The Case for the Food Reward Hypothesis of Obesity, Part I

Introduction

When you want to investigate something using the scientific method, first you create a model that you hope describes a natural phenomenon-- this is called a hypothesis.  Then you go about testing that model against reality, under controlled conditions, to see if it has any predictive power.  There is rarely a single experiment, or single study, that can demonstrate that a hypothesis is correct.  Most important hypotheses require many mutually buttressing lines of evidence from multiple research groups before they're widely accepted.  Although it's not necessary, understanding the mechanism by which an effect occurs, and having that mechanism be consistent with the hypothesis, adds substantially to the case.

With that in mind, this post will go into greater detail on the evidence supporting food reward and palatability as major factors in the regulation of food intake and body fatness.  There is a large amount of supportive evidence at this point, which is rapidly expanding due to the efforts of many brilliant researchers, however for the sake of clarity and brevity, so far I've only given a "tip of the iceberg" view of it.  But there are two types of people who want more detail: (1) the skeptics, and (2) scientifically inclined people who want mechanism.  This post is for them.  It will get technical at times, as there is no other way to convey the material effectively.

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Art Inspired By Art

This past week I was asked to come up with a photograph inspired by another painting or photograph. My mind instantly went to one of my favorite images of all time, featuring John Lennon and Yoko Ono taken by Annie Leibovitz.  I am currently reading her book, "at work" in where she describes how this photograph came about.  Sometimes, the best shots you take are the ones where you are not in complete control.  You will have to read the book to learn why.  Unfortunately, this was one of the last photographs of John Lennon before he was shot the next day.

I love it when my friends are up to participate in my crazy requests.  I asked Jamie and Traci if they wouldn't mind recreating this photograph, but with a modern spin.  I didn't expect them to jump on board right away but they both agreed and thought it would be fun.  It was.

I came over with a large ladder, sheet and my camera.  We moved all of the furniture out of the way to place the sheet on the ground and then they put their comforter over the sheet.  I have a sliver of the couch showing and instead of jeans thrown over, their dog Ollie decided that the blanket looked like a nice place to lay down so he curled up next to them.  In this photo on the right, you can see the ladder with my foot and ollie's tail on the bottom of the sheet to give you an idea of what the scene looked like.

This photograph at the top is my favorite of the bunch.  It shows the love between these two.  A big thank you to two of my dearest friends for playing along.

Humans on a Cafeteria Diet

In the 1970s, as the modern obesity epidemic was just getting started, investigators were searching for new animal models of diet-induced obesity.  They tried all sorts of things, from sugar to various types of fats, but none of them caused obesity as rapidly and reproducibly as desired*.  1976, Anthony Sclafani tried something new, and disarmingly simple, which he called the "supermarket diet": he gave his rats access to a variety of palatable human foods, in addition to standard rodent chow.  They immediately ignored the chow, instead gorging on the palatable food and rapidly becoming obese (1).  Later renamed the "cafeteria diet", it remains the most rapid and effective way of producing dietary obesity and metabolic syndrome in rodents using solid food (2).

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Bringing The Past And Present Together In A Photograph

This week I am challenged to photograph my family in a unique way.  The timing of this project couldn't be more perfect.  As I blogged about it earlier, I am going through all of the boxes in my garage to either donate or sell.  This also means going through boxes and boxes of old photographs.  Many of these photos I haven't seen since I packed them away...whenever that was.

I read an entry on the Lenscratch blog about another site called, Dear Photograph.  This site posts photographs of photographs taken in the past into the present.  I loved the idea and decided to go through the box of photographs I collected to see if I had any from my childhood home taken outside.  I sorted through what I had and found a few taken in the front of the house and in the backyard.  I decided to take a trip to my childhood home to see if I could line up the photographs I had.

I haven't been to this house in over twenty years.  Even though it's only thirty minutes from where I live today, there hasn't been a reason to be in that area.  As I drove near, my instincts took over and directed me to my old home.  Needless to say, it was quite the experience.  Everything seemed so big as a child.  The neighborhood was the same but different at the same time.  I must have been driving about 10MPH in the neighborhood recalling experiences as a child as I approached the house.  I parked, gathered some photos and knocked on the door, not knowing what to expect.

A soft voice behind the door asked, "who is it? who's there?" What do you say to that?  I just said, "hi, I used to live here." She opened the door slowly to see who I was and what I wanted.  I extended the photos and said that I used to live there and wanted permission to take photographs around the house.  I don't think she really understood what I was trying to do but once she saw photos of her home and what it looked like in the 70's and early 80's she smiled and greeted me.  She wanted to see everything I had.  I showed her the photos, identifying myself, neighbors, my mom, grandparents and told her what it was like living there as a child.  She took me out to the backyard to show me what it looked like. I haven't seen that backyard since I was 14.  My father built a koi pond that is still there today.  She said that birds would eat all of the big fish so it's filled with smaller fish.  My dad also loved to take care of his bonsai and all of the plants on the property.  She said that she loves the flowers in the front and loves the koi pond.  She told me to tell him thank you.  He has since passed, but it was sweet to hear.

