Yeah, so Mabel’s birth wasn’t pretty.

My husband, Mac, was privy to it ALL.

While I admit that I wasn’t always fully aware of my surroundings, Mac maintained his composure (at least around me) for the entire ordeal.

Well, he was a little shaken up by the bloodbath scene the first time I got out of bed 8 hours post-C-section.  It was clear that what was running through his head as it happened was, “Holy crap my wife is bleeding to death!”  However, that was understandable since I too was perplexed and unprepared for it as well.  Had it not been for the nonplussed reaction of the nurse, I might have worried about my own imminent death as well, instead of just wondering if/how they could clean it all up before my in laws came to meet the baby.  (I’m no neat freak when it comes to my lovely mother in law, but nobody wants their in laws leap-frogging over pools of their blood.  Right?)

So given my husband’s world class poker face despite all he witnessed, I laughed out loud when I come across the Universal Birth Reaction Assessment Tool on How to be a Dad.

Source: How to be a Dad

While Mac passes out quite readily when he gets a shot or IV placed, he appeared unaffected when it happened to me, or my actual spinal column.

Through the whole birth and recovery, I’d say the worst he got on the Expression/Grimace Scale was “Whoa!”  Except for the bloodbath which was something more like a “Aaaahhhh!”

Now, as I said, I’m pretty sure he had a great poker face.  From our talks about the birth since it happened, I’m pretty sure he had moments that scored a 10/ “Ngaaaa!” on the Birth Reaction Scale (like when he caught a glimpse of my disembodied uterus in the operating room).  However, he never let on that he was feeling anything more than a 2 or 3.

He was an excellent birth partner.

As we get closer and closer to welcoming Nemo (baby #2, baby brother) we’ve been talking more about Mabel’s birth.  How it happened, how we felt, how I coped with the labor, what worked, what didn’t, what I most appreciated, what we want to do different.  The talks are enlightening at times.  Mac remembers details and hours of time that are completely absent from my memory.  I know that helping me through the labor was hard for Mac- it’s hard to watch someone you love in pain and not be able to stop it.  I hope that him hearing me say how much of a help and support he was to me, how much I needed him, how safe I felt knowing he was there, and how he came through for me, will be valuable for the second go-around.

I’m also looking forward to him reading this post and telling me what his reactions really where and how little his face revealed.

I felt like Environmental Health and Safety would cite me for violating lab rules at any second.

My Valentine this year: getting to pick the movie we will watch, while eating Thai food after putting Mabel to bed.  Romance!

by Stephoodle, Source

That said, I stumbled across a couple of V Day appropriate science articles today.

The first one is about the origins of kissing- Valentine’s Day kisses continue odd human tradition and guess what!  It has to do with science!

For most of early human history, smell was more important than any other sense for human relationships, said Sheril Kirshenbaum, author of “The Science of Kissing.” People would use smell to determine a person’s mood, their health and their social status, she said.

“There were a lot of sniff greetings,” said Kirshenbaum, director of the Project on Energy Communication at the University of Texas. “They would brush the nose across the face, because there are scent glands on our faces, and over time the brush of the face became a brush of the lips, and the social greeting was born that way.” Source.

The other article is more the the love lorn on Valentine’s Day, but perhaps also the romantic in all of us, about the way music can elicit physical responses in us.  Anatomy of a tearjerker is complete with audio clips to demonstrate!

Chill-provoking passages, [researchers] found, shared at least four features. They began softly and then suddenly became loud. They included an abrupt entrance of a new “voice,” either a new instrument or harmony. And they often involved an expansion of the frequencies played… Finally, all the passages contained unexpected deviations in the melody or the harmony. Music is most likely to tingle the spine, in short, when it includes surprises in volume, timbre, and harmonic pattern. Source.

Source unknown

I wasn’t able to find who made it or any info on who/where I can link to as an original source.  If you’ve seen it attributed elsewhere, let me know!

Haven’t heard of baby-led weaning (BLW)?  It’s an approach to introducing foods to infants that revolves around letting the infant feed him/herself.  So instead of spoon feeding purees, give your infant finger goods that are either too big or too small to pose a choking hazard and let them have at it.

Proponents say the benefits are that infants will grow to be less picky as kids when they can explore a range of tastes and textures early on, instead of just pureed veggies.  Also, because the baby can control what and how much he/she eats, it may prevent over-feeding, and thus decrease risk of obesity.  While not much scientific research has been done on the topic, the article in the news today does find benefit of BLW over spoon-feeding.

