4th Canadian Obesity student Meeting (COSM 2014)
Over the next three days, I will be in Waterloo, Ontario, attending the 4th biennial Canadian Obesity Student Meeting (COSM 2014), a rather unique capacity building event organised by the Canadian Obesity Network’s Students and New Professionals (CON-SNP). CON-SNP consist of an extensive network within CON, comprising of over 1000 trainees organised in about 30 chapters at universities and colleges across Canada. Students and trainees in this network come from a wide range of backgrounds and span faculties and research interests as diverse as molecular genetics and public health, kinesiology and bariatric surgery, education and marketing, or energy metabolism and ingestive behaviour. Over the past eight years, since the 1st COSM was hosted by laval university in Quebec, these meetings have been attended by over 600 students, most presenting their original research work, often for the first time to an audience of peers. Indeed, it is the peer-led nature of this meeting that makes it so unique. COSM is entirely organised by CON-SNP – the students select the site, book the venues, review the abstracts, design the program, chair the sessions, and lead the discussions. Although a few senior faculty are invited, they are largely observers, at best participating in discussions and giving the odd plenary lecture. But 85% of the program is delivered by the trainees themselves. Apart from the sheer pleasure of sharing in the excitement of the participants, it has been particularly rewarding to follow the careers of many of the trainees who attended the first COSMs – many now themselves hold faculty positions and have trainees of their own. As my readers are well aware, I regularly attend professional meetings around the world – none match the excitement and intensity of COSM. I look forward to another succesful meeting as we continue to build the next generation of Canadian obesity researchers, health professionals and policy makers. You can follow live tweets from this meeting at #COSM2014 @DrSharma Waterloo, Ontario
Does Calling You Fat Make You Fat?
One of the most troubling aspects of weight-bias and discrimination is that it has strong negative emotional and physical consequences for the individuals, who perceive these negative attitudes. Now a study suggests that simply being labeled “fat” in childhood may be a strong predictor of obesity ten year later. Thus, according to a longitudinal study by Jeffrey Hunger and Janet Tomiyama, published in JAMA Pediatrics, girls who reported being called “fat” at age 10 were about 60% more likely to have a BMI in the obese range at age 19. Kids in this study were considered as “labeled”, if they responded “yes” to the question, whether they had ever been called fat by their father, mother, brothers, sister, best girl friend, boy you like best, any other girl, any other boy, or teacher. Interestingly enough, this finding is not explained by the possibility that the labelled girls were indeed heavier – there was in fact no difference in BMI at age 10 between the kids who responded “yes” and those, who did not. Indeed, the findings remained robust even after correction for various demographic confounders. These findings are concerning, as they suggest that simply being called “fat” as a kid, may put you on a track to weight gain irrespective of whether or not you actually carry excess weight to start with. I am sure many of my readers will relate to these findings and can tell their own stories of how being “labelled” fat may have influenced their weight journeys. @DrSharma Edmonton, AB Hunger JM, & Tomiyama AJ (2014). Weight Labeling and Obesity: A Longitudinal Study of Girls Aged 10 to 19 Years. JAMA pediatrics PMID: 24781349 .
Shame And Blame Has No Role In Addressing Obesity
As a regular reader you will be well aware of my recent excursions into the use of comedy to promote a better public understanding of obesity. A very different (and I dare say more scientific) approach to harnessing the performing arts to promote a discourse on obesity is that taken by Sara Kirk and colleagues, Balancing The Scales, now described in a paper published in Qualitative Health Research. Their approach is based on the recognition that, “…individuals living with obesity are caught in the middle, facing judgment by society if they fail to manage their weight successfully and exposing themselves to health professionals who are unable to fully support them…if an individual is unable to make the changes prescribed for weight loss, resentment builds on both sides of the therapeutic relationship.” This led Kirk and colleagues to extensively explore the issue of obesity from a variety of perspectives resulting in rather unique insights into similarities, differences, points of consensus, and tension associated with values, beliefs, perceptions, and practices among key stakeholders. The 42 semistructured interviews were conducted in 22 individuals living with obesity, 4 policy makers, and 16 health professionals (8 dietitians, 4 family physicians, and 4 nurses). Three major themes emerged from the analysis of the interviews: Blame as a Devastating Relation of Power “Individuals living with obesity shared feelings of shame and embarrassment with their inability to control their weight on their own. This blaming discourse can easily be seen in messages of “eat less, move more” promoted by health professionals, the health system, and wider society.” “Individuals living with obesity spoke about the complexities of trying to lose weight, inclusive of cultural, social, and organizational barriers. Despite this insight, however, they placed the final explanation for their weight status on themselves and expressed immense feelings of guilt and shame.” “All of the individuals living with obesity had tried multiple methods to manage their weight, with limited or no success. This was extremely frustrating for them and compounded their tendency, wholly or at least partially, to blame themselves for this perceived failure.” “Similar to individuals living with obesity, health professionals struggled to understand the complexity of the issue, which often led to blaming the individual. Health professionals commented on the unrealistic expectations of people who wanted to lose weight quickly and how their role as a health professional could not possibly be supportive of this.” “The health professionals… Read More »
Why Comments on What Christina Aguilera Did Not Say Still Matter
Yesterday, the popular media threw a hissy fit after Christina Aguilera was first reported by US Weekly to have told Billboard magazine that she is through with being a “skinny white girl” (or words to that affect), which Billboard magazine then said never happened, leading to a retraction by US Weekly and other outlets that picked up this quote. More interesting than the ‘who-said-what-to-whom’ episode are the comments left on Billboard magazine’s website. Here are two examples of the diametrically opposing views on this issue: “Mac: Oh COME ON!!…she was never “skinny”…she had a PERFECT body. But now she’s just plain FAT! Face it Christina, you got lazy, stopped working out, and have just been stuffing your face with junk food. And now this is your B.S. way of justifying it.” “Linda: She looks great. Big ups Christina!!!! I love how she is embracing her body at its natural state for her at this point in her life. We need more women in the limelight to do just that, it frees society and humans to be themselves and happy. Haters are gonna hate. Love will eventually set us all free.” These comments pretty much sum up the public discourse on body weight. One camp thinks it is all self-inflicted (lazy, stuffing your face), the other is in the positive body image size-acceptance (embracing her body, natural state, good for you) camp. Like it or not, these discussions in the context of Christina Aguilera’s (or for that matter any celebrity’s) shape and size, do more to shape the public discourse and perception of what body weight may or may not be, than any academic discussions that we may be having about this issue at public health agencies or elsewhere. Ignoring this discourse means being irrelevant – you cannot influence a discussion if you refuse to join it. AMS Edmonton, Alberta
Lady Gaga Found This First: ‘Fat’ Poem
In case anyone thought that yesterday’s post on me venturing into theatre was the first sign of me going ‘gaga’, today’s post takes it even further. The following (e-mail readers will have to head to the site to see this) is a short poem called “Fat” by Caroline Rothsteiin, a 29-year old spoken-word poet and writer who lives in New York. This raw and personal poem, in which Rothstein describes her struggles with her bulimia and body-image issues, was ‘discovered’ by Lady Gaga and has since received over 30,000 hits on YouTube. As anyone moved by this piece will appreciate, the power of art (in this case a poem) to change heads and hearts is far greater than any scientific study that I could ever hope to publish. Please feel free to repost this video so that others can see it – appreciate your comments. AMS Edmonton, Alberta
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