I almost cried. Tears were forming in my eyes,” said Fonville.

She said things went downhill on Monday after the salon manager gave her the bill for her manicure, pedicure and eyebrow arch.

Fonville realized that she had been overcharged by $5.

“I said, ‘I’ve been overcharged. She may have made an error,’” said Fonville. “She broke it down, then told me she charged me $5 more because I was overweight.”

Fonville said she couldn’t believe what was happening and recounted the experience with Channel 2 Action News reporter Eric Philips.

“I said, Ma’am, you can’t charge me $5 more. That’s discrimination because of my weight,” said Fonville.

Salon manager Kim Tran told Philips that the surcharge was due to costly repairs of broken chairs by overweight customers. She said the chairs have a weight capacity of 200 pounds and cost $2,500 to fix.

“Do you think that’s fair when we take $24 [for manicure and pedicure] and we have to pay $2,500? Is that fair? No,” Tran told Philips.

Tran said she refunded the $5 surcharge, and told Fonville to take her business elsewhere.

“I didn’t want to argue with her about $5. I wanted to make her pleased with her service,” Tran said. “I whispered … I said, ‘I’m sorry, next time I cannot take you.’”

“The word has to get out there that these people are discriminating against us because of our weight. I mean come on, we’re in America. You can’t do that,” said Fonville. [source]

Now, surely there’s a legal eagle out there that can clarify something for me.

In America, qualities like race and gender are protected classes. Being a “protected class” basically means one cannot discriminate against another based on those qualities.You’re “protected” against discrimination. Which leads to my next question…

Can one be protected because of weight? (I’ve heard the argument that it should be protected under disability, but…) Should they be? Anyone have thoughts they’d like to share? I have mine, but… I’m saving that for later.

Georgia Nail Salon Charges More For Overweight Customers is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. More Airlines Making Overweight Customers Buy Extra Seats?
2. News: Telling Parents About Overweight Kids Has Little Impact?
3. What Does An Overweight Surgeon General Mean To America?

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 34 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anti-fat, discrimination

Here is a man who a few years ago contemplated suicide.  He felt hopeless and had no desire to live.  He wanted to disappear from the world around him.  Just a few years later, he’s completely changed his life and is starring in his own television show.

His story should certainly give hope to others who currently struggle with obesity.  You do not need surgery and you certainly do not need anything fancy in terms of exercise and diet.  A consistent and diligent effort has once again come out on top… [read more] — Fitness 102

Check him out:

Never be amazed by what a little hard work can do. Be INSPIRED by what a little hard work can do. : )

400 Pounds Lost? No Surgery? Stop Lying! is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 23 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: extreme weight loss, weight loss inspiration

First, there was this:

When The Dr. Oz Show first heard reports of arsenic in apple juice, we launched an extensive investigation. Using an independent lab for sophisticated, state-of-the-art testing, we uncovered that some of the best-known brands of apple juice contain arsenic. Learn what you need to know to protect your family.

Apple juice made from apple concentrate is not just popular in juice boxes. Often used instead of refined sugar, apple juice is used to sweeten candy, cereals, snack bars and more. Despite its ubiquity in our country’s kitchens, most apple juice is not all-American. In just one type of juice, there can be apple concentrate from up to seven countries. Although arsenic has been banned in the US for decades, it’s not always regulated in other countries where it may be in the water supply or used in pesticides contaminating the juice you’re giving to your children.

The EPA has a limit on arsenic in drinking water – the level allowed is 10 parts per billion. Currently, there is no limit on arsenic in apple juice. The Dr. Oz Show tested three dozen samples from five different brands of apple juice across three different American cities, and compared the levels of arsenic to the standard for water.

Of these, 10 samples came back higher than the arsenic limit allowed in drinking water.

Note: Lab results standard deviation is +/- 20%

• Minute Maid Apple Juice
  • Lowest Sample for Arsenic: 2 parts per billion
  • Highest Sample for Arsenic: 3 parts per billion
• Apple and Eve Apple Juice
  • Lowest Sample for Arsenic: 3 parts per billion
  • Highest Sample for Arsenic: 11 parts per billion
• Mott’s
  • Lowest Sample for Arsenic: 4 parts per billion
  • Highest Sample for Arsenic: 16 parts per billion
• Juicy Juice
  • Lowest Sample for Arsenic: 2 parts per billion
  • Highest Sample for Arsenic: 22 parts per billion
• Gerber
  • Lowest Sample for Arsenic: 3 parts per billion
  • Highest Sample for Arsenic: 36 parts per billion

Click here to read the full results of Dr. Oz’s independent study. [source]

Then, this:

Can’t watch the video? Read on:

In a spirited showdown on “Good Morning America ” today, ABC News Health and Medical Editor Dr. Richard Besser confronted Dr. Mehmet Oz on what he called “extremely irresponsible” statements made on “The Dr. Oz Show” show Wednesday concerning arsenic in apple juice.

“Mehmet, I’m very upset about this, I think that this was extremely irresponsible,” Besser said. “It reminds me of yelling fire in a movie theater.”

“I’m not fear-mongering,” Oz fired back. “We did our homework on this risk.”

Oz’s appearance on ‘GMA’ is the latest development in a story that likely has many parents on edge about whether to continue serving apple juice to their children.

Oz and the show’s producers drew criticism for Wednesday’s episode of the “Dr. Oz Show,” which focused on the dangers of trace levels of arsenic present in many popular brands of apple juice. Juice manufacturers, government regulators and scientists said the results of what the program called its “extensive national investigation” were misleading and needlessly frightening to consumers.

According to the “Dr. Oz Show,” a laboratory tested “three dozen samples from five different brands of apple juice across three American cities” and compared the levels of arsenic to the limits of arsenic for drinking water set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). They found 10 samples of juice with arsenic levels higher than the limits for water.

In a statement, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said, “There is no evidence of any public health risk from drinking these juices.”

The FDA sent a letter to the Oz show Sept. 9, five days before the show was to air, which warned that airing the show would be “irresponsible” and “misleading” because the testing ignored that there are two forms of arsenic: organic and inorganic. Organic is generally thought not to be harmful to health, whereas inorganic is.

The FDA also conducted its own tests of the apple juice investigated by the “Dr. Oz Show.” In some of the very same lots of juice tested for the show, the FDA reported finding very low levels of inorganic arsenic; 6 parts per billion at most, even lower than the 10 parts per billion recommended by the EPA as a safe level for drinking water.

Oz acknowledged that “no children are dying from acute lethal arsenic poisoning,” stating instead that his concerns were about the long-term effect of arsenic exposure.

Still, Besser said Oz was implying to parents that drinking apple juice poses a risk to kids’ health.

“You have informed parents they are poisoning their children,” he said, a charge that Oz denied.

“We just want to have the conversation, and we’ve been trying to make this conversation happen,” Oz said.

He also added, “I would not take apple juice out of my kids’ containers now.”

…so, let’s talk.

First and foremost, I can’t – and refuse – to debate numbers on this. I’m sure I could order my own tests (y’know, with all my money to spare and whatnot) and find no arsenic in any sample of apple juice. People need to understand what “parts per billion” means – “In science and engineering, the parts-per notation is a set of pseudo units to describe small values of miscellaneous dimensionless quantities, e.g. mole fraction or mass fraction. Since these fractions are quantity-per-quantity measures, they are pure numbers with no associated units of measurement. ” – and the fact that the FDA does, in fact, allow harmful chemicals in our food supply under the guise of “well, it’s in this certain item in tiny, indiscriminate amounts, so it’s okay to us” is non-debateable. I wrote about it with trans-fat, I wrote abut it with rat feces in peanut butter… I’m writing about it now with apple juice.