Baby-led weaning in action: Mabel at 6 months old munching on a Granny Smith apple

Here is the link to the actual study:  Baby knows best?  The impact of weaning style on food preferences and body mass index in early childhood in a case-controlled sample by Townsend and Pitchford in British Medical Journal.

Here is some of the news coverage:  From Scientific American and from AFP.

The article’s authors conclude:

Compared to the spoon-fed group, the baby-led group demonstrated (1) significantly increased liking for carbohydrates (no other differences in preference were found) and (2) carbohydrates to be their most preferred foods (compared to sweet foods for the spoon-fed group). Preference and exposure ratings were not influenced by socially desirable responding or socioeconomic status, although an increased liking for vegetables was associated with higher social class. There was an increased incidence of (1) underweight in the baby-led group and (2) obesity in the spoon-fed group. No difference in picky eating was found between the two weaning groups.  Townsend and Pitchford.

I think it’s kind of funny that BLW is considered some kind of ‘movement’ or ‘technique.’  Growing up, my mom fed me the way her mom had fed her- cut up or mush up whatever was being served and give it to the baby.  No particular thought behind it.

When we were introducing solids to Mabel, I did what my mom and grandmother had done before me, only in 2010 is was known as baby-led weaning!  As with most parenting ‘techniques’ we adapted this one to suit our family, I say we took a BLW-ish approach.  I didn’t buy a single jar of baby food.  It seemed expensive and unnecessary when she could just eat/try what we were eating.  The other thing that made me take a relaxed approach to what and how much she ate was that she was still nursing and/or getting a bottle as her main source of nutrition.  Whatever little bit of food she got into her mouth on her own was just for practice and fun, not really for nutritive value.

Her first foods were indeed purees- rice cereal, pureed peas, carrots, etc. and things that were naturally mushy- yogurt, apple sauce, mashed potatoes  However, I let her spoon feed herself.  We then quickly moved on to stuff like Gerber Puffs and Kix cereal or Cheerios, as well as shredded pieces of meat, deli meats, cheeses, etc.

The tools that were most valuable to us in those early days were this baby spoon:

Sassy Less Mess Training Spoon

This spoon was great because of the holes and because of those large things at the base.  The holes meant the purees stuck better to the spoon- so when your infant/toddler up-ends the spoon more of the puree will actually stay on there!  Those large flat parts are good because they keep your little one from shoving the spoon so far into his/her mouth that he/she gags.  It being 2 sided was also useful since kids that age aren’t exactly pros in the use of a spoon and get twice as much success if both ends hold food!

I only had one of these spoons, but my way to use purees for BLW was to have two spoons in play.  I would put a scoop of food on the spoons, put them on Mabel’s tray and when one was ‘empty’ I’d ‘refill’ it while she was busy with the second spoon.  So, while she was getting purees, she wasn’t exactly spoon-fed since she was doing it herself.

Unfortunately they don’t seem to make this exact spoon anymore, this is the replacement which doesn’t have the handy-dandy ‘don’t shove this down your through until you gag’ preventing part.

This “teething feeder” was also great:

Sassy Teething Feeder

This was great because we could put whatever kind of food in the bag and not worry about Mabel choking since everything stays in the mesh bag.  The handle for it was also useful because we used tethers meant for pacifiers to clip it to her bib or placemat (see below) which meant it wasn’t always falling on the floor.

And this placemat that we used at restaurants, or anyplace we didn’t have a highchair with a tray:

Summer Infant Tiny Diner

This placemat is made of silicon- the sides fold in, you roll it up, and tuck it in the little tray portion so it fits nicely in a diaper bag.  It was great to know that the surface she was smearing all her food on at restaurants was cleaned, by us, at home, and not with a filthy rag by a less than thorough, time-pressed bus boy.  It was also useful because, as mentioned above, we used pacifier clips to clip toys and the teething feeder to the placemate and keep them from falling on the floor.  The tray portion caught a fair amount of food, but by no means minimized the mess.  On that front we opted to just leave a REALLY nice tip.

The only down side to the placemat was that it did stain easily.  Any tomato sauce or anything like that left a mark.  So, even when it was clean, it looked dingy and brownish.

Early on, Mabel was a very adventurous eater.  She’d basically eat, or at least try, anything we gave her- from venison to lemons.  I was so relieved to have an easy to feed kid.  We didn’t have to make sure to bring food with us when we went out, she’d surely eat something from our plates.  However, that didn’t last.  As she got older, she exerted herself and expressed food preferences.  Foods that were once favorites (salmon, quiche, tomatoes) were soon flatly refused.

