Revenge is sweet

Official: obesity risk to half of all children

The government has admitted for the first time that almost half of all children will be dangerously overweight by 2050 if drastic action is not taken to halt the growth in childhood obesity.

Revealing the true scale of the obesity epidemic, Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, said the number of children in the high risk category was rising at a worrying rate.

'If that trend continues, by mid-century we'd be getting close to half of all children classified as obese,' he said.

From The Guardian, though we've seen similar in enough US papers.

We know why they're so alarmed.

When we chubby kids finally outnumber you skinny kids who teased us mercilessly, there will be hell to pay. Oh yes.

Your zip code is making you fat

(tiki went out for Mexican last night, so we're in a chubby mood this morning.)

Home Value and ZIP Code Predict Obesity Rates

SEATTLE, Aug. 30 -- ZIP codes and property values will provide a better handle on the scope of the nation's obesity problem than income, race, or education, investigators here found.

Property values proved to be the best predictor of obesity prevalence, Adam Drewnowski, Ph.D., of the University of Washington here, and colleagues reported online and in the September issue of Social Science & Medicine.

And, within a given ZIP code, each $100,000 increase in median home value was associated with a 2% decline in obesity prevalence (P<0.001), the researchers said.

Examination of obesity prevalence by ZIP code revealed a six-fold difference between the most socioeconomically deprived and the most affluent areas. The disparity in obesity rates by ZIP code exceeded those associated with income or race/ethnicity.

One big weakness of this study is that in fact they only looked at zip codes inside King County, basically, Seattle and the surrounding 'burbs. (The news releases always make it seem like it's national, which is why we were surprised about this.) And BRFSS is a survey (and a phone survey at that) so they're just using self-reported weight, and people lie like mad weasels about their weight.

But, it's still a really cool twist: it's pretty well known that obesity is associated with income, and that poor people tend to be fatter. This study brought in property values, which is not just an indicator of income, but of wealth. Why should this be interesting to anyone but us science geeks? Well, one obstacle minorities in this country face is that the individuals might earn as much as their neighbors, but they're often less likely to have assets--that is, to own a home or have money in the bank. So, you're going along fine, but then something unexpected hits, like a job loss or a major illness, and BOOM, look ma, no safety net. NINJA loans aside, folks in neighborhoods where there's a lot of pricey houses tend to not only be raking in the income, but are also far more likely to have some personal wealth.

And, they're less likely to be fat.

As with all things where there are scientists (and research grant money) involved, there is some disagreement on the mechanism here. Drewnowski, the lead author, has been quoted in other articles positing that it's partly because feeding the kiddies crap like Chicken McNuggets is cheaper than shopping for heirloom tomatoes and Whole Foods. There might also be some twists on this: it's pretty well documented that overweight people have more trouble getting promoted at their jobs, and thus tend to earn less income.

Anyways, this study gets the prize for "neat idea we wish we'd thought of first" for the week, though we hate analyzing surveys just on principle, and, anyways, looking at the Methods, the statistics are waaaaay beyond our poor ken.

So, we want to know...

Does looking up some of the answers on Wikipedia make us more or less nerdy?

Our husband is a naughty person

So, Mr. Tikistitch has been unfairly accusing us of wearing too many clothes. Which, of course, is completely silly, as tiki wears exactly the correct amount of clothes. But, anyway, to humor our spouse's whim, we sorted through Casa de Tiki's Laundry Pile of Doom, and plucked out the offending tiki items thereof, and, having stuffed them into our fancy IKEA chest o' drawers, thereby managed to literally break our t-shirt drawer.

Yeah, right off the hinges.

So, obviously, something had to be done.

Which it was.

Part of our precious three-day weekend was thus spent pruning through various items of casual wear, none of which had been worn anywhere inside of the twenty-first century, scrutinizing each t-shirt one by one, so as not to mistakenly discard anything that could be regarded as either licensed by Lucasfilm Limited or Disney (sucks to be a collector).

Six trash bags stuffed to bursting and transported to Good Will later, our chest of drawers drawers and the wicker trunk at the end of the bed remain filled to slightly past capacity, plus there is now a pile of clothing on the floor which will not fit anywhere, in other words, more sportswear has already grown in after the pruning.

If tiki ever again in her life expresses a notion towards buying another item of clothing, please kindly thump her on her head.

And, this is all somehow Mr. Tiki's fault.

Also, last Flight of the Conchords tonight. *sniffles*

The (original) Bret dance

In case y'all haven't seen it, the awesomely bad 80s video that inspired Bret's dance tonight.

Now off to contemplate the emptiness of post-Conchords life....