E-mail a friendDr. Antronette Yancey
airdate September 29, 2005
Dr. Antronette Yancey is an associate professor at UCLA's School of Public Health, where she earned her M.P.H. She returned to academia after working in public health in Richmond, VA and Los Angeles County. Her research includes adolescent health, particularly childhood obesity and inactivity, and a diabetes demonstration project with Community Health Councils. Dr. Yancey was the lead author of a study that blames a "sedentary culture" for our obesity problem. She received her medical degree from Duke.
Dr. Antronette Yancey
Tavis: We continue our 'Road to Health' series tonight with a look at childhood obesity. Recent studies suggest that more than 15% of students in the U.S. are overweight. One in 10 is obese. And children of color are more likely to suffer from obesity than their white counterparts. Dr. Toni Yancey is an associate professor at the Department of Health Services at UCLA, specializing in obesity prevention. Dr. Yancey, nice to have you on the program.
Dr. Antronette Yancey: It's great to be here, Tavis.
Tavis: Two things that amaze me. One, I saw a study the other day that suggested a direct link between television and obesity. If a kid watches "X" amount of television, there's a great likelihood that they will absolutely be obese. Say it ain't so.
Yancey: I wish I could. No, the reality is that the major connection between television and obesity seems to be the advertising component of it, okay? So, commercial advertising that encourages kids to, you know, pick up that soda or those chips or whatever, and most of the advertising on television that is a part of children's programming is for nutrient-poor but very high calorie foods.
Now, there's also the displacement effect, meaning that kids are sitting in front of the TV as opposed to doing something active. But actually that seems to be a little bit less of a contributor because many of the studies suggest that video watching, for instance, isn't linked to the same degree. It is to some degree, but not as conclusively.
Tavis: Yeah. Just fascinating, because we kind of know this from talking about it so many times over the years, but it's fascinating to see a study that says 'The more a kid watches TV, the fatter, the more overweight they are going to be.'
Yancey: Yeah, well, Bill Dietz at the CDC - did some groundbreaking work in this regard back about six years ago or so, to demonstrate that linkage. And, in fact, one of my colleagues, Steve Gortmaker at Harvard, actually was able to demonstrate that by encouraging parents to decrease television watching in their kids, and getting kids to focus on other activities. He was actually able to decrease the obesity rates in black girls. It actually didn't work as well in white girls or in boys.
Tavis: Second issue. I still hear people suggest, certainly, people of color suggest that they are - the size they are, they are big boned in the way they are, they are hefty in the way they are, because of genetics. "Well, my mama was this way, my grandmamma was this way. It runs in my family.' What about this argument that our being overweight is genetic, and not something that we control?
Yancey: Well, that's a great question. And I want to tell you that our genes have not changed in the last 30 or 40 years while this epidemic has been progressing. As a matter of fact, in the fifties and early sixties, black people were thinner than white people, okay? So, what's happened and what's changed is the environment. Now, certainly, I can't rule out a gene-environment interaction - in other words, a gene sort of sitting dormant, and then when the environment changes as dramatically as it has recently, then, boom, you know, we develop these high obesity rates.
But I can tell you that we didn't suddenly become lazy and stupid. That what's happened is we are surrounded by a smorgasbord of unhealthy, nutrient-poor foods that are so tasty and delectable we can't resist them. And we're hard-wired to prefer them. And then at the same time, we've engineered all of the physical activity out of our lives. We don't have to be active to survive anymore.
Tavis: I read a study the other day that suggested that part of this problem, not unlike many other problems that people of color happen to face, is environmental. It's where you live.
Yancey: Yes.
Tavis: And what you have access to or don't have access to.
Yancey: Absolutely.
Tavis: Same thing for obesity?
Yancey: Definitely true for obesity. As a matter of fact, our research team at Community Health Councils and the University of Southern California, as well as UCLA, has published several studies over the past two years that have linked the resource environment, in terms of the numbers of grocery stores available, what's actually available in the smaller groceries. Like the fact that there's half of the variety and quality of produce in stores in predominantly black neighborhoods, or neighborhoods where many black people live, compared to the more affluent white neighborhoods.
The availability of soy products, which are increasingly linked to healthy outcomes, prevention of cancer and so forth, much less available. Low fat and nonfat milk, much less available. So, we don't have a very rich environment in terms of protecting ourselves. And also, our neighborhoods many times are not safe, okay?
Parents are trying to protect their kids from gunplay, so they're keeping them inside, because they'd rather have an overweight child than a dead child. These are really hard decisions that parents are grappling with every day, and that's why the message of personal responsibility needs to be linked to a message of our collective societal responsibility for this problem.
Tavis: So what do we do, then, when a study like this comes out that says that we are about to lose an entire generation of young people, lost to being overweight?
Yancey: What we do is we take on responsibility in the ways that we can. Many of the people that watch your show are policy makers, decision makers in organizations, they're opinion leaders in their own communities, they're advocates. And we need to start to turn the mirror around and say, "What can we do about this problem,' okay? Not just what can the schools do, or what can the governor do, or what can other people do, but what can we all do to take some responsibility for what we're exposed to, and for what's going on in our environments.
Tavis: But we've been getting heavier and heavier and heavier.
Yancey: Yes.
Tavis: We didn't just - we didn't just get fat last year. We've been getting heavier and heavier and more obese and more obese over a period of time, and yet, while folk have been saying we've got to take this seriously, we aren't. So what's it going to take for us to take it seriously?
Yancey: Well, I think one thing that it's gonna take is that we have been so deconditioned that most of us don't realize anymore what it's like to be active. And one of the best linkages right now in terms of what we can do to prevent obesity, is to get kids and adults more physically active. So, one of things we can do is to start to program exercise back into our workplaces and our schools, because workplaces are where you get many adults, and other organizations, like churches and so forth, why don't we have gospel choir rehearsals where there's a 10-minute exercise break?
Praise aerobics break in the middle of them. Why don't we have our - ordinarily, at a certain time of a meeting, or at a certain time of the day at work, why don't we come together and do exercises? Because most people are not going to do it on their own. They need to be encouraged. And I think that how we galvanize the support that we need to make the big changes, like, we need to have more mass transit and less investment in private transportation, cars and so forth.
We need to have more investment in parks versus sports stadiums. All that sort of thing has to happen, but it takes votes. It takes political will. And how do we garner the political will? We've got to get people engaged again.
Tavis: When you look around, right quick, when you look around, though, and you see this society getting bigger - this is one of those problems you can literally see.
Yancey: Yes.
Tavis: So you would think that people would jump on this immediately.
Yancey: You would think so. But, I think, unfortunately, we live in a very complex society where there are many demands and competing priorities, and the people most at risk for obesity are people that are living in socio-economically challenged environments, and people that don't have the resources to do the advocacy. If you look in Bel Air, you don't see the number of billboards.
Tavis: Dr. Toni Yancey from UCLA. This conversation will continue to go on, I hope, until somebody does something about it. Nice to have you here.
Yancey: Great to be here, Tavis.
Tavis: Glad to have you here. Up next on this program, famed Hollywood director Norman Jewison. Stay with us. We're back in just a moment.
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