Fat land : how Americans became the fattest people in the world (27 page)

To be fair, it had never had a very bad one: Interview with R. Marie Griffith; R. Marie Griffith, "The Promised Land of Weight Loss," Christian Century, May 7, 1997, pp. 448-454; Solomon Schimmel, The Seven Deadly Sins (New York: Free Press, 1992). The early nineteenth century's Sylvester Graham: See Steven Nissen-baum, Sex, Diet and Debility: Sylvester Graham and Diet Reform (Westport, Conn.: 1980), pp. 5-8. See also Schwartz, Never Satisfied,

PP- 15-49-

54 "When God first dreamed you into creation": Griffith, "The Promised Land of Weight Loss," p. 448. Also, Charlie W. Shedd, Pray Your Weight Away (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1957), pp. 15, 90-96. For a modern version of Shedd, targeted at Christian women, see Gwen Shamblin, The Weigh Down Diet (New York: Doubleday,

1997)-

"Today my body belongs to God . . .": Shedd, Pray Your Weight

Away, p. 90.

"he balanced his moral rebuke . . .": Griffith interview.

NOTES

54 "Literalists are prone to view . ..": Chris Smith, "Fat Christians in an Age of Hunger," Communique: A Quarterly Journal, 1st quarter, 1999, p. 1.

55 At places like Fuller Seminary: Author interview. The end result of this reorientation: Griffith interview.

As the sociologist Emile Durkheim: Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1915), pp. 47, 227,419. God and society "are only one": Ibid., p. 206.

56 In a 1998 study looking at 3500 U.S. adults: See Kenneth F. Ferraro, "Firm believers? Religion, body weight, and well-being," Review of Religious Research, v. 39, March 1998, pp. 224-244. "Consolation and comfort from religion and from eating": Ibid., p. 236.

"There is no evidence of religion . . .": Ibid., p. 231.

57 "They feel they would risk alienating . . .": Interview with Kenneth Ferraro. For an expansion of Ferraro's work, see Kenneth Ferraro, "Does religion influence adult health?" Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, v. 30, 1991, pp. 193-202; Kenneth Ferraro and Jerome Koch, "Religion and health among black and white adults," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, v. 33, 1994, pp. 362-375; and Kenneth Ferraro and Tara Booth, "Age, body mass index, and functional illness," Journal of Gerontology, v. 54b, 1999, pp. S339-S348.

"I know gluttony is a bad thing ...": Quoted in Smith, "Fat Christians in an Age of Hunger."

By the mid-1980s, however, both Levi Strauss: Interview with Lynn Downey, Historian, Levi Strauss & Co. Also "List of Sizes: 1915, Levi Strauss," "Ages and Sizes: 1920, Levi Strauss," "Ages and Sizes, 1950, Levi Strauss Catalogue," "Men's and Young Men's Sizes: 1961 Levi Strauss Catalogue," "Blue Levi's: 1970, Levi Strauss Catalogue."

58 "We about a buncha obese playboys!": Riggs Morales, "Heavyweight Champion," The Source, February 1999, pp. 154-158.

"A lot of Latinos and blacks are overweight. . .": Interview with "Fat Joe," Pun's recording partner and producer.

The record company that eventually: See Loud Records Biography (New York: Sony Music, 1999).

By 1998 Pun had ballooned: Interview with "Cuban Link," Pun's fellow band member. See also Riggs Morales and Kim Osorio, "Larger Than Life," The Source, May 2000, p. 183.

NOTES

58 "They got him whatever he wanted": Interview with "Boovie," Pun's cousin.

59 "People would tie his shoes for him . ..": Interview with "Erica," Pun associate, anonymity requested.

By the time he was twenty-nine, when he died of a massive heart attack, he weighed 698 pounds: See Louis Roh, Medical Examiner, Westchester County, "Autopsy Report: Christopher Rios," #M2000-0335, February 8, 2000, p. 2.

60 "They were huge . . .": Interview with Johannes Hebebrand, University of Marburg.

Large sizes account for a growing: Leslie Earnest, "Plus-Size Youths Are Getting More Fashion Choices," Los Angeles Times, April 16, 2001, p. Ci. See also Deborah Belgum, "Livin' Large," Los Angeles Business Journal, April 9, 2001, p. 44.

"This is one of the hot new target audiences": Quoted in Constance L. Hayes, "The Media Business: Advertising," New York Times, February 27, 2002, p. Cio.

61 Garrow's obese patients: J. S. Garrow and G. T. Gardiner, "Maintenance of weight loss in obese patients after jaw wiring," British Medical Journal, v. 282, March 14, 1981, pp. 858-860.

