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By Samantha Thomas, February 27, 2011

Last week my good colleagues Prof Warwick Blood and Dr Kate Holland from the University of Canberra and I published a paper called: Our girth is plain to see’: An analysis of newspaper coverage of Australia’s Future ‘Fat Bomb’

Some of you may remember this report from Melbourne’s Baker Institute. The findings – which did not include any international comparison, and which were based on data gathered from middle-aged Australians – lead to statements by the study authors that Australia was the fattest nation in the world. It lead to images in our newspapers like this one (from The Age):

And headlines like this:

Of course, Australia is NOT the fattest nation in the world – according to the WHO we are not even in the top 20. But despite the lead authors coming out a few days later and saying their claims had been exaggerated (which largely went unnoticed in the press), it is unsurprising that many people in Australia still think that we are number one in the global fat rankings. In the paper we show how the press basically failed to critically examine the claims of the lead author, and I think it is a terrific case study of how completely unsubstantiated claims about obesity are taken as gospel.

There are so many examples like this one. The other one that immediately springs to mind was the claim of a group of academics in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2005 that the children of today would be the first generation ever to have a lower life expectancy than the generation before them:

“Obesity is such that this generation of children could be the first basically in the history of the United States to live less healthful and shorter lives than their parents…..We’re in the quiet before the storm. It’s like what happens if suddenly a massive number of young children started chain smoking. At first you wouldn’t see much public health impact, but years later it would translate into emphysema, heart disease and cancer.”

And despite the fact that this opinion was not based on any empirical research data, it is still regularly quoted as a leading reason to ‘tackle obesity’.

The final one that needs debunking is that according to the BMI, many of our AFL athletes would be classified as obese. Now I have been guilty of saying this one too – in particular in 2008 when I was interviewed on the television about the Fat Bomb report mentioned above.  Many newspaper reports, academics, opinion pieces use this example as a way of debunking the accuracy and validity of the BMI. Like this quote in an article in Punch:

A BMI of 20-25 is “normal, 25-30 is “overweight” and 30 plus is “obese”. to these classifications, when Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in The Terminator he was obese. Half the current AFL players are too.

Now, I have never seen any research that has actually calculated the BMI classifications of AFL athletes. But given their weight/height is available on the team websites, I thought I would test this one out with the team I barrack for, St Kilda. And here is what I found:

As you will see – not one player in the ‘Obese’ range. A few of them are in the ‘overweight range’ but only just.

Now the BMI is certainly really problematic when it is applied to individuals. But I just think that we should be more careful when we choose our examples of why this is.

So, I guess the moral of the story is don’t always believe what you read about obesity. Look at things with a critical lens, and particularly if you are journo, take the time to question information before you publish it. PLEASE!

If you want to debunk a few other myths here – or if you have a favourite, feel free to share!

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By Samantha Thomas, February 12, 2011

Trigger weight loss talk

I found this today.  A 1950′s Weight Loss ad.

The text reads:

UGLY FAT makes you OLD BEFORE YOUR TIME.

Excess fat means lonliness and embarrassment; makes you look older than your years; stops you wearing fashionable frocks. Start slimming NOW! Start slimming with BonKorets.

No stringent dieting! Slim safely with BONKORETS.

You can regain a youthful graceful figure quickly with BonKorets. Bust, waists and hips become attractive. You’ll look younger. Feel better in health. For a slender figure take:

BONKORETS Slimming Tablets

Not sure the message has changed that much? 

What do you think?

Comments (42)

By Samantha Thomas, February 5, 2011

Over the last few days we have seen an almighty twitter explosion of debate about fatness. The debate was stimulated by the return of Channel 10′s Biggest Loser, but I think it is a debate that has been a long time coming.

The debate, for the most part, has been deeply personal. That is because, for the vast majority of people, weight is a deeply personal issue. It has an emotive charge unlike many other health issues we have ever seen. There are many different reasons for that. Part of it is being part of a culture which values and respects thinness as an ideal – both medically and aesthetically.

All sorts of people have jumped into the fray. People sharing their “I was once a fatty”, “I am a fatty”, “I have never been a fatty” stories. Part of the problem when emotions and reputations (and at time finances) get wrapped up in these types of debates, is that often cold hard facts are thrown out of the window.  Gross generalisations based on an n=1 experience or what people might have read in the paper, become ‘gospel’.

That is not to say that these personal experiences are not valid. They are extremely important. So when people have written about being fat, ‘taking responsibility’ and losing a few kilo’s – that is a real experience. It is a valid one. And it is true. FOR THEM. It does not mean that is is applicable to the rest of the population. It does not mean that all of us should be rushing out to join up to whatever so called weight loss plan worked for them. Nor does it mean that it will be representative of what they will experience in the weeks, months and years to come. However, maybe it will.