Arsenic, as noted above, has been banned for use in the United States, but is not banned in other countries from where we import apple concentrate, and (if I’m not mistaken) our imports are not required to meet our standards for food. (To me, this is all the more reason to shoot for eating locally, but I digress.) It’s also – again, as noted above – in the water supply… the same water supply that is used to dilute the apple juice concentrate. Parts per notation doesn’t mean that there will only be less than 10 parts per billion (the “acceptable level” for my example) in each serving of the juice. It means that, in some servings, you’ll only get 2 parts per billion and in others, you may find 18 parts per billion. No matter what lab does the testing, you’ll still get the same variations. This is why so many of the companies are harping on this “same batch” mess – sure, it could’ve been the same batch, but you wouldn’t have had the same sample. (One of you brilliant scienc-y chicks help me out, here – depending upon whether arsenic sinks or floats, it’d be a matter of pulling your sample from the top or bottom of the batch, no? I’ll remove this once one of you answers.)

Did Dr. Oz jump the gun? Yes and no – I think he could’ve done due diligence and ordered more testing, but the fact remains that there are far too many variables at play, here, and the public needs to be aware of them all in order to make appropriate decisions for their families. I’m glad he brought it up and I hope he chooses to air the segment in question.

This leads me to my next point… which is really what burns my toast: this idea of “fear-mongering.”

What is fear-mongering? “Fear mongering (or scaremongering) is the use of fear to influence the opinions and actions of others towards some specific end. The feared object or subject is sometimes exaggerated, and the pattern of fear mongering is usually one of repetition, in order to continuously reinforce the intended effects of this tactic, sometimes in the form of a vicious circle.”

Here’s what I don’t get – educating the public about what’s going on with our food supply is tantamount to fearmongering? I don’t have the right to know that companies are putting rocket fuel and known cancer-causing agents and known neurotoxins and known non-food substances in my food? I don’t have the right to make educated decisions?

It’s a new day in America when the standard for whether or not I should buy something for my child boils down to whether or not it will instantly kill you. News flash: the FDA only monitors whether something is “generally regarded as safe,” not whether extended exposure over time will kill you or leave you brain dead. It’s a new day when labeling someone a “fearmongerer” is used to discredit them and cover up the fact that our food supply, as currently maintained in processed food, is nowhere near as “pure” as we think it is. I read the statements from the  juice companies that they wrote in response to The Dr. Oz Show. No one wanted to explain anything about arsenic and what they’re doing to keep as much of it out of our supply as possible. They all wanted to explain why the amount that’s in there is “okay.” They wanted to shift the focus off of them – the focus that Dr. Oz put on them in the first place – and put it onto his show. And don’t get me wrong – we’re talking about our food supply, here. Both sides deserve scrutiny. But I’ve seen two separate interviews where Oz gracefully handled the situation and accepted criticisms. I can’t say the same for the other side. (It also should not be surprising to anyone anywhere that when the juice companies had their juices tested, they didn’t find the same results.)

If I were an apple juice drinker, what would I do? I’d avoid apple juices that come from concentrate, for starters. I’d do my best to try to get my apple juices from local places – think farmer’s market, local health food store, your own blender. Apple juice and apple juice concentrate are often used as sweeteners in other foods and drinks, so I’d keep my eyes peeled for that on labels, but I’d simply make that conversion. I’d also file this situation away in my memory, and keep it in mind when you pick up anything in a package at the grocery. I’m pretty sure your body will thank you for it.

Dr. Oz, Apple Juice, Arsenic and “Fear-Mongering” is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ABC, apple juice, arsenic, dr oz, FDA, fearmongering, good morning america, processed food

My thoughts were, of course you can be fit and “fat.” And considering how “fat” in America is anything over a size 4 – depending upon who you talk to – MANY of us are “fat” in someone else’s eyes… clearly that doesn’t matter anywhere near as much as the stuff that keeps us alive. That stuff is filed under that “fit” label.

Those who I’ve dialogued with outside of the site know how I feel about this “fat” thing. As I’ve said before, my primary goal was just being a healthy weight. The vanity aspect of it came when I could afford to be vain and think about looks.. which, basically, was when I had my health situated.

There’s a point in that clip that disturbed me, though – the thinner woman said, “Because I am thin, because I’ve never been sick,” she never thought that her system could be in such bad shape because her body wasn’t in bad shape. I think that the American understanding that our “outer” is a direct reflection of our “inner” is what’s making it so hard for us to have these conversations about health.

What do I mean? I mean that we keep connecting a person’s size to their ability to be healthy. It shortchanges the people on both ends of the spectrum. If being obese is the epitome of poor health, then if I’m superskinny I should be good, right? I should be able to avoid all of that, right? Ever heard of metabolic syndrome?

Metabolic syndrome is a series of diseases that appear in the body in conjunction with one another as a result of a poor diet yet doesn’t always result in obesity. It creeps up on people because, since they believe their small frames alleviate them of the responsibility of caring for their systems, they tend to not only ignore any warning signs that their habits might be unhealthy but this also results in them continuing in said damaging behavior!

I guess I wanted to share this because I want us to stop thinking this skinny/fat thing is so linear. Good health manifests itself within ourselves mentally as well as physically. It extends itself far beyond a nice body. Taking care of ourselves means inside as WELL as outside. Don’t let yourselves get caught up in BEING skinny or shooting for skinny. Aim for better health first and foremost, and I can assure you everything else will become MUCH simpler!

Can You Be Fit AND “Fat?” is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 23 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: health, mentality, myths

She wrote in:

I know that you have discussed this type of thing before…but this goes beyond the Victoria’s secret “booty paint” type stuff.  H&M has recently admitted that they use the same virtual body on most of the models on their website (as you can see from the pictures in the article).  These bodies are “computer generated,” and H&M claims that they use these bodies because they can better display the clothing than real models could.  They simply post a real model’s head on top of the body, alter the skin tone to match her face, and then draw on the clothing.  Great, right?

SMH.  Now photoshopped bodies aren’t good enough?  We have to use entirely computer generated bodies to model clothing?

Let’s see what’s going on.

From Jezebel:

The bodies of most of the models H&M features on its website are computer-generated and “completely virtual,” the company has admitted. H&M designs a body that can better display clothes made for humans than humans can, then “dresses” it by drawing on its clothes, and digitally pastes on the heads of real women in post-production. For now — in the future, even models’ faces won’t be considered perfect enough for online fast fashion, and we’ll buy all of our clothing from cyborgs. (This news sort of explains this.) But man, isn’t looking at the four identical bodies with different heads so uncanny? Duly noted that H&M made one of the fake bodies black. You can’t say that the fictional, Photoshopped, mismatched-head future of catalog modeling isn’t racially diverse.

I feel like, at this point, they just need to hang the clothes up on hangers and take pictures of it with camera phones… y’know, the way sellers on ebay do it. That way, no one is disillusioned regarding what women actually look like. Sure, the clothes might not sell because women won’t be thinking “Hey, maybe if I buy that outfit I’ll look like THAT!” only to be sorely disappointed that they’re not a living computer-generated graphic, but hey! At least no one will be starving themselves or going on liquid diets to make it happen, right?

Right?

H&M Puts Real Model Heads On Completely Fake, Computer Generated Bodies? Swag. is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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Post tags:

I… um… I’m just going to post the article, and then share a few of my thoughts:

Being obese can really get in the way of your sex life—and not necessarily in the ways you might think. According to a study published in the British Medical Journal, people who are obese are less likely to have been sexually active in the past year, but surprisingly, they’re more likely than people with an average body weight to have sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies. I’m no rocket scientist, but something tells me those are the results of not practicing safe sex.

