{"id":4990,"date":"2012-12-04T08:00:16","date_gmt":"2012-12-04T13:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/?p=4990"},"modified":"2014-04-28T13:44:37","modified_gmt":"2014-04-28T17:44:37","slug":"state-weight-cheese-obesity-linked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/state-weight-cheese-obesity-linked\/","title":{"rendered":"The State of Weight: Are Cheese and Obesity Linked?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past year, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM)<\/a> put up a series of billboards<\/a> in Albany, New York, displaying a man\u2019s belly bulging over his belt, captioned \u201cYour Abs on Cheese,\u201d and another of a woman\u2019s large dimpled legs, captioned \u201cYour Thighs on Cheese.\u201d Their point? \u201cCheese is loaded with fat, cholesterol, sodium, and calories,\u201d states PCRM. \u201cIt should come with a warning label.\u201d PCRM president Dr. Neal Barnard has repeatedly called cheese \u201cdairy crack.\u201d The Washington D.C.\u2013based group, which aggressively promotes a vegan diet for Americans, targeted Albany because more than half of its adult residents are overweight or obese; they put similar billboards in Wisconsin, the cheesemaking epicenter of the United States.<\/p>\n

Obesity has become an American epidemic in the past 20 years; Europe isn\u2019t far behind. While an estimated 63.1 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, about half the population of Europe falls into the same categories. Interestingly, though, in France\u2014where 96 percent of the population eats cheese at a per capita rate of about 52 pounds a year (versus 29.8 pounds for Americans)\u2014the incidence of obesity is one of the lowest in Europe.<\/p>\n

\"It<\/a><\/p>\n

While PCRM contends that cheese is the largest cause of our obesity epidemic, many experts reject this simplistic theory. Excessive weight gain results from many interacting factors in our \u201cobesogenic\u201d culture, they argue. But as data accumulates on the subject, two factors in particular appear to parallel the soaring national weight gain: what we eat and how much of it. Statistically, the six top calorie sources in the current U.S. diet are grain-based desserts (cake, cookies, etc.), breads, chicken-based dishes, sweetened beverages, pizza, and alcoholic beverages. Our food has become more like an institutional cafeteria diet, awash in a large variety of packaged foods, take-out fast food, and sweetened beverages. Studies also show a nearly 20 percent increase in per capita calorie intake since the 1980s. If anything can single-handedly account for the increase in body fatness over the past 30 years, it is this whopping increase in calories we\u2019re consuming. Even Barnard has stated, \u201cStudies clearly show that weight gain in the United States over the past 30 years is almost entirely due to changing eating habits.\u201d Why pick on just cheese then?<\/p>\n

Some say it\u2019s because the real mission of PCRM is to promote animal rights disguised as nutrition advice. They point to the fact that a significant portion of PCRM\u2019s funding comes from the founder of the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida<\/a> as well as PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals)<\/a>, of which Barnard was a past president. PCRM has also been at the forefront of lobbying against the use of animals for medical research.<\/p>\n

Outside of PCRM, most health practitioners take a big-picture approach to the problem of obesity. Lisa Close, a registered dietician with Sacred Heart Hospital in Allentown, Pennsylvania, says, \u201cThere are so many other contributing factors that need to be looked at besides just cheese. You have to consider predominant lifestyle, and then genetics, socioeconomics, cultural views toward diet, lack of education, environment, and more.\u201d<\/p>\n

That said, Close and other nutrition experts don\u2019t deny that cheese is an energy-dense food, having on average about 100 calories per ounce and about eight grams of fat. But so are other wholesome foods. Walnuts, for instance, have a generous 18 grams of fat and 185 calories per ounce (they are, incidentally, approved by PCRM).<\/p>\n

The richness of cheese, one can also argue, is also an asset. It\u2019s the reason why most of us are satisfied eating just a few slices or ounces. Cheese is not like other fat- and protein-rich foods, such as meats and poultry, which typically get polished off in eight-ounce servings. The average individual cheese plate in a restaurant is a three- or four-ounce serving. Such reasonable portioning is the healthy key to having your cheese and eating it too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the offensive against obesity in the US, can dairy be defended?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":4992,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"coauthors":[432],"class_list":["post-4990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cheese-iq"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe State of Weight: Are Cheese and Obesity Linked? - culture: the word on cheese<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In the offensive against obesity in the US, can dairy be defended? 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