john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

obesity

  • Bake sales minus the baking

    Mon, 2010-03-22 08:30 -- John Hawks

    Remember when we were going to have to hold bake sales to save the schools? Well, New York has found one way to solve that problem: "New York schools' ban on homemade goods at bake sales has parents steamed."

    The Department of Education says the regulations are aimed at combating obesity among the city's more than 1.1 million public school children, about 40% of whom are overweight. By restricting bake sale offerings to goods limited in calories and wrapped in packaging that lists nutritional information, schools will help children reduce their intake of unhealthy snacks, officials say.

    I'm surprised they aren't also saying that making packaged food in factories uses less carbon than all those home ovens.

    Now, see, I think the "paleo diet" folks should see this as an opportunity. Come to the schools, set up a card table, and slap down some venison!

    Tags: 
    education
    politics
    obesity

  • The network effect

    Tue, 2009-09-22 08:30 -- John Hawks

    Jonah Lehrer writes in Wired about two researchers using network theory and data mining to understand how obesity spread in the American population: "The Buddy System: How Medical Data Revealed Secret to Health and Happiness".

    The two researchers thought the Framingham social network might demonstrate how relationships directly influence behavior and thus health and happiness. Since the study had tracked its subjects' weight for decades, Christakis and Fowler first analyzed obesity. Clicking through the years, they watched the condition spread to nearly 40 percent of the population. Fowler shows me an animation of their study—30 years of data reduced to 108 seconds of shifting circles and lines. Each circle represents an individual. Size is proportional to body mass index; yellow indicates obesity. "This woman is about to get big," Fowler says. "And look at this cluster. They all gain weight at about the same time."

    Some neat visualizations accompany the story.

    Tags: 
    diet
    social networks
    obesity

  • "We have ways of changing behavior"

    Mon, 2009-07-27 13:51 -- John Hawks

    Ann Althouse points to a "chilling locution" in a Wall Street Journal story about health spending: "Nearly 10% of Health Spending Due to Obesity, Report Says"

    "Health care costs are dramatically higher for people who are obese and it doesn't have to be that way," said Jeff Levi of the nonprofit Trust for America's Health, who wasn't involved in the new research.

    "We have ways of changing behavior and changing those health outcomes so that we don't have to deal with the medical consequences of obesity," added Mr. Levi, who advocates community-based programs that promote physical activity and better nutrition.

    The shiver comes from that, "we have ways of changing behavior."

    I got into a conversation yesterday about genetics and social engineering, the question of whether it's right to "punish" someone for his genes, and how effective we should expect changes in the environment to be on any given behavior. I always try to point out that we already have social engineering, and always have had.

    Tags: 
    health
    behavior genetics
    obesity
    behavior
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Malapa

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