Researchers in France surveyed 12,364 men and women between the ages of 18 and 69. Half of the participants were in the normal weight range, while the rest were overweight or obese. The survey showed that obese women were 30 percent less likely to have had sex at all in the past year, while obese men were 70 percent less likely to have had more than one sexual partner.

Despite spending less time frolicking between the sheets, single obese women reported unplanned pregnancies four times more often than thinner, unmarried women. That’s because obese women are less inclined to seek birth control advice or use oral contraceptives, say the study’s authors. Research presented at the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists 58th Annual Clinical Meeting last month backs up these findings. Data from the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey shows that obese and overweight adolescent girls are less likely to use condoms or other birth control methods.

Chalk it up to low self-esteem. Past research has shown that obesity is related to poor body image, which is associated with high-risk sexual behavior, like unsafe sex. And it’s not just women. The French survey also showed that obese men were much more apt to have had an STD, despite fewer sexual partners.

Though weight did not appear to affect women’s ability to climax, erectile dysfunction was two and a half times as common in obese men as in men with healthy BMIs. Because the penis requires healthy blood flow to become erect, ED can often be a sign of undiagnosed heart disease or circulation issues—all the more reason why someone with ED symptoms should put their embarrassment aside and talk to their doctor.

No matter how much you weigh, or how you feel about your body, these studies underscore how important it is to always put your health first. We all hate exposing our flabby imperfections to strangers—whether it’s the gynecologist or our latest crush. Still, regular doctor’s visits, and a satisfying sex life, can help keep us healthy and happy. If losing weight helps get you there, even better. But even if you can’t get the scale to budge, never let those extra pounds diminish your value. That’s not the way to hotter sex. Loving yourself is.

Now… before we come jumping head first into the comments to play the role of “PR Person for The Overweight Delegation,” let’s be realistic, here.

You’re talking to Erika, here. I have NO desire to beat any woman with poor body image over the head with “what’s wrong with her.” I also have no desire to ignore a very real and realistic problem just for the sake of protecting the image of “The Strong Overweight Woman” or “The Strong Black Woman.” Not gonna do it.

The reality is… in a society that openly and outwardly devalues women who don’t look the way society wants them to look… it is wholly realistic to expect those women to have less-than-healthy body images.

It is also realistic to expect that those women would feel less than worthy of attention from those whom they desire.

It, furthermore, feels realistic – at least, to me – that a woman who’s self-esteem has already been beaten down by society for not looking the way they want her to look, who also doesn’t feel like she’s worthy of the attention of those she finds desirable, would also be more willing to “do extra things” to get and/or keep the attention she has.

Which means.. if she thinks her current significant other might leave her or be less compelled to give her attention if she turns down condomless sex… and she already feels like it’s unlikely that she’d ever get the attention of another… is it so unlikely that she’d just “suck it up and do it anyway?”

Before I unleash this topic… let me declare a few obvious things.

All women have body image and self-esteem issues.

All women feel some sense of desperation for a man’s attention at one point in time or another.

All women, unfortunately, have felt that pain of having to make the hard decision that’s in their best interest and suffered the consequence (regardless of whether or not that’s for the better.)

However… I also know that this site reaches out to a lot of women who are currently uncomfortable with their bodies, and while I know that there are women of all body sizes who frequent this site? I also know that a lot of the women who frequent this site are larger than the size society says a woman should be. So yes… I’m taking the “weight bait” on this one. Commenters may not.. but its obvious to me that this is going to be a more prevalent issue with overweight women because society beats us over the head so often.

That being said… what, on Earth, do we do about this? For all women, but especially those who our country insists upon demeaning?

Being Overweight Increases Risk of STDs and Unplanned Pregnancies? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. What Does An Overweight Surgeon General Mean To America?
2. News: Telling Parents About Overweight Kids Has Little Impact?
3. More Airlines Making Overweight Customers Buy Extra Seats?

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 21 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Body Image, british medical journal, self-esteem, sex

…accompanied with the following short story:

It takes several long stares to comprehend that these photos depict rapper 50 Cent, who once looked like this. In the name of his burgeoning acting career, he removed several tattoos and lost 60 lbs. to play a cancer patient.

…50 Cent can expect breathless accolades for his portrayal of a cancer patient in next year’s Things Fall Apart. These photos come from 50 Cent’s official fan site, where a moderator explains,

He dropped from 214 pounds to an astonishing 160 with a liquid diet and three-hour-a-day treadmill walks for nine weeks.

“I was starving.” Now he’s back on tour and says, “I’ve been eating. I’ll be back in shape in no time!”

I didn’t expect anyone to really ask me what I thought about it, but hey. This is a site about weight loss, huh?

Y’know, 50 Cent isn’t the first to go to drastic measures to fulfill the obligations of a role. I can think of celebrities gaining weight (Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull, Jennifer Hudson with Dreamgirls), losing weight (Tom Hanks in Cast Away, Jennifer Hudson… again, supposedly)… and working darn hard to get the rubber band to go back to normal after stretching it to its limits, so to speak.

Frankly, my dear…

I couldn’t care less. I’m certainly not inspired by his “diet” to try it on myself. Why? Because I know three things:

1) These celebrities are paid very well for their time and efforts in taking their bodies to the limits to fulfill the needs of their roles. It’s one thing to select a celebrity for either their star power (the name they’ve built) or their talent regardless of how they look nothing like the character… but to select them and expect them to go that extra distance? Someone is paying serious dough for it. I can’t knock the hustle if 50 Cent felt like the dough was worth the strain on his body that a liquid diet may leave him with – actually, I could, but like my usual statement goes… I’m neither invested in nor affected by his personal decisions.

2) They are monitoring his every-freaking-move while on this thing. Think about it – a full liquid diet and only cardio is meant to deflate the body – it’s supposed to make him look like a cancer patient! A lifestyle meant to emaciate the body that thoroughly, coupled with that money in point one? Means he’s got the best doctors monitoring his every move. And rightfully so. Liquid diets are no joke. He’s being monitored so closely because he needed extreme measures for a temporary effect. As he said, “I’ve been eating – I’ll be back in shape in no time!” He’s basically telling you… that mess was only temporary. And as anyone who reads this site often would know, I’m gonna tell you – healthy, sustainable weight loss is absolutely about a lifestyle change. Not a temporary diet.

3) Look at him. He looks like his role. They nailed it! The body I want is brickhouse-style, and I know how to get it. That certainly doesn’t include looking like I’m battling cancer. Any brickhouse you know that resembles 50 Cent in these photos, well… you’re lying about her being a brickhouse. Ya just are.

In short… unless you’re being paid millions of dollars to go out of your way to change the way your body responds to food and, well, life… I suggest you skip that idea and just look forward to seeing 50 putting this new body to use.

Drastic Celebrity Weight Loss: 50 Cent is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. How Much Is The Weight Loss Industry Worth?
2. Self-Compassion: A Key Factor In Weight Loss
3. Making Foolproof Weight Loss Resolutions For The New Year

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Post tags: 50 cent, bad ideas, celebrities, dieting, extreme weight loss, liquid diet

If you’ve ever wondered why it’s hard to stay on a diet, consider this observation from Ralph DiLeone, a brain scientist at Yale University: “The motivation to take cocaine in the case of a drug addict is probably engaging similar circuits that the motivation to eat is in a hungry person.”

That’s what brain scientists have concluded after comparing studies of overeating with studies of drug addiction, DiLeone says.

