Are you overweight? Check the facts and you could win €100

krisityfer

@angelfire9

Look, I totally get what you're saying. However, the campaign isn't as evil as you might think. Firstly, the language they use is important. I went onto the website, and put in "Female - 33in waist", and it said "Looks like you're overweight". It also uses words such as "guidelines" and "recommended".

It does not at any point say "All women who have a waist over 32in are fat, no question, no doubt about it, you're all gonna die". Instead, it's trying to show people that having a large waste is an indication that you might be fat.

You obviously know, as do we from your photo, that you are not fat. You have a large waist, be it down to pregnancies or bone structure, that is not, on this occassion, linked to being overweight. In most cases, there will be a link. The safefood campaign has attempted to make that as clear as possible, not only to you, but to everyone: it's only an indication.

And yes, I am sure certain people, particularily young girls, might take it the wrong way. But I assure you, if someone becomes anorexic because of this campaign, then they have other, underlying problems, and you cannot hold the campaign solely responsible for their actions.

I think that if we could stop the scaremongering of "This campaign will cause hundreds to become anorexic instantly", then perhaps we could see it for what it really is: a useful campaign that will certainly solve more problems than it creates. For instance, look through the forum. I'm sure you'll find that the number of people whom this campaign has encouraged to take positive action far outweighs the number who have said it's damaged them, and surely that's a good thing.

sambuka41

angelfire9 wrote: »

This is a GOVERNMENT AGENCY stating "if you're waist is over 32 inches for a female YOU ARE OVERWEIGHT"

Regardless of height, fitness level, activity levels, food being eaten, genetic predispositions etc etc this campaign is stating in black & white any female with a waist over 32 inches is FAT

And that is WRONG
And that is DANGEROUS

Its fine for us, most of whom are aged over 20 years old and have a bit of common sense
But this site is available to everyone and all you need is a gang of 13-15 year old girls who have zero self confidence and are already experiencing body issues because of puberty to look at this site and say "oh god I'm fat I need to lose weight pronto" and voila you have an epidemic

Saying that this is "far from reality" is ridiculous

As someone who was once a teenage girl i know the amount of ridiculous pressure teenage females are under to conform to a standard
Real women are not like that but this website is only encouraging girls to view themselves as fat or overweight when the reality may be totally different

I agree with everything you have been saying.

I am under the waist measurement but am in NO WAY healthy, I eat awful processed food, I haven't done any exercise in months, and I used to work nights so my sleep patterns can be way off. I also have the worst sweet tooth and my father has type 2 diabetes. I am a walking, talking RISK FACTOR but my waist is under 32 inches so im fine :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Being over weight does not automatically equal ill health, nor does being under these 'guidelines' and skinny automatically equal health. Those decisions should only be made by a professional.

I don't believe shaming people will encourage them to do anything about their weight. This ad is not helpful, informative or encouraging, and the fact that it is a government body that is responsible for it is shocking.

misslooper

I saw this advert and immediately went on a hunt for a measuring tape! My waist was 32 inches, which apparently is the maximum for women. I'm 24 years of age, active, healthy and quite happy with my weight. Although, i do agree with this advert highlighting the obesity issue - Its quite scary to see how many young children these days are so overweight and I do think parents and schools alike have to work together to combat this problem.

smiles302

While the intentions behind this campaign seem good and I really would to see more done in the general idea. I don't think this particular campaign will do much more than get people giving out about safefood and BMI etc in general.

Personally, if I was in charge and had free range I would do a series of ads in a beauty advert type style.

Skin complaint? Drink water. See results in days!

Skin is looking dull? Add more fruit & vegetables to your diet etc.

Some health changes do have the semi-instant results people generally look for in beauty products. Clearly you won't look "perfect" in days but practically everybody should see positive effects.

Or do a healthy lunches campaign.

30 second ad time is the perfect platform to prove healthy food can be fast. Just put somebody in a kitchen, everything chopped and ready to go.

Remember those ads for eggs a while ago? Where the guy made an omelette with whatever he had in the fridge. That sort of idea.

