When rich and poor kids eat the same diet, poor ones get fatter

[Jakov]

According to this article poor kids get fatter when they enjoy the same diet.

Experts say the deeper roots of the obesity problem lie at the crossroads between social status and biology. Generally speaking, even if rich kids and poor kids eat exactly the same diet -- from Big Macs and fries to tofu and granola -- the poor kids get fatter.

What do we need to do to ensure that all children have an equal opportunity to grow up healthy???

[wyldwolf]

1. Equal access to health clubs?

:shrug:

[Jakov]

6. It doesnt seem to be related to exercise

From the Article:

After the reunification of Germany in 1990, the body mass indexes of East German children and young adults rose sharply compared with those in West Germany. German public health officials say class inequalities rose after reunification, leading to poverty and unemployment, which had powerful health effects.

It really doesnt seem to be related to exercise, but tied in with social status.

[CWebster]

2. Somewhere to play?

[Lars39]

3. Stress, depression have a profound impact on health.

<snip>
Dr. Raphael says the shift to more conservative governments around the
world is a big factor.

"If you're serious about population health, and if you're serious about
heart disease and diabetes, then you don't want to create the kind of
policy environments we've been creating in Ontario and in Canada," he says.

"You don't want to increase housing insecurity, you don't want to increase
income insecurity, you don't want to increase food insecurity, and you
don't want to go out of your way to make life difficult for people."

[Dogmudgeon]

4. Stress plus Cortisol equals Obesity

There is a ton of evidence (no pun intended) accumulating to link environmental stress with obesity, which may be why obesity in the USA is increasing at a much more rapid rate than changes in diet would indicate.

Similar mass changes in public health are stacking up regarding allergies. There's just no explaining why so many people of all ages are developing allergies so quickly.

All right, there is, but I don't believe in chemtrails, HAARP or genetic tampering by the Zeta Reticuliians.

You body makes much more Cortisol when it's under stress. Cortisol is the anabolic steroid. It's an evolutionary adaptation to allow an organism to overcome an injury in the short term, but long-term cortisol exposure is also strongly associated with, you got it, weight gain, allergies, depression, lack of impulse control, suicide and a boatload of other illnesses.

Our lifestyles, it seems, are killing us.

--bkl
Fat, allergy-ridden, stressed and depressed.

[TLM]

11. THis is an often overlooked point... stress makes you fat.

Remember our bodies are machines, that work to keep us alive, not skinny. Fat is stored energy.

If you are stressed out and broke or poor etc., your body is aware that that your supply of food may be interrupted.

I bet that the neuro chemicals associated with stress, encourage the body to store fat. Stressful times, biologically, mean less food and more hardship. It would only seem logical that the body would develop an evolutionary reaction to store fat for future needs in times of stress.


Although we should not also dismiss the fact that poor kids in bad neighborhoods don’t exactly have the same access to parks and play areas to get good exercise. That’s also likely a problem.

[Lars39]

13. P.E. and recess have also gone the way of the dodo

for a lot of kids. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of who still has recess/PE at school and who doesn't.

[Dogmudgeon]

21. I'm not sure it's all about activity -PLUS- a Rant!

I don't deny that reductions in activity have a lot to do with the problem, but I don't agree that it's as important as we think it is.

I've struggled with my weight since I was about 7, and have been clinically obese since I was 30; I'm 45, and have only lost weight over the last year, because the stress on me became overwhelming.

First, the primary stress on me is chronic pain from several ear and throat operations. I take opiates/opioids for it, but the pain is always there, and I won't go above a certain dose, since I prefer pain to numbness.

Recent family problems (people dying and nearly dying), being evicted from a slum apartment, losing an excellent job to outsourcing, losing five programming contracts after that to outsourcing, and losing my health insurance have added a certain amount of stress, too.

Needless to say, my life is a mess, but I was able to lose 50 pounds and reduce some of the damage by eating low-carb over the last 6 months. My cortisol, eosinophiles, cholesterol, and lipid panel all look like hell. My triglycerides were 800 when I started low-carb. They are down to about 300 now, but that's still too high. Low-carb has helped, but I look back at the previous decade-and-a-half, when I was doing everything "right", even "going vedge" for most of that time.

In spite of all of that, I gained weight from an average of 2000 kCal per day over the period of 1986 to 2002, going from 150 to 285. (Yes, I've kept food journals, and I seldom pig out.) My basal metabolism indicates that I've needed an average of 2500 to 3800 kCal per day over that period. I have also exercised faithfully since 1983. That means more than an hour a week; currently, it's between five and eight hours per week.

Add to it that fact that the last time I was tested for allergies, I was highly allergic to all airborne allergens except dog dander. I was dangerously reactive to cat dander, tobacco and dustmite residue.

Can you imagine how that reduces the available "pool" of women for me to date?

No, it's not just food. My life has been pretty sucky for several years and it's showing in my blood, in my bank account, and around my waist.

What can I do? I'll continue to try as best as I can to make things go better. As I've said, I've had some success lately. I remain optimistic, I grit my teeth and whistle a happy tune when I have to, and I keep as philosophical an attitude as I can. I know I'm far better off than most people in this world, and even a lot of people who may be reading this rant/expository.