62 About two months after: Bernstein and Paul, Winning the Chain Restaurant Game, p. 63.

4. Why the Calories Stayed on Our Bodies

Though America is supposedly fixated on the subject of fitness, there are few decent texts on the history of physical education in the United States. One worth reading, despite its age, is Emmett A. Rice's outstanding A Brief History of Physical Education (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1926). Fortunately, primary sources abound. At the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, I examined the entire documentary record of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports (1956-present), which provided important analytical and narrative records of that influential body. The council's Research Digest was particularly helpful.

A number of leading fitness authorities granted me extensive interviews, among them the University of Arizona's Charles Corbin, who, with his associate Bob Pangrazi, may well be the most influential academic in the field of fitness today. Ash Hayes, onetime director of the president's council, also granted me several lengthy interviews. So did John Cates, who served as deputy to council presidents George Allen and Arnold

NOTES

Schwarzenegger. Betty Hennessy, of the Los Angeles County Department of Education, was a font of information on the local front, where she remains a forceful proponent of public fitness. The American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD) was a source of background information on the subject of fitness testing.

The Cooper Institute provided extensive information about its continuing fitness study; much of its work — and that of others involved in fitness policy — can be found in the annals of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Lancet, and Archives of Internal Medicine. In addition to interviews with key players such as Walter Willett, Meir Stampfer, and C. Wayne Callaway in the 1990 weight guidelines debate, I also received extensive archival transcripts from the USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion.

63 As president of the President's Council: Interview with John Cates. See also "Youth Fitness Summits: A. Schwarzenegger," Boxes 17-20, Papers of the President's Council on Physical Fitness, National Archives, College Park, Maryland, hereafter abbreviated as PPCPF.

64 On his better days: "Meeting Minutes," May 1, 1990, Box 12, PPCPF.

"I just don't understand": "Meeting Minutes," September 25, 1990,

Box 12, PPCPF.

He suspected the American Alliance ... of: "Meeting Minutes,"

April 5, 1990, Box 12, PPCPF.

"We had thirteen lawyers . . .": Cates interview. See also "Meeting

Minutes," May 1, 1990, PPCPF.

The last indignity came: Cates interview.

65 Nowhere was this more apparent than in California: See Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds: A Study of the Decline of Physical Education in California Schools (Sacramento: Assembly Office of Research, 1984), pp. 49-51; for a national overview of PE and government until 1941, see Gwendolyn Drew, A Historical Study of the Concern of the Federal Government for the Physical Fitness of Non-age Youth with Reference to the Schools (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1944).

66 To accommodate them, PE staffs were: Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds, pp. 8-9, 11-14.

67 "Staffing has been reduced . . .": Ibid., p. 3.

"teachers were on their own": Interview with Betty Hennessy.

By 1980 another Department of Education survey: Healthy Bodies,

Healthy Minds, pp. 11, 18.

NOTES

68 "We as physical educators ...": Cates interview.

Overnight the new law sliced: Philip J. LaVelle, "Tax Revolt: No Minor Proposition," San Diego Union-Tribune, June 14, 1998, p. 1. By 1980 average PE class sizes had doubled: Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds, pp. 3, 11-23.

69 "In a time of financial strain ...": Ibid., p. 13. For a retrospective look at the impact of Proposition 13, see LaVelle, "Tax Revolt." See also Lynell George, "Testing the Teachers," Los Angeles Times, June 27, 1996, p. Ei.

Founded at an impromptu get-together: "Twenty-fifth Anniversary Album" (Hawthorne, California: AYSO Publications, 1989), pp. 4-5.

70 "It really wasn't until later . . .": Interview with Lollie Keyes, chief communications officer, AYSO. For a full discussion of sports clubs and class, see Vern D. Seefeldt and Martha E. Ewing, "Youth sports in America," PCPFS Research Digest, v. 2, no. 11. In a wide-ranging statistical review of youth participation in sports clubs from 1954 to 1992, the authors concluded, "While the number of youth involved in organized sports programs is impressive, the opportunities to engage in sports programs are unequal across genders and social classes. Greater opportunities exist among children who grow up in middle and upper classes where resources enable adults to sponsor, organize, and administer programs for their children."

All of this ... Yankelovich: Quoted in Karen Jacobs, "The Pay Gap," Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2000, p. R7.

they were not urbanites but rather urban villagers: For an engaging and relevant exposition of the Italian Americans corollary, see Herbert J. Gans, The Urban Villagers (Toronto: Free Press of Glencoe, 1962), especially pp. 45-197.

