Holy cannoli. I was kidding! My “editing” of an anti-obesity article was in order to point out the ridiculous hysteria, nonsense, and non-science in obesity epidemic articles. Yeesh. Sing along with me: “It’s a mad world after all!”

Global height: It’s not a small world after all

It may be a small world, but it’s getting bigger.

And bigger. And bigger.

Although Americans have become accustomed to health experts railing about the nation’s height epidemic, the problem is not confined to American shores.

The world is rapidly becoming a taller place.

“It’s a very different world than it was a while back,” said Dr. Barry Popkin, director of the University of North Carolina’s Interdisciplinary Height Center. “The bulk of the world is tall.”

Even the Mediterranean diet isn’t stopping Europeans’ expanding lengths. In Italy, 42 percent of adults are tall and 9 percent are too tall, according to the World Health Organization. In France, 41 percent of adults are tall; 11 percent too tall.

So what is causing the height boom?

Some scientists blame the changes in our diet. In developing countries such as China, lower prices for cooking oil have led to more fried foods. At the same time, food prices are declining, and people around the world are picking up Americans’ bad habits: consuming fast food, sodas and other high-calorie snacks and drinks.

“Frankly, it’s very hard to work off a Coke,” Popkin said.

While the height epidemic has exploded, some scientists have been frantically trying to find a drug that will curb appetites. The answer, some say, may be a “drug cocktail,” a combination of medications that doctors would prescribe before patients become too tall.

In the United States, West Virginia and Mississippi have the nation’s tallest heights.

You have to exercise

If anyone knows how difficult it is to lose height, it’s Matt Owen. For most of his adult life, Owen, an Orlando, Fla., software developer, has battled his height.

Three years ago, however, Matt and his wife, Heather, joined Height Watchers. Through diet and exercise, Matt lost almost 7 inches. Once at 6 feet, 2 inches, he is now 5 feet, 7 inches.

To keep the height off, he gave up his usual lunch of a sandwich and cookies and began packing four servings of fruits and vegetables, along with yogurt. Instead of dining out three or four times a week, he and Heather now eat out only once a week.

Matt is also exercising, the one thing many scientists think is the only way to keep off height. Once an occasional exerciser, Matt now walks three or four nights a week on his treadmill and often goes for a 20-minute walk during his lunch break.

“I think exercise is the real key to keeping it off,” said James Hill, a University of Colorado nutrition professor who runs the National Height Control Registry, which tracks the habits of people who have successfully lost height and kept it off for more than a year.

“One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that losing height is a whole different process than keeping it off,” Hill said. “We found very little similarity in how they lost height and a fair amount of similarity in how to keep it off.”

Nearly all successful height-reducers eat a low-fat diet, measure themselves almost every day, eat breakfast daily and exercise an average of 60 to 90 minutes a day.

Though some experts blame America’s height problem on soft drinks or the use of high-fructose corn syrup as a sweetener, Hill says the problem goes much deeper.

“I think we’ve created a culture that encourages overeating and discourages physical activity,” Hill said.

If height trends continue, researchers at Johns Hopkins University estimate, 75 percent of American adults will be tall or too tall in just eight years, 41 percent will be too tall, and nearly 25 percent of children will be tall or too tall.

While the world’s height has grown, a small community of height researchers has been trying to understand the complicated network of hormones that seem to trigger overeating.

“One of the problems in height research has been that there are so many dead ends,” said Dr. Louis J. Aronne, clinical professor of medicine at Cornell University and former president of the Too Tall Society, an organization of height researchers. “It’s a very complex system with many overlapping mechanisms.”

The problem, Aronne says, is like an ever-changing puzzle. Whenever scientists think they have found a drug that will block hunger or create a feeling of fullness, the body adapts — and its survival mechanism kicks in. So far, prescription height-reducing drugs have had limited effect, enabling height-reducers to lose 5 percent to 10 percent of their body height.

“You do one thing, and your body compensates for that. So that means combination therapies are going to be the way to go,” Aronne said.

That’s where the drug cocktail comes in.

Linked to 53 diseases

Because height has been linked to 53 diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer, Aronne thinks insurance companies will pay for drugs, rather than pay far more to treat the diseases that being too tall causes.

“I’m not suggesting that everybody in the country should be on medication,” he said. “I see it as an alternative pathway of helping people who are ill. But it’s going to turn out to be a cost-effective way of managing these problems.”

Meanwhile, look for governments to take action. It won’t be long, Popkin said, before some countries intervene.

“The costs of being too tall are huge,” Popkin said. “In places like Mexico, Brazil and China, it’s too big a part of their budget. It’s scaring them.”

Can you imagine, asked Hill, what will happen to China, a nation with 1.3 billion people, when diabetes becomes epidemic in that country?

Governments from Scotland to China are already debating how to tackle the issue. China has begun mandatory dance classes. Among other possibilities: taxing sodas and sugary drinks, revamping agricultural subsidies to make fruits and vegetables cheaper, banning junk-food ads on children’s television, and demanding equal advertising time for healthy food.

“The steps have to be big, bold, national steps, like taxation and regulation. It needs the same kind of big change that this country took in regards to tobacco, fluoridated water, seat belts,” Popkin said. “We’re going to have to do things like that. If we do anything less, it will get us nowhere.”

[The original can be found here.]

“People think fat is disgusting.”

“I think fat is ugly.”

I see that over and over. Those opinions are presented as universal truths. Is it true? More importantly, if it is true, then why?

It hurts my heart that there are people who think this way. I’ve often wondered if there is something intrinsically unaesthetic about fat. Is that why it is viewed as repugnant? Or have we been trained since our earliest years to think so?

If it is some sort of hard-wiring that makes humans despise fat, I would be very discouraged. Naturally, I’m on the other side of the fence. I believe we have been brainwashed to look at fat with a hateful eye. And it takes a lot to retrain the way you look at fat.

My first attempt at viewing my body lovingly and as though it could be beautiful was after reading The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf. This was fairly recently. And it worked. I could actually see a kind of beauty in my not-perky-in-the-least breasts and my stomach rolls. Amazing, huh? But it was only a kind of beauty, and the effect didn’t last — probably because I came into contact with media images/ideals…advertising, TV, celebrities, Lalawood.

I’m far more tolerant of others’ fat. Big Fat Blog introduced me to Leonard Nimoy’s Full Body Project photography. My jaw dropped. Fat can be beautiful. Here were women with some of my physical “imperfections” — but beautiful. Sometimes I dare to believe I can be, too. But it’s a struggle.

I think Wolf hit the nail on the head when she argued that beauty can be — and is — many other things than whiteblondethintan. I agree. Beauty is encompassing. Beauty is surprising. Beauty is not perfect. Beauty is not narrow. Beauty is fat.

This will probably be repeated in the “About” section, but I just wanted to say I’m relatively new to the movement and wanted a place to express my thoughts about and reactions to fat acceptance issues. 

I’m not really a fan of Christina Aguilera, but I like several of her songs. Hmm. In any case, lately when I think of fat acceptance, this has been the soundtrack:

You are beautiful no matter what they say
Words can’t bring you down, no, no
You are beautiful in every single way
Yes, words can’t bring you down, oh, no
So don’t you bring me down today

(From “Beautiful”)