Yale obesity center starts new blog

Received this press release in my email: Rudd Center Creates Blog for Discussion, Debate of Obesity Epidemic"

The Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale goes live today with a blog that encourages people to discuss topics ranging from how advertising determines what children eat to what pressures a bride-to-be is facing to squeeze into a size-four gown.

The center was founded last year in response to the obesity epidemic as well as to the prejudice faced by people who are obese. As a practitioner of "strategic science" designed to develop solutions to this major public health problem, the Rudd Center is a trusted source of information.

New posts will be added daily by a pool of internal authors and future invited perspectives from various professions. Many contributors from the Rudd Center are young adults and hope to move their generation toward greater awareness of the serious problem obesity poses.

The blog will feature opportunities to act personally and in the realm of public policy. Several Rudd Center faculty will participate, including Director Kelly Brownell, professor and chair in the Department of Psychology who was recently named as one of Time magazine's "The World's 100 Most Influential People" for championing of public policy changes to combat the obesity epidemic, and Marlene Schwartz, director of research and school programs at the center. Other bloggers will bring expertise in agriculture, relationships, the media and many other topics that influence eating and activity levels.

For those of you who have seen Morgan Spurlock's "Supersize Me" documentary, you may remember Brownell. People love him and hate him for his campaign against some restaurants and food producers, but no one can deny his passion for spreading his message (well, that and Jell-O wrestling)--and now he's taking it to everyone as a contributor to the Rudd Center's new blog. I think it's great that more faculty (and especially faculty as well-known as Brownell) are using this as a way to educate and reach out to people around the world.

More like this

What possibly is there to blog about regarding obesity?

Eat less, Fatboy! And, why you're at it, Exercise More!

HankB

By Hank Barnes (not verified) on 13 Jul 2006 #permalink

Did you even take a look at it? They have a number of different categories:

  • Food and Agriculture
  • Government and Legislation
  • Media and Advertising
  • Schools and Communities
  • Science and Medicine
  • Weight Bias
  • Of course not! Occam's Razor -- if you're fat, eat a few less cheeseburgers, a little more salads. Also, watch a few less t.v shows at night, and take a few more walks around the block. Adopting a doggy from the pound might help with the latter.

    Trust me -- this works!

    Hank Barnes

    p.s. What the F%@^ is "Weight Bias" anyhow?:)

    By Hank Barnes (not verified) on 13 Jul 2006 #permalink

    Obesity is only one of the many overt symptoms caused by chronic excessive caloric intake coupled with chronic inactivity that precipitates a poorly understood and global metabolic and endocrine shift that causes collective irreversible damage to multiple organs critical for good health. This shift becomes progressively difficult to reverse even by subsequent weight loss and increase in exercise. The younger it starts the harder to ever reverse it. The older it happens, the less severe the consequences since one is going to die or suffer from other consequences of aging instead. This global and adaptive metabolic shift is what is called Syndrome X or Metabolic Syndrome (MS). It is unclear if obesity defined by simple body mass index (BMI) and waist size is a cause or consequence of MS. We only know superficially the elements of MS and mostly about its easy to identify long term effects (type II diabetes, heart disease, circulatory diseases, liver and kidney diseases, blindness, gangrene, etc.). It can be compared to the metabolic adaptation or shift caused by chronic alcohol intake, the shift that takes place in which one can survive on alcohol as an energy source and have the illusion of well-being due to addiction to the by-product alkaloids or psychoactive agents resulting from its metabolism. MS seems to be accelerating faster with more dire consequences back on the Yellow River where there has been an abrupt shift from nutritional deprivation in the Cultural Revolution to access to relative caloric wealth, more animal products and convenience foods coupled with the inactivity that comes with convenience and wealth. MS, not just the focus on overt BMI (obesity), must be understood in all its aspects at the molecular, cellular and organism level order to design prevention and treatment. This epidemic just like the current atmospheric CO2 overload began with the industrial revolution some time ago. It will unlikely be reversed quickly by socio-ideological and political measures or individual willpower, given the difficulty in changing lifelong and cultural dietary habits and inactivity in the modern world, but by commitment to basic research and understanding of the disease. The Spurlock experiment was called off because of liver damage, not BMI or waist size. Mouth of the Yellow River

    By Mouth of the Y… (not verified) on 13 Jul 2006 #permalink

    Hank is very funny.

    I met someone who could not eat fewer cheeseburgers. It's difficult to eat fewer than zero. She was on a 500 calorie diet to maintain her weight (and actually gained weight on 700). There is quite a bit to talk about for people like this.

    I personally do not lose weight by exercise. When i ran cross country, the twin 15 mile daily practice runs must have consumed more than 4500 calories. My diet didn't change, and was certainly no higher than 2500. After 14 weeks, i gained weight. This wasn't a problem, but there is still plenty to talk about.