It's your fault if you're a fatty

A leading expert in human nutrition has caused outrage by calling "over-fatness" a self-inflicted burden on the taxpayer.

Professor John Birkbeck, adjunct professor in human nutrition at Massey University, said anti-obesity efforts won't work until society refuses to accept the condition as normal and healthy, as it has done for smoking.

The 76-year-old, who moved into semi-retirement this week after 50 years in his field, rejected the notion that some people will get fat regardless of their efforts to keep weight down.

While acknowledging that some may have a genetic propensity to obesity, he said: "You can't get over-fat without eating more calories than you expend."

Birkbeck even cited concentration camps to illustrate his point.

"You do not see fat people in concentration camps. Why? Because they get hardly anything to eat and they have to do a lot of work."

Birkbeck also said "over-fatness" was a bigger problem with Maori and Pacific Islanders than Europeans and an emerging issue with Asian migrants.


His comments outraged groups working to reduce the obesity rate.

Maree Burns, coordinator of the Auckland-based Eating Difficulties Education Network, said they were "flagrant", "inappropriate", "intolerant" and "offensive".

"Shaming and blaming people has never been effective. This is the worst example of fat phobia and doesn't achieve anything except building discrimination," she said.

"People that are bigger already experience profound levels of discrimination and feel like health pariahs and social outcasts without these kinds of attitudes. With comments like that I am glad he's retiring."

She was particularly upset by his race-based comments.

"Maori and Pacific Islanders have bigger bone structures and bigger bodies. To use BMI and make comparisons across ethnic groups is inappropriate."

Birkbeck caused further outrage by saying methods used to reduce obesity rates had failed.

"In a dictatorship, you say 'everybody that comes back in a year's time with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of more than 30 will be shot' - and you'll find hardly anyone has a BMI over 30.

"But you can't do that in society, so what we have to do is find a way to cajole and coerce. And I don't think they've done enough of that."

Burns said that some people were destined to be fat and were "perfectly fine" at their body weights.

She said a lot of people were overweight as a result of constant dieting, which was unsustainable because it led to cravings and binge eating.

The way to curb obesity was to encourage a lifestyle change - which groups like hers were working to do.

Obesity Action Coalition director Leigh Sturgiss said the condition should be blamed on environment rather than the individual.

"While there is some aspect of people making choices for themselves, we do live in an environment that doesn't promote healthy eating," she said.

"I am quite surprised he is saying these things. I would have thought we were past these kinds of positions. He's quite controversial."

- credit: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm ?c_id=1&objectid=10575537

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I just read this today and thought it might provide for some intresting discussion here. 

I think they are both right to an extent. Some people do make themselves fat. They didn't have to eat that cheeseburger and fries for lunch, or that brownie for desert. We can say no to bad foods if we try.

But I agree that we don't have a very healthy view on food. And alot of people just don't know the facts about what certain foods do to your body. 

I don't know, I think if people were a little more educated on food(I know it's been a lot easier for me to resist unhealthy stuff after I took a foods class in school), and got more active, the obesity levels would go down trememdously.

I agree with Hannajoy, alot of people have no idea that sometimes that brownie has 600+ calories. Sure it's small and innocent looking, but it's extremely bad. Nutrition is not taught enough in schools... they do a little bit of it in health classes and that's it. I think there needs to be a nutrition class, not a topic that's part of health class. And it should be taught every year in school (like English).

Sometimes though, an obese person is inflicted with an eating disorder. Binge eating disorders are very real and causes obesity on it's sufferers. Then there are health conditions like thyroid problems, pcos, etc. It's not exactly black and white, there are some gray areas too.

Perhaps if people had access to health insurance, to see a nutritionist, they can have their diets sorted to something healthy and lose weight with the help of a professional. I learned alot about food and nutrition, and when I had a nutritionist (in the UK) I lost alot of weight. I followed her guidelines, her meal ideas/plans and I was weighed every other week. If I didn't lose any weight, I had to deal with the embarassment etc, and because I wanted to avoid being embarassed I did what I was told and lost weight. Sometimes people need something to be accounted for.

