ACT's Weight Action Plan is to not get worse

banco said :

neanderthalsis said :

LSWCHP said :

I know I see lots of fatty-boomstix waddling and shaking around the place these days, but 63.6%? Two thirds of adults are overweight or obese?

Somehow that doesn’t seem right to me.

They persist in using the BMI as the key indicator of obesity. This means that anyone with a reasonable amount of muscle development falls into the overweight category.

People always bring up the muscle mass issue but how many people do you see walking around Canberra who are carrying much muscle? A small % of under 30 guys for the most part. I can’t imagine they’d skew the results.

Shhh….neanderthalsis is in denial. If you have a BMI over 30 for men it is 95% likely that you are actually obese and 99% if you are a woman. The problem with BMI is that 64% of obese men and 51% of obese women have a BMI less than 30.

I think there is a quite large mistake in the report. According to this ABS report the percentage of over weight and obese people in 1995 was more like 66% men and 49% women. I have no idea how they could have come up with a figure of 23%. An increase of 66 to 70% for men and 49 to 55% for women sounds much more plausible.

BimboGeek said :

Take a look at photos of the people who advocate high fat for weight loss. Then look at photos of fruitarians and people advocating high carb weight loss.

I don’t even like the 30 bananas people but they are definitely skinny. Dr. Atkins was not.

Fruitarian and high-carb diets are very different. You simply couldn’t get through enough fruit to get fat on it – humans thrive on variety. The reason any one-type-of-food diet works is through boredom. And diets that ban you from combining fat and carbohydrate tend to work because fat on its own gets too much. High carbs on their own should work on the face of it, but unfortunately it’s the high-carb option that slows your metabolism. So you end up not losing weight on a stringently calorie-limited high-carb diet.

BimboGeek said :

LOL at the numpty that blamed sugar at 4 cals/g while totally encouraging fat at 9 cals/g.

The healthiest weight loss diet on the market is vegan at 80% of cals from carbohydrate. See The China Study, 80-10-10 etc.

Vegans don’t live longer, it just seems like it.

Take a look at photos of the people who advocate high fat for weight loss. Then look at photos of fruitarians and people advocating high carb weight loss.

I don’t even like the 30 bananas people but they are definitely skinny. Dr. Atkins was not.

Blathnat said :

BimboGeek said :

LOL at the numpty that blamed sugar at 4 cals/g while totally encouraging fat at 9 cals/g.

The healthiest weight loss diet on the market is vegan at 80% of cals from carbohydrate. See The China Study, 80-10-10 etc.

Actually I’ve had great success switching from my old poor diet to one that is higher in fat (lots of meat etc) but is extremely low in carbs, the only sugar I have is 2 spoons in my coffee of a morning. Obviously it’s not going to work for everyone, but I would feel confident enough to say that a high-fat low-carb diet would be much better than a low-fat diet with higher carb intake.

A casual stroll though the mall will show you most people are doing something wrong 🙂

Half of being healthy is being energetic enough to exercise and full enough you stop eating!

I’m guessing that your going to need a lot of fruit to make you feel full. Yet your going to eat many times the sugar.
A cow will just eat grass and get huge.

If you eat half as much your better off. If it has fat in it you don’t feel hungry after.

I’m large because I can cook for myself and really enjoy my cooking and I’m always going for the larger size because its much more cost effective.

Part of the issue is that you can get a half size for $6 or a full size for $8. What is everyone going to get? Just look at subway!

BimboGeek said :

LOL at the numpty that blamed sugar at 4 cals/g while totally encouraging fat at 9 cals/g.

The healthiest weight loss diet on the market is vegan at 80% of cals from carbohydrate. See The China Study, 80-10-10 etc.

Actually I’ve had great success switching from my old poor diet to one that is higher in fat (lots of meat etc) but is extremely low in carbs, the only sugar I have is 2 spoons in my coffee of a morning. Obviously it’s not going to work for everyone, but I would feel confident enough to say that a high-fat low-carb diet would be much better than a low-fat diet with higher carb intake.

Deref said :

poetix said :

miz said :

Nothing will work until the Heart Foundation dumps its erroneous high carb/low fat dietary recommendations.
http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/sweden-becomes-first-western-nation-to-reject-low-fat-diet-dogma-in-favor-of-low-carb-high-fat-nutrition/

That site seems to carry numerous articles about the perceived medical wonders of coconut oil. (There is a section called ‘Coconut Health’.)

It also carries anti-vaccination, anti-prescription medicine and anti-evolution articles.

The Swedish thing seems to be a committee report, not actually adopted, as far as I can tell.

Well-spotted, Poetix.

Top quoting from you, too!

You somehow quoted my unedited comment.

Scary… 🙂

poetix said :

miz said :

Nothing will work until the Heart Foundation dumps its erroneous high carb/low fat dietary recommendations.
http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/sweden-becomes-first-western-nation-to-reject-low-fat-diet-dogma-in-favor-of-low-carb-high-fat-nutrition/

That site seems to carry numerous articles about the perceived medical wonders of coconut oil. (There is a section called ‘Coconut Health’.)