They’ve also found that, at least in animals, sweet or fatty foods can act a lot like a drug in the brain, he says. And there’s growing evidence that eating too much of these foods can cause long-term changes in the brain circuits that control eating behavior.

The food-drug link comes from the fact that both animal and human brains include special pathways that make us feel good when we eat, and really good when we eat sweet or fatty foods with lots of calories, DiLeone says.

“Drug addiction is really hijacking some of these pathways that evolved to promote food intake for survival reasons,” he says

That doesn’t necessarily mean food is addictive the way cocaine is, DiLeone says, but he says there is growing evidence that eating a lot of certain foods early in life can alter your brain the way drugs do.

Food That Changes The Brain

Teresa Reyes, a research assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania, showed that in an experiment with mice.

Reyes was part of a team that gave mice a high-fat diet from the time they were weaned until they reached 20 weeks, so they gained significant amounts of weight and became obese. Then the researchers looked at the brain’s pleasure centers — areas known to change in drug addiction.

“What we found is that in animals that were obese, there were really dramatic changes in these areas of the brain that participate in telling us how rewarding food is,” Reyes says. The changes made these areas less responsive to fatty foods, so an obese mouse would have to eat more fat than a typical mouse to get the same amount of pleasure, she says.

And some of the changes didn’t go away, even when the mice returned to a normal diet.

“So it is similar to what happens in cases of chronic drug abuse,” Reyes says. “The reward circuitry changes in a similar way, and that promotes the seeking of that drug, or in our case, in seeking palatable food.”

That could help explain why obese children tend to remain that way as adults, she says.

I’m not going to go on an “I told you so!” rant, but I’m going to go on an “I told you so!” rant.

I have the following thoughts:

1. A company with millions to invest in creating the right recipe… millions to invest in developing the right formula to produce that recipe cheaply… and millions to spend on taste testing that recipe to ensure that it’s well-received by the largest percentage of the population… do we really think they’re not tapping into this response our brains have to those “perfect combinations?” Do we really expect companies that have to produce profits to not tap into the one response that would ensure that we remain loyal, faithful customers? Providing us the pleasure that we [subconsciously] seek, outright guarantees that we’ll keep giving them our money. They’re our pushers… giving us our fix.
2. A company investing everything they’ve got in creating a product that we can become addicted to… a product that has very little nutrients, right? If, when we eat, there’s also a secondary system that compels us to keep eating so that the body can obtain those nutrients… doesn’t this only create a cycle that is only broken by a conscious decision to leave the drug–er, processed foods alone? I mean, if we’re eating for an emotional fix, and the body is perpetuating a “hungry” feeling because we’re only eating food that gives us our high, not food that nourishes us, then chasing that “hungry” only causes us to eat more “emotion fueling” food, which then only causes us to be hungry again in an hour because there’s no nourishment. Bizarre.
3. Take a cold hard look at that bold red line. If you are someone who eats food for that pleasured feeling – the feeling that causes you to feel as if you’re escaping reality, then that bold, red line is for YOU. Every time you indulge, every time you emotionally eat, you make it that much harder for you to achieve those same feelings on that same amount of food the next time you overindulge. Every time you emotionally eat, it’s going to require more… and more… and more. Period.
4. Take a second cold, hard look at that bold red line. Don’t be mistaken, sure that line says “you’d have to eat more fat” but if the vice were cocaine instead of fat (or sugar instead of fat), or anything instead of fat, it’d still apply. Think about what emotional eating really is – it’s hiding from reality because one prefers the pleasure they achieve from food. Now, if engaging in emotional eating makes it harder to get that same amount of pleasure each time you do it, and you’re seeking that pleasure as a means of hiding from reality… wouldn’t all this make reality that much more difficult to bear? Wouldn’t this trigger some form of depression? Does this coincide with the increase of anti-depression medication flooding the market?
5. “That could help explain why obese children tend to remain that way as adults, she says.” This makes it that much more important for us to address healthy eating, healthy body image and healthy living altogether with our children. Because if the habits we teach them as children wind up altering the way their brain handles pleasure or causes them to devalue the pleasures of life because they prefer the pleasures of food… it becomes that much more difficult for them to change as they age. Not that it’s impossible, but it is absolutely an uphill battle.

The article isn’t done, though:

Addictive Food?

More evidence of a link between food and drugs comes from a team that has been trying to understand how hunger can trigger an animal’s craving for drugs.

“Hungry animals will take a lot of drugs,” says Uri Shalev, a researcher at Concordia University in Montreal.

Shalev and his colleagues studied rats that had learned to give themselves heroin by pressing a lever. When the scientists removed the heroin, the rats mostly stopped pressing the lever. But when the scientists also took away the rat’s food, the lever pressing came back with a vengeance.

The rats would press the lever hundreds of times, “even though they don’t get the drug anymore,” Shalev says.

The team thought this behavior might involve a substance in the brain called neuropeptide Y, which makes animals feel hungry. And, sure enough, when hungry rats got a substance that blocks neuropeptide Y, they stopped pressing the lever.

Many other studies also have shown links between food and drugs.

A Swedish team found that a stomach hormone called ghrelin could make rats seek sugar the way addicts seek drugs. And a team at the University of California, Santa Barbara, found that male rats chose sugar over small amounts of cocaine, while female rats did just the opposite.

Even so, DiLeone, the Yale researcher, says it’s still not clear how far the food-drug comparison holds up, especially in people.

“There’s an ongoing argument in my field whether food is addictive or not,” he says. “But whether it’s addictive or not, there’s probably components that are similar to addiction.”

That means it makes sense to focus on eating behavior early in life, when the brain is adapting to a particular environment. It also probably makes sense to take approaches used to treat addiction and adapt them to overeating,” DiLeone says.

My thoughts?

1. Look for “the new drug that blocks neuropeptide Y” to come out in the next few years. Never mind what else it does to your brain… all that matters is that it’ll make you skinny. (That’s not even sarcasm – that’s exactly how it’ll be pitched, too.)
2. How is there an ongoing argument regarding whether food is addictive or not? Anything that brings pleasure and release – sex, alcohol, narcotics, exercise, whatever – can be addictive. Why not food? Which researchers are the ones who don’t think food can be addictive and what is their argument? Or is it the stigma that says “if I say food can be addictive, that’d give fat people a reason to be fat… and there’s never a reason to be fat” that’s blocking one’s ability to be open to the realities?
3. I think it’s interesting how food is painted as a gateway drug in rats, but seems unfathomable in human beings. A craving for food being satisfied by drugs instead of the food we seek. That feels much more like something society taught us – that it is unacceptable to substitute food for drugs. I wonder if society’s influence wasn’t involved, if the same results could be seen in human beings. I know that’s a rhetorical question, because there’s no possible way you could test for that without doing some wildly inhumane things.
4. Lastly. With all that we’re learning about how the brain reacts to these products-engineered-to-give-maximum-pleasure and our ability to become addicted to them… will the government ever get involved? Should they? Or should the public be made blatantly aware of these issues and learn to tread lightly on their own?

Thse are my thoughts… what are yours?

Overeating: Comparable To Drug Use, Cause of Mental Illness? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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Post tags: food addiction, ghrelin, neuropeptide Y, NPR

A woman accused of stabbing her 6-year-old daughter to death with scissors told police she had been taking a weight-loss product, had trouble sleeping for several days and felt an “evil” presence before the attack.

“Did I kill my daughter? Is she dead?’” Danielle Yvonne Slaughter asked police after police found her on Sunday, naked, bloody and running barefoot through Las Vegas, according to court documents released Tuesday.

The frenzied 27-year-old woman was hospitalized after she told police that the blood on her hands was from the “lamb of God.” Police later found Kyla Franks dead at their home.