Throw in some health stats. Preferably stuff that people won't argue with. Such as if you go to the chipper twice a week for lunch, how many calories that amounts to and then how much weight you could lose from doing the simple swap.

onion rings

"look beautiful if you want to have more sex" - i think that was patsy from ab fab

Lolita77

I see a lot of my friends and colleagues eating less and/or healthy, but when you see their alcohol intake it's no wonder they are so big. They refuse to do exercise and still don't understand why they don't loose weight. It's a good campaign, people need to be educated again in lifestyle and nutrition as sad as it may sound.

The BMI is a lot of baloney if you ask me though. There is no such thing as an average person. I'm of Asian origin and according to the BMI I would be underweight whereas on the healthy scale I would seriously be overweight if you would look at me.

scudzilla

So what is the ideal weight, or even ideal BMI?

I admit that i'm carrying a bit more weight than i should be but over the past 6 weeks i've been working damn hard to get it down, eating healthy, going to the gym and walking a LOT more. In the past 6 weeks i've dropped 2stone 4lb which i'm delighted with. That worked out to 13.5kg, and it really brought it home on Saturday when i bought a 3kilo bag of bird food, my wife said i'd lost 4 1/2 of them bags, to think i'd been carrying that round for months!!!

But when it come's to an ideal weight it's very confusing. I'm 6'2" and a large frame, i was told about 8 years ago by a doctor, that my ideal weight would be 13.5stone, i think the only time i'd hit that is when i'm in a long oblong box.

My hands are like shovels, the biggest any of my mates have seen, my wrists don't have any fat on them and they're twice the size of most people's.

In general i'm just a big guy with a huge frame, and unfortunately, IMO, a big frame is not taken into account with BMI/Ideal Weight

Sea Horses

It used to be the comment that Americans were big but Ireland had to catch up and catch up we did.
Calories in need to be used up and they dont get used up sitting on the couch.

closifer

I think this is a great ad-although I know that these recent ads have caused some controversy. I heard a journalist on the radio recently complaining that obesity isnt a disease that can be spread and that to claim its somehow contagious is very wrong.

I would have to say that I disagree completely. I think these ads act as a wake up call. This ad in particular as it talks about young people is sadly necessary at this point in time.

In a way i do think that unhealthy eating patterns can spread amongst groups of friends and certainly amongst families. Parents in particular need to wake up to what they are feeding their kids. Sending kids into school with lunchboxes filled to the brim with crisps, fizzy drinks, chocolate and a "healthy" sandwich loaded with mayonnaise. Its too much food for a kid and the wrong type of food altogether for a healthy mind. Yet, when one kid in school gets a "fun" lunch, they all want the same and wont be happy with a brown bread ham sambo.

This ad is important as the changes that have occurred in the weight of kids and teenagers in the last 10 years has to be addressed. Not only does it create unhappy, unhealthy kids but to be blunt, It will cost our country a fortune in the future.

Aoifums

Can I ask where exactly you should be measuring? I heard some people say your natural waist and others say around your bellybutton. So which is correct? I'm going by this http://www.next.co.uk/help/WinHelpSGW.asp for how to find my natural waist. Is that ok?

tommy21

I like this new approach, but having monitored some of the comments here and indeed others on Safefood's Facebook page, a certain minority rabidly reject this novel ad. Is it offensive depending on your sensibilities? Probably, particularly considering the whole "contagion" aspect (which I still feel is vital given the legions of zombie/sci-fi movie fans and video gamers can identify with this buzzword). But moving beyond all the arguments about whether this is right or wrong, it appears to be getting people talking (and worried) about their weight, which to me is far more of a powerful impact than some generic ad that tiptoes around the issue. Is it enough on its own? No. Nor is it a one-size fits all (pardon the pun) approach but for the majority, the tape measure doesn't lie. Obesity is caused by a broad range of socio-economic, cultural, and environmental factors, and not just lifestyle factors (e.g. having a poor diet), but this is difficult to portray meaningfully in a 30-second ad. A different and bold move was made here, in the face of withering fire from some (I expect to get a blast myself for my endorsement ).