It also carries anti-vaccination, anti-prescription medicine and anti-evolution articles.

The Swedish thing seems to be a committee report, not actually adopted, as far as I can tell.

Well-spotted, Poetix.

miz said :

Nothing will work until the Heart Foundation dumps its erroneous high carb/low fat dietary recommendations.
http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/sweden-becomes-first-western-nation-to-reject-low-fat-diet-dogma-in-favor-of-low-carb-high-fat-nutrition/

That site seems to carry numerous articles about the perceived medical wonders of coconut oil. (There is a section called ‘Coconut Health’.)

It also publishes/links to anti-vaccination, anti-prescription medicine and anti-evolution articles.

BimboGeek said :

LOL at the numpty that blamed sugar at 4 cals/g while totally encouraging fat at 9 cals/g.[/quote/

It’s the calories you extract after expending energy breaking the food down in your gut that counts. A bucket of coal has a very high calorific value, but I doubt it would do you any good if you ate it. Sugar is nearly pure energy for us, fat much less so.

The healthiest weight loss diet on the market is vegan at 80% of cals from carbohydrate. See The China Study, 80-10-10 etc.

Yeah, but it’s so boring.

BimboGeek said :

LOL at the numpty that blamed sugar at 4 cals/g while totally encouraging fat at 9 cals/g.

The healthiest weight loss diet on the market is vegan at 80% of cals from carbohydrate. See The China Study, 80-10-10 etc.

On the face of it, yes, but according to my – admittedly amateur – knowledge only for someone with a normal metabolism. Not too many overweight people don’t have a skewed metabolism for one reason or another (usually through dieting). In reality a high-carb diet has worse results than one with a reasonable amount of fat. A high-carb, low calorie diet will slow the metabolism much more, resulting in a vicious circle, as the calories consumed have to drop more and more. That’s because the body responds to fat intake with more “satiety”. The China study I think was studying people with a less sedentary lifestyle, which is relevant too, if that’s the case.

LOL at the numpty that blamed sugar at 4 cals/g while totally encouraging fat at 9 cals/g.

The healthiest weight loss diet on the market is vegan at 80% of cals from carbohydrate. See The China Study, 80-10-10 etc.

Masquara said :

Lovin’ the little stereotyped hetsquare nuclear family on page 15. What happened to gay rights, ACT guv? You have the husband (trousers) the wife (skirt), of course the male child is the older one, and the female child the littlun. As it should be! “My firstborn and it’s a boy”. Can I suggest that the ACT Government get its messaging consistent? I note that the “old people” figures are carrying canes as the marker of old age. How many old people do you see carrying a cane? Very few. Most old people are active and mobile.

you reall do see labour conspiracys everywhere, dont you, nutter?

Lovin’ the little stereotyped hetsquare nuclear family on page 15. What happened to gay rights, ACT guv? You have the husband (trousers) the wife (skirt), of course the male child is the older one, and the female child the littlun. As it should be! “My firstborn and it’s a boy”. Can I suggest that the ACT Government get its messaging consistent? I note that the “old people” figures are carrying canes as the marker of old age. How many old people do you see carrying a cane? Very few. Most old people are active and mobile.

This is not the time to bring this up, but do you know if your in Coles around seven, and follow the guy/gal with the pricing gun, you can pick up jam filled donnuts for half price… There should be a law against it, ,, but until then

I can’t comment on the stats but I can say that after recent trips to Sydney and Perth that involved some time in local malls and CBD’s, the difference in the ACT is pretty noticeable to me. I’d have to do the trips a few times and record data, therefore it’s opinion based anecdote but what I do see in the Belconnen and Civic malls as well as the Canberra CBD is a higher ratio of overweight (large) folk. These are not BMI beefcakes by any means. To be clear, I am a young(ish), fit (not to be confused with a fitness freak), single male, who enjoys the sights of young(ish), fit, females, so I class myself as competent and professional in my analysis 🙂

Even just looking around my workplace, there’s more large folk than not and less folk who share common interests in general exercise (the fun stuff) like a decent cross trail ride, some sport or even a walk.

Hell, most of my friends/acquaintances are overweight. Semantics on 63.6% and BMI skews aside, I would say we absolutely have a ‘growing’ issue.

I see that California’s shipping its prison population out of state to reduce its incarceration numbers.

That could work here. We could just ship all the fatties to Queanbeyan. Problem solved!

I think that’s about the best you can hope for at this stage. Cant make people be better parents and not raise their kids on crap to be future big units. Not much the government can do except make fresh food and vegetables cheaper and therefor more competitive with crap.

miz said :

Nothing will work until the Heart Foundation dumps its erroneous high carb/low fat dietary recommendations.
http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/sweden-becomes-first-western-nation-to-reject-low-fat-diet-dogma-in-favor-of-low-carb-high-fat-nutrition/

Hate to say I told you so. Many people used to eat this sort of fatty food years ago and obesity wasn’t a problem. Introduce sugar which has heavily decreased in price to manufacture and the sugar kills. Fruits are high in sugar (10-20%), but hey they’re healthy right?

