Judging Amy- don't go there!

The other morning you might have seen the segment we did on Sunrise on lap band surgery for teenagers. It amazes me that people have very firmly held opinions on the subject. They feel that to go for surgery is a cop out and that these teens should ‘just lose weight.’ I have to put my hand up and defend the kids and their adult sisters and brothers in crime who don’t ‘just lose weight.’

As we get to know more about obesity, the idea that anyone can just decide to shift a few kgs is becoming more absurd. There are so many factors that go into the process that ends in obesity. Your hormones, your mum’s habits during her pregnancy and even the bacteria you harbor in your gut can all influence your need to overeat, your inability to burn fat like everyone else and your propensity to stubbornly maintain your weight in spite of giving it a good shot. Not a perfect shot- NONE of us (except those with an unhealthy eating obsession) do that. But even sticking to the 80:20 rule doesn’t help.

Have enough set backs in the dieting and exercising game and any of us would give up. Once you have diabetes and you’re tired all the time, and once you’re so overweight your back hurts too much to walk let alone run, you are going to find it exceptionally difficult to lose weight the old fashioned way. Gastric banding helps the seriously obese? Well for goodness sake who needs to be a martyr? Get it done and give yourself the one shot we KNOW works. Sure it’s not the silver bullet but it is more often than not the best shot at getting your life back. It can reverse diabetes and high blood pressure, take pressure off your joints and put you before the posts so you can actually get somewhere with your diet and exercise program. I wish people wouldn’t judge those who have battled their weight all their lives without trying to walk a day in their shoes.

Ditto another patient I saw today. She had a childhood I can only describe as incredible. Let’s just say I’m used to hearing her story from the heroin addicts I used to see in Kings Cross every day. A day in the Cross treating people whose lives had become a train smash was always a smell the coffee moment. Their stories of abuse, neglect, emotional vandalism at the hands of those who were meant to nurture and love them leave you shaking your head. Of course they’re on heroin. What would any of us do given that introduction to the big wide world? My patient somehow defied her destiny, and unlike the people who walk the streets of the Cross at night and shoot the proceeds up their arms to numb the pain, she has a degree, a profession and almost unbelievable success. Thumbs up to her and thumbs down to anyone who judges drug addicts without understanding their experiences.

Sunrise today- click HERE to view clip

Teaching your kids to survive a bitch attack

I’m not usually one to randomly jump on bandwagons, but I’m taking a leap onto the canning wagon and taking aim at Australia’s Dear Leader, who, having written a children’s book, clearly sees himself as the font of all knowledge when it comes to young Australians. He recommended on ABC radio that the parents of bullying victims go straight to the source (the bullies’ parents) if the school fails to take action. Fail at parenting 101 there, Mr Rudd.

Another F in the parenting stakes goes to the Leader of the Opposition who tells Channel 9’s Today Show that the reason that’s a dodgy thing to do is that we’re going to have a band of vigilante mums let loose upon society. That just misses the point entirely. The reasons why you don’t take matters into your own hands is two fold;

Firstly, parents get only one account of the story, which is your child’s. In my experience, I haven’t found many children are too good at giving their parents a balanced and impartial account of events at school or anywhere else for that matter. Have you ever tried to work out what happened when your own children have a spat? Triple the confusion when one of your children is involved with another kid at school. As parents we naturally think our children are angels and are biologically programmed to want to personally decapitate anyone who wants to hurt them. So a parent’s ability to judge these episodes impartially and act proportionally and sensibly is impaired because we love our kids too much.

But more importantly, it’s especially important for the victims of bullying themselves. Kids engage in Lord of the Flies behaviour in playground politics. If there are bullies out there, that’s the school’s problem. A parent’s primary responsibility is to their child. Victims of bullying need to be helped to develop resilience, to develop a higher self esteem that will see them less likely to accept appalling behaviour by anyone towards them; and to honestly appraise their own behaviour with insight that allows them to mould to what is socially acceptable. I’m not saying they should take up drugs or sleeping with boys to fit in. Rather if they are too rough and hurt the other kids, if they have to win come what may in every game at lunch time, or sulk loudly if they don’t get their way, the other kids will let them know in no uncertain terms that their behaviour is not on. I’m not saying we should blame the victim here, but, rather be open to the fact that the bullied child MIGHT be abe to make a couple adjustments that make them stand out less.

Help them sort themselves out and they will grow into strong independent resilient adults who have successful relationships. Fight their battles for them and demand that everyone else leave them alone and you will raise a person who has never developed the skills they need to survive in the real world of workplace and social relationships.

That might seem tough and as a short term strategy; getting the bullying ring leader expelled from school and the other children so scared of you that they leave your child alone might seem to work. Long term it’s an almost guaranteed train smash.

a growing problem

Doctors used to poo-poo the idea that your hormones could make you fat. That’s until we found out there is an entire group of people (a group growing in every sense of the word) whose hormones are doing just that.

Take my quick quiz;

1.       Do you have a spare tyre around your middle?

2.       Do you eat reasonably well and do some exercise but can’t shift your weight?

3.       Are you tired all the time?

4.       Do you have yo-yo blood pressure?

5.       Are your cholesterol tests a bit dodgy?

You might have insulin resistance.

Insulin is the key that unlocks the doors that allow glucose into your cells so it can fuel up the cell. Insulin resistance is when the locks on your doors get dodgy and the keys aren’t working that well any more. The locks go wonky when you put on weight and a vicious cycle starts.

As a result, your glucose isn’t making it into the cells at quite the rate it’s needed (you feel tired). Secondly glucose backs up out the door waiting to get into the cells. Your body responds to all that sugar hanging around and pumps out more insulin. Your insulin levels start creeping up.

Now don’t get me wrong; I have nothing against insulin. It’s a really useful hormone. But when it is at higher levels in your blood, your body takes it as a signal that there is plenty of carb/ sugar around. So it decides to turn off all fat burning and starts turning every sugar in its path to blubber. Hence you get saddled with far too much fat and no ability to break it down. At that point, going for a walk every day and eating like a Weight Watcher on steroids gets you nowhere fast!

Put together with the spare tyre around the middle and blood pressure that Yo Yos its way upwards and some high triglycerides and you have the metabolic syndrome. Believe me that is not one you want- because it delivers you a 500% increase risk of dying a cardiovascular death.

Could this be you? To find out for sure, go to your GP and ask for three blood tests;

1.       OGTT (oral glucose tolerance test)

2.       Triglyceride test

3.       CRP (C-reactive protein)

The OGTT is a barrel of laughs. It takes 2 hours and follows a few days of strict dieting. It measures how well your body processes carbs you eat.

The triglyceride is one of the fat storage molecules that tends to be up in people with metabolic syndrome, and the CRP measures the state of inflammation in your body. Scientists are toiling madly to understand exactly what the role of inflammation is in all of this; is it the chicken or the egg? What we do know that is that a high CRP means more inflammation in your body and greater chances of heart disease, strokes and diabetes.

And if you work out your hormones are out of whack and making you fat? What then?

You can sign up for our FREE Women’s Health Update on March 16^th at 8pm where I’ll be talking about hormones and weight loss in more details. Interested? Email susie@susieburrell.com.au

For those of you who have tried and failed, we are fully booked but mention my blog and we’ll MAKE space for you!!

 Or keep reading the blog and I’ll post some info up on how to combat the fat hormones over the next week.

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