Obesity Leveling Off

Center for Disease Control reported that we have hit a plateau in obesity rates since 1999. Well finally some good news about obesity!

http://www.nytimes.ocm/2007/11/29/health/29fat.html

Lets look closer at this trend.

"The national center for health statistics reported that more than one-third of U.S. adults -– over 72 million people -- were obese in 2005-2006. This includes 33.3 percent of men and 35.3 percent of women. The figures show no statistically significant change from 2003-2004, when 31.1 percent of men were obese and 33.2 percent of women were obese. "

So actually obese men increased slightly and so did Women....hmm...don't you love statistics? Well the news is that things are leveling off and that's great news. The no statistically significant change means that the slight increase is not determined statistically significant.

Well, I can say the awareness is at an all-time high and its almost obnoxious how obesity is blamed for everything.

I would hope that this trend is due to the increase in health dietary behaviors and exercise but there is also an increase in bariatric surgeries and other disorders that lower the BMI to potentially unhealthy rates...again don't you love statistics?

Even among a trend of plateau's of obesity it is important to promote healthy weight management while also promoting a healthy body image and a healthy relationship with food.

Corn

With the release of the movie , King Corn, it has me opened my eyes wider to what I already knew. If you try to avoid corn in the standard processed food diet, it is nearly impossible. Try it for one day and you'll see. Hence, another reason why there are major reasons to eat a Whole Foods Diet. Other weakpoints in our standard diet are trying to get enough fiber and trying to avoid simple sugars. If you haven't seen this its worth a look
http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/kingcorn/trailer/.

A weighty issue

Managing weight is obviously a very complicated issue. No one has completely figured out how to master the metabolism so that it is running at optimal efficiency. That said, the strategies employed in health care have run from obvious "caloric restriction", to fringe "HcG injections", to preemptive "bariatric surgery". Somewhere in this array of strategies lies a healthy and successful strategy.

One of the most obvious concerns is portion distortion. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) has sucessfully pointed out the differences in portion size in the last 20 years. Supersize doesn't only apply to fast food. It applies to coffee, salads, muffins, and well...my weakness....popcorn at the movies. I have summarized this distortion of portions as the NHLBI calls it in my handout that can be downloaded at:
http://www.drrinde.com/portiondistortion.pdf

Either our vision has changed or our stomache's have increased size because we are eating more then 2 times what is normal for a serving . Seriously, for a genetic dna change to occur in the last 20 years to promote this increased caloric consumption is unrealistic. So, it must be a result of behaviorial conditioning. Realistically if you are an adult in your 30's or greater, you are no longer growing vertically which was why when we were younger we were told to "clean our plates". The game has changed and the rules have changed. The mantra shoud be "take only what you need".

The strategies I employ are an interplay of dietary behavior (such as portion awarenes), food macronutrient profile (ie. protein vs. carbs), food pharmacalogic effect (ie. low glycemic, satiating, thermogenic foods, etc), exercise, and lifestyle (ie. stress managment, sleep)

I will be talking about this topic on the Naturopathic Perspective (SCAN TV 77) on December 4th, , 2007 at 6:30 p.m.