Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

While I was watching yesterday’s Michael Pollan video, he mentioned a new eating disorder, Orthorexia. It was a term created by Steven Bratman, author of the book Health Food Junkies: Orthorexia Nervosa. Here is more information on it:

• Orthorexia nervosa – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Steven Bratman coined the term in 1997 from the Greek orthos, “correct or right”, and orexis for “appetite”. Literally “correct appetite”, the word is modeled on anorexia, “without appetite”, as used in definition of the condition anorexia nervosa. Bratman describes orthorexia as an unhealthy obsession (as in obsessive-compulsive disorder) with what the sufferer considers to be healthy eating. The subject may avoid certain foods, such as those containing fats, preservatives, or animal products, and suffer malnutrition. Bratman asserts that “emaciation is common among followers of health food diets.”

Michael Pollan described the perfect way of looking at unhealthy food when you are faced with it. Throughout history, cultures have had “banquet food,” which is food that is served only for special occasions. He said that it’s alright to eat banquet food as long as we don’t celebrate every day. Our food culture now has made all of our special occasion food available EVERY day. Eat healthy every day and save the banquet food for the banquets.

Ghrelin is a hormone that makes you more hungry, more focused on food and willing to eat more. This article from CBS mentions it:

• The Hunger Hormone, Controlling Ghrelin May Be Key To Curing Obesity – CBS News

We observed one illustration of ghrelin’s power. A mouse was injected with the hormone. Just 15 minutes later, he was absolutely wild for food, even though he’d already eaten enough to be full.

This article from New Scientist explains it:

• Stomach hormone turns hungry people into junkies – health – 06 May 2008 – New Scientist

The hormone also made food more memorable. Volunteers better recalled the food pictures after they got the hormone, and an area of the brain involved in memory lit up when subjects viewed images of food.

Several pharmaceutical companies already have their sights set on ghrelin, as drugs that block the hormone may quell hunger and fight obesity.

I’m not so sure the pharmaceutical companies are setting their sites on ghrelin just to help us. What if they were double-dealing? What if drug companies sell us pills to block the hormone and at the same time, sell the hormone to fast food companies? The minute you take a bite of your hamburger, your appetite for food increases until you cannot stop eating.

That is the premise set up by io9, a science-fiction blog:

• Hormone Tampering: Fast Food Joints Add Hormone to Food That Makes You Want to Eat More

Since ghrelin isn’t regulated, a fast food restaurant that wanted to sell more food could easily turn it into an additive in their hamburgers or donuts, essentially “addicting” people to their food. Or making them hungrier so that they buy more.

My paranoid mind convinces me that something like this could already be happening. When I eat whole foods from the grocery store, my appetite is satiated far quicker than when I eat processed food. What is it about processed food that makes me want to eat more? Is it more digestible? Has it been specially formulated to taste good?

It’s not like grocery food would be safe either. Fresh meat, cheeses and vegetables could be infused with ghrelin, causing that insatiable hunger as well. In the future, we might have to go back to raising and killing our own food if we want to be healthy.

This postcard from PostSecret showed up in last Sunday’s list:

It reads:

I suspect that my chronic health problems are related to the fact that I make myself throw up multiple times a day.

To me, the first thing I think is, “Don’t do that! Just stop it.” When I am tempted to binge, however, the advice, “Don’t binge! Quit eating so much you hurt yourself,” doesn’t really help me. In fact, it makes me want to do it even more. Talking to a doctor never really helped me either. Their advice wasn’t much better than, “Don’t do that.” Oh yeah, and the ever-present, “Eat more fiber.”

I suspect that we’ll eventually find that all eating disorders are triggered by physiological responses in the body rather than psychological responses in the mind. In the future, there will be a diet to stop bingeing, a diet to stop starving yourself to death and a diet to stop causing yourself to vomit. Until the doctors figure it out, find out what YOUR healthiest diet is for your body. I KNOW there is some way out there to prevent you from feeling to constant urge to vomit. Find it.

PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.