“There was no rhyme or reason to it,” homicide Lt. Ray Steiber said of the girl’s death. “I don’t think there’s anything that anyone could have anticipated.”

In a recorded police interview early Monday, Slaughter told investigators she had trouble sleeping since she started taking the weight-loss product Hydroxycut four days earlier, and that she had been feeling “an evil presence” for several days. She said she slept just one hour Saturday night.

Steiber said police believe the mother was sleep-deprived and may have been affected by the weight-loss product she had been taking.

It was not immediately known whether federal officials have received complaints linking Hydroxycut to confusion or delusions. A U.S. Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman, Siobhan DeLancey, said the product was recalled in 2009 due to complaints about liver damage.

The product was later reformulated and returned to the market by parent company Iovate Health Services Inc. of Canada and Iovate Health Sciences USA Inc. of Blasdell, N.Y., the FDA spokeswoman said.

Company officials did not immediately respond Tuesday to messages.

The police report said Slaughter told them “she never felt this way before,” and that she said she wanted to remove the evil from the house.

Slaughter told police she and her daughter were sitting on the bed when the girl spoke in “evil words,” laughed “in an evil voice” and clawed and kicked at her. The mother said she picked up scissors and struck the child several times.

Slaughter remains held at the Clark County jail pending an initial court appearance Wednesday on a murder charge. It wasn’t immediately clear if she had a lawyer. [source]

I find this creepy and unfortunate… and it feels like the wrong opportunity to prove a point, but it must be reiterated:

On to fat burners and thermogenics. This stuff is gross. It is so gross.

It’s lightly regulated – all that has to be proven is that the stuff will not kill you – and you rarely have any idea what’s in it. If fat burners were ever researched by the purchasing public, you’d find that they, more often than not, have the most nebulous ingredient lists you’ve ever heard of in your life.

Do people experience weight loss on fat burners? Of course. Do people take fat burners forever? Do they eventually go off of the pill and experience weight gain? Do people ever realize that they’re just taking glorified caffeine pills? That’s all that most “fat burners” really are. That is… if the manufacturer even knows what’s in the pill they manufactured.

Excerpted from Q&A Wednesday: Protein Powders, Fat Burners and Supplements… Oh My! | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

Someone who goes four days without sleep will, without question, start to experience the side effects of sleep deprivation. If you feel desperate enough to lose weight, to the point where you jokingly say to someone (or yourself) “Sh-t, let me take all these pills, with my fat -ss,” or even “Maybe if I take twice the pills, I’ll lose weight twice as fast!” then you run the risk of doubling – or even quadrupling – your exposure to caffeine. If you couldn’t imagine taking four cups of coffee back to back, then imagine going hard on ultracaffeinated pills.

It’s also important to note that Hydroxycut, the pill she was taking, was recalled years ago. However, this doesn’t mean it was/could be pulled from the market.

All in all.. senseless and unfortunate.

Woman Blames Weight Loss Pill For Stabbing 6 Year Old Daughter is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Making Foolproof Weight Loss Resolutions For The New Year
2. Your Daughter, Her Weight… And You
3. “Don’t Lose Any Weight.. I Love A Big Fine Woman!”

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Post tags:

Great.

Don’t get me wrong. If Wal-mart is pledging to make its produce less expensive without shafting the farmers on their cut – and sticking to that – then I am glad. However… I’d be remiss in ignoring the fact that there’s a couple of parts of this entire situation that trouble me.

For starters, this:

“We’re not just aligning ourselves with one company; we’re aligning ourselves with people who are stepping up as leaders to take this country to a healthier place,” said Sam Kass, the White House chef who doubles as Mrs. Obama’s top adviser on matters of nutrition.

“There’s no qualms about that,” Mr. Kass said. “The only question that we have is do we think this is a significant step in that direction, and do we think there is a method in place to track progress, and do we think this will have the impact we are pushing for.”
Excerpted from What Do You Think? Walmart Making Healthier Eating Cheaper? | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

Compare his concerns to this, from Appetite For Profit:

Does anyone remember how McDonald’s promised to stop using trans fats, but oops, didn’t? Or how about the time Ruby Tuesday’s promised to list nutrition facts on its menus until they decided that wasn’t working out so well. And then there’s the soda industry, which has made so many broken promises, it’s hard to keep up. The biggest one was in 2006 when Bill Clinton announced a deal (also secretly brokered) in which soda companies promised to change the beverages they sold in schools. While industry claims mission accomplished, recent research suggests otherwise. But all that was before Michelle Obama’s time I guess.

[...]

Walmart is first and foremost accountable to those shareholders who own their stock. In other words, if less salt and less sugar also means less stock value, bye-bye Mrs. Obama and hello salt and sugar. The White House says that the Partnership for a Healthier America will track the success or failure of Walmart’s efforts, but what are the criteria or outcome measures? How are they developed? [source]

My beef isn’t with Walmart – recognize a few things, here. It is common practice for an entity – corporation or otherwise – to make a promise, get within the good graces of the public, then fall short on following through. If you are a registered voter, it’s pretty likely that you’re familiar with this practice.

What’s particularly interesting, here, is that the White House would allow a public face of a government movement to be used to promote a company’s “promise.” Especially considering the precedents that have already been set. Especially to have the audacity to question – after the fact – whether or not they can even measure Wal-mart’s progress or whether or not this will even have the effect they desire (and more on that, later.)

We also need to talk about the halo that Michelle Obama’s presence just gave Walmart’s efforts, here. What is a halo?

The halo effect is a cognitive bias whereby the perception of one trait (i.e. a characteristic of a person or object) is influenced by the perception of another trait (or several traits) of that person or object. An example would be judging a good-looking person as more intelligent.

When we think of Michelle Obama lately, we think of gardens, school lunch, “Let’s Move!”… all that. The public assigns this “she’s trying to convert us all to being healthy” halo to her, and therefore everything she aligns herself with therefore is assigned an “surely this is healthy, otherwise Michelle Obama wouldn’t be associated with it” halo. To believe that Walmart isn’t benefitting from that right now would be naive. Aligning herself – personally – with Wal-mart in this fashion passes on a halo to a corporation that hasn’t even done anything yet... and what they offered up as ideal? Questionable at best.

The plan, similar to efforts by other companies and to public health initiatives by New York City, sets specific targets for lowering sodium, trans fats and added sugars in a broad array of foods — including rice, soups, canned beans, salad dressings and snacks like potato chips — packaged under the company’s house brand, Great Value.

In interviews previewing the announcement, Wal-Mart and White House officials said the company was also pledging to press its major food suppliers, like Kraft, to follow its example.
Excerpted from What Do You Think? Walmart Making Healthier Eating Cheaper? | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

Here, at BGG2WL, I say one thing loud and clear – the problem with processed foods isn’t just the added salt and the added sugars. It’s the processing in and of itself. No government official or representative is going to say that and potentially piss off the ginormous food industry, though.

