Comments on: The Gospel of Food http://kateharding.net/2007/06/05/the-gospel-of-food/ 2007-2010 Thu, 15 Jul 2010 02:13:02 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: kateharding http://kateharding.net/2007/06/05/the-gospel-of-food/#comment-1927 Thu, 07 Jun 2007 12:40:16 +0000 http://kateharding.net/2007/06/05/the-gospel-of-food/#comment-1927 Thanks for bowing out respectfully, Tim.

And Rethinking Thin has a lot to say about research coming out of the Harvard School of Public Health. It’s interesting.

]]> By: Tim http://kateharding.net/2007/06/05/the-gospel-of-food/#comment-1925 Thu, 07 Jun 2007 08:56:31 +0000 http://kateharding.net/2007/06/05/the-gospel-of-food/#comment-1925 hmm, no I was wondering what it was about. fair enough then…

Interesting article, but it’s odd that they control for cardiorespiratory fitness, which I’m not sure is a confounding variable as it’s part of the causal pathway. It’s also dealing with a specific population, those with heart failure. I haven’t had time to review the paper properly yet though.

Here’s an article rebutting some of the previous work on an obesity paradox: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/now/jun24/cdc.html

They also point out that the health risks are more than just mortality.

But with that I won’t disturb you further. Cheers

]]> By: kateharding http://kateharding.net/2007/06/05/the-gospel-of-food/#comment-1921 Thu, 07 Jun 2007 01:23:26 +0000 http://kateharding.net/2007/06/05/the-gospel-of-food/#comment-1921 Tim, you do realize this is a fat acceptance blog, right?

As for cardiovascular disease and overweight, you might want to check out this article from the American Heart Journal, or this one that references it from Junkfood Science, or Paul Campos’s The Obesity Myth, which I recommend here about once a day, or Gina Kolata’s Rethinking Thin, which is brand new and says many of the same things.

The “obesity paradox” is a pretty well known phenomenon, and there is a growing body of evidence that the people at risk because of their weight are the extremely overweight and the underweight. The health risks for everyone in the middle of the bell curve are highly, highly debatable.

]]> By: Tim http://kateharding.net/2007/06/05/the-gospel-of-food/#comment-1920 Thu, 07 Jun 2007 01:12:01 +0000 http://kateharding.net/2007/06/05/the-gospel-of-food/#comment-1920 Absolutely right, he shouldn’t argue that obesity isn’t a health risk. The evidence is clearly there – though I guess this approach will sell him a few books.

Cardiovascular disease (and others) is strongly associated with overweight, including when controlled for socio-economic status – lower SEC groups get a double whammy of tending to be less healthy and also having less cash to do anything about it. It’s crap. This does not get the rest of us off the hook.

I’m afraid I’ve only read reviews of his book, but it’s a mixture of sensible advice – only be afraid of stuff that’s actually a threat – and than some really barking stuff, like the obesity/mortality/SEC thread.

]]> By: Meowzer http://kateharding.net/2007/06/05/the-gospel-of-food/#comment-1891 Tue, 05 Jun 2007 16:47:14 +0000 http://kateharding.net/2007/06/05/the-gospel-of-food/#comment-1891 I enjoyed this book very much. I was a bit disappointed when I read an interview with Glassner in the LA Times following the book’s publication in which he said, “I’m not among those who argue that obesity is not a health danger.” Link: http://www.greatertalent.com/GTNnews.php?articleId=194

He has, however, thoroughly poo-poohed dieting as any kind of “solution,” and has stated that multiple attempts at weight loss tend to make people fatter. Link: http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-oe-glassner2jan02,1,7743860.story?coll=la-headlines-health&ctrack=1&cset=true

I suppose that when it comes to the MSM we have to take what we can get…le sigh.

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