If you watch television late at night or if you scan the advertisements in any fashion magazine, there are plenty of pills and gadgets that promise you better health. This is not a new phenomenon. Here is an advertisement from 1883 for an electric corset:

You can click on the photo to see the full ad, which reads:

Dr. Scott’s Electric Corset

Owing to the unprecedented success attending the sale and use of our $3 Electric Corset, and the constant demand for Electric Corsets of less price, but of the same therapeutic value, we have decided to place upon the market A HANDSOME LINE OF ELECTRIC CORSETS, ranging in price from $1 to $3, thus bringing them within the reach of all who desire them.

Thanks, so now you can bilk people in all the financial strata.

Their therapeutic value is unquestioned, and they quickly cure in a marvelous manner, Nervous Debility, Spinal Complaints, Rheumatism, Paralysis, Numbness, Dyspepsia, Liver and Kidney troubles, Impaired Circulation, Constipation, and all other diseases peculiar to women, particularly those of sedentary habits. They also become, when constantly worn, equalizing agents in all cases of extreme fatness or leanness, by imparting to the system the required amount of “odic force” which Nature’s law demands.

So they can make me thinner AND fatter. And all those problems CAUSED by corsets, like “spinal complaints, liver and kidney troubles, impaired circulation, constipation, and all other diseases peculiar to women” will be CURED by an electric corset? Sounds like poppycock to me!

It’s really easy to disregard this electric corset, but even now, the same item is being sold. It’s called Slendertone:

Just like the electric corset, they have a Slendertone for every budget:

SLENDERTONE products for every fitness level, body toning need and budget.

They make very similar claims, although they don’t profess to cure paralysis:

Get firmer, stronger abs with FLEX Abdominal Toning Belt. In just a few weeks, you’ll feel more fit and confident as you firm, tone and strengthen your ab muscles. Even if you’re too tired or too busy for a traditional workout, just slip on our toning belt and you’ll get an effective workout that stimulates all the muscles in your abdomen.

According to Chris Woolston at the L.A. Times, however, the Slendertone doesn’t do much more than zap your body, despite the FDA approval:

• Slim results for ‘electric exercise’? – Los Angeles Times

Claims of “1,500 sit-ups an hour” or “rippling muscles” from EMS are ludicrous, and no EMS device could dramatically flatten a stomach or speed weight loss, he says. A person needs to burn calories to lose weight, and it’s not possible to burn significant calories through contractions alone. “You’d have to do thousands of actual sit-ups to lose any weight,” adds Wayne Miller, an exercise physiologist at George Washington University. “Anyone who can do that many sit-ups probably doesn’t need to.”

It’s easy to make fun of the fantastic claims made by an electric corset back in 1883, but don’t let yourself be fooled by similar claims made today.

Via: Retro Futurism: Zap Yourself Healthy With The Electric Corset, 1883

ABC News has a video on their site about LipoDissolve:

ABC News: Lipodissolve: Too Good to Be True?

Here are some of the quotes from the video:

Annette Clark didn’t blink at the steep 2400 dollar bill for a series of multiple injections. “They gave me about six injections across my abdomen and by the time I got home, I looked like I was eight months pregnant.” The swelling was one of the MILDER side effects. “My whole body, just covered in hives, itching bad. I became very hot… I wake up in an ambulance.”

Gigi Hinton had a nearly perfect body simply hoped to trim her thighs and knees. After a second round of nearly twenty injections, her treatments turned nightmarish. “It really seemed like something started to eat away at the skin beneath.”

Next time you see one of those billboards that promise you that you’re fat will melt away with no effort, remember what Gigi’s leg looked like and steer clear of them.

I’ve talked about LipoDissolve before here:

• Starling Fitness » LipoDissolve Banned in Kansas

• Starling Fitness » LipoDissolve Billboard

Watch this video from Equinox Fitness:

Download this video for your iPod

This was an advertisement posted on Equinox’s website here:

• Equinox | What’s Your After?

Their whole theme is “Happily Ever After: What’s Your After?” Apparently, their “After” is:

I want women of questionable sexuality to hire me to be a coffee table at their Marie Antoinette party.