Shock tactics are only a stop-gap measure of course, but it will at least open the eyes of some viewers and propel them into different avenues for healthy weight loss, of which there are many (and too many of these treat people with kid gloves in my opinion). Ironically, and in the interests of full disclosure in terms of where my opinion comes from, I have always struggled to gain weight, a problem others say is a dream scenario. Would my opinion be different if I was overweight? I can't answer that. But I do feel this is another weapon in the war on obesity which adds value.

dinneenp

good but slightly 'dangerous' campaign

Brian?

superfish wrote: »

so if im 6,3 and 17 stone (muscle) is a 37inch waist ok ?

Someone who is 6,3 and a lean 17 stone will not have a 37inch waist. I'm defining lean as < 10% bodyfat.

fatmammycat

I hope Dermot returns to address some of the points made.

Handsome Bob

Hi Dermot.

From the perspective of someone who was once obese and has lost 5 stone, I'd just like to say that safefood doesn't impress me. I find your advertising to be bordeline nasty, and if I was in the same position as I was a few years ago, your advertising would have made me feel a whole lot worse about myself.

Your campaign seems to think that ridicule is the best way of motivating people to change. It is, quite frankly, an embarassing tactic to use.

I respect what you're trying to do, but you're way off the mark in regards to the strategy you're using.

remeneerb

I think that it's all a very sensitive topic. You need to strike a balance between getting people overly concerned and obsessed about their weight to having a healthy attitude. I have seen too many cases of young girls and boys succombing to eating disorders, exercise disorders because of a constant pressure to look a certain way. These mental illnesses kill - i know all about it. I think the ad is great because it promotes "health" rather than "perfect appearance". That is the message that needs to be communicated - we all look different, different shapes and sizes but as long as we are healthy then we are all beautiful.

CiaraOMahony

Very good points being made here. Personally I would love to see a similar campaign to Operation Transformations "Count me in" to ban fastfood ads late in the evening ... don't get me wrong I am not blaming fastfood restaraunts for being overweight!! I just feel those type of ads late in the evening make people think they are hungry when they might not necessarily be.

safefood: Dermot

I just wanted to come back on a number of points and sorry for not posting before now - have been tied up with an education resource launch this week.

Regarding saturated fat and the AJCN paper referred us to - national policy is not based on a single research paper and guidelines in the Republic of Ireland (and international concensus would suggest) still advise that saturated fat intake should be reduced in the interest of improving population health and safefood supports this.
　
In terms of our advice on lean meat over fatty meats, this is because of the cancer risk. You’ll find more information here at the World Cancer Research Fund http://www.wcrf-uk.org/audience/media/press_release.php?recid=153

With regard to fruit and vegetables and risk of disease, there is a huge amount of research showing their benefits and I’ll refer you to the WHO report as an example: http://www.who.int/hpr/NPH/fruit_and_vegetables/fruit_vegetables_fs.pdf

My colleague Aileen is going to check in here later to answer any questions you might have relating to the campaign itself.

Best wishes,

Dermot
　

safefood: Aileen

Hi Aoifums,

Dermot is out of the office so I'm jumping in here for a while to answer questions on the campaign - you measure the point half way between the bottom of your ribs and the top of your hip. Check out our video for a demo
http://www.safefood.eu/en/Stop-the-Spread/How-do-you-measure-up/

Aoifums wrote: »

Can I ask where exactly you should be measuring? I heard some people say your natural waist and others say around your bellybutton. So which is correct? I'm going by this http://www.next.co.uk/help/WinHelpSGW.asp for how to find my natural waist. Is that ok?

MagnificentlyU

Hi all,
Really happy to see a discussion about this campaign. I'm not a big fan. While I understand that there are health risks associated with excess weight, I think a public health campaign that asks people to focus on size and weight is counter-productive. Not only does this campaign create an unhealthy focus on size and shape but it adds to the stigma of overweight by suggesting that overweight is contagious. Body dissatisfaction and stigma do not help people engage in healthy life changes!

