UK Teenage Boys Fitted With Gastric Bands

BBC News reports that two 14-year-old boys have had gastric bands fitted at Sheffield Children's Hospital. This appals me. In the report it says:

"Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said such operations were an example of society's failure to understand the problem of obesity in the UK. "It is a horrendous indictment on society that we should ever allow these children to get this fat," Mr Fry said."

There is a ghastly irony to Tam Fry's statement. Child obesity is the result of misinformation about the causes of obesity and the best ways to remedy it, and that calamitous misinformation tends to be given by organisations like the National Obesity Forum itself - see its NOF's Healthy Eating Tips and Cancer Research UK's Ten Top Weight Loss Tips. Of course the information on these pages may be changed in the future, but as I write this on Feb 15th 2010, the word 'SALT' does not even appear on either of these pages!! - And yet it is Salt Sensitivity/swollen veins/sodium retention/fluid retention/ that is overwhelmingly the cause of obesity, and reduction of salt intake that is the quickest, safest and most effective way to reduce/prevent obesity. Almost all child obesity is caused by high salt intake.

I see that Cancer Research UK claims that its weight loss tips are based on scientific evidence! - I take leave to doubt that. Perhaps they could favour us by giving the references for any scientific evidence showing that those tips work better that simply cutting down on salt and salty food? - Or that as many as half of them even work at all!

And Cancer Research UK's statement that "Simply put, obesity is the result of taking in more calories through your diet than you are burning through physical activity." is simply WRONG. It is not true.

High salt intake is the primary cause of child obesity. It is VITAL to protect babies and small children from salty food.

See Children and Obesity

Sodium in foods

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Fat retention and fat excretion: the importance of getting enough calcium.

Experts are now advising that the daily intake of calories should be increased by 16%

BBC News reports change in calorie intake advice. Apparently the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition is now advising that the daily intake of calories should be increased by 16%, but that this increase in calories in should be accompanied by increasing exercise, i.e. calories out. - If you think that this advice sounds amazingly like maintaining the status quo, then you and I are in agreement.

Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, ever-ready with an ill-judged comment laced with prejudice against a stereotype of overweight people, said it was a "dangerous assumption" to say that adults could safely consume an extra 400 calories a day. What nonsense! Slim people regularly eat far in excess of the recommended daily calorie allowance and never gain weight.

I say again that excess calorie consumption is not what is causing increasing numbers of overweight and obese people. The cause is fluid retention/salt sensitivity, occasioned mainly by
1) prescription drugs that weaken blood vessel walls and impair kidney function,
2) salt-laden processed foods and
3) dangerously ill-informed advice from doctors, nutritionists and the dieting industry.

Avoiding salt and salty food is the SAFE, healthy, natural, effective, RAPID way to lose weight!

See Sodium in foods

Lose Weight

Vulnerable Groups

Why does the National Obesity Forum give such poor advice? - Is it connected with the fact that the main sponsors of its website are drug companies?

"Sinister, isn't it? - Prescription drugs are a major cause of obesity, especially morbid obesity. - You're unlikely to learn that from anyone working for the NOF...

Here's what it said on their website on 23 Dec 2008 (but it seems to have disappeared since then! - I wonder if they have been visiting my website...(o:) about what causes child obesity:

"Cause of child obesity
When an individual is in energy balance (energy intake = energy expenditure) body weight remains constant. However an increase/decrease on either side of the equation can result in changes in body weight. Obesity occurs as a result of a long term positive energy balance, that is, energy intake has consistently exceeded energy expenditure. It is however important to remember that the causes of this energy imbalance can result from a multitude of genetic, biological, psychological, sociocultural, and environmental factors that affect both sides of the energy balance equation and the interrelationships among these factors."
(written by Siobhan Ahearne-Smith, and dated 18th March 2008)

It can, as I write, be viewed as part of this page http://www.childgrowthfoundation.org/pdf_files/primary_prevention_of_obesity.pdf - Better catch it while you can, in case it gets removed or modified...

