Is your extra weight killing you?

The following picture was attached to the title of an article posted late this evening on USA Today and the title of this post.  I have no words to even begin to describe how I felt when I a)saw the picture and b)read the question posed in the title.  Yes, the extra weight will and can kill you, it was on my sister's death certificate. The article indicates that one in 5 die of ...due to obesity.  I know that it's not exclaimed often and is an extremely uncomfortable conversation for most people.  Does anyone else feel that the extra weight can kill?  I know we all know that it's unhealthy; or do people just say, "he died of a heart attack;" and leave out the due to obesity.  Please know that this has been my experience and I am not judging.

Photo credit: Toby Talbot, AP

The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food---NY Times Article

A really good article in today's NYTimes.  An investigative report on the industry of snack food.  I love the title because that's what it is--addictive and it was designed to do so.  I can truly say that I have beat the addiction of sugar (processed sugars--small amounts of natural sugar); I don't crave it, don't eat and don't want it.  I have seen a few Maintenance bloggers entertaining the thought of no sugar and I say try it and then try it again.  In the beginning, I did reach for sugary fruit--pineapple, watermelon, mango; now I reach for grapes (1 cup/serving) or strawberries (1/2 cup/serving).  I still feel that this is an individual decision and every body is different.  I found my triggers.  At a dinner a few weeks ago, I gave my slice of cheesecake to my friend sitting next to me  to take home to her husband---she was so happy because she had eaten her slice and she wanted to take something home to him.  It didn't faze me at all and when I got home I ate an orange.  I would love to hear your stories about salt-sugar-fat---the trinity of junk food addiction.
Also, here is where I get a lot of my inspiration.  She breaks down sugar facts, how to cut down on sugar and artificial sweeteners.  The post I am pointing to in the previous link is about sugar and weight gain, perfect!!!

Anatomy of an Abstract

I am trying to find a ways to incorporate what I do for a living with reconciling my weight maintenance goals.Please bear with me and I hope this post doesn't come off hokey and gives good information.  I understand more than anyone in the age of Google how easy it is to pinpoint and find information; for me I deal mostly with scholarly peer-reviewed articles.  I am not a snob; but as a librarian it bothers me when I read an article from a news source and they reference this and that (some with hyperlinks) and it still doesn’t lead you to the correct source.  This is because they receive news feeds and don’t bother with tracking down the original source.  I will try my best here to deliver the original source.  I use PubMed which is the online version of the former MEDLINE, explanations about them can be found here.  I have saved searches for “weight maintenance” and “obesity and African-American women,” that I have been tracking for about 2 years.  The newest article in my queue is the one below.  The abstract is interesting because it focuses on college women (for many, including yours truly, this is where the wheels begin to fall of the wagon).  Also I will start to keep a list of scholarly journals dealing with weight maintenance and control.  Also many universities are establishing centers for obesity which can be great sources of information.  I will also update these types of posts when I read the full-text of the article.  Right now, my institution does not subscribe to this journal electronically but I have ordered the article.  Also of note, I did get my hands on the “Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire.”  I learned the three factors are: (1) cognitive restraint of eating; (2) disinhibition; and (3) hunger. Below I have given some information of what to note when reading a scholarly abstract in PubMed. (I am experimenting with text boxes and Blogger; I think i am losing, sorry if it's really bad)

Eat Weight Disord. 2012 Sep;17(3):e157-63.

Hayes S, Napolitano MA.

The current study examined healthy weight control practices among a sample of college women enrolled at an urban university (N=715; age=19.87±1.16; 77.2% Caucasian; 13.4% African American, 7.2% Asian, 2.2% other races). Participants completed measures as part of an on-line study about health habits, behaviors, and attitudes. Items from the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire were selected and evaluated with exploratory factor analysis to create a healthy weight control practices scale. Results revealed that college women, regardless of weight status, used a comparable number (four of eight) of practices. Examination of racial differences between Caucasian and African American women revealed that normal weight African American women used significantly fewer strategies than Caucasian women. Of note, greater use of healthy weight control practices was associated with higher cognitive restraint, drive for thinness, minutes of physical activity, and more frequent use of compensatory strategies. Higher scores on measures of binge and disinhibited eating, body dissatisfaction, negative affect, and depressive symptoms were associated with greater use of healthy weight control practices by underweight/normal weight but not by overweight/obese college women. Results suggest that among a sample of college females, a combination of healthy and potentially unhealthy weight control practices occurs. Implications of the findings suggest the need for effective weight management and eating disorder prevention programs for this critical developmental life stage. Such programs should be designed to help students learn how to appropriately use healthy weight control practices, as motivations for use may vary by weight status.

PMID: 23086250 [PubMed - in process] 

Fat Nation...horrible title but attention getting cover

This cover (which I still have in print format) and the accompanying article is what got me on my real quest for weight maintenance information.  I was taking a trip and in the airport I saw this cover, the title and yes, also the subtitle.  I was captivated.  The author decided to have bariatric surgery after years of struggling with his weight. He gets into his personal issues and that was great and then he started in with the statistics and I just could not contain myself.  I forgot for a moment that I was reading a magazine and started to look for his reference page and so on and so forth.   I am a medical/clinical librarian and I wanted the source of him stating that, “it will take less than 30 years for all black women to become overweight or obese.” First of all, I am a black woman and the part that sent me over the edge was the word “all.”  I just could not get this out of my head, he mentioned the journal, Obesity, so my quest was on and it was worse than I thought. The article is: "Will all Americans become overweight or obese? estimating the progression and cost of the US obesity epidemic."  The citation for the article is Obesity (Silver Springs)(2008) Oct; 16(10)2323-2330.  The prediction ended up being 96.9% of black women will be overweight or obese by the year 2034, going by the current rate.  So basically if 97% of black women are going to be overweight or obese, then that meant ALL.

I think this article made me more determined not to be a part of the 97%, but I don’t want that number to be so high.  I want to be a maintainer.  I wanted to stop failing at weight loss by not taking care of myself and making excuses about why I didn’t take care of myself.  The author goes on to call obesity a social illness and writes about embarrassing events experienced by obese people.  For me, this was another one of those events that have stuck with me in my goal of not to lead an obese life.  I always wonder what events happen to other people that make you feel like you will do something with your weight or what was your aha moment with your weight.