When I complained to SafeFood about the language used in the campaign I got a response which said that there is no evidence that 'public health campaigns aimed at addressing overweight play any part in either causing or precipitating eating disorder conditions such as anorexia or bulimia'. Firstly, I'm not suggesting that campaigns like this cause eating disorders but they certainly contribute to the culture of stigma and body hatred that can trigger an eating disorder in some people. Secondly, just because there is lack of evidence to suggest something, this doesn't mean that it is the case. At one point there was no evidence that smoking cigarettes damaged health. It may just be that there is a lack of conclusive evidence on this topic.

I know the campaign is well-intentioned but I just think it runs the risk of causing more problems than it solves. Even if the campaign does cause some people to make a positive change in behaviour, is this worth adding to the difficulty of people who are already dealing with obesity by adding to the stigma associated with it? Ok, I've ranted enough about it here but you can read more about some of the problems with this campaign here.
http://www.any-body.org/

D

safefood: Aileen

Hi there,

Have you checked your BMI Scudzilla? http://weigh2live.safefood.eu/planandtrack/tools/bmi.asp

You shouldn't have been given one specific weight - a range of healthy weights is usually provided (to coincide with a BMI from 18.5 - 25.0). The ranges take into account body size, but in unusual circumstances (for example for Rugby players, with very large muscle mass) don't apply.

Hope this helps

Aileen

scudzilla wrote: »

So what is the ideal weight, or even ideal BMI?

I admit that i'm carrying a bit more weight than i should be but over the past 6 weeks i've been working damn hard to get it down, eating healthy, going to the gym and walking a LOT more. In the past 6 weeks i've dropped 2stone 4lb which i'm delighted with. That worked out to 13.5kg, and it really brought it home on Saturday when i bought a 3kilo bag of bird food, my wife said i'd lost 4 1/2 of them bags, to think i'd been carrying that round for months!!!

But when it come's to an ideal weight it's very confusing. I'm 6'2" and a large frame, i was told about 8 years ago by a doctor, that my ideal weight would be 13.5stone, i think the only time i'd hit that is when i'm in a long oblong box.

My hands are like shovels, the biggest any of my mates have seen, my wrists don't have any fat on them and they're twice the size of most people's.

In general i'm just a big guy with a huge frame, and unfortunately, IMO, a big frame is not taken into account with BMI/Ideal Weight

El_Dangeroso

safefood: Dermot wrote: »

I just wanted to come back on a number of points and sorry for not posting before now - have been tied up with an education resource launch this week.

Regarding saturated fat and the AJCN paper referred us to - national policy is not based on a single research paper and guidelines in the Republic of Ireland (and international concensus would suggest) still advise that saturated fat intake should be reduced in the interest of improving population health and safefood supports this.
　
In terms of our advice on lean meat over fatty meats, this is because of the cancer risk. You’ll find more information here at the World Cancer Research Fund http://www.wcrf-uk.org/audience/media/press_release.php?recid=153

With regard to fruit and vegetables and risk of disease, there is a huge amount of research showing their benefits and I’ll refer you to the WHO report as an example: http://www.who.int/hpr/NPH/fruit_and_vegetables/fruit_vegetables_fs.pdf

My colleague Aileen is going to check in here later to answer any questions you might have relating to the campaign itself.

Best wishes,

Dermot
　

Thanks for the reply Dermot, I never imagined I'd get to speak with government nutrition authorities on boards!

The first link you posted said nothing about fat, only that when red and processed meat consumption are examined together, they show an association with increased cancer risk. However, the studies that separate processed meat and red meat only show an association between processed meat and cancer. Studies looking at red meat alone like this one, and this one show no association at all.

In fact, eating red meat is associated with a smaller waist!

But before I'd recommend eating three steaks a day as a weight loss strategy, I'd let people know the limitations of these kinds of studies, ie they are observational, ie they cannot tell you a thing about the cause of anything, ie they are not a sound basis for giving out mass advice to the populace. You see what I'm getting at?