I also think that they're both correct to some extent. Both the individual and the environment are responsible for increasing obesity rates.

I agree with the professor in that people need to take responsibility for their choices but it seems like he's far too radical and the things he has said are simply there to stir controversy. It also does add fuel to the fat discrimination fire. On the other hand, people aren't really given the proper tools to get healthier and lose weight. The promotion of diet products sets these people up for failure.

I think the solution is not only to promote healthy eating, but also to improve education about nutrition and fitness. Provide for more healthy options and increase ways to be more active.

I think the correlation between obesity and smoking is correct (in the case that the obesity is not caused by a medical condition).  They are both lifestyle choices that are unhealthy.  They are both addiction, in a sense.  People need education on obesity and nutrition though.  There has been A LOT of education on the danger of smoking.

Though I don't agree that shaming people for being overweight would help, I don't think "Fat Acceptance" is the right approach either.  I very much disagree with fat acceptance.  That's like "drug abuse acceptance"... people with addictions are also genetically predisposed to be vulnerable to it, and you don't see people striving for us to accept that condition.

His view is not completely faulty, although extremely harsh, blaming and offensive.

I don't consider the concentration camp methaphore as true. Yes, once you consistently starve people to death every single one of them will get skinny. This has absolutely nothing to do with a losing weight via a healthy diet!

Interesting...  This reminded me of an article that I read a few weeks back:

http://www.livescience.com/health/080916-bad- obesity-modern.html

I agree with most of the posters that I generally agree with the ideas in the article, but thought it was a bit harsh...

Birkbeck is a hack and a terrible "expert", if you ask me! And the comparison to concentration camps? Tacky to say the least. It almost sounds as if he's endorsing them. I mean, at least they aren't fat, right? What about the levels of anorexia and bulimia in this decade? He's endorsing that too, in his absurd notion that everyone with a BMI over 30 should be shot. You don't hear him saying that anyone with a BMI under 15 should be shot-- it sounds to me like he doesn't care about actual health. Someone who weighs 150 can have less body fat or lower blood sugar than someone weighing 135, for example. Weight is important, but relative.

Yes, people tend to make themselves overweight through their own actions-- but that is oversimplifying the issue to say the least. Compulsive eating is an emotional issue, not a physical one. Only when I grew to accept myself did I learn to use food as fuel for my body rather than a comfort. I'm highly affronted by the idea that attacking the obese is going to be our miracle cure. In that same way, I disagree with attacking smokers. Most of them don't want to be smokers, why do they need you to reaffirm their addictions? Eating less through insane amounts of self-control can work, but it generally won't last until you fix the underlying issue.

We do, however, need health education. And that does not mean a longer, more tedious high school health class. Just a better one.

People choose the path of least resistance in the world. If it is easy, cheap and convenient to eat badly, they will. If it becomes more difficult to do, they do it less. There will always be people (diehards) who engage in whatever dubious behaviour you choose, but public health isn't about those people. It's about shifting a few percent in the "mushy middle", making the environment a little different so the danger will be a little less. It isn't about making a 400-lb person get back to normal weight - it's about taking off 10-20 lbs on the average person. The former is an individual act of will (I'd say a triumph, really) - the latter is a byproduct of tiny little aspects of daily living.

Remember that the "obesity epidemic" consists of (on average) an extra 25 lbs on each adult American, compared to the 1960s. http://www.livescience.com/health/041027_amer ica_size.html

Especially considering we also gained an inch... (in height, boys, in height)

Changing basic aspects of public policy would help move around the averages enough to make a real difference in obesity rates - removing the economic incentive to produce corn syrup, putting calorie counts on restaurant menus (like they do in NYC), taxing undesirable foods and/or subsidizing healthy ones, designing buildings to be elevator-inconvenient and stairwell-friendly (reverse of the current trend), etc.

EDIT: not to mention ending the cult of the car, incentivizing public transport/biking, etc.

Was going to reply to this thread, but then I realized I replied to it in May.

Thank Gawd another one of these threads got zombied...

*facepalm*