Now she’s 2 and we pretty much bring food for her whenever we go out.  Firstly, because we’re cheap and it’s really annoying to pay for a kid’s meal that she then refuses to eat.  Secondly, because her tastes change on a whim, there isn’t any sure-fire foods (except maybe french fries) we could order at a restaurant and know she would eat.  So, now we make sure there’s stuff like PB&J, banana, cereal, raisins, cheese, etc. in the diaper bag whenever we know we’ll be eating out.

We keep offering her different things and encouraging her to try things, even if she refuses, in the hopes that one day she’ll come around (since there is sound science that it takes many tries to get kids to like certain foods).  I definitely don’t want to make meals a power struggle, but I don’t want to indulge her every whim.  There’s some healthy middle ground where she can eat what is served (so I’m not a short-order cook) and still feel that she’s got some control over her own food choices.

That said, his love is worth waiting for the save* point.

Aussie comedy group Tripod performing their song “Make You Happy Tonight” at a Comedy Festival

*In the interest of full disclosure, because it’s funny, and because it shows just how little I know about video games, I originally called it a “safe point” instead of “save point.”  Thankfully my husband corrected me.

I read the paper and realized the holistic website did WAY overstate the conclusions, told my friend it was bogus, and went on my merry way.

Then today, what headline do I see on Yahoo News?  “Study proves my 80-year-old grandfather correct:  Deodorant may promote breast cancer” by Summer Banks, a Yahoo Contributor.  According to her bio, Summer has 4 years of college nursing eduction, but isn’t a nurse, she’s a medical assistant.  While I’m sure that makes her more knowledgable than your average woman on the street when it comes to medical expertise, it apparently does not make her capable of reading and comprehending primary research papers.  Alternatively, she may be spinning the results for a shocking headline that Yahoo will pay her for or to promote the brand name products she mentions in the ‘news article.’

So thanks to Yahoo and Summer, I now feel it necessary to address this paper and share what researchers actually did, what they actually found, what they actually concluded, and what it actually tells us about deodorant and breast cancer.

In a nutshell:

What the researchers actually did was collect human breast tissue from 40 mastectomies performed on patients with breast cancer.  They tested these samples for the presence, amount, and type of parabens (a component of deodorants, but also found in other stuff too, click the link for more info).

What the researchers actually found was that 99% of the samples had detectable levels of at least one paraben and 60% had detectable levels of all five of the parabens they tested for.

What they actually concluded was that, “The results of the current study confirm and expand our previous work (Darbre et al., 2004) and indicate that intact paraben esters can be measured in human breast tissue.” (Not exactly the headline Summer was going for.) “The current study has provided a larger sample size (160 rather than 20), and multiple sampling at four serial locations across the breast (axilla, lateral, mid, me- dial) has enabled study of the distribution of parabens across a single breast for the first time.”

Now, for what the researchers did NOT do/find/conclude…

The researchers did NOT compare breast tissue from patients with breast cancer to those without.  Thus, for all we know, the levels of parabens might be equally high in both cases, meaning that the presence of parabens isn’t the whole story, or that parabens aren’t correlated with breast cancer.  This failure to compare tissue from patients with and without cancer is a major stumbling block for this research paper.  I was actually surprised the authors were able to get it published without that comparison.  I’m guessing that the reason they were only able to conclude that parabens were detectable- and not make a single conclusion about breast cancer and parabens- is because they lacked this crucial comparison.

The researchers did NOT find a correlation between the paraben levels and the presence of cancer in a region of breast tissue.  Meaning paraben levels were similar in regions in which tumors were found and in cancer-free regions.

The researchers did NOT find a correlation between use of deodorant and levels of parabens, meaning there is no link between parabens in breast tissue and use of deodorant (I guess Summer must have missed that because her headline says the exact opposite of this).

The researchers did NOT conclude that there was a causal link between parabens and breast cancer.  They did NOT conclude that the parabens present in breast tissue came from deodorant. They did NOT conclude that the levels of parabens found were sufficient to stimulate tumor growth.

OK.  Now that we have that out of the way- let’s break it down and see how well Summer’s reading comprehension is.

Summer Banks wrote (as the headline!):  ”Deodorant may promote breast cancer.”

