a99kitten's Musings

So, professors from these schools…

1.Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
2 Department of Nutrition, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
3 Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
4 Department of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

…did a 6 year long study. And they came to the conclusion that if you sit on your ass and watch a lot of TV, you will probably get fat. And have bad-eating habits.

Ummm…I could have told them that without a 6-year long official (and probably pricey somehow) study. Seriously. You needed professors and research assistants and a focus group to come to this conclusion? You people need to get outside of the classroom/lab more. From the study:

“Background
Television (TV) watching is the most common leisure activity in the United States. Few studies of adults have described the relationship between TV and health behaviors such as physical activity, diet, and body weight status.

Conclusion:
The results from this analysis suggest that television exposure is associated with deleterious effects on physical activity, diet, and body weight status in adult participants of the ARIC cohort. Television exposure was associated cross-sectionally and prospectively with physical activity, diet and body weight. “

Full study here:
http://www.ijbnpa.org/content/5/1/68

I see reports and news stories of studies being done on the most inane, ridiculous things quite often. But this? Really? And frankly, it’s not solely TVs fault. Every AM I am up and watch 1 hour show from my DVR. But I do it will doing my cardio on my stepper which is in front of the TV. So I get about 45 minutes of exercise (no watching commercials!) and blow through a TV show that I otherwise wouldn’t have time for. And I think plenty of people sit around and goof off playing video games, surfing the internet, etc. and they probably will get just as fat sitting there doing no exercise as the TV watchers. So again – this study was reeeally needed?

Along the same vein, this week I saw tweets about a t-shirt being sold at Urban Outfitters that some people on twitter/tumblr found funny (like me) and some found offensive. Ok. To each his/her own.

But what I find the most ridiculous is the reasoning behind the bulk of the “outrage” – that it promotes eating disorders. So…being told to “Eat Less” is a gateway to an eating disorder? Every week I see studies (again with the studies) that childhood obesity has reached crazy levels. Adult obesity is always on the rise. The government wants to put in laws telling us how much salt we are allowed to have on our food, or sugar sodas, or junk food at all.

Laws have been passed so that every restaurant has to label everything for calories, fat, etc etc. Because “we” (the people) can’t figure out that if something is super-sized, salty and has melted cheese on is that it might be highly caloric and make our own decision. And we all know that McDonald’s is responsible for making me pull in and eat there every single day and become a giant lard-ass.

So even with all of these things a goofy slogan of “Eat Less” on a t-shirt is evil? Why? It’s not a bad message. Can it be taken the wrong way by a neurotic person who already has a eating disorder? Sure – probably. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad message. It means that person has issues they need to deal with anyway.

It is not bad. It doesn’t say “Starve Yourself”. It doesn’t say ‘Stick a finger down your throat, I did!!”. Or “Eat cotton if your hungry”. Simply says Eat Less. A good message…especially as you are about to get up off the couch to get a bag of chips before watching more TV like the people in the above study…