Comments on: Couch Potatoes

By: stubbornmule

stubbornmule — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:33:57 +0000

@evo: boom tish!

By: evo

evo — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:20:14 +0000

I don’t get it…I thought Jamie Oliver usually spends his time producing television cooking shows advocating eating a load of unhealthy food…how come he’s now writing about obesity?

By: stubbornmule

stubbornmule — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 05:28:49 +0000

@Duncan: I agree that there are too many extraneous variables to be too definitive in the conclusions drawn from the data I dug up. However, I would note that James made a stronger claim than “TV watching is causing obesity by advertising poor diet and sedentariness”. He in fact said that watching TV is the main cause of obesity, hence my hope that it would be evident in the national data. I still suspect that the key problem with my data is that, other than the US, there is a fairly tight range of average TV viewing in the 2.5 to 4.5 hour range.

By: Duncan

Duncan — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 05:15:33 +0000

An interesting attempt to show a linkage, Mule, but as you have acknowledged yourself in the comments, the data selected is not really up to casting any light on the thesis. It’s interesting to try and paraphrase what James is claiming in words that could be tested. It seems that James is saying : “TV watching is causing obesity by advertising poor diet and sedentariness” (awful word, but in some dictionaries I’m afraid). To translate that into something that could be measured, maybe: “The more TV an individual watches, the more likely he/she is to be obese”.

Your data could (but interestingly doesn’t) address the accuracy of the statement: ‘Countries with higher average TV viewing habits are more likely to have higher rates of obesity’, but focussing on country statistics leaves too many non-control factors such as diet, sports participation and genes. Better data would show variation within given groups inside a country, using time as the variable – but this still could indicate a correlation related to other factors; anecdotally obesity and TV watching are both on the rise, after all.

The ideal study, of course, would take a randomly selected group within an otherwise similar strata of society and record obesity and watching habits over time. In the meantime we can enjoy your speculation.

One other point that would be worth investigating: Is TV worse than other sedentary activities such as video-gaming, reading – and blogging ? James, I believe, would argue that it is, due to the inclusion of advertising as well as simple arse-camping. I wonder if there’s any data out there to support that contention !

By: Anne Murray

Anne Murray — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 20:13:51 +0000

Personally, I am very impressed with the Americans’ dedication to watching TV and eating. I have tried to emulate their lifestyle but unfortuately, British TV is against me. The reason: not enough commerical breaks. Our lucky American cousins have many more opportunities per hour of TV to heave themselves off the couch and waddle to their giant fridges for high-calorie top-ups. We have so much to learn from them.

By: stubbornmule

stubbornmule — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 06:33:02 +0000

@Alastair: here I was feeling good about being relatively affluenza-free and you have to bring up the gadget strain of the disease! No I realise I am definitely a sufferer.

@Bast: James blames Selfish Capitalism for the disease, but like you, I think that some of he victims should look to themselves as well!

By: Bast

Bast — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:52:48 +0000

I have been saying it for awhile – we are in the midst of an Affluenza pandemic. Now does TV watching increase obesity? Well, that would give me one more reason to blame something/someone other than me for weight gain. But ultimately it’s ME! It’s all about choices, and making good ones, be it what you put in your mouth or what you spend your hard-earned credit on (I know, I know, a bit of an oxymoron). A good dose of personal responsibility would go a long way to getting us out of this mess.

By: Alastair

Alastair — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:10:29 +0000

I'm not sure that the obesity rate is a good indicator of consumption overall. Those of us suffering from gadget affluenza do not necessarily have bulging waistlines, for instance. Also, I had recently seen results that the US was not as much of an outlier as your figures suggest. Guess which other country had recently ascended to the obesity throne? Yep, that one.

By: Gerad Suyderhoud

Gerad Suyderhoud — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 03:48:12 +0000

Excellent analysis and post. I wonder if tendency toward obesity is cultural. Hence the TV-obesity correlation might be observed between sample within the USA.

By: stubbornmule

stubbornmule — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 07:26:55 +0000

@Shane: your comments all make a lot of sense. When I set out to dig out the data, I fully expected it to bear out James’ view. There are probably a couple of reasons why it does not:

(a) the effect may require significant variation in viewing hours and all but the US are too close together (a longer historical analysis could help here, going back to when watching hours were much lower.

(b) while the effect may be real all things being equal (as you say), but it may simply be that TV is not “the primary” factor and that there are too many other variables.