Information Sharing

I just wanted to share information on obesity and factors influencing weight loss. As you read this article you will see that Researchers now include many factors in their research to help resolve this public epidemic. The most pervasive factors NOW are Environmental, Socioeconomic, and Educational. Most Researchers have eliminated "genetics" and they give the reasons why.

This research has a direct tie to WLS, relative to overall loss, maintenence and subsequence regain...and genetics has little to do with the final results.
For the complete article: http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/race_class/othergirlsstuff.html

A GROWING PROBLEM
Race, Class and Obesity Among American Women

By MARY FERGUSON

The United States is facing a new epidemic. More than half of all Americans are overweight or obese and the percentages are most shocking for women of color.

African-American, American Indian and Hispanic-American women have the highest risk of becoming overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Only one minority group, Asian Americans, has a lower rate of obesity than the general population.

In fact, the results of a national study released in 1996 show that more than half of all African-American and Hispanic women in the United States are already above what is considered a healthy body weight.

Related Story: Eating Disorders

Why does weight matter? Because overweight and physical inactivity now account for more than 300,000 premature deaths each year, according to Jeffrey P. Koplan, director of the CDC. "Obesity is an epidemic and it should be taken as seriously as any infectious disease epidemic," he said in a recent press release.

37% of African-American women are obese; 33% of Mexican-American Women are obese; 24% of Caucasian women are obese

The statistics are startling. Sixty-six percent of African-American women are overweight and 37 percent are technically obese, meaning that they are 30 percent above ideal body weight. The figures for Mexican-American women are similar: 66 percent overweight and 33 percent obese. For Caucasian women, the figures are slightly lower with 49 percent considered overweight and 24 percent, obese.

And why the prevalence of obesity among minority women? In the past, researchers have focused on health differences between African Americans and Caucasians using race as the major determinant. But as the rate of obesity has skyrocketed in women of all races, scientists began to realize that they had to look at other factors, such as education and socioeconomic level, to determine the cause and develop intervention plans.

"People don't like to think about the idea that one is identified by social class or social stratification," Dr. Nancy Adler explained. Adler is the director of the John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health, which was formed in 1997 to study the connection between health and socioeconomic status.

Recent research shows that social class measured by income and education can be more powerful than genetics in predicting future health problems, including obesity.

"It's tied more to general economic disparities," Dr. James Hill said when asked about the differences in overweight between African-American and Caucasian women. Hill, one of the country's leading authorities on obesity, pointed to the similarity in the obesity rate of African-American and Caucasian men.

While researchers have studied combinations of all of these factors, statistics for the number of lower class, lower educational level white women that are affected by obesity are hard to find. Despite the recent flurry of published articles on obesity, Tim Hensley, a health communications specialist with the CDC, said that not all of the angles have been covered yet. The poor, uneducated white women seem to be an ignored group when it comes to obesity research.

Race, gender and socioeconomic status all play a part in the genetics versus environment debate. It is too complicated to say it is just one cause. The Journal of the American Medical Association devoted its entire Oct. 27 issue to the subject of obesity in the United States. One article stated that heritability studies have shown that 70 percent of body weight can be tied to genetics.

Recent research shows that social class measured by income and education can be more powerful than genetics in predicting future health problems, including obesity.

However, genetics alone cannot account for the 50 percent increase in the percentage of Americans that are obese and the doubling of the number of overweight children in the past two decades.

"Genes don't make us obese. They allow us to be obese," said Hill, who also is director of the Center of Human Nutrition at Colorado Health Sciences University. It is the lifestyle that an individual who is susceptible to obesity chooses that will most affect her propensity to becoming overweight.

Dr. Elissa Epel of the University of California at San Francisco has noticed that scientists are "recognizing the importance of uncoupling race and social class" in their research.

Epel studies the correlation between stress and fat distribution determined by the presence of growth hormone and has found that individuals with the lowest levels of education have the lowest levels of growth hormone making them more likely to gain weight.

"The more growth hormone you have, the less you tend to be obese," she said. While genetics play some part in the amount of growth hormone that one's body produces, Epel has found that stress is a major factor.

"Being of low social status can put someone under chronic stress," she said. "People with less education tend to have jobs with a lot of responsibility and less control." She explained that a head of a company may experience a high level of job related stress but would have more choices and control over the situation and that, in turn, alleviates stress overall. A day laborer, however, has little control over the stress of daily life.

Epel said that the stress of life at low educational and socioeconomic levels is a direct cause of obesity.

Once labeled an epidemic, obesity must be dealt with on an individual as well as a societal level. Education, prevention and methods of controlling body weight must all be targeted to the specific populations involved.

Hill blames the American environment for the alarming rates of obesity. "Everywhere we go, it encourages people to eat," Hill exclaimed disgustedly during a telephone interview. "We are the most sedentary generation ever. We don't get a lot of physical activity. Our physiology isn't set up to maintain a normal weight under these cir****tances."

