Feast or Famine: Fat Man Walking--Steve Vaught's Response to Obesity

Steve Vaught is walking across the US from San Diego. He has been on the road since April 10, having set out on his own anti-obesity odyssey as he realized he was almost 40, and weighing in at 400 pounds. According to an article  by Washington Post reporter Amy Argetsinger ( July 7), Steve had long been brooding about his weight, his inability or unwillingness to diet or exercise, and the effect those excess pounds had on his life and prospects. ( The state of California estimates that its segment of overweight and unfit citizens  could cost the government $28.7 BILLION in healthcare expenses, up 32% over five years ago, according to the LA Times' Lisa Girion, April 6, 2005.)

'" There's nothing appealing about fat people,' he says bluntly. " You can't impress them when you're fat." His jobs steadily declined in quality. In March he said he walked away from the latest, managing a muffler repair shop, after the owners sniped about him sitting down too much at work.'

Today Steve is headed across the desert to Winslow, Arizona. You can follow his progress on his website.  We don't know how much he weighs right now but we imagine he has dropped considerable pounds already. His extreme diet jump start is deemed "nuts" by many, of course--he  set out on this journey having had no exercise for years, weighing too much, without an elaborate support team or even much of a plan. ( Keeping hydrated across the desert in summer!! )

Recently The FOOD Museum  embarked on another major report on the dual subject of obesity and undernourishment--see the piece called Feast or Famine on our website. It appears that right now one third of  the world's population is overweight, and one third is severely lacking in food.  This imbalance is to be addressed in a major seminar by the World Food Prize International Symposium, Des Moines, October 12-14, concurrent with the official announcement of the 2005 Prize going to India's Dr. Modadugu V. Gupta, for his work in enhancing nutrition for the world's poorest people.

Cartoon, artist not known to us, found at www.sln.org/uk.

Comments

[Cynthia]

The sad irony is that many obese people in the US actually consume fewer calories on a regular basis than the UN considers necessary for survival. Having been obsessed with dieting for decades now, we have created a generation that suffers from the "famine response," where your body hangs on to every calory you consume and stores it immediately as fat because people eat so rarely. Yes, Supersize meals and sitting in front of the TV or computer are also issues, but that is primarily a problem for teens. The adults who struggle are largely those who have been on diets since they were children, and whose metabolisms and relationship with food are so messed up that it is almost impossible to normalize. There are several books out on this topic; the one I read most recently is The Diet Cure. We don't need to put people on more diets, we need to create a culture in which attitudes toward food and body image are more balanced -- trying to be model/movie star thin is one of the leading causes of both obesity and serious eating disorder. Terri Schiavo, for example, didn't end up where she did because she had a good relationship with food.

Here's an article on how dieting is one of America's biggest problems: http://www.techcentralstation.com/060205D.html

Obviously, that doesn't help the poor -- but that is an unrelated issue. They are not poor because Americans are fat. They are poor because they are porr. There is not a limited amount of food and we're eating more of it than they are. They are suffering from wars, government suppression, natural disasters. What they need is stability and education. Some might think that just throwing more money at it is the answer, but here's an article from a German magazine that points out that some places are getting too much aid money, but without stability and order, it's either being syphoned off by those in power or creating a dependency that does not help long term.
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,363604,00.html

So what we need to do is work for stability in the world, support organizations that fight against things like slavery, government oppression, and traditions (such as India's untouchables) that force people into poverty. There are people starving in countries with plenty of food, it's just that they aren't the tribe in power or the group with guns.

So don't lump American obesity in with world hunger. The issues are not even vaguely related.

[Foodie]

Thanks for those insights, Cynthia, as well as the links. Clearly no one is saying that obese Americans are a cause of world hunger. I think you are mistaklen, though, about supersized meals and inactivity as largely a teen thing. It's the irony of life today---that one segment of the population struggles with/frets about/suffers from excess weight in the land of plenty while another cannot meet basic nutritional requirements because access to sufficient food is not possible, for a variety of reasons.

[Cynthia]

Well, I'm glad to hear that you are not saying that there is a connection, but I have been in discussions with people who do see world hunger as being directly linked to American over-eating. Sorry if I over-reacted, but I've run into that kind of thinking more often than you might believe. (Plus, I think that there is an interesting irony inherent in the fact that many dieters in the US are getting fewer calories than the UN prescribes for survival in most places.)

Another thing that is interesting about the whole weight issue is the role TV plays with younger viewers. It's not just that they aren't getting exercise. It has been shown that the metabolism of younger viewers is actually 13 percent lower when watching TV than if they were doing nothing! So if kids are watching TV, keep them talking, at least, so they don't go into that trance state that makes things even worse.

[Foodie]

Hey Cynthia--what's the source re metabolism among tv watchers? I'd like to follow up on that one for sure.

[Cynthia]

I believe it was the Tufts University Nutrition Research newsletter. Here's the excerpt from another article reporting on the same research:

The fourth and perhaps most insidious link between television and obesity was discovered in 1993. Psychologists and epidemiologists at the University of Tennessee and Memphis State University monitored metabolic rates in eight- to twelve-year-old children under two conditions: lying down in a dark room, and sitting up watching television. In every case, the child's metabolic rate while sitting and watching television was far lower than his metabolic rate while lying down in the dark. Watching television is worse than doing nothing.

Equally surprising, the effect of the TV session on metabolic rate persisted after the session for at least the length of time the child had watched television. That is, a 25-minute TV session depressed metabolic rate not only during television viewing but also for at least 25 minutes after viewing had ended.105

The Tennessee study has two astounding implications: First, since TV slows metabolism, the same child, eating the same types and quantities of food and participating in the same amount of activity, could remain healthy or become obese depending on how long he is exposed to television each day.

Second, since metabolism remains depressed even after the TV session ends, a child who watches television gains more weight from food eaten even when he is not watching television, and will have more difficulty burning off excess fat, than children who do not watch TV. The researchers conclude:

Those children who watch an excessive amount of television are more at risk for becoming obese because their resting energy expenditures are lower than if they were doing nothing at all. This finding emphasizes the potential importance of controlling the amount of television watched by children at risk for obesity.106

[Jay Voter]

Keep Charging Steve! From one Marine to another look at this as just another Force March. A very Long force march but I know you can do it. Best of luck with your travels. God bless and keep you safe. Semper Fi.

Jay Voter
NC

[Andrew Spark]

I think the healthcare system would be so much more efficient if there was free market competition between healthcare providers. High deductible insurance would still be there if you got really sick.

[mike gray]

I think the key to real weight loss is find that which suits you and satisfies your appertite. It's not about fasting it's eating healthy and regular exercise is the best formula for optimal and sustainable weight matinance