The Warping of Wisdom: Evidence or Opinion?

There seems to be a view these days that one person's opinion is as good as another's, regardless of whether the opinion is an informed opinion or an uninformed opinion. This may well not do too much harm in itself, but the boundaries have become smudged and too many people now confuse opinion with facts that are well supported by evidence. My especial concern is in the matter of whether more exercise reduces obesity in people in general and in overweight children in particular.

We are in the happy position of being able to check out research on this matter. Researchers from the University of Glasgow found no evidence that exercise either prevented obesity in children or promoted weight loss in children who were already overweight. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2006/oct/06/health.food where we read that the research was lead by John Reilly, a professor in paediatric energy metabolism at Glasgow University. His "team set out to establish whether greater physical activity would prevent children from becoming overweight. They recruited 545 children in their last year at 36 nursery schools. Half the schools instituted three extra half-hour sessions of physical play and activity every week, and parents were given information packs encouraging them to give their children more activity and less television. The other half had no extra activity or information. All the children were regularly weighed and measured and their body mass index (BMI - the relationship between weight and height used to check for obesity) was calculated, and there was no difference between the groups. "Despite rigorous implementation, we found no significant effect of the intervention on physical activity, sedentary behaviour or body mass index," wrote the researchers. The BMJ article about the research is here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1647320/

Dr John Briffa is a UK medical doctor with a particular interest in nutrition and he also has an interest in weight loss for people who are overweight/obese. Here is one of his blog articles, entitled Does exercise promote weight loss? No. He examines the evidence and gives references to relevant scholarly studies. His conclusion is, "There are plenty of good reasons for taking regular exercise. Weight loss isn’t one of them."

There is evidence that obesity is 'set before age of five'. Professor Terry Wilkin, of the Peninsula Medical School, Plymouth, the lead researcher in this research, said, "When they reach the age of five the die seems to be cast, at least until the age of puberty. What is causing it is very difficult to know." He said there must be a factor now that was not there 25 years ago which is making today's children obese. And, given the young age, this is likely to be in a child's home rather than school environment and linked to upbringing rather than schooling. Rather than lack of physical exercise, he believes diet could be to blame. "

As obesity in childhood is an increasing problem, it is most important that advice about remedial measures be supported by evidence, rather than hallowed by tradition, authority and unsupported assumptions. The evidence is clear. The belief that exercising more 'must' bring about weight loss - while fervently and sincerely held by many people - is wrong. It is disturbing therefore to have Bupa, a health insurance company, suggest that exercise helps overweight children lose weight. And of course there is a preponderance of doctors and other health professionals who continue to claim that exercise helps reduce obesity despite the fact that this is incorrect. When authoritative people give flawed information and advice, they bear a heavy responsibility for the harm that results.

Greater Manchester Health Commission subscribes to the myth that more exercise will reduce child obesity.

The Telegraph reports that "Greater Manchester Health Commission wants residents-only parking around school premises so youngsters can gain exercise by walking or cycling to lessons".

There is no scientific evidence to support the widely-held erroneous belief that increasing exercise reduces child obesity. On the contrary. - See this article from the Guardian: Glasgow University Study finds that increasing exercise does not reduce child obesity.

When children become fat it is essentially because they are eating salty food. Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume and other fluid retention results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food.

Because children have much smaller bodies than adults it would be best if they had no more than half as much salt as adults. Most children, however, have much more than this because they eat so many snacks and instant foods. Just one cheeseburger, for instance, contains almost double the recommended daily salt maximum for children. There are high amounts of salt in packet soups, instant noodles, ketchup and sauces, sausages, burgers and savoury snacks. Fat children will lose weight fast if they eat less salt. And even faster still if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and unsalted vegetables, because these are rich in potassium, which helps to displace sodium from the body. Overweight children should not be put on a diet; dieting is harmful and unnecessary and does not usually result in weight loss. Once children start dieting it is often the beginning of a lifetime of yo-yo dieting and increasing weight and ill-health.

See Children and Obesity

and Sodium in foods

Overweight parents could be paid to walk their children to school as part of a Government campaign to fight the obesity epidemic. - It won't work!

Fat parents could be paid to walk their children to school
article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"Overweight parents could be paid to walk their children to school as part of a Government campaign to fight the obesity epidemic."

"Businesses which have signed up to the initiative include ITV, which is to run a series of programmes tracking viewers' attempts to live healthier lives, and Kellogg's, the cereal giant, which will support breakfast clubs in deprived areas."

There are many benefits to exercise, but reducing obesity is not one of them. There is no evidence that exercise reduces excess weight and there IS evidence that it doesn't! Extra exercise will make the parents and children tired without causing them to lose excess weight.

