Boyd Swinburn is the Alfred Deakin Professor of Population Health and Director of the World Health
Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention at Deakin University in Melbourne. You have seen his name many times in my blog and I have read at least 20 articles which either discuss policy issues or examine research that he himself has conducted.
Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention at Deakin University in Melbourne. You have seen his name many times in my blog and I have read at least 20 articles which either discuss policy issues or examine research that he himself has conducted.
Recently I talked about the 4 articles that are published in the medical journal the Lancet. I also mentioned that Dr. Swinburn was to attend a UN General Assembly Meeting in NYC this month.
His work as a researcher and as director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Obesity Prevention is getting him a lot of press these days. His studies often include the USA, UK and Australia. Today I am linking you to a popular press story which does his research justice. Remember, I have read the work of both Swinburn and the other scientist noted in the report, Gortmaker. I have blogged about Swinburn's work which shows that the weight gain in the last 30 years is much more about calories in then out. In this article it is said again. Our change in physical activity occurred decades before our weights began to rise. Our bodies had adjusted to the change in activity and as individuals we WERE eating less to compensate for doing less- until the "tipping point" happened. The calorie content of our food doubled and tripled. The journalist quotes the studies of Swinburn et al - and this is my favorite line "Energy intake rose because of environmental push factors, i.e., increasingly available, cheap, tasty, highly promoted obesogenic foods.”
This is not a research article but a newspaper story written by Jane Brody - do take a minute to read it for yourself. This is the type of policy work I hope to engage in myself.