The researchers wrote:  ”The finding of similar concentrations of parabens in the breast tissue of women who reported to be current, past or nonusers of underarm cosmetics suggests the parabens to have originated from a source other than underarm cosmetic application.”

So, it’s not the deodorant!  Summer is wrong.

The researchers also wrote:  ”The presence of a chemical in the breast cannot be taken to imply causality per se…”

So they didn’t prove any causes!  Summer is wrong. (Although half-credit since she did say “may cause breast cancer”)

Summer Banks wrote:  ”The study went on to reveal that paraben levels were high enough to cause estrogen-based cancers, like breast cancer, to grow faster.”

The researchers wrote:  ”Although oestrogen is an acknowledged component in the development of breast cancer (Miller, 1996), it remains to be established as to whether environmental chemicals with oestrogenic properties [like parabens] contribute a functional component to the disease process (Darbre and Charles, 2010).”

So, the parabens aren’t causing cancer to grow faster!  Summer is totally wrong here.  The study performed no such experiments and drew no such conclusions.  Actually the study didn’t even show a single piece of data about the growth of cancers AT ALL.

Summer Banks also wrote:  ”There are no medical studies, including this study, that prove parabens cause breast cancer…”

Why then the headline that deodorant may cause breast cancer?

Perhaps it has to do with the products Summer mentions as safe alternatives to traditional deodorant?  Hawking products is always a red flag that a source isn’t reliable and may have a conflict of interest that means it cannot be trusted.  See here for how to spot a reputable information source.

I really cannot believe how inaccurate Summer Banks’ article is.  I hope she sees this post and either corrects the article’s blatant inaccuracies or withdraws the article entirely.  The last thing we need is misinformation being passed off as news.

While I’m not opposed to Mabel having toys traditionally categorized as “girl’s” toys- as I wrote about here- I also don’t think that every toy has to have a gender specification.

I thought it was kind of funny that Mabel has taken an interest in these blocks given the recent ‘controversy’ over Lego coming out with products geared specifically towards girls (see here).  These blocks were a hand-me-down from a family friend, and they sat mostly ignored for several weeks.  Then last week she noticed them and went on a building spree.  This was her first, and tallest creation.  She doesn’t care that they aren’t pink, and doesn’t know that they are, apparently, supposed to be for boys.

_____________________________________________________

Today on Babble, Julie Miner wrote about the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health.  The study looked at the impact that in-school anti-obesity campaigns had on rates of eating disorders (or behaviors indicative of them) in children 6 to 14 years of age and concluded that there may be a correlation between the campaigns and the disordered eating.

Unfortunately the actual study PDF is small (meaning it’s not a research paper), and in a font that my computer cannot read, so I’m left to rely on the press release.  The take home message from the study’s author was:

“The issue of childhood obesity is a serious problem. In order to intervene in what seems like an epidemic of childhood obesity, everyone needs to be involved,” says David Rosen, M.D., M.P.H., Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, Internal Medicine, and Psychiatry at the University of Michigan Medical School and Chief of Teenage and Young Adult Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics.

However, Rosen says, “When obesity interventions are put in place without understanding how they work and what the risks are, there can be unintended consequences. Well-intentioned efforts can go awry when children misinterpret the information they’re given.”

“Many of these behaviors are often dismissed as a phase,” says Rosen, “But given what we know about the association of these behaviors with the development of eating disorders and knowing that eating disorders are increasing in prevalence, they should be taken very seriously.” Source.

And here’s the only figure they provide:

Source.

Seems to me like a measured conclusion based on the data.  No shrieks of “Anti-obesity campaigns cause eating disorders!” or “Teaching kids to be healthy makes them fat!” or any such nonsense.  At least not from the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital.

For the nonsense, we need to turn to Julie Miner who apparently read the same study (although she didn’t link to it or otherwise facilitate her readers making their own determinations) and concluded, “Essentially, [the study concludes] that anti-obesity programs are scaring kids into starving themselves or over-exercising.” (Source.)  Somebody needs to bone up on her reading comprehension, and I don’t think it’s me.

Having set up this straw man, Miner proceeds to knock it down with four main points.

“1.This is one poll. There are thousands of studies that show that anti-obesity education programs effect positive behavior change.”