I'm not asking your Phd's to change their mind on the basis of one paper, I'm asking them to read the review (which covers pretty much every large scale prospective human trial ever performed) and tell us what actual studies are they basing their recommendation on?

Again, with fruit and vegetables, where are the intervention trials showing they help prevent any disease?

I'm not playing devil's advocate for the sake of it here, but I do think we as a people are entitled to know the evidence upon which public health policy decisions are made.

Thanks again for your time and consideration.

coconut5

I think a contributory problem to the rise in obesity is the deli. Seriously, if you drive around and stop at any petrol station around the country, there will be a huge deli counter selling all the foods you should not be consuming, huge areas dedicated to cakes and breads, chocolate counters, crisps sections, the list is endless. I was in Lidl the other day, and they even have a new 'freshly baked goods' section now. All these smaller shops and petrol stations seem to specialise in the fattiest, junkiest food, and most people don't even try to resist.

I also think people put unrealistic demands on themselves to be super slim, super fit, and when those demands are not met, they give up completely. Where I work, there is a girl who must be at least 18 stone, and instead of using the one flight of stairs to get to her desk, she takes the lift. Even the smallest things like that makes a difference. People feel bombarded with all of these messages to get in shape, work out in the gym, wikifit, tai chi, all of the many, many ways you can exercise, and I think they just decide, 'Feck it, I can't manage all that.'

Also, a lot of jobs now involve working at a computer and sitting at your desk all day. It makes me sick to think of the amount of time I have to spend in the one spot, staring into a screen. We have a work canteen, fried breakfast available every morning if you want, really badly cooked dinners at 12 o'clock full of fat and salt, and then you come home from work exhausted, even though you haven't moved all day, hungry, and all I want to do is eat rubbishy food to bring up my energy levels again. Those are just a few ideas from me.

Fitzg

This add stigmatizes overweight people and is going to primarily benefit the diet industry.
I would like to see the safefoods budget go towards education or providing us with fresh fruit and vegetables or towards sponsoring community sports activities.

Roger Marbles

While the campaign has good intentions at heart, judging by the reaction to it, it will probably only serve to alienate the demographic it's targeting.

A problem with the ad, is that it makes no practical suggestions as to what to do.

Even worse, the actual recommendations on the safefoods website, from people with phds in nutrition no less are shocking and even if people do listen to the ad and go to the website for the advice, they will end up as unhealthy as they started given the archaic recommendations on eating grains and avoiding saturated fats and high cholesterol foods.

No offence sincerely but I think ads like this are a waste of money tbh.

The people running them clearly don't understand the subject matter and the advice they give renders the ads useless if people implemented the website's advice.

Until the people who ought to know better (doctors, dieticians, people with phds in nutrition etc) revise their outdated dietary opinions in the spirit of helping others rather than cling to them out of pride, the battle is lost.

Reesy

g'em wrote: »

A couple of things though. Since it's launch there have been accusations that the use of terms like "spread" and "catching" in the campaign gives an undertone of a disease-like quality to being overweight and ergo there's an element of dirtiness to it. Was this intentional or was it something that you'd considered?

Well, there is some compelling evidence that weigh gain _is_ contagious: check out this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVhItldrpbA

Striking stuff, eh?

For those with a longer attention span than me, here is a detailed paper on the subject: christakis.med.harvard.edu/pdf/publications/articles/078.pdf

It's hard to, um, swallow, but it's very scientific.

fergalr

Reesy wrote: »

Well, there is some compelling evidence that weigh gain _is_ contagious: check out this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVhItldrpbA

Striking stuff, eh?

For those with a longer attention span than me, here is a detailed paper on the subject: christakis.med.harvard.edu/pdf/publications/articles/078.pdf

It's hard to, um, swallow, but it's very scientific.

As I wrote earlier on the thread:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=72823312&postcount=74

the conclusions of the Christakis and Fowler work are still under scientific discussion and debate.


There are many researchers who say that when you consider other aspects of the data, the 'obesity is contagious' results don't really hold up.