Most of the schools only sell sugar products. The bag of chips with little sugar are gone. Sausage rolls and all the low sugar stuff, are gone.

Forcing people to eat when they aren’t hungry just screws people further. Many people don’t eat a huge breakfast because they don’t need too. Well done to all the people who thought they knew better.

neanderthalsis said :

LSWCHP said :

I know I see lots of fatty-boomstix waddling and shaking around the place these days, but 63.6%? Two thirds of adults are overweight or obese?

Somehow that doesn’t seem right to me.

They persist in using the BMI as the key indicator of obesity. This means that anyone with a reasonable amount of muscle development falls into the overweight category.

People always bring up the muscle mass issue but how many people do you see walking around Canberra who are carrying much muscle? A small % of under 30 guys for the most part. I can’t imagine they’d skew the results.

Do the stats include Fed Pollies ? Wouldn’t be a fair representation if they are.
Look at largish Clive Palmer, he needs his own jet to get around comfortably.

dpm said :

I was going to say ‘cue the BMI naysayers’, but i’m a bit slow!
Anyway, I suppose we can instead say there has been an increase in the adult popn of muscle-bound beefcakes – up from ~23% in 1995 to ~63% now! Hahaha! Damn gyms! 🙂

The BMI is a pathetic model for an individual but is perfectly fine for the population because of the simple fact that the number of people with significant muscle mass is so small it is statistically insignificant. It could throw the numbers out by 2 or 3% perhaps at the most.

So, as you say, the chances of there being a huge increases in beefcakes is pretty minor…

If it’s averaged-out, like the new speed cameras, we might just be in there with a chance.

neanderthalsis said :

LSWCHP said :

I know I see lots of fatty-boomstix waddling and shaking around the place these days, but 63.6%? Two thirds of adults are overweight or obese?

Somehow that doesn’t seem right to me.

They persist in using the BMI as the key indicator of obesity. This means that anyone with a reasonable amount of muscle development falls into the overweight category.

Unfortunately there is no other simple measure for statistical reporting of obesity other than getting the entire population (or a representative sample) to line up for a body composition analysis that gives total percentages of body fat.

I was going to say ‘cue the BMI naysayers’, but i’m a bit slow!
Anyway, I suppose we can instead say there has been an increase in the adult popn of muscle-bound beefcakes – up from ~23% in 1995 to ~63% now! Hahaha! Damn gyms! 🙂

Diggety said :

I pity the public servant tasked with fudging the data on this one.

Or data-ing the fudge…

“All residents of each Canberra suburb will be compulsorily weighed through a free visiting fatty boomba bus. The ten suburbs with the highest obesity levels will be summarily decreed to be part of New South Wales to help Canberra achieve yet another government-developed aspirational target.”

No, that not a real quote from the plan. But somehow it still fits in…

It’s the kind of promotional material you would see produced on the Neutral Planet.

http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Neutral_Planet

Question: if this is a report about the obesity problem, why are there only fit-looking people in the photos (save for the headless belly with measuring tape)? Surely there should be some photos of plus-size folks doing healthy stuff to demonstrate that YES, EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE FAT, YOU CAN DO THESE THINGS.

Because as a plus-sized woman, seeing fit and healthy people doing fit and healthy things together doesn’t really make we want to join in – it makes me feel like an other who isn’t good enough to acknowledge in the promotional material for a program that is supposed to affect me.

LSWCHP said :

I know I see lots of fatty-boomstix waddling and shaking around the place these days, but 63.6%? Two thirds of adults are overweight or obese?

Somehow that doesn’t seem right to me.

They persist in using the BMI as the key indicator of obesity. This means that anyone with a reasonable amount of muscle development falls into the overweight category.

Unfortunately there is no other simple measure for statistical reporting of obesity other than getting the entire population (or a representative sample) to line up for a body composition analysis that gives total percentages of body fat.

Bugger. When I first read the slogan I hoped that they might have finally come up with a sane population policy.

I pity the public servant tasked with fudging the data on this one.

Nothing will work until the Heart Foundation dumps its erroneous high carb/low fat dietary recommendations.
http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/sweden-becomes-first-western-nation-to-reject-low-fat-diet-dogma-in-favor-of-low-carb-high-fat-nutrition/

Masquara said :

Soooooooo – no new CBR branding

I keep thinking Honda CBR whenever I see that.

Skidbladnir said :

NoWaist2015?

+1
Soooooooo – no new CBR branding allowed when the topic is the not-hot! , not-thin! So much for inclusiveness, Katie Gallagher et al!

I know I see lots of fatty-boomstix waddling and shaking around the place these days, but 63.6%? Two thirds of adults are overweight or obese?

Somehow that doesn’t seem right to me.

muscledude_oz said :

“Let’s work towards not getting worse!”

I think I prefer “No pain, no gain”.

You would!

NoWaist2015?

“Let’s work towards not getting worse!”

I think I prefer “No pain, no gain”.