FOOD SNOBBERY IS BEHIND FOOD CORRECTNESS

"Professor Tom Sanders notes ... 'the best advice at present is to focus on achieving a balanced diet, rather than demonising or promoting certain foods.' Only an idiot would think that eating nothing but one kind of fast food for a month represented the best possible lifestyle. Spurlock was force-feeding himself, consuming as much as 5,000 calories a day - about double the usual daily requirements for a man - and doing absolutely no exercise. No wonder he felt unwell.

But even an unrelenting diet of McDonald's food is not necessarily bad for you. As Dr Ruth Kava of the American Council on Science and Health notes, such a diet may be low in one or two minerals and vitamins, and higher in saturated fat than is usually recommended. But actually, on most measures, such a diet would be entirely satisfactory. Try eating nothing but fruit for a month - the effect would be much worse.

Super Size Me might make good comedy, but it's feeble science. What is so disappointing is that Spurlock's film, which has more in common with gross-out self-abuse films like Jackass than serious documentary, has been given such a reverent hearing - because it keys into the overblown panic about obesity, and the contempt for big corporations. It also appeals to a certain snobbery about McDonald's, among those who prefer their body to be 'a temple', not look like one."

More here.



The "sprawl causes obesity" rag digs into your wallet

"The National Institute of Health and the Centers for Disease Control have announced they will give out $5 million in research grants for projects to examine "understanding the role of the built environment in causing/exacerbating obesity and related co-morbidities; and, second, developing, implementing, and evaluating prevention/intervention strategies that influence parameters of the built environment in order to reduce the prevalence of overweight, obesity and co-morbidities."

Your tax dollars at work, folks.

My favorite part is the discussion of how much more of a problem obesity is where crime makes people afraid to get out and walk. So we need to study how improving the "built environment" can help save these people from getting fat. This is like suggesting we study how many calories people burn dodging bullets and running for cover.

NEWS ALERT for NIH and CDC --you clowns. People who can't go out of their house because of crime have a crime problem, not a diet problem. How about we focus our resources on that first?

But no, instead we will get some nice studies about how really nice sidewalks and taxpayer funded gyms in central cities will sweat away the obesity health crisis."

Post reproduced from Out of Control