Welcome to "Let's Read a WHEE Book Together!" This week, we're continuing with David Kessler's The End of Overeating, chapter 1.
If you want to follow along but you can't get your hands on a copy of Kessler's book just yet, you can read the first six chapters on Google Books.
WHEE (Weight, Health, Eating and Exercise) is a community support diary for Kossacks who are currently or planning to start losing, gaining or maintaining their weight through diet and exercise or fitness. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are working on your weight or fitness, please -- join us! You can also click the WHEE tag to view all diary posts.
In last week's diary, I summarized the Introduction, where Kessler talks about the theme of the book: That certain foods "...seem to exert a magical pull..." that causes us to want to overeat. He then introduces four people, "Sarah," "Andrew," "Samantha," and "Claudia," who find certain foods irresistible.
But what are these "certain foods?" We get a subtle hint in the title of Part One of the book: Sugar, Fat, Salt.
Chapter One is subtitled: Something Changed . . . America Gains Weight.
For thousands of years human body weight stayed remarkably stable.
Kessler begins by stating that overweight and obesity have been the exception rather than the rule for most of human history. For millenia, people seem to have been able to match their calorie intake with their energy needs - provided they had enough, that is. For thousands of years, says Kessler, people did not overeat.
Then, in the 1980s, something changed.
Kessler introduces us to Katherine Flegal, a senior researcher with the Centers for Disease Control. Flegal found that during the 1980s, the number of overweight and obese Americans increased by 20 million. Flegal found her results hard to believe, but after checking and double-checking the numbers, published the results of the study in the July 1994 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
One reason Flegal found the results so hard to believe is that no one else seemed to have noticed that the number of overweight Americans had increased from one-quarter to one-third of the adult population. And it was not just the adult population whose weight was increasing - the evidence also showed that
...we were entering our adult years at a significantly higher weight, reflecting the gains that had taken place during childhood and adolescence.
Not only were many more of us joining the ranks of the overweight, but some of the overweight were becoming more overweight than ever before - that is, the heaviest people continued to gain weight. The range of obesity has been increasing.
But why? Kessler asks,
What had happened in such a short time to add so many millions of pounds to so many millions of people? ... What's been driving us to overeat?
Kessler notes that it's not the result of a fear of starvation (at least, not in America). Nor is it the result of a massive change in the demand for fattening food. We haven't consciously chosen to overeat. Instead, as Kessler pointed out in his discussion of the four examples in the Introduction, it's as if we feel powerless to resist the lure of food. Despite this,
Many, including doctors and health care professionals, still think that weight gainers merely lack willpower, or perhaps self-esteem. Few medical personnel...have recognized the distinctive pattern of overeating that has become widespread in the population.
...
No one has recognized what's really happening.
[end of chapter one]
Newsweek article:
Fat and Healthy: Why It's Possible
Katherine Flegal has not rested on her laurels since 1994. In fact, she's quoted in Newsweek this week:
One of the things that people found surprising was that according to our estimate, overweight [a BMI of 25 to 29.9] wasn't associated with any excess mortality overall and in fact with slightly reduced mortality.
The Newsweek article argues that our national obsession with losing weight is wrongheaded - that diets will almost certainly fail to deliver on their promises, but that it doesn't matter, because being merely overweight doesn't necessarily make us unhealthy, and anyway, obesity has plateaued - from 2003 to 2006, that is.
Personally, I think this argument is a load of low-fat dingo's kidneys. If you went on an ocean cruise and woke up in your stateroom in the middle of the night to find a mere six inches of water sloshing around on the floor, would you pull your feet up and go back to sleep if the water level seemed to have "plateaued"?
The last page of the Newsweek article talks about
[a] promising new approach—dubbed Healthy at Every Size (HAES) [which] shifts the emphasis from body weight to overall health...One group followed a standard diet in which participants limited their food intake and were taught how to count fat grams and calories...The HAES group learned how to disentangle their sense of self-worth from their weight, and to eat according to internal body cues...Nearly half of the traditional dieters dropped out early, while 92 percent of the HAES group completed the program. The HAES group maintained their body weight through 24 months. The diet group's average weight went down initially, but returned to prestudy levels.
At this point, some people might wonder if maybe, just maybe, it might be possible to combine the best of both approaches, teaching dieters how to lose weight, AND keep it off by learning how "...to eat according to internal body cues." But I guess that's just crazy talk.
WHEE diary schedule:
Aug 29
Sat AM - (yr humble servant)
Sat PM - 1864 House
Aug 30
Sun AM - louisev
Sun PM - jiffykeen
Aug 31
Mon AM - NC Dem ( 9 AM ET)
Mon PM - Fiddlegirl
September 1
Tues AM - Clio2
Tues PM - ???
September 2
Weds AM - Edward Spurlock
Weds PM - ???
September 3
Thur AM - ???
Thur PM - ???
September 4
Fri AM - ???
Fri PM - ???
September 5
Sat AM - Edward Spurlock
Sat PM - ???