Open Topic: Time’s childhood obesity coverage

15th June 2008

Open Topic: Time’s childhood obesity coverage

posted in Fat Acceptance, Fat Bias, Health/Nutrition |

I received my Special Health Issue from Time magazine yesterday and eagerly read through its multi-article coverage on childhood obesity.

All the problematic language was there, including such eye-rollingly banal descriptors like “ballooned” and “packed on the pounds,” as well as the old reliable calories in/calories out equation and the as-yet unattributed and unproven theory that today’s kids will have a shorter lifespan than their parents. But I also found Time’s coverage to be remarkably well-rounded compared with commentary published by its multimedia peers, and I think the magazine brings up good observations about contemporary nutrition or lack thereof, sedentary lifestyles and school lunch programs. There’s discussion of socio-economic factors, including race/ethnicity, geography and the role of poverty. Genetics, too, comes into play although while it’s mentioned by quoted doctors and researchers, Time writers never seem to pick up the genetic ball and carry it through. There’s even an article on “fit at any size.” Most encouraging of all, several of the articles reiterate that dieting shouldn’t be promoted or encouraged for overweight kids. The consensus amongst all articles instead suggests that parents model healthy role models and behaviors for their children in an approach that sounds very similar to the Health at Every Size paradigm.

So, read through the articles at your leisure - there’s several of them. And then feel free to discuss any part of the series in the comments below.

How America’s Children Packed on the Pounds

It’s Not Just Genetics

School Cuisine

Living Large

Watching What They Eat

Weighty Issues for Parents

Fit at Any Size

10 Tips on Getting your Kids Moving

Click to Bookmark

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 15th, 2008 at 1:00 am and is filed under Fat Acceptance, Fat Bias, Health/Nutrition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On June 15th, 2008, lynnie

said:

Save for the kids growing up on farms, I don’t see how today’s kids are any less active when I was a kid. I grew-up in the 60’s and 70’s. At times, my family lived in countries in which there was no fast food and often no English television (and despite the lack of those obesity causing agents, I was a fat kid)I spent a lot of time just kicking around with my friends (this was before all the organized sports- kids can start soccer now at the age of 4!- and after care programs like we have today). There wasn’t a ton of running or ball play- but we did walk everywhere and play jump rope and all those imaginary games kids play. We played a LOT- which I think was great for our imaginations and social development, but our play was not necessarily aerobic. We spent quite a bit of time talking about our favorite books and then acting them out. I remember one month I spent a lot of time sitting quietly and eavesdropping on people so I could write it all down, like Harriet the Spy. Big fun at the time, but it didn’t burn many calories or develop my muscles. We also watched a lot of t.v. when were in the U.S. (parents didn’t worry about that so much back then) and I spent a good deal of time reading. I fail to see how it was any more active that kids today with all their sports teams and camps and Wii and everyone pushing them to “get moving”. My son (born in 1993) used to play at recess and then play on the playground after school while I chatted with the other moms. When he had to go to after school care, he played on their playground. My husband, at that same age, was a latchkey kid coming home to an apartment complex in the city- with no play ground or organized sports. My mom, who grew-up in the 50’s, said she spent a whole lot of time reading as a kid. No sports teams or even hanging out in the neighborhood all that much (though she did walk back and forth to school). Nobody thought it was unusual. She was just considered a bookworm. Her family lived in suburbia, so she wasn’t doing heavy chores either. She helped wash dishes or set the table, just like my children do today. Not only that, in my suburban neighborhood in the 70’s- all our wonderful lack of electronic entertainment (not much on t.v. after school) and freedom (parents felt safe letting us do our own thing without having to constantly keep tabs on us) meant a that by age 12 or so, a lot of kids were drinking, using drugs and having sex (not us bookworms- but my very active younger brother could tell you some stories) In many ways, my seven year daughter is luckier than all of us were, because when it’s too hot to go outside and there’s nobody around to play with, she can turn on Wii sports and have fun and get some energy out. Back when I was a kid and I was feeling antsy but couldn’t get outside, my only option was to start a fight with my brothers. And just like when I was a kid, when my daughter is outside, it’s not all running and games of catch, a lot of times she’s in the back yard building fairy houses with her friends. I doubt she’s burning off lots of calories any more than my grandmother did when she was a little girl making fairy houses.

