By Brian Carnell

Wednesday, June 4, 2003

Sydney Smith wrote an interesting look at activists and others who complain that food and food alone is responsible for the increasing rate of obesity in America that notes they are missing a major component of obesity -- lack of exercise.

As Smith points out, the data simply do not back up the claim that Americans weigh more because they are eating more -- rather, it appears that Americans have simply stopped exercising as much as they used to,

The average daily caloric consumption of Americans is not far from the recommended rates of 1800 to 2200 calories a day (depending on age and sex.) On the other hand, less than ten percent of schools set aside time for physical education each day, and less than 40 percent of adults engage in enough physical activity to confer health benefits. With numbers like that, our waist lines will continue to expand, no matter what we eat.

A recent study of teenagers' habits over the past twenty years supports this observation. Nutritionist Lisa Sutherland of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill looked at data from the CDC's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, and the Department of Agriculture's Nationwide Food Consumption Survey, all of which have been following our national weight trends, activity trends, and food consumption trends for several years. She found that over the past twenty years, teenagers have, on average, increased their caloric intake by one percent. During that same time period, the percentage of teenagers who said they engaged in some sort of physical activity for thirty minutes a day dropped from 42 percent to 29 percent. Not surprisingly, teenage obesity over the twenty year period increased by 10 percent. The logical conclusion is that it isn't junk food that's making teenagers fat - it's their lack of activity.

But the kicker is the quote that Smith digs up from Dr. Nancy Krebs, the chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics' committee on nutrition about the study of teenagers. Krebs was quoted by the Associated Press as saying,

We are pretty sure they are eating too much, no matter what the data say.

Well sure. And psychics are certain that they are able to reliably predict events no matter what the data (and those horrible skeptics and debunkers) say. If you throw out a need for data and just go with the "pretty sure" standard of evidence, a lot of things just fall into place.

Source:

'No Matter What the Data Say. Sydney Smith, TechCentralStation.Com, May 29, 2003.

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