Odds and Ends

Navigating Obesogenic Environments - Once again, my hero Boyd Swinburn PhD, writes a fascinating article regarding obesity.  This is one of four articles that are published in the journal Lancet (subscription needed for the full articles) this month.  The articles come out in preparation for a UN General Assembly Meeting in NYC next month.  So much is said in the first article that bears repeating - that if you can get a hold of it you should read it.  I will try to link the summaries.  He and the co authors say important things, like " obesity is the result of people responding normally to the obesogenic environments they find themselves in."  Obesity causing (obesogenic) is usually defined this way: the environment makes walking or cycling difficult, makes energy dense, nutrient poor food readily available, tasty (addictive?) and cheap and markets that food incessantly. 

The best lines in the article are on p 809 " Undoubtedly, the final decision to consume a particular food or beverage, or to exercise or not, is an individual decision.  However, to negotiate the complexity of the environment and the  choices it poses, (makes) many of these decisions automatic or subconscious."  Another term used in the paragraph is "passive over consumption."

What I want to add here is what persons such as myself and many of you may take for granted, the agency to navigate these food deserts or obesogenic areas.  A real life example from my weekend grocery shopping:  At the store the yogurt was in multipacks and I did not want to buy four of one kind.  I said, never mind - I will not be forced into buying what the grocer wants me to buy.  I decided (my choice) to go somewhere else.  While I was somewhere else, I found sales on items that I really like and saved several dollars.  I was able to go to the other store because of several factors that people with such privilege take for granted;  1) I have gumption (agency) 2) I had the time (i.e. hours in a day), 3) I had transportation, 4) I had money to buy something else, 5) I did not have a child demanding I buy something they saw on TV, 5) there WAS another store I could go to... and such... this is navigating an environment that makes its MUCH easier to get the cheap, bad for me food.  Additionally, at store one, the type of lettuce I always buy was not stocked.  I found someone, asked for it and then waited for it. I had assertiveness and time - people with such attributes and luxury often remain oblivious to the fact that others may not have them- and so when we say that an individual has a choice we need to think that through a little further.

(also read the article for a wonderful discussion on why individual causal factors need to be given less of a focus - here is a summary page for the articles)

Dinosaurs and Fruit - I saw a package of plums in the produce department.  They were in a net like bag which had a cardboard label on the top.  It was decorated with dinosaurs and I guess it was a brand - like Dinosaur brand fruit.  I did not look at the price but imagine it cost more than Tony the Tiger's Frosted Flakes - still this is the kind of population level change that makes sense for obesity prevention.  We cannot make people eat fruit or anything for that matter, but we can make fruit as alluring as junk food AND as cheap.  We can level the playing field and then individual level programs might be more effective.

FDA Update - No word from Wal-Mart regarding my two concerns about their fish so I composed and sent an email to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition Outreach and Information Center today.  You see - I have gumption.

HPV Vaccine Update - The other day I mentioned a recent MMWR that was released by the CDC.  I focused on the obesity rates between USA and Canada but in that same report there was information on vaccines and specifically the vaccine used to prevent some strains of the human papillomavirus.  I have written about this - mostly in 2006 or 07.  I am not fond of this vaccine - but it is more a bias then anything "medical."  It is expensive, takes 3 doses and does NOT prevent cervical cancer nor obviate condom use and pap smears.  According to the CDC report, only about 49% of the target population (girls who are not yet sexually active) have had the vaccination -  have had one dose of it- even less have had all three.  Poor Merck - that must hurt.

More on Social Constructs - In the last year I have heard a lot about things being socially constructed.  It is taking me some time to wrap my mind around this as it was not so popular of a concept the last time I was involved in academia.  As I am specifically teaching about gender identity to undergraduate students, I want to better grasp this.  I found a nice video recently and from there my mind went to this:  We, the people of a society, country, culture etc , define what masculine and feminine are.  We decide what a man must do, look like, sound and act like to be MANLY or masculine just as we define what is WOMANLY.  We define it - it is not something that our genes or biology tells us - it is what our parents, peers, leaders, movies, songs, books ETC tell us.  That means it is socially constructed.  A woman who does not wear high heels and makeup and who works in construction is not considered "feminine" but she is a woman - she may or may not identify as a female - and she is expressing herself as she wants - that is not WRONG - not ABNORMAL - it is just what it is.