Archives: June 2009
Thu Jun 25, 2009
Symbolic versus Real Behavior
Although the majority of my patients lose a lot of weight and keep it off forever, I spend a lot of time talking about the few patients who don't succeed, because it is there that I and other doctors can improve our treatment. The chief impediment for patients and doctors is the substitution of symbolic behavior for real behavior and unwillingness to see the difference. More...
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Tue Jun 16, 2009
Was Obesity Nixon's Fault?
In 1972 the U.S. shipped 30 million tons of wheat to Russia. As a result by 1973 the price of food in the U.S. had risen to record levels and Nixon worried the public backlash would threaten the Republicans in the next election. He ordered Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz to "fix it". Butz canceled the loans-to-farmers program and the national granary reserve that had been in place since 1933, replacing them with direct payments to large farmers to grow corn. Small farmers were driven out. Corn produces the most food per acre, and Butz famously urged farmers to plant corn "from "fencepost to fencepost". Corn now sells for less than the cost of production, the difference made up by payment of taxpayer dollars to farmers, 40 billion a year. Bumper crops are sustained with fertilizers from oil. More...
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Thu Jun 11, 2009
The Two Humps
Examining the records of thousands of my patients who lost a lot of weight and kept it off, I see two humps, two places where the rate of loss slowed down and picked up again. The unsuccessful patients got stuck on one side of one of those humps. Clinicians should give advice appropriate to the specific hump blocking the patient.
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Fri Jun 05, 2009
Personality and Overweight
I'll get a lot of hate mail for saying this, but I find that the more overweight people are, the less variation exists in their personality. There are many types of lean people, but only one type of very obese person. There is a spectrum between the two extremes. The first two reasons are trivial. Obese people spend more time seeking things to eat, less time for hobbies, people or study. And obese people are sleepy (THAT is published).
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