Obese Cancer Explosion

 

The BBC is reporting that due to the higher rates of childhood obesity – we can expect an “explosion” (booga booga) of obesity related cancers.  Their headline literally is, “Obese Cancer ‘Explosion'”.  Right, so call me cynical for wondering if they are trying to insinuate visions of headless fatties exploding in public places in our minds.

Not only:

“Childhood is the time when the habits of a lifetime are established. If you want healthy adults you have to start by making healthy children.

“If we don’t do something about tackling how much exercise our young people take and how concerned they are about what they eat and their weight, we are going to have another explosion of cancers, to which unhealthy lifestyles will be a significant, contributory factor.” (Professor Pritchard-Jones, based at the Institute for Cancer Research in Sutton, Surrey)

But, also….

She said that the western world had just started to make an impact on smoking-related cancer, but this would be cancelled out by the rise in obesity related illness.

I suppose it shouldn’t be suprising that obesity is being made into the new dirty habit that smoking is considered to be.  What really gets my goat is, as usual, they are assuming that habits, not exercising and eating junk is the cause of obesity. 

In fact, I went a little further to find more information on obesity and cancer correlation.  The National Cancer Institute says:

What causes obesity?

Experts have concluded that the chief causes of obesity are a sedentary lifestyle and overconsumption of high-calorie food (4):

• Sedentary lifestyle—Researchers have found a strong correlation between lack of physical activity and obesity (4, 5).
• Diet—A diet high in calories and/or fat appears to be an important factor in obesity (6).

….

How many people get cancer by being overweight or obese? How many die?

In 2002, about 41,000 new cases of cancer in the United States were estimated to be due to obesity. This means that about 3.2 percent of all new cancers are linked to obesity (7).

A recent report estimated that, in the United States, 14 percent of deaths from cancer in men and 20 percent of deaths in women were due to overweight and obesity (8).

Okay, so most of you who read this blog probably get that not all obese people are sedentary people who eat crap.  What I’m curious about is the correlation of cancer to yo-yo dieting.  There is a correlation between yo-yo dieting and being overweight.  Yo-yo dieting is more of a health risk than just staying overweight by itself.  Yo-yo dieting has been reported to even cause higher incidence of certain cancers.

Says the DailyMail:

Swedish and American scientists studied 140,057 women aged between 50 and 79 for almost eight years, and found that yo-yo dieting and a large waistline were far bigger risk factors in the development of the disease in older women than just obesity.

Women whose weight fluctuated by more than 4.5kg (10lb) on more than ten occasions during their adult life were two and a half times more likely to develop kidney cancer than women whose weight had remained stable.

The researchers also found it was safer for women to gain weight steadily as they grew older than to lose weight and keep it that way through strict dieting.

Women who did this were found to have a 60 per cent increased risk of developing the cancer.

Of course, as it is the DailyMail, they also went on to talk about just looking at obesity alone showed a correlation to disease.  Could that have anything to do with the correlation of yo-yo dieting and being obese???!!!  God forbid anyone study that.  Sigh.

When I do a Dogpile search on “yo-yo dieting risks”, I find yo-yo dieting:

 – may have long-term negative effects on the immune system

– can lower bone material density

– is linked to poor post-menopausal heart health

– may cause diabetes

Well, what do ya know!  These are some of the main boogey men that are blamed on obesity and overweightness in general. 

Given that diets don’t work, the BBC still call for children and adults to lose weight and for Britain to get tougher on fat.   In fact, World Cancer Day seems to fairly well hijacked by all the obesity is death hype.  I propose that we need a World Yo-Yo Dieting day.  Or, a World Love Your Body As Is Day.  I don’t feel happy about taking the spotlight off cancer, something that deserves its own attention, to poke at the obesity boogey man yet again.  Is there no lengths some folks won’t go to exploit opportunities to demonize fat?  Meh. 

If I find the link, I’ll add it in to this post, but I’ve read ad nauseum about how 97% (approx.) of diets cause regain of weight, plus interest.  Why isn’t the question being asked more often: Would it be a better idea to teach people to live healthily and maintain a stable (even if fat) weight? 

–AngryGrayRainbows