Oh, yes, I also read DU. Keeps me fightin' mad. :-)

Sure, I worry about myself, but I also worry that our world is quickly becoming a high-tech chamber of horrors. And it's not pornography, atheism, Ecstasy, or the Internet that's to blame. So of course it's going to affect peoples' physiologies.

Thanks for allowing me to rant.

--bkl
Anybody got Rush's pharmacist's phone number?

[Lars39]

23. Happy to let you rant; you deserve it!!!

I hope things start going better for you. :hi:

[NicoleM]

5. exercise?

I didn't see much mention of exercise in that article. Rich kids get shuttled around to soccer and karate and ballet. Poor kids sit at home and watch TV.

Also, everybody needs to quit feeding their kids crap. I grew up in a barely-getting-by, single parent household. We ate whole-wheat bread. We were not allowed to eat sugary cereal. We never had soda or chips in the house (I'd guess it was at least in part because what little money we had we needed to spend on "real" food). My mother cooked dinner from scratch every night instead of feeding us pre-processed junk or fast food. It can be done on a limited budget and with limited time.

[Snow]

7. That's a really interesting article....I wonder

how far the poverty would go towards explaining type II diabetes amongst American Indians? Conventional wisdom has it that it's all a result of genetics and crappy junk-food diet, but now I wonder. Anyone wann collaborate on a study? Seriously? PM me if you're a researcher with access to resources - or even if you just have access to resources of the data type.

[donco6]

8. Culture of poverty

Those who grow up in poverty are asked:

Honey, did you get enough to eat? Are you full? Let me make you something . . .

Those who grow up in wealth are asked:

So, how did it taste? Was the table set nicely? Weren't those dessert cups just FABulous?

In poverty, you reduce things down to survival level - "did you get enough" is an appropriate question for kids who often don't get enough. In wealth, there's ALWAYS "enough" - that isn't the issue. Was the meal fitting?

I think this has a lot to do with it.

[ma4t]

14. Geneological causes

donco6 stated:

"Those who grow up in poverty are asked:

Honey, did you get enough to eat? Are you full? Let me make you something . . . "



Heck, anyone around my grandmother for 5 minutes was asked that.

[jobycom]

9. They blame the shift to conservative governments. Cool.

Did ya'll read the whole thing? Basically, it says being poor creates more stress, as do conservative governments.

"Dr. Raphael says the shift to more conservative governments around the
world is a big factor.

"If you're serious about population health, and if you're serious about
heart disease and diabetes, then you don't want to create the kind of
policy environments we've been creating in Ontario and in Canada," he says.

"You don't want to increase housing insecurity, you don't want to increase
income insecurity, you don't want to increase food insecurity, and you
don't want to go out of your way to make life difficult for people."

end quote:

The part about East Germany getting fatter AFTER the wall came down is interesting, too. It implies that it is NOT poverty, but increased social inequity, that causes the increased stress..

And notice that NOT JUST ANY stress has this affect. Kids who are raised with strict even abusive parents aren't fatter, according to the study. The stress is more related to social conditions.

I'm not sure how much to believe this, or if it is even a hoax. It makes the claim about diet not mattering, but never cites a study to back that up. It contradicts itself on the stress issue. And it is rather vague on some points.

But if it's a hoax, it's on our side, for a change. And if it's true, someone send a copy to CNN and Rush Limbaugh. They won't like it much.

[hippiechick]

10. 'store it for later' theory

... the body stores fat, rather than metabolizing it, for later use in cases when it doesn't 'know' when it will get more.

That would tend to make poorer childrens bodies more likely to conserve rather than burn - ie, a camel's hump - because their 'furnaces' have become accustomed to long spells without anything/enough to eat, so they re-program themselves to 'save some for later'.

Make any sense ?


:hippie:

[Bitchgoddes]

12. Part of the problem is

that food with carbs are cheaper for the poor to buy. Bust depression is a big part of it and healthcare

[wickerwoman]

15. I remember reading a study

suggesting that communal eating tends to discourage weight gain as well (something about traditional Italian families eating piles of pasta in the context of a family gathering gain less weight than the same number of individuals eating the same amount of pasta alone.)
I wouldn't go the Repub route and say it's all due to the disintegration of the family among the poor, but I do think poor kids are more stressed, more depressed and lonelier than their suburban equivalents and it makes sense to me that you would gain more weight eating that Snickers bar alone watching TV after school than you would eating the same one coming home from school with Mom or Dad.

[Lars39]

16. If you are eating with a lively group of people that are holding

conversations while they eat, you are probably not eating as much. Doesn't it take 20 minutes for your body to register as "fulL"? Conversation would *eat* into that time.

[wickerwoman]

17. That was my first thought,

but I think they accounted for it somewhere. The same exact quantity of food was consumed (even if it was over a longer period of time due to conversation.)

[haymaker]

18. You are a Jakov, aren't you?

Who do you think you are foolin', mensa?

Pitch a tent.

[Jakov]

19. Are you making fun of my name?

Jakov is my given name, it is Croatian and is pronounced like Yak-Cough.

[Stupdworld]

20. keep the rich kids from exercising by buying them more video games

/i got nothin

[Kamika]

22. if its true i think i know why

Its because the culture of a rich family "often" is that the family goes camping, or playing soccer or football or something, while the poor kids sits home watching tv, playing video games etc.

Also if you have money you can afford playing sports after school, poor kids doesnt have the money to do this