The free time, freedom (from parents) and lack of electronic entertainment in the olden days didn’t necessarily mean kids were running around all the time. A lot of times they were reading or making things or sitting, talking with their friends, babysitting younger siblings or sitting very, very still to watch some ants, just like kids do today.

posted on June 15th, 2008 at 9:28 am

2 On June 15th, 2008, lynnie

How embarrassing! My response was longer than your post. I apologize for hogging up your blog.

posted on June 15th, 2008 at 9:29 am

3 On June 15th, 2008, BigLiberty

Lynnie, I loved reading your comment. I’m sure Rachel didn’t mind.

posted on June 15th, 2008 at 9:45 am

4 On June 15th, 2008, DulcetDiscord

I agree, Lynnie! I was born in the late 80’s, and I used to run around all the time at recess and I walked anywhere I wanted to go after school or during the summer, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. I was just as active as my classmates but always several “sizes” larger.

Also, this is a little bit off topic, but I was watching Mad TV last night and I was completely appalled by a sketch they did. They had one of their actresses in a fat suit talking to an invisible narrator. She was in a kitchen surrounded by grocery bags overflowing with junk food, and they were talking about how she could lose weight. The narrator kept saying “Eat Less, Move More” (which isn’t really bad advice) but the actress kept saying things like, “Isn’t there a pill I can take? Shouldn’t I just have a doctor staple my stomach?” and generally acting like the idea was foreign and crazy. When she tried to tell the narrator that it was more complicated than eating less and moving more, he said “NO, it isn’t!” The sketch ended with the narrator saying “you don’t really want to lose weight, do you?” and then they turned it into a fake commercial for some crazy new E.L.Fudge cookie, which the actress in the fat suit proceeded to shove into her mouth several at a time. Usually I like Mad TV, but I was so angry I almost threw my phone at the TV. As though fat people aren’t stigmatized enough, let’s make a joke about how they OBVIOUSLY don’t understand how simple it is lose weight using the calories in/out formula. If Will Sasso was still on the show, they wouldn’t have done that sketch.

posted on June 15th, 2008 at 12:27 pm

5 On June 15th, 2008, Meowser

So far, I’ve only been able to bring myself to read the “Fit at Any Size” article, which is okay, other than some booga-booga scaremongering about how Steven Blair’s “fat and fit” thesis had been “debunked” by a Harvard study, and that fat women who don’t want to develop heart disease had better slim down pronto, even if they’re active. (It always seems to come from Harvard, doesn’t it?)

But it’s interesting that they mentioned Brewers first baseman Prince Fielder as someone who epitomizes HAES principles. What they don’t mention is that Fielder, in addition to being a fat guy, is also vegan, the only known major league baseball player ever to have identified as such.

posted on June 15th, 2008 at 12:48 pm

6 On June 15th, 2008, Nemohee

Isn’t it interesting that the Harvard study is the only study debunking the “Fat-but-Fit” theory? You would think that other researchers would jump on that, trying to replicate the results (at least that’s what we do in Poli Sci, when someone comes out with whopping results like that). Unfortunately, because it fits in with what everyone believes (or wants to believe) and because it benefits the diet industry, no one will touch it.

posted on June 15th, 2008 at 1:50 pm

7 On June 15th, 2008, Sherie S

I don’t expect any article from MSM to tell the complete truth. Corporate media represents corporations. Their main purpose is to make people into better consumers, not independent thinkers.

posted on June 15th, 2008 at 2:40 pm

8 On June 15th, 2008, Rachel

Nemohee - There was another recent study released last year of senior citizens which also affirmed fitness to be a more accurate predictor of longevity than fatness. I never see it referenced, though.

