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

I’m angry enough to bite nails over this advertising campaign created by Brandon Knowlden:

• brandon knowlden // art director

In his own words, the description of the campaign is here:

It is no secret that the American culture is known for overindulgence. This public service campaign dramatizes the effects of poor eating in a way we can all understand.

Public service campaign? Read the fine print on the ads and tell me if it’s a “public service” or not.

But it doesn’t have to end this way. Find out how bariatric surgery can help. The Northern Bariatric Surgery Institute. www.cutweight.org.

That little URL leads directly to the website for William S. Peters, M.D.

• William S. Peters M.D. – Bariatric Surgeon

That is NOT a “public service” announcement. It’s a barefaced advertisement for a surgeon using scare tactics.

I’m not here to argue whether obesity kills because even the medical community is split on that issue, but we KNOW that bariatric surgery kills 1 out of 200 patients.

• Gastric bypass mortality, a bariatric surgeon’s view

The most commonly cited mortality rate for bariatric surgical operations, across the United States, is 0.5%. That looks pretty good, till you do the math and realize that means about 1 out of 200 patients will experience a fatal result.

Don’t let them lie to you. Promoting the idea that it’s better to be dead than fat isn’t a public service.

Via: A Sizable Apple: Reaction: ‘Obesity is suicide’ campaign

Update 04-24-08: A special thank you to Juliana for pointing out that Dr. Peters left the following statement on his website:

It has been brought to my attention that there are posters circulating on the internet that are being associated with me. I would like it to be known that I am in no way associated with this marketing campaign and I have taken formal action to have my name and likeness removed from any such product, poster, internet site or publication.

Just for clarification, I have never been associated with this organization and am disgusted by their vulgar display of obesity. This is something I would never stand for and am appalled that anyone would even consider placing material of this nature out for public viewing.

Update 06-25-08: I received this email from the originator of these ads:

Laura,

My name is Brandon and I am the originator of the ads you have posted on your site at

These ads were created on a sample basis for a support group that Dr. Peters meets with. His position is and has always been that he sees the ads as disgusting. I am emailing you because the ads are damaging his business and they were proliferated throughout the internet by my own selfish motives without his knowledge.

I apologize for the level of insincerity the ads depict and would be grateful if you could remove the post. If not, please let me supply you with new images that do not connect Dr. Peters to the graphic nature of the content.

brandon

This postcard from PostSecret showed up a couple of weeks ago.

I love my body and think it’s perfect, but I pretend not to because that’s what normal girls do.

STOP IT!

If you say something enough times, you begin to believe it. Keep your perfect body and throw the false modesty out the window.

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 ad ran in 1975 and it says a lot about the economy of that time:

How to eat well in spite of it all.

Tonight’s dinner doesn’t have to look like today’s economy. Not with Kraft Dinners and a few touches of your own. Like adding some snipped parsley to Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner and serving it with sausage and tomato wedges. Just one of the ways Kraft Dinners can help you eat well in spite of it all.

Kraft Dinners make ends meet.

Back in 1975, Kraft didn’t try to tell me that their Macaroni and Cheese was a healthy part of my daily diet. They hadn’t thought to convince the USDA that I should eat five to eleven servings of grains every day and that their dinner was a healthy way to achieve that goal.

No, they were far less devious back then. They just said it was an inexpensive way to feed your family. If the political pundits are correct, we are heading into a recession worse than they saw in the Seventies. Will the healthy advertising change when it hits us hard?

When Mike and I were first married, we were pretty poor. We ate Mac and Cheese (generic, because it was 25 cents a package), Ramen (10 cents a package) and spaghetti. I don’t know about Mike, but that year I went from 140 pounds to 178 pounds. I gained almost forty pounds in a year eating inexpensive food.

If I had spent my money on the fresh vegetables and meat instead, I would have spent just as much on each meal AND maintained my weight (if not lost). I know it looks like fresh meat and vegetables cost more than Kraft and Ramen, but you need to eat far less to feel full.

If you are feeling the financial pinch, don’t fall into the Mac and Cheese trap. Those simple carbohydrates make you feel MORE hungry than the same amount of meat for your money.

Via: Found in Mom’s Basement: Vintage ad for Kraft mac & cheese resigns itself to 1975’s crappy economy

Mixed Messages from Supermarket Tabloids by Laura Moncur from Flickr

I was at the grocery store on Monday and this is what I saw at the checkout counter. Two different tabloids screeching two different messages at me:

Life & Style:

Refusing to eat: Why these stars look so scary skinny:
Katie Holmes: Katie’s weight loss could keep her from getting pregnant.
Nicole Richie: Is Nicole going too far with her diet?
Nicky Hilton: Nicky is in total denial.

OK Weekly:

Steal Brit’s New Diet
Britney lost 15 lbs in just 4 weeks!
No Pills, No Lipo

If you find yourself vacillating between dieting and feeling like it’s all hopeless, take a look around you. The entire world can’t make a decision between whether being thin is good or bad. It’s almost enough to make you want to give up, but remember this:

• This isn’t about approval
• This isn’t about the rest of the world
• This is about YOU and your health

Don’t let the rest of the world tell you that you’re too fat or too skinny. Make a decision on your own based on how you feel and how your body is reacting to your current weight.

Diversify. I suspect they teach it in marketing school or economics school or some school for weasel business owners. If you put your fingers into every facet of the weight loss industry, they you will make even more money. Squeeze every penny out of your loyal customers.