Likewise, when people who are fat confront the ‘fat is unhealthy’ mantra with “I am morbidly obese but all of my health indicators are the best my doctor has ever seen in a patient” – that is also true. BUT it does not mean that those experiences will hold true for all other people who are morbidly obese. It does not mean that overweight wont impact on some peoples physical or mental health. And it does not mean that those experiences will remain true for the rest of their lives. However, maybe they will.

People find different pathways to help them with their own health and wellbeing. Don’t forget that health is a really complex issue. It comprises our mental wellbeing. Our physical wellbeing. And some would argue our spiritual wellbeing. Health is more than just a number on a scale, or a BMI. I have written about this numerous times before, but the factor that has the most impact on our health and wellbeing is actually social isolation. Health inequalities also play a massive role in health outcomes. But I guess loneliness isn’t really a great headline grabber. I can’t really see the same sort of headlines selling papers like they do for fatness. “A TSUNAMI OF LONELINESS” “Australia’s Nobody Will Be Friends With Me Epidemic” doesn’t really have the same ring to it.

With regard to weight, some people think that commercial diet plans are the best thing they can do for their health. Based on my interpretation of scientific evidence (including the many studies I have published about this) about the long term emotional and physical consequences of ‘diets’ I would argue that they are not particularly helpful. BUT – if people want to go and spend money on that and want to go down that pathway to somehow transform themselves, then knock your socks off. But please don’t belittle other peoples negative experiences of the weight loss industry as being their own fault. We know that it is generally the diet at fault not the person. So that sort of criticism just isn’t that helpful.

Other people have found other ways of thinking about their health and wellbeing. Health at Every Size is getting a bit of a run in popularity at the moment.  And while I think that HAES provides an excellent framework for exploring an alternative way of thinking about health and weight, I do not promote it because I don’t know enough about it to say that it is helpful for everyone. Further research by Prof Linda Bacon and her colleagues will surely provide us with more conclusive evidence over time about how helpful this model is for individuals of all shapes and sizes (or not), and how it might be improved.

There also seems to be an assumption that Fat Acceptance and HAES go hand in hand. In my opinion, they don’t. They are not the same thing.  People also seem to think that FA and HAES promote obesity, and argue that obesity has no impact on health. Personally I have never heard anyone in the FA movement say that severe obesity does not negatively impact health for some people (either emotionally or physically). But I do hear lots of talk in the FA movement about how damaging the constant effort to try and become a ‘normal’ weight (whatever that is) is. Part of this, I think, is because we have convinced people – I would argue through the weight loss industry, and through popular rhetoric about responsibility – that weight loss is easy and achievable for everyone.

That is not true.

Obesity is complex. It is caused by a complex range of social, biological, environmental and cultural factors.  We can present a million different statistics about whether rates of obesity have gone up, down, or sideways. Whether they have impacted on some groups more than others. Whether BMI is accurate, or whether weight circumference is a better indicator of health risk. Or whether both are completely useless. We can also present a million different statistics about the impact of obesity on health and social outcomes. We can jump up and down and scream about how much money fatties are costing the economy. We can debate till we are blue in the face about whether we should focus on prevention, promotion, management or cure. Whether surgery, the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen, the Biggest Loser, HAES, more parks, less transfats, less junkfood advertising, banning MacDonalds, more accessible fresh foods, making public transport free, soda tax, traffic light labelling, funding personal trainers, ramping up tough love social marketing campaigns, regulation etc etc etc will help with the obesity ‘epidemic’.

But here is what is certain. No one single intervention is going to suddenly cure the world of obesity. And anyone who claims that they have the ‘only’ or ‘the best’ solution – on either side of the debate – is quite frankly out to make money, or has rocks in their head.  Because you don’t solve complex issues with simplistic solutions.

And in the case of obesity, what on earth are we trying to ‘solve’ anyway? The number on the scale?

But here is one thing I think we need to start doing. We need to get some balance into the debate. We need to listen to experiences. We need to be able to share those experiences without feeling like people are going to jump down our throats or make fun of us (on either side of the fence – including those who sit in the middle). We need to acknowledge that there are alternative ways of thinking about things. Name calling and fighting – and spreading inaccurate information – is not going to create further understanding.

Thanks for listening.

PS: Last time I blogged, someone wrote to me saying that my horrible use of apostrophes and terrible spelling was letting down women, and our need to be taken seriously. Sorry about that. I’m not perfect .