Our processed foods are broken down to their most basic parts, mixed in with preservatives (which help, you know, preserve the final product), flavor additives, water, flour, various forms of salt, then manipulated to be whatever they want to sell us. The same ground up chicken carcass (which is what is in that photo) can be chicken patties, chicken nuggets, chicken fingers, “diced chicken,” the chicken in your chicken pot pie, the chicken in your soup… whatever. Just look for “mechanically separated [animal] parts.” You won’t have to look too hard.Once it’s broken down to create this… goo… chemicals are used to hold it in place to form whatever shape it’s going to take. Once it meets your saliva and enters your body, it breaks right back down to the goo… with no fiber inside to help push it out. It essentially deflates inside of your system, making it easier to consume more calories because you’re “not full yet.” Couple all of this with the fact that it takes approximately 20 minutes for your brain to get the signal from your digestive system that you’re “full,” and you start to see why a food that breaks down this quickly is a recipe for disaster – a breaded chicken breast on wheat bread breaks down much more slowly than a chicken patty sandwich on white bread, takes longer to chew (buying you time until that 20 minute mark… see what that 30 bites was important?), takes longer to digest (thus leaving you feeling fulfilled longer), and keeps you from overindulging. You’re getting that “full” feeling for less calories. You’re not scarfing it down because it’s breaking down faster than it can fill you up… only to find that “all-of-a-sudden-I-feel-like-I-ate-too-much” feeling arrive.

Excerpted from The Chemical “Processing” In Your Processed Foods | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

So, Michelle Obama pretty much just aligned her “healthy eating” image with food that is still over-processed.

But what about the salt and sugars? Those will be limited, now!

You know how I often explain that change, for the public, will not come without an increase in both education and access to resources like well-grown produce and meats? Let me be frank about it. If you buy your same processed food, cook it, go to taste it and find that it isn’t quite as salty as you’d like… without thinking, what are you going to do?

You’re going to add the salt yourself. Why? Because no one told you the problem with using too much salt. The reduction was done for you without educating you on why the reduction is better for you.

Same with sugars. Reduce the sugar? By all means, go for it! If it’s not sweet enough, surely the sugar shaker can’t be too far out of reach. Surely, there’s another brand that meets my taste needs. I don’t understand why my sugar was adjusted in the first place… so I’ll just adjust it right back.

The idea of a corporation deciding FOR you what is healthy is supposed to “make it easier for you” to buy their products. The idea of that corporation “making it healthier” for you is supposed to prevent you from realizing that the original products you were purchasing were never healthy in the first place… and perhaps you should spend your money elsewhere… and First Lady Obama just attached her healthy living initiative to all of this.

I seem really difficult to please, right? I mean, I should just be happy with what’s being done so far, right? Nope. I’m simply not budging.

From Food Fight:

Walmart also isn’t doing anything new here. The food industry is already committed to taking some “bad stuff” out of packaged food. The major companies have already removed most of the trans fat from their product. Many of them have set targets for reducing sodium, and collectively they’ve promised to take out 1.5 trillion from their products calories by 2015 (also a Michelle Obama-backed pledge).

So having Walmart breathe down their necks on this front isn’t likely to accomplish much.

The idea of making fruit and vegetables more affordable could actually make a dent in the obesity problem by helping Americans to eat healthier. Too bad neither Walmart nor Obama seem to want to address the root causes of why whole foods like fruit and vegetables are often more expensive than comparatively unhealthy, processed foods.

How to make fresh, healthy food cheaper

That would require talking about our outdated system of farm subsidies, which rewards the growers of the commodity crops that go into processed foods and ignores the farmers that grow carrots, apples and broccoli. The idea that this system is badly misaligned with public health goals is becoming more and more mainstream, and anyone that wants credibility in the obesity battle should be taking this on.

We know what the answers are. Politics is causing people to make less than genuine statements, less-than-genuine promises and lend the halo that we gave them to less-than-scrupulous companies. I’d much rather Walmart focus on the “making healthier products (and who decides what’s “healthy?”) more affordable” and “decreasing the cost of produce” than anything else. This all just feels like grandstanding, to me.

In the future, I’d love it if First Lady Obama’s efforts were centered around increasing access and education… not this. This just feels beneath her, and she’s more to me than just a giant metaphorical “Now with less sodium!” sticker on a Wal-mart store.

Walmart, Michelle Obama and The Halo Effect is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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Post tags: first lady obama, michelle obama, obama, walmart, white house

Obese black patients receive less weight reduction and exercise advice from doctors than obese white patients, a new study finds.

The researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health also said they were surprised to find that white patients treated by black doctors were still more likely to receive weight and exercise counseling than black patients treated by black doctors.

“Our findings could be due to a number of factors such as negative physician perspectives towards black patients or a lack of sensitivity to the underlying levels of obesity risk for black patients as compared to white patients,” study author Sara Bleich, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, said in a university news release.

For this study, the researchers analyzed national data from 2,231 visits of black and white obese patients to their doctors. The findings appear in the January online issue of the journal Obesity.

“Previous studies have shown disparities in the proportion of black obese adults informed by physicians that they were overweight compared to white obese patients. We now also see that black patients are receiving different medical counseling as well,” senior author Dr. Lisa Cooper, a professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Health, Policy and Management, said in the news release.

“Further research is needed to understand how to improve obese patient counseling, particularly among the black population,” Cooper added.

In the United States, blacks have a much higher rate of obesity than other races, which puts them at increased risk for a number of chronic conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.

Sorry for the sarcasm… or am I?

I mean, allow me to just shoot off the top of my head, for a moment.

If well over 2/3rds of African Americans can be classified as [at least] overweight, and overweight people have a tendency to fear going to the doctor because they don’t want to be confronted about their weight… is it that hard to believe that a doctor, one who is following this line of thought, might want to avoid the subject altogether to avoid losing a patient? And don’t get me wrong – that’s not in defense of the doctors by any means. That’s just a reality. A doctor’s office is a business just like any other, and they have to do what they have to do to keep patients.

Or…. if the assumption – made by the doctor – is that their Black patient won’t have the resources necessary to lose the weight (read: access to “healthy food,” money to purchase it… in other words, the doctor assumes the patient is poor because they’re Black), why even broach the subject? “I’ll only be telling them to do stuff that they can’t afford, anyway.”

And if that’s the case then, once again, healthy lifestyles are made out to be class issues… and class is lazily being determined by race. “If a person is Black, they must be poor.” Even if it weren’t about race, it’d still be about “you’re poor, you have limited resources, you couldn’t do it anyway” instead of “you have limited resources, but let’s see how we can use what you’ve got to get what you want.” (If you know where that quote comes from… I’m sorry. For both of us.)

And, as I found the press release for the study that came directly from Johns Hopkins itself, there’s something else that really should be paid close attention:

When it comes to advising obese patients, blacks receive less weight reduction and exercise counseling from physicians than their white counterparts. This is according to a recent study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who examined the impact of patient and doctor race concordance on weight-related counseling. The results are featured in the January 2011 online issue of Obesity.

“Contrary to our expectations, we did not observe a positive association between patient-physician race concordance and weight-related counseling,” said Sara Bleich, PhD, lead author of the study and an assistant professor with the Bloomberg School’s Department of Health Policy and Management. “Rather, black obese patients seeing white doctors were less likely to receive exercise counseling than white obese patients seeing white doctors. We also found that black obese patients seeing black doctors were less likely to receive weight reduction counseling than white obese patients seeing black doctors. This suggests that regardless of the physician’s race, black obese patients receive less weight-related counseling than white obese patients. Our findings could be due to a number of factors such as negative physician perspectives towards black patients or a lack of sensitivity to the underlying levels of obesity risk for black patients as compared to white patients.”

I’m not going to lie – my own experiences echo the findings of this study:

I remember being in high school.. and my doctor never – never – mentioned my weight. I can’t say, for sure, exactly why that was… but this very cheery, young, happy doctor would tell me “Well, you’re 215lbs, but that’s ok.. you’re just tall.” He wouldn’t look at last years chart to see whether or not I’d gained 20lbs in one year. He wouldn’t talk to me about food or activity levels at all. He’d just bypass the subject altogether.

I’d eventually go on to gain weight at a pretty ridiculous rate for the next few years.

