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Culture and perception.
How would you feel if after successful return from a long jouney you are greeted with the expression "You're so fat"...! In the native language of the Algonquin Ojibwa this is taken as a friendly and customary greeting — not as some form of insult. Gaining weight is associated with happiness, success and wealth in that and in many other societies.
Scientists have recently found that a diet low in fat will actually make you angry and hostile. It may even make you dejected and depressed! Some diet foods may actually make you ill! Less fat in your diet does not automatically lead to lower cholesterol levels, according to study in the British Journal of Nutrition.
When Dr. Anita Wells and her University of Sheffield colleagues set out to test whether changing fat content in the diet produced mood swings, they enlisted the help of 20 subjects who had no idea whether or not their diet was being altered. Nor did the psychiatrists who interviewed each of them three times.
The 10 male and 10 female volunteers were between the ages of 20 and 37, were non-smokers, in good health and drinking no more than 21 units of alcohol a week.
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"For one month they all ate an average diet of 41 per cent energy fat," Wells said recently. "Each week they selected from 60 meals we offered them and we delivered those meals to them. Most of them were ready-prepared supermarket diets and we disguised the change by using unidentified full-fat or low-fat versions." After one month, half the subjects' diet was changed to 25 per cent energy fat.
Neither group was aware of whether or not there had been a change.
"Those who stayed on the medium fat diet showed marginally less anger. But for those who received the low-fat diet there was a significant increase in anger and hostility. And in some of them there was a tendency to depression.”
The switch to cranky moods was measured by questionnaires and psychiatrist interviews before, during and after the experiment. This is the first time such a study has been undertaken on humans. But an American experiment has shown that lowering fat content in the diet increases aggressive behavior and reduces passive body contact in monkeys.
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"Ours was a very controlled study, but it was on a small scale. In fact, we went out of our way to try and not get a result because we excluded anyone who might have undergone undue stress through the study period. We eliminated one person who had death of close friends."But she offers a note of caution: "This is a significant result, but it needs to be done on a larger scale. It shows more research must be done on the effect food has on our moods."
Wells is not surprised to find that low-fat diets do not lower cholesterol levels, in spite of contrary claims by some health experts."We found that when you change the fat content, there is no change in the level of low density [the so-called bad] cholesterol," she said."Lowering the fat content in diets of subjects who have average cholesterol levels already does not lower that level. Science does not demonstrate that eating low-fat diets will cut cholesterol."
BMI Calculator based on 1840 work of Belgian
statistician and astronomer Adolphe Quételet
THE THINNING OF MISS AMERICA...
Nutrition experts from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health reviewed the heights and weights of the winners of the Miss America Contest over its 78-year history. In the 1920's the BMI scores were in the "normal" 20 to 25 range. Over the period of study heights have increased — like the rest of the US population, however body mass has dropped about 12% and the trend for the BMI score is currently averaging 18.5, which is considered "unnourished" by the standards of the The Journal of the American Medical Association. The highest score was Rosemary LaPlanche (1941) at 22.4; the lowest was Susan Akin (1986) at 16.9. |