On Radio 4's "You and Yours" programme today they had discussion and phone-in and email contributions from listeners about the problem of obesity and about the Government's new initiative to tackle it with its creation of so-called 'healthy towns', promoting mainly an increase in exercise. As I've already stated, exercise will not reduce obesity. - One of the listeners who phoned in recited the advice we have all heard many thousands of times, namely to 'eat less and exercise more'. - She gave this advice along with the word that usually precedes it, i.e. she said, "Just eat less and exercise more!" - It's so simplistic and so very patronising - as if people are still unaware of this message and have never tried to follow this advice! - But they have! - over and over and over again! - The advice does not work! The advice usually causes weight GAIN not weight loss...)o:

The way to reduce excess weight/fluid retention is to eat plenty of food, but to avoid salt. - Ironically, Kellogg's, the firm that will be helping with breakfast clubs in deprived areas is one of the firms that adds a great deal of salt to most of its products - like cornflakes - so their 'help' is unlikely to do a lot of good...)o:

What a wasted opportunity! What a waste of money! - What needless, avoidable illness, pain and suffering the nation's obese children and adults will have to endure because the 'experts' - doctors, dieticians, the diet industry, Government ministers, the Department of Health, the World Health Organisation - have for so many years been giving out misinformation instead of helping people with the problems of overweight and obesity! What incalculable harm the food companies have done by their reckless addition of so much salt/sodium to processed convenience food and ready meals! - How they have warped the taste of their customers, giving them a taste for high salt food! - All of these people have great suffering and millions of early deaths on their consciences. - Those who know the truth - and there definitely are some who know the truth - are not correcting the lies that are harming innocent people because they do not want to admit that they have been misleading people all these years. They are frightened of being laughed at or getting into trouble or being sued... - They should be frightened of causing people to suffer pain and illness needlessly.

Obesity is caused by fluid retention in people who are sensitive to salt. It is not caused by too many calories, so it is not reduced by eating fewer calories or by using up more calories by increased exercise.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

See Sodium in foods

vulnerable groups

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

The Chinese government has been taken in by the calorie myths about obesity and have announced that schoolchildren will have to run at least 1km a day

Chinese schoolchildren must run one kilometre a day, government says
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The programme kicks off on October 26 and students are expected to have to complete their runs in their break times. The sports departments of provincial governments will enforce the scheme, which will continue until the end of April.

Chen Zhiyong, an official at the General Administration of Sport, said schools will arrange where the students can run, but races along busy roads will not be allowed.

The government is concerned by a rapid increase in child obesity after a report last year from the Health ministry showed that urban six-year-old boys are 2.5 inches taller and 6.6 pounds heavier on average than 30 years ago.

China's increasing wealth has led to the wider consumption of meat and a more sedentary lifestyle.

"The speed of the increase greatly exceeds the growth trends found in Western developed countries," said Yang Qing, director of the child health department of the Health ministry."

Exercise has many health benefits for many people, but it has no effect on reducing child obesity, as you can read in this article from the Guardian: Glasgow University Study finds that increasing exercise does not reduce child obesity.

This is because obesity is not caused by eating too much or by exercising too little. - It is caused by fluid retention. Fluid retention occurs when people who are sensitive to salt eat salt or salty food. When overweight people, including overweight children - and overweight pet dogs, cats and rabbits as well - cut down on their intake of salt and salty food they easily and swiftly lose some of the excess weight as they shed excess fluid from the body by way of extra urine from the bladder.

Lose weight, reduce fluid retention, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

prescribed steroids and HRT

vulnerable groups

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

See FAT RETENTION

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

Wider implications of the flawed theory that excess calorie intake causes obesity

Even BABIES are being taken to gyms because of growing concerns about obesity!

Obesity worries fuel baby gym boom

Extract from Telegraph:

"Babies as young as four months are being taken to special gyms amid growing paranoia about obesity, it emerged yesterday.

An American chain has signed hundreds of babies and toddlers in Britain for "developmental gymnastics".

Demand for places has surged as government figures show that one in five London children under 11 is obese."

This is ridiculous! - Gymnastics for babies! - All that is necessary to prevent or to lessen child obesity is to ensure that children have low salt/sodium intake. - Exercise has little effect on child obesity. - See this article from the Guardian: Glasgow University Study finds that increasing exercise does not reduce child obesity.

Lose weight and improve your health in many ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

vulnerable groups

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Continuing to give the wrong advice will further increase child obesity and wreak havoc with children's health and happiness

Parents of obese children to get warning letters

Extract from the Telegraph report:

"The weighing programme was not well received during its first year and as many schools did not take part, the statistics were deemed to be useless.