Is that really the “After” they’re trying to promote?

More problematic are their print advertising. I consider this a shameful display (click to see full size):

Perfect women with plastic surgeons’ marks all over their body. THIS is a happily ever after?! Never mind the controversy with the nuns and the naked art model, it is advertising like the one above that causes PostSecrets like this:

If you notice, whomever sent in this postcard to PostSecret, cut it out of the Equinox Fitness ad. Remember, gyms, fitness centers, personal trainers and weight loss medications PROFIT when you don’t like your body. Don’t let them make you feel unworthy and take your money for the privilege of it.

Via: Sexy Gym Ads: Clever or Sleazy?

PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.

This postcard from PostSecret showed up last week.

I am continually fascinated at how judgmental mothers are. From potty training to discipline to eating, it seems that mothers are eager to judge each other with ferocity. Since I’ve never had children, I don’t find myself judging other women in this manner, so I can watch it from the outside.

If a child is fat, are the parents to blame?

That’s an interesting question. If a child is tall, are the parents to blame? I wonder why we are so willing to blame the parents with one direction of growth and not the other.

PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.

Weight loss drugs have been shown to have link to depression and suicide.

• Anti-Addiction, Obesity Drugs Tied to Depression and Suicide

The diet drug rimonabant (Acomplia) perfectly illustrates this discouraging trend. It truly seemed to be a miracle drug in early trials, effectively combating patients’ dependence on tobacco, decreasing appetites and promoting weight loss in obese individuals, and even counteracting addictions to alcohol and cocaine. Originally marketed primarily as a weight-loss drug and only tepidly endorsed as such by the FDA in 2006, it was denied approval as a smoking cessation aide. It was never actually formally approved for either purpose, and in the face of this new data the likelihood of its availability to the American public looks slim at best.

By suppressing the same cannabinoid receptors that create the highs and hunger pangs associated with marijuana use, the drug may effectively shut down the pleasure mechanisms in certain individuals’ brains, and this reaction triggers an adverse response amounting to deep depression and, in extreme cases, suicidal thoughts.

Next time you’re tempted to spend your good money on weight loss drugs, remember that there is a lot more at risk than just losing money. You can lose weight on your own without the use of questionable medication.

It appears that eating contests have reached such popularity that they are actually making a video game emulating them:

• Major League Eating: The Game

In this video game, you use your Wii controller to pretend to overeat more than your competitor. You can pretend to be one of the “famous” overeaters like Sonya Thomas or Patrick Bertoletti.

Here is a video trailer for the game:

Download this video for your iPod

Really? Do we really need a video game for bingeing? I’m shocked that it’s considered a sport. I have no idea why it is shown on ESPN, but now it also has a video game?! Can anyone explain this to me?

Via: Major League Eating Vomits Screenshots

I love this article from McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

• McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Cookie Monster Searches Deep Within Himself and Asks: Is Me Really Monster?

Cookie Monster wants to know why he is called a monster, whereas the other monsters on Sesame Street have names like Elmo and Telly. Is he actually a monster? This paragraph is so familiar to me that it reminds me of how I have been a monster.

When me get back to apartment, after cookie binge, me can’t stand looking in mirror—fur matted with chocolate-chip smears and infested with crumbs. Me try but me never able to wash all of them out. Me don’t think me is monster. Me just furry blue person who love cookies too much. Me no ask for it. Me just born that way.

It has been months since I’ve had a binge and I’m beginning to feel that it was physiological, not psychological. It was in my body, not my head. I haven’t changed my mind at all, but I have been free from that constant desire to binge for two months now.

How did I do it?

I quit cold turkey. I stopped eating carbs, sugars, artificial sweeteners and anything with caffeine. Just protein and green veggies for me and I have been free from that desire to binge for two months. It is such a blessing that I can’t express how liberating it feels.

Cookie Monster, you’re not a monster. The cookies are.

Via: Mind Hacks: Is me really a monster?