Excerpted from Doctors, Bedside Manner, and Weight: Fat Prejudice in Health Care | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

How are we supposed to live healthier lives if our doctors fear even mentioning the problem to us? If they fear mentioning it to us, how are we ever supposed to find the answers we need to help us get there?

What are your thoughts? Let’s hear it!

PS: You know I’m looking for a copy of this study, right?

Is Race A Factor In Obesity Counseling? Is Water Wet? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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2. Normal Weight Obesity: Another Medical Scam?
3. Why Don’t Obesity Programs Work For Young Black Girls?

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Post tags: bedside manner, butter, carrots, class, crushed red pepper, doctors, garlic, health care, johns hopkins, pinto beans, race, spinach, squash, tomato

Photo courtesy of mrbling.

…while 47 percent of Americans say they’d like restaurants to offer healthier items like salads and baked potatoes, only 23 percent tend to order those foods, according to a survey last year by food research firm Technomic.

That explains the popularity of KFC’s Double Down, a sandwich of bacon and cheese slapped between two slabs of fried chicken. It’s the reason IHOP offers a Simple & Fit menu with yogurt and fruit bowls, but its top seller remains a 1,180-calorie breakfast sampler of eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, hash browns and pancakes. It’s also why only 11 percent of parents ordered apple slices as an alternative to fries in McDonald’s Happy Meals.

[...]

But revamping a menu can be difficult and expensive, requiring months or even years. For example, it took Dunkin’ Donuts four years to figure out how to make its doughnuts without trans fat — which doctors say is one of the unhealthiest types of fat — without altering the taste.

[...]

As a result, many chains have scaled back their efforts to roll out healthy foods. The number of health-related claims made on menus, like reduced fat or reduced carbs, fell 5 percent from 2008 to 2010, according to Technomic’s study of more than 1,200 restaurant chains.

Most restaurants won’t share specifics about how their salads and veggie omelets compete when they’re up against burgers and crepes. But the healthy stuff appears to be only a small proportion of revenue at most chains.

The IHOP pancake house, owned by DineEquity Inc., says that Simple & Fit sales have roughly doubled in the year since the menu was introduced. But it still makes up only a single-digit percentage of revenue.

The Cheesecake Factory, which introduced a “Skinnylicious” menu in August featuring entrees with 590 calories or less, says those foods have also performed well. But sales of its decadent cheesecakes are up too. “We recognize that ‘cheesecake’ is in our name,” said Alethea Rowe, senior director of restaurant marketing.

There’s a host of reasons for the disparity between word and deed. Sometimes people who eat healthy at home want to treat themselves when they go out. Others doubt that the so-called healthier items on fast-food menus are really healthy. Even peer pressure can play a role. (?????)

Jason Sierra, who was eating a Whopper hamburger and fries at a Burger King in New York recently, said he’s cut back on unhealthy foods because his cholesterol and blood pressure were getting too high. But when his office buddies order lunch, he opts for “man food” like pizza to fit in.

“One day I did try to order a salad,” said Sierra, 40, who works in tech support. “And I caught hell for that.” (?!?!?!?!?!)

Healthier foods also are usually among the most expensive menu items, which can be tough for recession-weary customers to stomach. Efrain Vasquez and his wife, Evelyn, were recently eating fried chicken and gravy-drenched mashed potatoes at a KFC in New York. They say there’s a big difference between a $2 burger and a $6 salad when you’re on a tight budget.

“We’ve got bills to pay,” said Efrain Vasquez, 51, a maintenance worker who’s raising four kids with Evelyn, a 37-year-old receptionist. “We try to economize.”

Like so many American dieters, fast-food restaurants have tried and failed to go healthy. The Wendy’s Co. burger chain led the way in the mid-1980s with a short-lived effort to sell tomato halves filled with cottage cheese and pineapple chunks on lettuce leaves.

“Consumers weren’t ready for it,” said Denny Lynch, a spokesman for Wendy’s, where burgers and chicken are the biggest sellers. “Or at least they certainly didn’t buy it.”

In 2003, during the low-carb Atkins diet craze, Domino’s Pizza Inc. couldn’t get people to bite on a low-carb pizza it tested in Indianapolis. “While many people at the time made their voice heard that they wanted it, few people actually ordered it,” said Chris Brandon, Domino’s spokesman.

McDonald’s, the world’s largest burger chain, says the fruit smoothies and oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins it rolled out last year are selling well, although it declined to disclose their revenue. “We would not have them on the menu if we were not selling them at a rate that we could sustain them at,” said Molly Starmann, director of McDonald’s family business category.

But the chain didn’t always have such luck. It spent three years developing the McLean Deluxe, a 91-percent fat-free hamburger it introduced in 1991 only to suffer disappointing sales.

More recently, McDonald’s got a lukewarm response when in 2004 it began offering parents the option of choosing apple slices instead of fries for Happy Meals. So, in July, McDonald’s said it would stop offering a choice and instead serve a half portion of both. It had considered taking fries out Happy Meals completely, but nixed the idea when parents in tests said “No.”

For now, restaurants continue to straddle the line.

Burger King Corp. this summer pledged to promote healthier foods for kids, but announced last week that it would sell ice cream desserts nationwide, including an Oreo brownie sundae with 530 calories and 17 grams of fat. KFC introduced grilled chicken in 2009, then launched the Double Down sandwich the following year. The 540-calorie, 32-grams-of-fat breadless sandwich started as a limited-time offering, but proved so popular that the chain ended up keeping it.

Andy Puzder, CEO of CKE Restaurants Inc., which runs Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., said even though his restaurants offer salads and turkey burgers, he figures his best seller at Hardee’s is probably the Thickburger. The most decadent version of it comes with two types of cheese, fried onions, mayonnaise and nearly half a pound of beef and weighs in at 1,170 calories and 83 grams of fat. (The government recommends that most people consume 2,000 calories and no more than about 70 grams of fat each day.)

“We have wonderful, healthy foods if people want to buy them,” Puzder said. “But they don’t sell particularly well.”

I have so many thoughts on this… I’m going to wait. But I wanna know: How often do you dine out? What are you eating when you go? What are your thoughts on all this?

The AJC Asks: Do You Talk “Skinny,” But Eat “Fat?” is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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1. The “Let’s Move” Campaign: Is Childhood Obesity Talk Going Too Far?
2. Lincoln University, Size Discrimination And The Skinny Girl’s Dilemma
3. Infographic: The Skinny on Obesity in America

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On Tuesday, Nov. 2, the California city’s Board of Supervisors voted 8 to 3 to stop restaurants from offering free toys with any meals containing more than 600 calories. Many Happy Meals fall within that range, given that a cheeseburger comes in at 300 calories, a hamburger at 250 calories and a kid-size fry at 230. That majority vote is veto proof.

Under the new law, fast-food kids meals also must contain fruits, vegetables and beverages without excessive fat or sugar to qualify for toy inclusion.

A McDonald’s spokesperson, however, says the law will take the joy out of the Happy Meal.

The measure starts next December. So, as of Dec. 20, 2011, San Francisco restaurants will no longer be able to offer free toys with meals containing higher levels of calories, sugar and fat.

CNN reports that the proposed ordinance is part of a “food justice movement.” To be sure, McDonald’s kids lunch isn’t the only target here. About 50 fast-food restaurants in the San Francisco area use giveaway toys, according to CNN.

In the CNN report, officials said they hope their measure would encourage similar standards across the country. The San Francisco proposal was modeled after a similar law for unincorporated Santa Clara County, also in California. [source]

The aforementioned CNN article says the following:

San Francisco city officials are readying to ban most of McDonald’s Happy Meals in current form because they offer toys to entice kids to buy meals not meeting nutritional criteria.

