YOUR HEALTH and MEDIA

Obesity’s new Big News twist

Obesity became headline news in Canada again on November 21, 2014 when Canada’s “Nation Newspaper”, the Globe and Mail, gave the topic centre stage on a section cover and half-page inside.

What is noteworthy is the following:

1. The coverage was in the BUSINESS section (B1 and B12) and not the expected LIFE or Science and Medicine areas.

2. Consequently the focus was on MONEY and the costs of the pandemic:   US$2 trillion dollars in medical and related treatment costs which amount to 2.8% of global GDP.

3. A chart of major social problems lists world-wide obesity ‘costs’ in 2012 at US$2 trillion and 2.8% of global GDP, i.e., ONLY  third after smoking (US$2.1 trillion; 2.9% GDP) and war/terrorism/violence (US$2.1 trillion; 2.8% GDP).  Alcoholism is listed at #4 at US$1.4 trillion and 2.0% GDP and illiteracy next at US$1.3 trillion and 1.7 % of GDP.  Climate change and Air pollution – if combined – would be US$1.9 trillion and 3.0 % of GDP in 2008.

4. A world map which clusters countries by their 2008 percentage of obese people and also the per capita GPD per country.

 

Consequently, the G&M reporter sees obesity as a major drain on world finances in developed, developing and under-developed lands and bemoans its economic impact.

 

The data, however, especially the cluster map, suggest that the obesity ‘mania’ is on poor grounds and delusional! 

Firstly, as the chart mentioned in #3 above states, the list of “global social burden” is “SELECTED” and distorts the overall reality because it has chosen to pick and choose which issues to highlight.

So, the number one killer on the planet -- malnutrition is missing  from the list of “selected global social burdens” chart, as are malaria and other killer and debilitating world ravaging diseases.

(Didn’t is strike you as odd that in the 21th century SMOKING is still listed as the #1 social ‘burden’.)

As Wikipedia notes under “malnutrition”,  

Mortality due to malnutrition accounted for 58 percent of the total mortality in 2006: "In the world, approximately 62 million people, all causes of death combined, die each year. One in twelve people worldwide is malnourished and according to the Save the Children 2012 report, one in four of the world’s children are chronically malnourished.^{[37][38][dead link]} In 2006, more than 36 million died of hunger or diseases due to deficiencies in micronutrients".^[39]    [my underlining]

 

Yes, approximately 58% of all deaths on the planet are still related to malnutrition!!!

To cite further the World Hunger organization: (http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm)

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that nearly 870 million people of the 7.1 billion people in the world, or one in eight, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012. Almost all the hungry people, 852 million, live in developing countries, representing 15 percent of the population of developing counties. There are 16 million people undernourished in developed countries (FAO 2012).

As indicated by their chart below on wages and extreme poverty, starvation and low BMI scores is rampant and affecting over 1 in 6 people on the planet!!!!

Region	% in  $1.25 a day poverty	Population (millions)	Pop. in $1 a day poverty (millions)
East Asia and Pacific	16.8	1,884	316
Latin America and the Caribbean	8.2	550	45
South Asia	40.4	1,476	596
Sub-Saharan Africa	50.9	763	388
Total Developing countries	28,8	4673	1345
Europe and Central Asia	0.04	473	17
Middle East and North Africa	0.04	305	11
Total		5451	1372

Source:  See World Bank PovcalNet "Replicate the World Bank's Regional Aggregation" at

 

Secondly, the cluster map.     (NOTE: below percentages are approximates as the map only gives 5% differential bar lines.)

 With the exceptions of Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan (with obesity rates between 5%-13% of the population, the other countries with similarly low obesity rates are notorious for subsistence rural living, poverty and malnutrition affecting multi-millions of people: India (2%), Indonesia (5%), China (6%) and Thailand (9%).  (Just see the above chart from World Hunger!!!)

Why, all of a sudden Malaysia, at 14%, has TRIPLE the obesity rate of its nearby ‘twin’, Indonesia, is unexplained and raises issues as to the reliability of the data.

Brazil’s population is at 18% obese, Colombia’s at 17%  and Venezuela at whopping 31%!!!!  Yet all 3 are neighbouring countries and do not have a MacDonalds or Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet on almost every city and town corner as in the U.S.A. or Canada. So why so high on traditional diets – especially Venezuela?

Mexico, the only other Latino country recorded, is at an even higher 33% obese.  Again, are classic tortillas and the traditional Mexican diet bad?

The only African state is South Africa at an unbelievable 32% and the only recorded Arab state, Saudi Arabia is at a mind boggling 33%!!!  Again, these are not fast food havens and something else must be at work for these astronomical figures for obesity.

Europe -- from Britain through Russia -- ranges from about 17% (Switzerland) through Greece and Italy (the homes of the Mediterranean diet no less) at around 20% ,and Britain , Spain, Germany, Poland and Russia all have around 25-26% of their entire populations as obese.  So, 1 in 4 Brits, Spaniards, Germans, Poles and Russians – male and female --  is so fat that they should resemble bowling pins or outright bowling balls!  Is that reality?  

As for Canada, we are 25% obese as well while the U.S.A. matches Saudi Arabia at 33% -- to TIE as WORLD LEADERS!!!!.  

To give some detail on Canada, here is Statistics Canada 2012 report: [http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-625-x/2012001/article/11708-eng.htm]

In 2009 to 2011, 67% of Canadian men and 54% of Canadian women aged 18 to 79 were overweight or obese based on results from the Canadian Health Measures Survey... Men were significantly more likely to be overweight or obese than women. While approximately 3 out of 10 Canadian men had normal body weight, almost 7 out of 10 were overweight or obese. Among women, more than 4 out of 10 had a normal weight while more than 5 out of 10 were overweight or obese.  (my bold emphasis).

 

Of course, StatsCan is using the BMI measure as used by the World Health Organization and other data collecting/analysis groups.  And as I have argued many times before, it is a very flawed measurement scale. It  distorts what is ‘healthy’ and ‘normal’, targeting a very low body fat level as the ideal; unfairly lowering the bar too low compared to real world weights and cultural body image ideals.

When ‘data’ tells you the overwhelming majority of males and females in a country are overweight or obese, question the measurement standard and its assumptions; don’t target what real people are like and label them ‘abnormal’!

Don’t forget, only the modern West has ever idolized thin women: first as the 1920s flappers and thereafter in the Twiggy and subsequent fixation on the pre-pubescent female body shape and image of the catwalk!

As well, any NFL running back at 5’10’ and even just 215 lbs is calculated by the BMI as OBESE!  (See BMI calculator at http://www.calcbmi.com/). Brett Farr, the great quarterback, at 6’2” and in game condition weighing 222 lbs scores on the BMI as OVERWEIGHT and just below obese!!  Peyton Manning, in his on-field prime, at 6’5” and 230 lbs, is a BMI of 27.27 and OVERWEIGHT!!!

 

So, to Brian Milner, reporter, the Globe and Mail, the McKinsey Global Institute, and WHO and related UN organizations I say: “You need to do a quick ‘reality check’.”

If billions of dollars are being spent seeing doctors and dieting and taking medication and classes and therapy for excess weight because of a flawed ideal and BMI, maybe the media should challenge the accepted dogma.

Normally, people are only thin and have low body fat when continually hungry and somewhat or extremely malnourished!

And as more and more people rise from poverty, expect BMI overweight and obese numbers to rise – irrespective of the presence or absence of MacDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken, because eating regularly on even traditional food items adds weight.

And body fat, that emergency cushion against famine and drought and plague, automatically comes with eating.

That is nature’s law.