Health is an issue, a very important one. But this blog has done it’s job in teaching me that you can’t judge health by weight.

And it’s a personal choice. I know my body’s probably not built for dairy, I have lactose intolerance. But my family has a history of bad bones and osteopersosis, and on top of that I have another medical condition that puts me ever further at risk for it. So despite all the bad stuff I hear about dairy, I have made the personal choice that the benefits outweigh the risks. I would risk being gassy for being able to stand up straight when I’m an old woman, that’s just how I feel.

Some recent immigrants may eat a western diet and not be built for it – for some it’s probably unhealthy. Maybe they’ve gained more weight than they would on their diet back home, maybe their diet isn’t the best here for what their lifestyle is. But maybe others beceome bigger because they are actually getting MORE nutrition, they weren’t getting enough before, and their weight gain is not a bad thing. Maybe some people are having lactose intolerance, but isn’t scolliosis and osteoperosis going down in those same immigrant groups?

Even though we are getting bigger as a society, that statistic alone doesn’t tell us if we’re healthier or unhealthier. First off, certain things we will never know – you’ll never be able to change the way these people ate as a kid and find out “would they be healthier/not have this one health problem etc. if they did thus and so as a kid?” To me it would make sense that some are probably healthier than they otherwise would’ve been and others are unhealthier, but you could give yourself a headache going in circles debating that.

Scientists can debate and try to figure out how we got to the state we’re in health wise, but we may never know. In the meantime we still have to deal with our health, and there are good aspects and bad aspects. I say everyone has to make health decisions every day, they are very personal choices. I don’t see this blog as saying “the most important thing to fat acceptance is science proving fat isn’t unhealthy” – we all know that even if that was scientifically universally accepted that still doesn’t mean society would accept fat. I think the most important things I read in this blog are just empowering people when they have to make those choices to feel good about doing what they feel is right for them and not feeling bad about it and second guessing yourself all the time.

I also can’t be fussed to eat locally.

I agree. I really don’t think processed foods are evil. I know some people feel awful when they eat processed foods, but I’ve never noticed that in myself – and when I was eating an all-natural vegan diet that should have left me in radiant health, I developed all sorts of problems. (I don’t think it’s because I was doing it the wrong way, either. I had a plan designed by a nutritionist, and my mother, who was eating almost the exact same stuff as me, felt great. It depends so much on individual body chemistry.)

I know this isn’t necessarily the last word, and eating “not-healthily” is not exactly the same as eating lots of processed synthetic foods that are relatively new to us as food sources and that our bodies might not handle well, but color me skeptical that processed foods are the devil we seem to think they are all the same.

I think everyone should eat in a way that makes them feel great and helps them function, and personally I feel sort of logey and (ahem) constipated and depressed if I’m eating a lot of processed foods and not many fruits, vegetables, etc., so I do try to emphasize all of the stuff they tell you to emphasize like whole grains, lean protein, fruits, vegetables, etc. And it seems to help me feel better and less tired. But that doesn’t mean that eating healthily will necessarily keep you thin (as we all well know) or extend your life.

I’m gonna start buying local. As soon as I get my ass out of bed and around in time to get to the local farmer’s market… I made it all of once last year (because I really needed strawberries with stems to decorate a cake I was making, so I made an effort) so I hope to do better this year. Meanwhile Meijer (a Michigan-based grocer) has started sporadically posting signs to indicate items that are locally grown.

An interesting little eating locally note… the local public radio station’s environment reporter decided to try and eat locally as an experiment, and was going to the extent of trying to find herbs and even salt from local sources (I think to make the reporting more interesting). There are salt mines under Detroit, so he assumed the salt part would be easy. But it turned out he had to go to Canada to get Detroit salt. Of course this isn’t as big a deal as it sounds because I think he just went across to Windsor and found it fairly easily (and I suppose it’s the same salt regardless of what side of the river it came from). But on the face of it I thought this was sort of amusing, like “man leaves country in search of local food” or something.

Could climate change do that?

I also can’t be fussed to eat locally.

Bad, bad lefty!

Diet’s one of them, and probably the biggest. Food’s readily available for most Americans compared to 100 years ago. So is default activity level. I read somewhere once that 75 years ago, a sedentary lifestyle was defined as anyone who didn’t do at least three hours of physical labor today. Something as simple as doing the laundry was more intense than many workouts.

The human body is *good* at adapting to its environment. That’s what makes it awesome, but that’s also why a change can be genetically controlled but environmentally dependent.

Now, saying that something is genetically controlled is not to say that that’s a good reason to think that a lifestyle of 100 years ago should be emulated, even if it is possible. We’re not going to start all working the fields and occasionally experiencing famine just to stay a size six!! And that’s what’s wrong with the arguments that say ‘there were no fat people 100 years ago.’ A), there were, and B), that was 100 years ago.

But if I were dropped into 100 years ago, with my same genes, I’d probably be three inches shorter, plumper, with bad teeth. Same genes, different environment. If we dropped my great-grandmother into 2008, she’d be taller, heavier, and have better teeth.

Corn and soy only is one of the problems that the new food movements are on about changing. Large scale agribusiness gets the most yield per dollar input, but these monocrops are relatively new, and ecologically dangerous. Does no-one remember the Irish potato famine? Diversity is important, yet traditional varieties are being lost at a great rate. I don’t know what the native Americans and early European settlers would have eaten in any given state, but you can easily imagine them keeping vegetable gardens and a few chickens and a cow, or hunting deer.

It is currently a luxury way of eating and I wouldn’t force it on anyone, but it is part of a movement to make our food better and more sustainable. Good on those who can do it, keep up the good work and the pressure, and maybe it will get better for all of us.

And just one more little data point on causes of weight increase: a lot of modern foodstuffs have been bred to maximise size, shininess, ease of transport and so on, as well as blander taste. A lot actually contain fewer micronutrients than fifty years ago. If your body is deprived of a vitamin, it tends to crave food that contains it – and if now you have to eat six apples instead of one to get what you need, well, you get the picture… It is possible to be fat and malnourished at the same time.