posted on June 15th, 2008 at 3:22 pm

9 On June 15th, 2008, Kelly

I hate the way today’s parents (mine included) are so paranoid of kidnappers and such that many never let their children out to play. It’s a beautiful day as I type and not one kid is outside playing. If I went outside, I would be lonely and my parents would tell me to come back inside. Many adults are too tired from the work week to take their children out to playgrounds, which can only be achieved by contsant wheedling. Yet they moan and groan as their pediatricians tell them their child is overweight, and restrict the calorie-rich foods the children of yesteryear burned off playing- not even sports, but imaginative games. Perhaps less parental supervision led to having more fun? It isn’t really about being fat, though. It’s about growing up feeling energized and like you can do anything, which leads to longetivity and health in middle age. My mother wouldn’t let me walk a twenty minute walk to school alone- for fear of kidnappers. At least she lets my sister and me
walk the dogs.
My father chides me when I put sugar in my tea, or when I take a few M&Ms.He won’t say it, but I can tell he doesn’t want me to get fat. My family tries to eat things in moderation, and we alput in a modest amount of exercise. But they are not role models for me. My father constantly overeats and is by medical standards, overweight. The little exercise we get (Wii Fit, but not really, and walking the dogs)is superimposed by schoolwork. I am told to watch what I eat. How am I going to reflect on this later in life? Will it be a bastion of short-term weight loss and a sdentary lifestyle? Or will it be something else?

posted on June 15th, 2008 at 7:19 pm

10 On June 15th, 2008, Kimu

I was pleased to see the “It’s not just genetics” article go to socioeconomic factors rather than where I first thought it’d go (personal responsibility, rah rah rah), however it really didn’t go far enough, IMO. The focus on geography is nice and inoffensive, but doesn’t really get across the point that poverty is a serious problem, except in passing (I would argue that poverty is *the* problem — if obesity is actually an issue at all it’s a symptom, not a disease).

posted on June 15th, 2008 at 7:29 pm

11 On June 16th, 2008, Cassandra

I think a lot of the obsesity issue has to do with lack of activity and too much dependence technology. When I was growing up, we played outside — we also ate lots of junk food too! We just didn’t rely on other things to entertain us… we entertained ourselves… we PLAYED — and lack of creative play is also an increasing problem in today’s society. We are programming our kids to respond the way little adults should, rather than the way creative children should (meaning, no right or wrong answers).

posted on June 16th, 2008 at 7:36 am

12 On June 16th, 2008, Rachel

I find it ironic that in my last edition of the regular magazine, the feature article was on autism and if vaccinations play a role in the threefold rise of autism cases since the 1980s. The reasoning behind this, they speculate, is the high levels of mercury in vaccinations.

Yet Time’s coverage on obesity doesn’t even breathe the word “chemicals” and what the processed foods, pesticides and other chemicals we use on or in our foods today play a role in altering our body makeups and functions. There’s been at least one recent study on this that I know of; why didn’t Time also consider this?

posted on June 16th, 2008 at 10:49 am

13 On June 16th, 2008, Cindy

Kelly - great point! The funny thing is, YOUR parents and MINE had a better chance of being abducted by a stranger than today’s children. These days, if you fear child abduction - don’t get divorced.

But this is how we sell everything from swimming pool alarms to Weight Watchers - fear.

posted on June 16th, 2008 at 4:03 pm

14 On June 20th, 2008, TypeSyday

Hello,

I’m newer here and stopping in to say hi.
I hope everyone has a good day.

Jaeric

posted on June 20th, 2008 at 9:18 pm

15 On August 31st, 2008, Knut Holt

Beware of unhealthy ready-food and false healthy food!!! These are a main reason for childhood obesity.

Most ready-made food types consist mostly of bad fat, carbohydrates without much fibre and salty water or is so hard cooked or fried that the butrients are destroyed.

This also go for most products propagated under the tag “healthy” because they contain a litle fish or a little fullgrain.

Regards
Knut Holt

posted on August 31st, 2008 at 3:55 pm