That is what was going through my head when I saw these boxes sitting at my local grocery store.

I’m sure Curves has helped a lot of women add exercise to their daily routine. I’m sure that they are a good company with many loyal followers. I’m not so sure that I trust them to make healthy food for me, especially when it’s a sugar-sweetened, super-processed cereal.

The FTC has filed suit against Medlab, Inc., Pinnacle Holdings, Inc., Metabolic Research Associates, Inc., U.S.A. Health, Inc., and L. Scott Holmes. They are charged with violating Sections 5 and 12 of the FTC Act by making false and unsubstantiated claims that their product causes users to lose substantial amounts of weight rapidly.

• FTC Sues Sellers of Weight-Loss Pills for False Advertising

Here are the names of the products that the FTC has sued:

• Zyladex Plus
• Questral AC
• Questral AC Fat Killer Plus
• Rapid Loss 245
• Rapid Loss Rx

Their advertisements were in newspapers (see advertisement to the right). They made the following promises:

• Lose as much as 15 to 18 pounds per week
• Lose 50 percent of all excess weight in just 14 days, without dieting or exercise
• Clinical studies prove those claims
• Their product causes permanent or long-term weight loss

As typical for weight loss ads, those claims weren’t true and the FTC is working on shutting them down.

Just because the FTC has sniffed out these folks doesn’t mean you are safe. If any ad promises that you’ll lose weight quickly without exercise or diet modification, then they are suspect. Don’t spend your money on them.

The very wonderful Found in Mom’s Basement uncovered these advertisements for AYDS weight loss plan:

• Found in Mom’s Basement: Vintage ads for the unfortunately-named Ayds weight reducing candy, 1975

The most heartbreaking thing is how pretty Shirley is in her before photo. She was beautiful before and losing weight didn’t change that.

I remember the commercials on television for AYDS. My mom even tried them. They were little chocolate candies that you were supposed to eat before you ate your meal. They were supposed to curb your appetite. I snuck some from my mom’s box and thought they tasted delicious. My mom never lost weight with them, however.

She is svelte and thin now and has been for almost twenty years. How did she do it? She eats less and exercises regularly. No fad diets and no chocolate-flavored appetite suppressant candies.

Companies have been trying to profit off our desire to be thin for over a century now. The diet pills and potions are just as useless now as they were back then. Don’t give them your money.

Schools have been banning candy sales and even expelling students who buy candy from others. Treatment Online thinks that policy tactic is rather short-sighted.

• Treatment Online: Educate to Avoid Candy Bans’ Unintended Consequences

As the US learned during its experiment with prohibition, outright bans on products often times have unintended, negative consequences. Making candy unwelcome on school property does nothing to actually reduce children’s candy intake as it doesn’t address the actual demand for candy. Any student who wants candy will now turn to the black market, or will wait till they get home, or will leave school property, or will just smuggle candy into class on his own. None of these are the desired outcome, but they are the likely outcomes, even as schools go so far as to suspend candy buyers and sellers.

Instead of wasting energy on policing, schools need to focus more of their attention on addressing the issues that leads to unhealthy eating. Health and nutrition classes need to stress the importance of food choice and the biological mechanisms that benefit and lose out when individuals make certain choices. Cafeterias need to offer high-quality, tasty options to keep students’ energy levels high. For their part, teachers and administrators, with the help and support of parents, need to let students know that rules against candy aren’t about creating an adversarial relationship, but about encouraging certain behaviors and discouraging others.

Even those measures might not help, but expelling students from school just because they have candy on their person is idiotic.

The stereotype for someone with an eating disorder is a young teen female, but it appears that women aged 30-50 are also at risk.

• Clinicians Observe Rise in Eating Disorders Among Middle-aged Women

The groups are not as different as you might suspect:

Dr. Pryor tracked patients at the Eating Disorder Center of Denver (EDC-D) over the course of two years, comparing the information of 78 younger women with that of 63 women in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. While she initially believed that the specific issues facing these women would vary depending on their age, she found that these women had similar temperaments and triggers, regardless of age. Both age groups scored similarly on tests of character, with low self-esteem and high anxiety predominating. Additionally, young and middle-aged women were affected by many of the same triggers for disordered eating, including dieting, experiencing abuse, and grieving.

Part of me thinks like that older women aren’t just developing these eating disorders. We had them all along and never got treatment when we were teens. The other part of me sees that disordered eating is becoming all more common and is now spreading to all age ranges.

Something about Paul McKenna smacks of charlatan to me. I don’t know what it is, but he doesn’t seem like someone I want to trust. He has a new show on TLC and here are some highlights from the first episode.

The thing that bothers me is how much this show feels like an infomercial. The clapping at the “appropriate” times and the weighing of the studio audience really feel like parlor tricks to me. The before and after pictures and the pants from a previous life are all the same things I’ve seen before.

I have no disagreement with what he is saying. He recommends the same things as I have been saying:

1. When you are hungry, EAT.
2. Eat what you want, not what you think you should.
3. Eat CONSCIOUSLY and enjoy every mouthful.
4. When you think you are full, STOP eating.

He uses the SAME hunger scale that Weight Watchers uses. I don’t know where this scale originated, but it isn’t anything revolutionary.

Because he is recommending the same views about food that I have, I really WANT to like this guy, but something about him sets off my B.S. Detector. I can’t put my finger on it, but I don’t want to believe in anything he says, even when he’s preaching common sense.

Via: TLC’s “I Can Make You Thin” with Paul McKenna Video | TV Crunch