Well, since Miner provides not a single citation and I already have a full-time job, I’m not going to PubMed search “thousands of studies.”  However, I’m going to venture an uneducated guess that the “positive change” she’s alluding to is weight loss or decreased rates of obesity.  Fair enough.  The CS Mott study’s authors didn’t look at the efficacy of anti-obesity campaigns, only the prevalence of behaviors associated with disordered eating (ie over exercise, refusing meals, pre-occupation with food labels/calorie counts, etc.).  If the “thousands of studies” Miner mentions but fails to cite, had weight loss/obesity rate as the readout of success, there is nothing to rule out the possibility that the “positive change” was affected by such increases in disordered eating.

“2. These headlines may discourage future obesity prevention and health promotion programming in schools.”

Well, I can’t say that it won’t, although I can attest to the public being kind of slow to come around to the science, so I doubt this will happen.  That said, if these anti-obesity campaigns are having detrimental consequences for the emotional and physical well-being of school kids, then I certainly hope these programs are discouraged/discontinued. Although, like the authors of the study, I hope it isn’t a result of this study alone, since they authors draw no firm conclusion that there is a problem, just suggest that there may be a problem and it warrants further study.  (However, that measured conclusion doesn’t make for a good straw man, so it’s easier to overstate the conclusions when trying to refute them.)

“3. Childhood obesity is perhaps the most important pediatric Public Health issue this country is facing.”

I’m guessing that the authors of the CS Mott study wouldn’t argue with this- you know seeing as how they work at a children’s hospital, treating children, and studying obesity and all.  However, I’m guessing they would disagree that they should keep their scientific findings to themselves because, as Miner puts it, “That mixed messages exist about the importance of prevention education is troubling. That a lack of clarity could diminish our commitment to solving this problem is unacceptable.”  As far as I can tell, the authors of the CS Mott study think that prevention education is super important.  They would probably argue that their study points to a major need to do more research, get clarity on how best to implement prevention education, and get on with the business of educating.  Just because science doesn’t necessarily agree with the current methods being used, doesn’t mean it is at odds with the overall goal.  Miner’s argument here basically boils down to, “It doesn’t matter if our current approach isn’t working, or is having detrimental, unintended consequences.  We need to forge ahead blindly!  Ignore that science.”

“4. There is no clear consensus on the right way to do this and these findings only muddle the issue further.”

Uh, what?  If there is no clear consensus, shouldn’t we do more research?  Isn’t the fact that this study points to a potential problem with current anti-obesity campaigns reason to do more work to understand the problem?  Why would you throw out good science that doesn’t fit with your fore-drawn conclusion if your ultimate goal was to prevent childhood obesity?  I hate to be the one to break it to Julie Miner, but that’s not how science works.  Scientists are always muddling their hypothesis- with data.  If the data muddles the hypothesis, that means you do more experiments, not ignore the results and stick to your hypothesis.  Further, clarifying the hypothesis doesn’t always mean proving it right- lots of times it means your hypothesis was wrong.  Scientists are invested in the outcome whether they are proven wrong or right (although like everyone else, they prefer to be right).  Putting one’s head in the sand so as not to upset the status quo is not a good way to make public health decisions and I’m dumbfounded as to why Miner would suggest doing so.

_______________________________________________

Now, scientist hat off, I have some other comments on this particular Babble post, as well as Georgia’s Strong4Life campaign that’s been the focus of so much debate, see samples below.

Source: http://strong4life.com/

In a recent piece for XOJane, Lesley Kinzel hit the‎ nail on the head when she wrote, “The only thing you can tell for sure by looking at a fat person is the degree of your own bias against fat people.”  So I would like to encourage you to investigate their own biases and prejudices before you address this topic, especially before addressing the science of this topic.

My main objection to Georgia’s campaign and what drives eating disorders- is SHAME. Most of these efforts to prevent obesity Miner mentions revolve around shaming overweight kids and sending a message to all kids that thinner is better. As Miner said in her Babble post, “There are a myriad reasons and correlative effects that could account for the negative behaviors noted in the [CS Mott] survey.  The most significant of which is the age of the students in question (they ranged in age from 6-14). It is precisely at this age when body image begins to affect behavior…”

These programs amount to ridicule, harassment, and shaming of overweight kids by their peers as a motivator to get them to change their ways. (If you doubt me, imagine that the posters from the Strong4Life campaign were drawn by some middle school kids and taped to some overweight kid’s locker- somebody would be going to the principal’s office.) They also plant the seeds of weight being a measure of self-worth in all kids. Even if those efforts succeed at goading kids to lose weight- is it worth the emotional and psychological toll? Are we, as a society, willing to torment kids to get them skinny?