She saw a photograph of my mother standing next to the olive tree in the front and kept looking at it saying how beautiful my mother is.  I asked her if I could take he photograph and she said yes.  As I snapped it, I noticed her standing in the same way as my mother stood, as well as wearing stripes and jeans (see above).  We chatted for a long time and she even moved her car out of the driveway so I could take photographs and she also let me walk in the backyard to take more pictures.  She even came out with a bag of apples for me to take home.  I am very fortunate to have had this experience.  I will remember it forever.

Letting go of my things gave me much more than I expected.  I am grateful for the fifteen years I had in this home and for the experience I had yesterday.  Even though my father and grandparents are not longer with me physically, I feel them coming back to life through these photographs.  Below are a few I found and recreated.

How did I do it?  There really isn't a trick but just try to line up the photograph with the scene.  It's not as easy as it looks, especially if you are the person holding it and shooting it.  They aren't all perfect, but as perfect as I could get it. These are all straight out of the camera taken with my iphone and point and click.  I would highly recommend this experience to everyone.

One thing I know for sure...life goes by too fast.  Not to get all preachy on you or anything, but try to enjoy all of the moments you have now with your loved ones.  Listen to what your parents and grandparents say, take photographs, appreciate what you have and don't obsess about the things you don't have.

Me and my grandmother, "Mama Lois" in the backyard

With all of the kids on the block on our first day of school

All of us on our way to school

Being silly in front of the camera

Leaving on our family road trip.  That's my mother, me, my brother, grandmother "Mama Lois", and grandfather "Big John."  My dad took the photo.  Yes, we all got in that car and drove from Los Angeles to Vancover, B.C.

The backyard, then and now

My brother and I

My close neighbors, Carrie, Sandy and Chris the first day of school.

Riding a pony on the front lawn.  A guy with a pony would walk around the neighborhood asking if you wanted to take a photograph on it.

Me with my really sweet haircut in my extra cool swim sweats

My mom, haming it up in her satin pants

Me holding our family cat, colors

First day of school (seems like the only time we took photographs in the front)

And finally, on my big wheel.  I loved this thing...jumped on it right when I got home from school every day.

Primal Docs

Chris Armstrong, creator of the website Celiac Handbook, has designed a new non-commercial website called Primal Docs to help people connect with ancestral health-oriented physicians.  It's currently fairly small, but as more physicians join, it will become more useful.  If you are a patient looking for such a physician in your area, or an ancestral health-oriented physician looking for more exposure, it's worth having a look at his site:

Primal Docs

Update 9/22: apparently there is already another website that serves a similar purpose and has many more physicians enrolled: Paleo Physicians Network.

One City Block Of Cigarette Butts

I was challenged this week to create a typology.

"Typology is the study of types, and a photographic typology is a suite of images or related forms, shot in a consistent, repetitive manner; to be fully understood, the images must be viewed as a complete series."

I've done this in the past, not really knowing what it was called or really... why I was doing it.  A few years ago, I documented all of the textures I encountered on the ground during my travels with "What lies beneth" and every day for a month in 2009, I visited the same house on the beach at different times of the day with my "Race Point" series of photographs.

This time, I took a walk around one city block in Long Beach and photographed cigarette butts laying on the ground.

At first, I just shot each one as I saw them on the street or sidewalk without thinking. After a while, I started to notice them taking on unique personalities.  It was as if each one had a history and character by the way it looked, where it landed and what was surrounding it.  Yes, I understand that it's trash.  However, if you look further, you might be able to see what I saw.  Don't get me wrong, I didn't go as far as giving each butt a name... but I could have.

This photograph is a result of the selected cigarettes I captured within one city block in Long Beach.  There were many more that didn't make the cut, but this gives you an example of what is on the ground, even if we don't notice it or are too familiar to notice or care.  Besides, we would rather focus on the good...like our new city bike lane!

At the time I took these photographs, let's just say that I didn't necessarily blend in.  People wanted to know what I was doing, why I had a camera and what was I taking a photograph of?  Some guy came out of a coffee shop to have a smoke and came up to me.  He said, "hey... I like to take pictures of the ground too."  It just goes to show you that if you do what you love, you will be noticed by people who also love to do the same...even though it may not be exactly the same.

Answers To Ten Questions In Photographs

In a new class that I am taking, our assignment was to tell the class a little about ourselves by answering ten questions in photographs.  On this blog, I thought about giving you the literal answer at the end of the entry about how the photograph spoke to me, or what it says but I will leave that up to your imagination.  Here are my answers in photographs that I took:

Who are you?

What did you look like as a child?

What is your main character trait?

What inspires you the most?

What do you normally never take a picture of?

What do you love about photography?

If you weren’t a photographer, what would you be?

What is the first thing you touch in the morning?

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

What is the meaning of life?

Here are other photographic answers to these questions from photographers... What do your answers look like?