I gave an example of a critical paper, in my previous post.
Here is another example of a recently published paper on this topic:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037887331100030X

"We provide evidence for this claim in a Monte Carlo analysis of the statistical model used by Christakis, Fowler, and their colleagues in numerous articles estimating “contagion” effects in social networks. Our results indicate that homophily in friendship retention induces significant upward bias and decreased coverage levels in the Christakis and Fowler model if there is non-negligible friendship attrition over time."



Basically, its still too early to say, with certainty, whether obesity is contagious or not.

One study, on one dataset, whose methods and results have since been disputed by many other reputable scientists, is not enough.

There may be other factors, not in their model, which explain their results.

Replication and casual research is needed, before we can be sure, one way or the other.



I'm still shocked that people are running public health campaigns on this, as if its completely proven, when its really still a matter of ongoing scientific debate.

I really don't see how they can run an ad that is so black and white about it, and that is putting the idea out there, socially, that obesity spreads like a biological contagion, when this is still very uncertain territory.

I'd really like someone from Safefood to weigh in on this issue, which is pivotal to their campaign.

Tirabaralla

Reesy wrote: »

Well, there is some compelling evidence that weigh gain _is_ contagious: check out this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVhItldrpbA

Striking stuff, eh?

For those with a longer attention span than me, here is a detailed paper on the subject: christakis.med.harvard.edu/pdf/publications/articles/078.pdf

It's hard to, um, swallow, but it's very scientific.

Scientific you say...based on WHAT? The fact that people that are friends will probably have a similar life style/income/kids-absence of/education/many etceteras rings any bell to people that endorse this kind of...poo?
The fact that I cook for my partner or my partner for me and we shop together MAY have something to do to with the fact that we adjust our weights to eachother?
Genes may have something to do with the fact that me and my sibling tend to put on weight in the same areas?
Etcetc...

Come on, like...this is not science, it's interpretation of statistics and statistics can be read from right to left, left to right, above, under, with glasses tinted in pink, green, black etc...

Are we really saying that being overweight spreads like a sickness? Are you for real???
On a lighter note, I wish I had lost some of my kilos together with all the friends that lost them in recent years Cause sure if it works one way it should work the other way...

fergalr

Tirabaralla wrote: »

Scientific you say...based on WHAT? The fact that people that are friends will probably have a similar life style/income/kids-absence of/education/many etceteras rings any bell to people that endorse this kind of...poo?
The fact that I cook for my partner or my partner for me and we shop together MAY have something to do to with the fact that we adjust our weights to eachother?
Genes may have something to do with the fact that me and my sibling tend to put on weight in the same areas?
Etcetc...

They spent great effort trying to isolate the effects of contagion, from the effects of 'homophily', which is when similar people choose to be friends etc.

So they certainly weren't unaware of the effects you mention.
These are very intelligent people, and good researchers.

But it is very hard to separate out these effects from each other - as you say - and there is on-going scientific debate about whether they succeeded in their aims, and whether their conclusion is valid.

Tirabaralla wrote: »

Come on, like...this is not science, it's statistics and statistics can be read from right to left, left to right, above, under, with glasses tinted in pink, green, black etc...

Statistics is hard, certainly, and its easy to go wrong.
But statistics is all over science - you can't throw a result out because it uses statistical methods!

Tirabaralla wrote: »

Are we really saying that being overweights spreads like a virus? Are you for real???

That is what they are saying.
It is a surprising finding, which is why the paper was so high impact.

Very serious, very intelligent people are taking the research seriously.

There is debate over it, and rightly so, and I'm surprised to see its still controversial results being put into public health policy - but its not something you can trivially dismiss, either.

Tirabaralla

I corrected myself about the use of the word "statistic", if you read now but I hope you understand what I meant.

I don't know if these people are intelligent or less, knowledgeable or less or to which extent. Most importantly, I don't know if these people are good people or have something to gain/lose for endorsing one thing or another, and neither , I suppose, do you.

So I decide to think with my head and base my opionons on my experience and my reflections on what I have seen until now in my life. and the experience I have had trough my family, friends, aquietances.
Personally I dismiss this stuff as stupid and highly socially and psychologically dangerous. Personally.