Also, what of the skinny kid who sits at home playing video games, eating junk food, but thanks to genes and metabolism isn’t overweight? Is that kid healthy just because he/she is thin? Is weight the measure that matters most?  Nobody is taking up the banner that we find a way to shame that kid into getting outside and exercising after a healthy snack.

I agree that schools should teach about how we keep our bodies healthy- what fuels/foods are best and how exercise is beneficial, dental hygiene, sex ed, etc. What I disagree with is that the only metric that anyone seems to care about for measuring health is weight.   As Lesley Kinzel wrote, “The only thing you can tell for sure by looking at a fat person is the degree of your own bias against fat people.”   As a scientist, I know that weight is not the sole predictor of health.  As a mom, I don’t want my kids to equate their weight (or any other aspect of their outward appearance) with their self-worth.  As a fat woman, I’m sick of people thinking they know everything about me- my health status, my ability to do my job, my worthiness to be loved- based on my size.

Shame isn’t a wide-spread tool for spreading messages of public health. We are constantly trying to “remove the shame/stigma” from problems as a way of encouraging people to address them- child abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, domestic violence, drug addiction, alcoholism, etc.

Source: http://strong4life.com/

I propose a thought experiment.  Look at the poster above meant to “encourage” kids to lose weight and parents to help them do it.  Does that seem effective?

Now, how would you propose we reach out to teenaged girls to discourage them from having unsafe sex?  Would we mount campaigns to shame kids into not having sex?  What would that poster look like? A young girl with a caption that says, “It’s hard to be a little girl if you’re a whore.”

What about domestic violence?  Would we depict battered women as objects of ridicule who need to come to their senses and make better choices?  What would that poster look like- A women with a black eye and some cuts on her face with the caption “It’s hard to be a good mom when you’re a punching bag.”

If these ideas sound like a terrible public health campaign, why then, do we do this with fat kids/people?  If you think being fat is a choice, then ask yourself two things.  1- given how derided fat people are, why would someone choose to be fat?  2- how much do you know about obesity, metabolism, and weight loss?  Then read this and stop being prejudiced against fat people and kids.

Now, I am a scientist, and I am careful never to equate anecdotes with evidence.  I may only be a sample size of one, but I have lots of fat friends and family that would back me up on this one.  Shame is not a motivator to lose weight.  I have been shamed, tormented, ridiculed and disparaged for my weight from the moment I started kindergarten.  I remember feeling fat and ugly as a kindergartener.  Having people around me want nothing more than to make me feel miserable about myself did not result in my losing weight.  Further, there were times when I felt like crap and turned to food to comfort myself.  It resulted in my having to work extra hard to maintain a sense of self-worth apart from my size.  My good grades, public service awards, scholarships, friends, family, Ivy League education- all of those things can still be negated by one teenager screaming, “F*ck you, you fat whale!” because I deigned to ride my bike in the crosswalk and he nearly hit me with his car.

If Strong4Life thinks these ads are going to make a lightbulb go off for these fat kids and they are going to get off the school bus, holding back tears so their tormenters don’t see them cry, then go home, eat a carrot, and exercise, they are deluding themselves.  If anything, those kids are going to run home (hey, at least it’s exercise!) so they can burst into tears the moment the door to their house closes, turn on the TV to try to forget the bus ride home, and eat the Chunky bar to which they were likened by the *ssholes on their school bus.  Then their attempt to forget what pieces of cr*p they are to the kids at school will be foiled by an ad from Strong4Life interspersed with their TV show to remind them that it isn’t just the kids on the bus who think they are piece of cr*p, it’s everyone.

We cannot ignore the emotional consequences of being overweight in a society that readily shames people, nor should we capitalize on it in the name of public health.  You want a public health campaign to help combat obesity?  How about we educate people how to be healthy instead of just how to be skinny?  How about we teach people that fatties aren’t just lazy, fried-twinky eating, dolts trying to drive up insurance premiums?  How about we clue people in to just how hard it is to lose weight and keep it off so that they stop blaming/shaming themselves and others for their size and just focus on being as healthy as they can be in the body they’ve got?

Further reading, posts and articles that resonated and informed me in the past few weeks:

The Fat Trap by Tara Parker-Pope of The New York Times

What’s Wrong With Fat-Shaming? by Lesley Kinzel of XOJane

Leave Paula Dean Alone by S.E. Smith of XOJane

School obesity programs may promote worrisome eating behaviors and physical activity in kids by CS Mott Children’s Hospital.