A good summary of evidence of the link between obesity and cancers along with I assume likely mechanisms that make obesity a cause of the cancers rather than another effect of some other causes.

I am obese and therefore am interested in such articles but have some questions.

1. I was born in 1940 in the UK. For the first 5 years of my life I was subject to an ideal nutritionist designed diet, yet in later life I am obese. Is there any evidence from the enforced experiment on UK children (or other source)that control of early childhood diet leads to better outcomes in food consumption in later life?

2. My obesity has nothing to do with junk food as commonly defined. An addiction to eating nominally good food in too great a quantity is probably the cause of my obesity. Is their good evidence of a link between junk food and obesity or is junk food the food of choice of both obese and non-obese people?

3 I cling to the idea that fitness can counter the effects associated with obesity. Is this in fact an urban myth?

58,

Re question 3:

Fitness can help with obesity, however it is not a cure-all, but needs to be part of the broader maintenance of the body:

Obesity is part of the bodys natural reaction to feast-vs-famine. During feast times, the body stores excess energy that has been ingested in the adipose (read: fat) tissue as storage for times of famine. Famine generally doesn't occur in our society so therefore, the fat just accumulates.

Obesity then is just the overaccumulation of adipose tissue. Of course, there's more to it than that, but that's the general gist of where fat comes from.

One of the things that is not commonly understood is that the human body is subject to the laws of thermodynamics like everything else: energy can neither be created nor destroyed by the body. That means that if extra energy is ingested then one of two things will happen to it: it will be stored in fat, or excreted (read: sweet tasing urine of the diabetic).

Exercise, in combination with a healthy diet can change the energy balance in your body. Your body will consume the stored energy in the adipose tissue if your body requires more energy than is being ingested. Exercise is necessary as the body will also break down muscle for energy, and exercise promotes the building of muscle so diminishes the liklihood of the body using muscle for energy.

Also, as people age, resistance exercise is beneficial for bone strength and health, particularly for women. Regular resistance exercise is one of best ways for people to avoid osteoperosis. Another good reason to have plenty of exercise in your life

Hope that helps

BN

I also read that Australians are now living longer than ever. Is that wrong? http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Free-Articles/Trends/20080626-Good-health-helps-most-Australians-live-longer.html?source=cmailer

Are there just various industries skewing data to their own benefit,i.e.is alarmism good for business?

So if I extrapolate from the various reports in the media, then being obese is personally not good, but statistically OK .. or am I wrong again, (happens all the time)

It's a good article but I do get easily confused by so much conflicting data. Are you guys from the industry which would benefit from positive acceptance of the data in your article? Should I be concerned about you possibly not being objective as you have something to gain? As soon as I see "modelling", I get quite suspicious these days since it is used so often, in my limited experience, to get the results one wants.

I guess from reading this article that you are not one of the hundreds of thousands a parents who frequent McDonalds of KFC to feed their kids because it is easier than cooking in our busy world. One of the cited measures to help control obesity is to curtail fast food advertising to younger children, but I have to ask, how is 3-9 year old going to obtain the money required to buy enough food to become obese? This is the time that eating habits are laid down for later in life, so how do they get these bad habits? What a shock, it's their parents, the same ones who whinge about kids being too fat.

Further I have to ask, why is everyone so afraid of obesity? Because of the money it will cost? Now why would we be worrying about the money when we have 17 million to put into each athlete so they run, swim or throw a little better? I mean cut funding to 10 athletes and you will have enough money to fix a lot of holes in health system. No, lets get real here we don't like it because it doesn't look good, it doesn't fit the image of bronzed and firm bodies lying on the beach in summer that we have of ourselves. Illegal drugs like heroine cause far more damage to our society and not only to the addict but to everyone. Illegal drugs required organised people to manufacture and sell, people who are not above hurting others to do it, hence the name organised crime. Drink driving is proven to not only kill dozens but mame and injure thousands per year. Obesity on the other hand, if we have the will improve our shocking health system (and I say that from first hand experience), hurts only one person.

If we continue to scrap the bottom of the barrel for why obesity is such a threat to the public we are in danger of getting splitters in our fingers!

Arthur N,

"Further I have to ask, why is everyone so afraid of obesity?"

Er... it's because it's an inherently unhealthy state to be in. Unnecessary pressure is put on everything from the respiratory and cardivascular systems, the endocrine system, joints, bones and a whole range of other parts of the body.

We don't advocate being overweight for the same reason we don't advocate people drinking cyanide - it's just plain bad for you.

"Obesity on the other hand, if we have the will improve our shocking health system (and I say that from first hand experience), hurts only one person"

Er... well no. Firstly, medicine (and particularly emergency medicine) is a finite resource and even if you threw all the money in the world at it, it will always be a finite resource. Secondly, because it is a finite resource, it should be used responsibly.

And it doesn't just hurt the one person - it hurts everyone. For every minute a nurse, doctor, orderly or someone else is spending looking after the side effects of looking after someone with a (mostly) preventable condition is a minute they could spend looking after someone who genuinely needs it. Not to mention the additional cost that we all have to pay to look after these additional people who shoulnd't really be there in the first place.

It isn't one person - we all pay, both in terms of the medical resources and in the hip pocket

Have just spent a couple of months in the UK and one of the things that struck me was that there is far less obesity in the general populace, but especially amongst children, than currently in Australia. Its been ten years since I was last in England though, and a few changes stood out:

1. Supermarkets no longer have tills lined with all the bright coloured garbage that has so many winging kids whining in our supermarket lines

2. General stores stack sweets and chocolates at adult, rather than child eye-level,

3. As the article said - no T.V. advertisements for sugary breakfast cereals, chocolate, sweets or soft drinks

4. Nutritional information is on the front of things and not on the back

5. Train stations, service stations etc. as well as the supermarkets, sell the most yummy ready-made snacks and meals that are already nutritionally balanced

6. Price. Unlike Oz where starchy white bread is the cheapest option, an apple costs more in some place than a bag of chips, a hamburger or fish n' chips less than "gourmet" fresh salad/fruit/protein options, and 100% juice with no added sugar sometimes three times more than a bottle of empty carbonated calories, those on tight budgets can afford to eat the kind of food that only the middle class can eat here.

7. This, I guess, is a strategy that would not be so easy to adopt: because of the long summer evenings (only gets dark around 10) all the parks and green spaces are always teeming in the evenings. Instead of sitting round the t.v. after a stodgy meal, working parents are out playing with their kids, older kids are running around or practicing sport with their mates, people are playing with their dogs,while the elderly walk round watching it all. Its a busy, social setting.

In the last ten years a lot of changes have taken place. And it shows.

Nobody ever got fat from not eating, so i think your medical condition needs some refining. If wat you do eat turns to fat then you have to walk it off. simple. Fat kids are a bi product of mackas and kfc. Lazy or unavailable parents are contributors to this social disease. Obesity is a self eflicted disease and should be penalised as such