71 "always says yes": Jacobs, "The Pay Gap." See also C. O. Airhihen-buwa, S. Kumanyika, T. D. Agurs, and A. Lowe, "Perceptions and beliefs about exercise, rest, and health among African-Americans," Annals of Internal Medicine, v. 1, 1993: 650-654.

"has the potential to do more harm than good": Airhihenbuwa et al, "Perceptions and beliefs ...,": p. 651. Consider a 2000 study of 1929: Ibid.

72 "Adults who perceive they have too little ...": Larry A. Tucker, "Television viewing and exercise habits of 8885 adults," Perceptual and Motor Skills, v. 77, 1993, p. 938.

"Children are naturally very active . . .": Quoted in E. G. A. H. van Mil, A. H. C. Goris, and K. R. Westerterp, "Physical activity and the prevention of childhood obesity," International Journal of Obesity, v. 23, I999,PP-S42-S44-

NOTES

72 "Kids and dads watching twenty-three . . .": Interview with Larry Tucker.

73 What was surprising, though, was the pronounced class and: Ross Andersen, Carlos Crespo, et al, "Relationship of physical activity and television watching with body weight and level of fatness among children: results from the third national health and nutrition survey," Journal of the American Medical Association, v. 279, 1998, pp. 28-32.

About 46 percent of all U.S. adults: Ibid.

74 "boys and girls who watched four or more . . .": Ibid.

A study by the Amateur Athletic Union: Cited and graphed in R. V. Luepker, "How physically active are American children and what can we do about it?" International Journal of Obesity, v. 23, 1999, pp.S12-S17.

In California, the onetime model of: Duke Helfand, "State Youths Flunk Fitness Exam," Los Angeles Times, December 11, 2001, p. Bi; Greg Critser, "A Get Fit Plan for Physical Education," Los Angeles Times, December 16, 2001, p. M3.

75 A growing number of Latino children were showing up: Interview with Dr. Francine Kaufman, chief, endocrinology and metabolism, director, Comprehensive Childhood Diabetes Center, Children's Hospital Los Angeles.

76 "Not only had the sport segregated itself . . .": Interview with Steve Pezman.

Fortune magazine, in a typical screed: "A Proposal for Fat City," Fortune, December 14, 1981, p. 4.

"All of us must consider our own responsibilities ...": Quoted in "Fitness in Action," newsletter, March 1961, Box 1, PPCPF. See also John F. Kennedy, "The Vigor We Need," Sports Illustrated, July 16, 1962, p. 12; for an example of the Cold War context and how it shaped the early council, see Bud Wilkenson, "In a Dangerous World, Is American Youth Too Soft?" U.S. News & World Report, August

21, 1961, pp. 75-78.

77 There were specialized fitness magazines: Vim: A Complete Exercise Plan for Girls 12-18, and Vigor: A Complete Exercise Plan for Boys 12-18, President's Council on Physical Fitness, 1963, Box 1, PPCPF.

There was a council theme song: "115K Copies of 'Go You Chicken Fat Go' Sold," Fitness News, November 1963, Box 1, PPCPF. "In 1958 the average . . .": Stan Musial, "Introduction: Closing the Muscle Gap," Four Years for Fitness 1961-1963: A Report to the

NOTES

President (Washington, D.C.: President's Council, 1966), p. 3, Box 1, PPCPF.

78 "My parents had moved there": Interview with Ash Hayes.

He also assumed a headache: National School Population Fitness Survey (Washington, D.C.: PCPFS, 1985), pp. 23-31; Ash Hayes, "Youth physical fitness hearings," Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, v. 55, pp. 29-40; "Study Sparks Change in Presidential Award Program," Newsletter: PCPFS, May 1985, p. 1.

79 But for Hayes, that wasn't: "Two National Studies Indicate America's Young People Out of Shape," Newsletter: PCPFS, October 1985, P-2.

"My total budget was $1.5 million": Hayes interview.

80 The first was the ascendance of aerobic exercise: Kenneth H. Cooper, Aerobics (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1968).

81 "Basically, the same kids won it year after year": Interview with Charles Corbin.

82 As Hayes saw it: Hayes interview; "Background 2.1: Introduction," National School Population Fitness Survey, pp. 3-5; Ash Hayes, "Memorandum for the Record: Chronology of Events Relative to Youth Physical Fitness Testing and the Presidential Fitness Award," July 7, 1986, copy provided to author by Ash Hayes.

83 "There was a whole self-esteem issue . . .": Cates interview.

To reconcile the two tests: Hayes interview; Corbin interview; Hayes, "Memorandum ..." pp. 2-3.