Tag Archives: Obesity

December 18, 2011 · 9:34 pm

Why Gay Men Dont Get Fat

Well, this is news to me and most of my friends….

Sounds like another stereotypical book from the Circuit Party set for the Circuit Party set and the wannabes- but I’ll hold my fire until I read more about it…

I think it’s part of the proof of how much we’ve assimilated into society that we now get just as fat as straight men- at least outside of the NY-LA Gay Ghettos….

 

“Gay Men Don’t Get Fat” is the title of an as-of-yet published book by Barneys New York creative ambassador Simon Doonan. The author calls it “a stylishly slimming discourse that proves gay men really ARE French women: prone to disdain, favoring cheeky underwear, convinced of their own artistic brilliance, and of course calorie-obsessed.

”The French women reference, and title of his book, are both presumably a reference to the popular diet book “French Women Don’t Get Fat,” which espoused emulating French culinary culture to slim down.

Before we go any further, if Doonan wasn’t himself gay, I think he’d be treading on thin ice, you know, with the whole stereotyping thing. Gays and lesbians, like everyone else in the world, come in all shapes and sizes.

While I’ve had gay friends over the years, it’s difficult for me to speak with any authority about whether or not they are on average less fat than everyone else.

However, there is an undeniable sub-culture in the gay community that obsesses over their physique, which is the focus in “Gay Men Don’t Get Fat.”

What ultimately matters is have there been any scientific studies to back the idea of gay men being thinner than their hetero counterparts?

Last year, a study led by Kerith Conron, an associate research scientist at Northeastern University and a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, came to the conclusion that, in fact, gay men are slimmer than heterosexual men. The same held true, flipped, for lesbians. That is, lesbians are on average heavier than their heterosexual counterparts. The researchers determined that gay men are 50 percent less likely to be obese.

via Why Gay Men Dont Get Fat.

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July 17, 2011 · 10:35 am

Mediterraneans Abandon Their Famous Diet : NPR

Big Agri-Business and Marketing strike again…

From NPR:

 

It’s not news that Americans are getting fatter and fatter, and the same is happening in many countries around the world. What may come as a bit of a surprise is that it’s even happening in Mediterranean countries, especially among young people.

Pioppi, a little seaside Italian town south of Naples, is home of the Mediterranean Diet. In fact, there’s a museum here dedicated to Ancel Keys, a Minnesota physiologist who traveled to Europe during the 1940s and 1950s to study the diet of people living near the Mediterranean Sea.

Keys, who liked to eat Mediterranean-style meals, lived to be 101 years old. The problem is, in Italy generally, even here in Pioppi, the diet is being ignored.

“The Mediterranean diet is absolutely something that we are trying to pursue every day,” said Dr. Angelo Pietrobelli, associate professor of pediatrics and nutrition at the University of Verona. “Unfortunately, in particular among adolescents, they try to avoid Mediterranean diet because they try to ‘imitate’ the U.S. diet.”

Some people, of course, don’t think hamburgers and sodas are a U.S. diet — they call it the “industrial global diet.” Either way, the results are the same.

When Keys first came to Italy with the U.S. Army during World War II — his name is the K in the Army’s emergency K-rations — he was struck by the low rate of heart disease he saw among poor people in Italy, compared to well-fed northern Europe and America. The traditional Mediterranean diet is more than just tasty — it’s actually good for you.

But the Italians who gave Keys his insights into the Mediterranean diet have vanished. Italy now tips the scales as the fat man of Europe; maybe 36 percent of 12- to 16-year-olds are overweight or obese, according to Pietrobelli.

Nor is the problem confined to Italy. Spain and Greece are also abandoning the traditional Mediterranean diet and lifestyle and seeing much heavier young people.

Of course, it isn’t just fast food and sodas.

“I can tell you that approximately 20 percent of subjects between 6 to 12 years of age are staying in front of the TV approximately four hours per day,” Pietrobelli said.

For the first time in history, today’s children are predicted to live shorter lives than their parents. And the Italian Ministry of Health is worried. Health officials say the obesity is reaching epidemic proportions, and the TV campaigns “make it easier to make healthy choices.”

The rise in Italian obesity rates is remarkable: After all, the overweight kids in, say, Pioppi, are the great-grandchildren of the original Mediterranean diet subjects. That’s a massive change in only three generations.

While nutritionists like Pietrobelli continue to work on fixing the problem, others are trying to understand the changes.

via Mediterraneans Abandon Their Famous Diet : NPR.

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