A controlled body weight is a matter of balancing the energy that is taken into the body, food or drink, with the level of energy expended by the body in the form of physical activity or exercise. This seemingly simple equation is complicated by the fact that more than 25 percent of women are not active at all. African Americans and Hispanics are more likely than whites to be physically inactive, and people at a lower socioeconomic level exercise less than wealthier individuals.

 

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More than a third of African-American women report no leisure-time physical activity.

"A lot of minority women can't relate to the word 'leisure-time,'" Dr. Amy Eyler, a researcher at the School of Public Health in St. Louis, Mo., said in an interview with Reuters. "And when you ask them about it they say, 'I don't have any.'"

Eyler found that physical activity was less common among women across the racial lines who live in rural areas, smoked and had lower levels of education.

Some researchers also point a finger at the profitable fast food restaurants that tend to target minority consumers.

"Fast foods can be singled out as a villain because they're an obvious villain. What they're doing is giving us food, which is generally low in energy and high in fat, and they're giving it to us in these huge portions," Hill exclaimed, but he stressed that they were not the only culprits in the fattening of Americans.

The hurdles for minorities and especially the poor are enormous. They are more likely to have limited access to health care and insurance coverage, and often suffer from poor nutrition. Some recent immigrants have the added burden of language barriers that make negotiating the U.S. health system impossible.

In addition, African-American women report less pressure to be thin than their white counterparts and tend to be less self-conscious about how much they weigh.

Koplan of the CDC suggests that the entire community must play a role to help the increasing number of overweight Americans. He recommends that doctors counsel patients at annual exams, workplaces offer healthy meals, companies install on-site gyms, schools improve their physical education classes, and cities create safe public spaces for walking. Also, parents should encourage their children to play outdoors instead of spending time in front of the television or computer.

"We may be too late to do anything about it. The question we need to ask ourselves is can we turn it around before everyone susceptible is obese."

Ok, I'm sorry, but didn't you just jump all over someone and call them racist for posting similar information? 

<----- damn near SPIT all over the computer screen!!!!!

OMG - could you be a LITTLE subtle just ONE day?????

I'm sorry, have we MET?

No Madame (QT). The other Poster is a proponent of DS; she makes the assumption that because the research she presented showed that AA loss less weight after RNY and Banding BASED On Genetics (Race Based OnLY), that  AA needed a More mal-absorptive surgical procedure, like DS. (She made this assumption, not the research).


My position is that weight loss has more to do with Environmental factors than genetic factors, such as:
(1) Food Choices; based on what is available and because of Ethnic preferences for certain foods and refusal to change those preferences;
(2) Expense of Nutritious Food (Economic Status); less healthy foods are cheaper;
(3) Good food options not readily within reach ...As others showed Super Markets are leaving Black Neighborhoods; and Fast Food Restaurants are moving into Black neighborhoods at a record pace. 
(4) STRESS (this causes physiological problems that are emince and most can't be measured);
(5) Exercise Habits and activities;
(6) As well as others.


My position is that to boldly say that Blacks MAY fail at WLS solely because of genetics is racist. There are numerous factors involved in failed WLS or less wt loss, AND if there is not a medical or surgical problem, those factors are totally under the control of the WLS Recipient. To put failure solely on genetics is to say that AA can not control our "destiny" relative to our wt loss and health factors surrounding obesity. That Poster basically belittled Blacks because of her position and passion for pushing the DS. She chose an article that appeared to support her position, but as another questioner noted: Her article does NOT say that Blacks would improve if their WLS choice was DS. That Poster made a very BROAD Assumption, and I and Others challenged her. In her zealousness to put forward her position she did not weigh the impact of her assumption...or maybe she did nd didn't care.

NO ONE is Doomed to be Obese or to WLS failure; making the best food and drink choices, along with exercise will lead to Physical Wellness, no matter what WLS choice one makes. The article I Posted also shows that Researchers have moved far beyond JUST examining genetic factors relative to obesity and I question any research that uses only race as a factor in determining causes for obesity or WLS success/failure...

ETA: It is a pleasure to answer your questions...I really like directness, I understand that. Thank-you for asking for clarity.

tomato-tomahto, potato-potahto, bactrack-BULL****

The woman shared an article and you jumped all over her.  You just shared similar information, but somehow in your mind it's perfectly ok to do so and should be clear to all that you did so without any racist feelings or negative motivation.  Why is it that you get to have a "position", but she's making "assumptions"?  A bit unfair don't ya think?  I'm just saying it's awful funny you would jump to a conclusion about someone's motivation for posting something then turn around and post basically the same thing.  And I don't mean funny ha ha.

I don't care what your postion is, you're welcome to it, but everyone else is welcome to theirs as well and go jump to racist because they interpreted the information that they came across differently than you is a bit ridiculous.