Interesting Links for 11-09-2012

[andrewducker]

• How three different conventions dealt with accusations of sexism.
  (tags: geeks sexism conventions )
• The 18 coolest remakes of the World Map you’ll find on the web
  (tags: maps )
• Older overweight children consume fewer calories than their healthy weight peers
  (tags: weight diet )
• Why wood pulp is world's new wonder material.
  (tags: wood

Comments

[gwendally]

Calories of what?

That article didn't say whether the overweight kids were consuming 2000 calories of junk food while the average weight kids were eating 2000 calories with a balanced macronutrient ratio.

[brixtonbrood]

But it did include an important phrase at the bottom, in the small print: "Self-reported". That doesn't mean it's definitely incorrect, but it does mean that there's a plausible alternative explanation for the data, and one which would explain the difference between younger and older kids as well.

[gwendally]

LOL, I missed that entirely. Duh. People have known for a million years that obese people routinely underreport their calorie intake and overreport their activity level. I theorize that it's part of why they got obese, simply being bad at judging that stuff.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=self-reported+calorie+intake&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C22&as_sdtp=

That is precisely why it's useful to have a food scale or smaller plates. Portion size is notoriously related to how much you consume if you are an unrestrained eater.

Oh, when I looked at the article itself it says something completely different than the mass-market blurb. It's about when obese kids start lying to themselves.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/09/04/peds.2012-0605

[ice_hesitant]

Do you dislike the article's inactivity hypothesis?

[gwendally]

I think there are a constellation of co-morbidities.

1.) Parents who don't know how to feed THEMSELVES appropriate amounts of nutritious food and therefore couldn't teach their children.

2.) Under-reporting calories.

3.) Increased inactivity due to the discomforts of exercising while fat. The kids just get out of breath faster, their feet hurt faster, they are simply bad at things requiring athletic grace and so it isn't fun.

4.) And, as a result of poor nutrition and poor habits of exercise, having fucked up metabolisms that cause them to hoard adipose tissue.

I read once that obese children have the same hit to their quality of life as children with cancer. That thought has stuck with me as I raise my own children.