Under a proposal given preliminary approval this week, McDonald’s and other restaurants would have until December 2011 to improve their meals’ nutrition with fruits and vegetables — if the chains want to keep offering Captain America figurines or toys tied with latest films.

The proposed ordinance is part of a “food justice movement” and is designed to address how about 50 of the city’s restaurants use giveaway toys to sell fast food whose nutritional content is being challenged by the city.

Officials said they hope their measure, the first of its kind for a large city, would encourage similar standards across the country. The San Francisco proposal was modeled after a similar law for unincorporated Santa Clara County, California,

San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar, who initiated the proposal, said the ordinance would be “a tremendous victory” in fighting childhood obesity. His fifth-grade daughter is in the 6-to-11 age group in which rates of obesity have quadrupled the past 30 years — coinciding with the life span of the Happy Meal, he said.

“I do believe that toys and other incentives attached to foods that are high in sugar, fat and calories are a major reason for the alarming rise for childhood obesity in this country,” Mar said. “This is a very modest ordinance that is an incentive for the industry to take responsibility for healthier choices for children and parents.”

McDonald’s spokeswoman Danya Proud said the company was “extremely disappointed with the decision.”

“It’s not what our customers want, nor is it something they asked for. Public opinion continues to be overwhelmingly against this misguided legislation,” Proud said in a statement. “Parents tell us it’s their right and responsibility — not the government’s – to make their own decisions and to choose what’s right for their children.

“We are extremely proud of our Happy Meals which give our youngest guests wholesome food and toys of the highest quality. Getting a toy with a kid’s meal is just one part of a fun, family experience at McDonald’s,” Proud said. [source]

There’s a documentary out – I can’t remember exactly what its name is, and I’ll edit this once I do remember – my bad, it’s titled “Killer at Large” – that discussed the fight that kids have with their parents over food.

I don’t know where I fall with this. I know that my daughter and I don’t fight over happy meals – she asks for them because they’re bright, colorful and appear to be fun (well, the commercials show floating kids and happy music and oooh! stars!!) but because she knows Mommom is good for smacking down foolishness, she rarely expects to actually get them. There’s no “fight.” I also recognize that I’m the parent of a toddler. It’s much easier to tell a toddler “No, you cannot have the death burger and the mystery nuggets.” than it is to tell a pre-teen who’d be quick to shout at you “I HATE YOU! YOU NEVER LET ME BE AN ADULT AND GET THE NUGGETS! SOMETIMES I WANT THE TOY TOO!”

I also wonder about the house that’s converting to clean eating, and trying to educate kids about why they can’t have these bright, colorful, fun-looking foods. After all, things that look fun couldn’t possibly be harmful, right? In fact, in the documentary, I specifically remember the quote a psychologist gave:

“It’s my job to tell parents that some battles aren’t worth fighting… so if a parent has to choose between the chicken mcnugget argument and sexually precocious teenager argument… I’m supposed to tell them to give the kid the mcnuggets?”

San Francisco is seeking to intervene in that argument. They’re not quite banning the Happy Meal, so to speak, but they’re drastically changing the way the product can be marketed… that is, unless the head honchos change the make-up of the Happy Meal.

….to stop restaurants from offering free toys with any meals containing more than 600 calories. [..]

Under the new law, fast-food kids meals also must contain fruits, vegetables and beverages without excessive fat or sugar to qualify for toy inclusion.

Make no mistake, the law has incredible intentions: companies no longer have the right to pull out the stops in advertising harmful products to children. However, we’ve got to be real: how many times have we seen the government get it wrong in defining “harmful?” Shoot, how many times have we seen them screw up “healthy?” How many times have we seen the government confuse “slimming” with “healthy?”

I even have an example. Check out the requirements the Happy Meal would have to abide by in order to be given the green light:

• Calories: Less than 600
• Sodium: Less than 640 milligram.
• Fat: Less than 35 percent of calories from fat; Less than 10 percent from saturated fat (with exception for nuts, seeds, eggs or low-fat cheese). [source]

There’s that “low-fat” again. Good grief.

I’ve got more questions, but I want to know what y’all think. Would you like to see limitations on who or what can be advertised to kids with toys? Do you think toys unfairly advertise unhealthy foods to children?

Cleaning Up The Happy Meal: Do Toys Advertise Unhealthy Foods To Kids? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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Post tags: food laws, happy meal ban, happy meals, san francisco

The question we were trying to raise is whether there are added benefits to each individual lifestyle improvement you make, and it looks like that answer is definitely yes, says Jared Reis, Ph.D., the lead author of the study and an epidemiologist with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. The strength of the association was really very dramatic and quite surprising.

Reis and his colleagues analyzed data from more than 200,000 men and women in eight states who are part of a long-running study on diet and health led by the National Cancer Institute. In the mid-1990s, when they ranged in age from 50 to 71 and showed no signs of serious illness, the study participants answered detailed questionnaires about their diet, lifestyle, medical history, physical characteristics and demographic profile.

Ten years later, roughly 9% of the men and women had developed diabetes. Those who were least likely to receive a diabetes diagnosis shared five key health attributes:

Normal weight. They were not overweight or obese, and maintained a body mass index below 25 (a threshold equivalent to 155 pounds for a 5-foot, 6-inch woman).

Nonsmoking. They had never been regular smokers, or they’d been smoke-free for at least 10 years.

Physically active. They got at least 20 minutes of heart-pounding, sweat-inducing exercise three or more times per week.

Healthy diet. They consumed a diet with lots of fiber, little trans fat, few refined or sugary carbohydrates, and a high ratio of good (polyunsaturated) to bad (saturated) fats.

Little to no drinking. They used alcohol in moderation, if at all — two drinks or less a day for men, and one drink or less for women.

Each additional attribute was associated, on average, with 31% and 39% lower odds of developing diabetes among men and women, respectively. People who met all five standards had roughly 80% lower odds of a diabetes diagnosis than demographically similar people who led less healthy lifestyles, according to the study, which was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Of all five lifestyle factors, being overweight was linked most strongly to diabetes risk. But having healthy marks for the other four factors still made a difference in overall risk, regardless of whether a person was normal weight, overweight or obese.

It isn’t always an easy thing to lose weight and to maintain that weight loss over the long term, Reis says. So this is good news for those individuals who have a tough time losing weight: You can still lower your risk with these other lifestyle changes.

With questionnaire-based studies like this one, there’s always a chance that the participants don’t accurately report their behavior, or that the results are skewed by health and lifestyle factors that the researchers haven’t taken into account.

But in this case, the study’s large, real-world population — as opposed to the smaller, strictly monitored groups typically found in clinical trials — may actually be a strength, says Robert Henry, M.D., the president of medicine and science at the American Diabetes Association, an advocacy organization based in Alexandria, Virginia.

This study looked at factors we know can be easily modifiable, and the conditions that people actually live with in real life, says Henry, who is also a professor of endocrinology and metabolism at the University of California-San Diego. And it does that better than some of the diligently done clinical trials that may not be applicable to a normal lifestyle situation.

The study also found that maintaining the five lifestyle factors lowers diabetes risk regardless of family history, suggesting that people with a genetic predisposition can still prevent or at least delay the onset of the disease.

As was shared here before, my personal belief is to stick with Dr. Lustig. (Specifically around the 1:20:00 mark.) Not only do you not have to catch it, but barring certain mitigating factors, no one has to live with it forever, either.

Thoughts?

Study: 5 Markers For Preventing Type 2 Diabetes is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: diabetes, health, NHLBI, study, type 2 diabetes