The cause of obesity in children, as in adults, is fluid retention/salt sensitivity, and the way to reduce obesity is to reduce intake of salt and salty food. If children are protected from eating salty food from when they are babies they will not become overweight. They should also be protected from dieting (another major cause of weight gain because it increases fluid retention). They do not need to restrict fat intake or energy intake. They do not need to step up energy expenditure (i.e. take more exercise). Research shows that exercise has no effect on child obesity.

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

National Obesity Forum Website sponsored by educational grants from
Abbott Laboratories
Canderel
Roche
Sanofi-Aventis Ltd.
MeatandHealth.com

and their Conference sponsors:
Abbott
Roche
Sanofi-aventis UK
GlaxoSmithKilne
MEND
National Association of British and Irish Millers (NABIM)
Slimfast
Tanita
The Improvement Foundation

At least seven children have been placed in care over fears they were too fat, it has been disclosed, by the use of Freedom of Information laws

Seven obese children placed in care
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Recent figures suggest a third of 13-year-olds are obese or overweight, and that a million children in England will be obese within five years.

Earlier this month, Tam Fry, a member of the National Obesity Forum's board, told a conference that youngster over-fed by their parents should be treated as victims of abuse, as happens with malnourished children.

Mr Fry said: "It is drastic but it's a long-term therapy. For the sake of the children it does need to be done because we have got children who are horrendously fat.""

Tam Fry is uninformed and is wrong when he says that obese children are obese because they are overfed by their parents. They are obese because of decades of misinformation from doctors and dieticians about what causes obesity.

It is, of course, wholly unnecessary to take fat children into care, and in my opinion, it is also cruel and damaging to the children and to their families to remove them from their homes.

WHEN is the truth going to be told about obesity?

Read my Mensa article Obesity and the Salt Connection

All that is necessary to curb the growing incidence of obesity is to tell the truth about what causes it! - Obesity is NOT caused by overeating. It is caused by fluid retention, frequently because of taking prescribed medications, especially steroids such as prednisolone, prednisone and HRT, and anti-depressants such as amitriptyline. (When doctors prescribe drugs that cause sodium retention and water retention they should warn the patient not to eat salt, or food containing salt, while taking the medication. When they do not give this warning, the inevitable consequence is considerable weight gain.)

Read here about the groups of people who are vulnerable to salt: vulnerable groups

Obesity can be easily reduced by seriously reducing your salt/sodium intake and eating plenty of fruit and fresh vegetables. - It is important not to restrict calories. - 'Slimming' or 'dieting' is unnecessary, ineffective and often harmful.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

See Sodium in foods

I am very much opposed to the idea that fat children 'should be taken from parents and given stomach-stapling surgery'.

Exclusive: Fat children 'should be taken from parents and given stomach-stapling surgery'
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Tam Fry, a member of the National Obesity Forum's board, will tell a key conference that young people who are overfed by their parents should be treated as victims of abuse, just as malnourished children are.

He will argue that authorities should take obese children away from their families and into care, and that those whose health is at risk should then undergo stomach-stapling operations.

Mr Fry said parents should be allowed to visit their overweight children in hospital, but they must first be "frisked" to ensure they are not trying to smuggle them junk food or fizzy drinks.

He admits his ideas are radical and that he will likely lose a debate on whether child obesity should be treated as a form of abuse, to be held at the forum's annual conference on Tuesday.

But Mr Fry insists Britain's obesity epidemic poses such a risk to public health, with the overweight likely to suffer from heart disease and diabetes, that drastic action must be taken."

This guy is so dangerously ignorant of the facts about weight gain and weight loss, especially with regard to child obesity, that I believe he poses a threat to the health of overweight children and should at the very least be removed from the board of the National Obesity Forum. - If his suggestion were to be acted upon, this would be very harmful to the children chosen to endure the stomach-stapling operations.

Here are some FACTS about obesity:

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

vulnerable groups

See Sodium in foods