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Michael Phelps vs. Michael Jacobson..."Diabesity"...Organic Claims
By Todd Seavey
A few interesting nutrition-related items brought to our attention this summer:
As the Olympics began, the group Consumer Freedom noted some amusing differences between champion swimmer Michael Phelps -- a voracious living proof of the calories in/calories out equation for weight maintenance -- and head food nanny Michael Jacobson of the perennially worried Center for Science in the Public Interest.
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Science writer Marilynn Larkin, whose work has appeared in ACSH publications, crafted the introduction to this New York Academy of Sciences briefing on the problem of so-called "diabesity" -- eating habits formed early in life that can contribute to diabetes-related problems later on.
MDs Barry Levin, John Kral, and Gerard P. Smith were among the participants in a recent NYAS symposium on the troubling issue. Today's overweight children may be tomorrow's public health crisis.
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Finally, a new study suggests that claims of organic food's nutritional superiority are groundless -- and this is no surprise to ACSH, who recently brought you Dr. Joseph Rosen's devastating critique of pro-organic claims and his retort on our blog to the Organic Center's attempt to defend itself. Watch the Heartland Institute's Environment & Climate News magazine for an additional piece on the topic from Rosen.
Todd Seavey is Director of Publications at the American Council on Science and Health and edits HealthFactsAndFears.
Lance_K (August 26, 2008)
Regarding Michael V. Michael, I agree wholeheartedly with all of your points, particularly that we can’t cure obesity by legislating against certain foods. Yet I think there is room for concern that your points will be misapplied by the average person looking to improve their overall fitness. Your core message is energy balance, but I think the public will twist that message into, “If I exercise some, I can eat as much as I want,” not realizing just how much exercise it takes to offset calories in excess of 2,000 per day. Before I stick a 300-calorie Snickers in my mouth, I need to ask myself if I am willing and able to put forth the time and effort to walk/run three miles (or some equivalent physical exertion) to offset that Snickers bar. An hour playfully splish-splashing at the community pool is better than lying on a couch, but it pales compared to Phelps’ regimen. I think the average citizen won’t bother to do the math and simply mistakenly believe that a sweaty half an hour on a treadmill can offset 3,000 calories of additional eating that is above and beyond the 2,000 calories per day that is sufficient for the average office-working male couch potato. The average citizen does not want to count calories, neither calories of food intake nor calories of physical exertion, yet that kind of counting is what is necessary for the unfit to become fit.
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