Last year the participation levels were much improved, however, with the weights of almost a million children being collected as a result of every primary care trust in England and Wales taking part.

Ministers believe they can now introduce the controversial letters and all parents will be sent the obesity warnings as a matter of course.

The growing scale of the crisis was revealed in a Government report last week which predicted up to half of adults and 26 per cent of children would be obese by 2050.

The Foresight report also warned of the life-threatening problems of childhood obesity and suggested that there would be a 70 per cent rise in type 2 diabetes, 30 per cent increase in strokes and 20 per cent increase in heart disease.

As a result overall life-expectancy could decrease by as much as 13 years.

When the report came out, Mr Johnson insisted that children would be the focus of efforts to curb the trend.

He said: "More than 80 per cent of obese 10 to 14-year-olds remain obese into adulthood."

He added that more would need to be done in schools to in terms of the nutrition of the meals and participation in physical education.

Ministers are now bracing themselves for criticism that the warning letters could stigmatise fat children."

All that is needed to reduce obesity in children is for them to eat meals low in salt/sodium. Dieting is harmful and ineffective; exercise is hazardous and humiliating for obese children and adults.

Overweight and obesity are not caused by overeating; they are caused by fluid retention in people who are sensitive to salt/sodium. - You can read on my website about the vulnerable groups of people:

Lose weight and improve your health in many ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

vulnerable groups

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

One in four children overweight by age three

One in four children are overweight by age three - Guardian

Extract:

"Almost one in four children are overweight or obese by the age of three, a UK-wide survey reveals today.

The study, the biggest of its kind, measured the height and weight of 14,000 children aged three. Preliminary results reveal that 18% were overweight and a further 5% obese.

The head of the research, Professor Carol Dezateux, said the findings were "of great public health concern".

The government has made cutting childhood obesity a priority after research showed levels had trebled since the 1980s. It is committed to improving diet and boosting physical activity to halt the year-on-year rise in child obesity by 2010.

Today's study found children in Northern Ireland and Wales were more likely to be overweight or obese than those living in England and Scotland. But those in less advantaged areas of England and Scotland were slightly more likely to be overweight or obese than those living in more advantaged areas."

It's incredible that the 'experts' still do not realise that child obesity is caused by children eating food with a high salt content. They become bloated with excess water. Exercise does not reduce obesity in children. - See http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2006/10/exercise-has-little-effect-on.html

See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Aborigines will help fat teenagers to survive on a new BBC reality TV show.

Aborigines help fat teens survive on TV - Telegraph

Extract:

"Obese British teenagers will have to spear wallabies, trap lizards and skin snakes when they go hunting with Aborigines in a new BBC reality television show.

Drawing on 40,000 years of knowledge, Aborigines will teach 10 overweight young Britons how to survive on bush tucker in the series Fat Teens Can't Hunt.

The participants will have to swap burgers, chips and pizzas for lizards, mangrove worms and charred kangaroo. If they fail to find food in the wild, they will go hungry.

The programme, due to start filming in the Northern Territory in August, will feature five boys and five girls, aged 16 to 19. The six one-hour episodes are expected to be screened later this year or early next year."

Well, if these young people live on the food they catch, they will lose weight, because fresh food contains only low concentrations of salt/sodium. - I hope they are not going to be given salt to use in cooking it!

The production team clearly think that increased exercise will help the young people to become less obese. - It won't. - Obesity in children and young people is almost always caused by eating food with too much salt in it. - They can easily lose excess weight (which is actually fluid retention) by eating less salt, and, preferably, plenty of fruit and fresh vegetables.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Exercise has 'little effect on childhood weight'

Exercise has 'little effect on childhood weight' - reported in this article from the Guardian: Glasgow University Study finds that increasing exercise does not reduce child obesity.

According to the findings of research carried out by Glasgow University, getting four-year-olds to engage in three extra 30 minute sessions of exercise a week had no effect on whether they were obese or not.

"Despite rigorous implementation, we found no significant effect of the intervention on physical activity, sedentary behaviour or body mass index," concluded the researchers.

More than 500 nursery school children were recruited for the study, which compared children who exercised three times a week with children left to their own devices.

Here is an extract from my webpage http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html

"When children become fat it is essentially because they are eating salty food. Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food.

Because children have much smaller bodies than adults it would be best if they had no more than half as much salt as adults. Most children, however, have much more than this because they eat so many snacks and instant foods. Just one cheeseburger, for instance, contains almost double the recommended daily salt maximum for children. There are high amounts of salt in packet soups, instant noodles, ketchup and sauces, sausages, burgers and savoury snacks. Fat children will lose weight fast if they eat less salt. And even faster still if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and unsalted vegetables, because these are rich in potassium, which helps to displace sodium from the body."