Let's leave the children out of this

Okay, I think I've managed to work out some of what this set off. The title was the initial hook; "dieting gets you nowhere". Congratulations Hercule Poirot, maybe we can get Miss Marple in to help work out why people or should I say, the menz of science, cannot accept this.

It's rare enough for anyone to state it that boldly-it still draws the eye. I'm interested in what makes others come to the same conclusion in the face of a tidal wave of heavily validated counter reality.

The basis of Amitai Etzioni's conclusion is simple observation. He noticed that as most people remain more or less the same weight over the years, dieting is clearly ineffectual.

That is how easy it should be people.

Yet, what turned out to interest me more is the almost inevitable failsafe of even the most direct WLD sceptic; let's take advantage of our power over children and their naivety to impose what doesn't work on them. So we can keep dreaming. Upshot, we can force it to work as we we can tolerate their distress, better than we can our own. Even if that was true, should we?

Can we not think of anything better? Like progress ..............?

He explained it using cement as a metaphor for weight and how it can be reformed when still wet-in childhood and youth- but later when dry, it can be re-shaped, only to reformulate itself back to its prior shape.

Actually no sorry, I got far more exercised than that.

The thing about the adult drag, adopting a tough and stern pose under the guise of "it's for their own good", is children grow up. And develop minds of their own. And the betrayal catches up with you. 

Little folk become more troublesome when they finally awaken as adults; eventually, to the tricks played on them. A lot of us in FA show that childhood programming can stay for a hell of a long time, but not for life.

According to a study by the Diabetes Center at Howard University, obesity in infants is only a 20 percent predictor of obesity in adulthood, but by the time children are 6 years old, it is 50 percent. By the time they are adolescents, it is 90 percent. Other data, though somewhat less dire, point in the same direction

Ignoring "other data" for the mo, this could reflect hormonal influence, which combines with genetics. Starting with pre-natal hormonal influence during development in the womb. Then next around the age of 7, give or take, there seems to be what may be the beginnings of the major hormonal flux in the lead up to puberty.

Puberty's often described as if it's a bit like an explosion, but there seems to be some kind of hormonal lead up to it-which starts around this time- which ends with that fast release of puberty. More like the action of a syringe. I wonder if that is part of the early puberty phenomenon. Either than pre stage is accelerated, or skipped.

Around that age comes up a lot when it comes to things that might seem to be related to some of the effects of this kind of activity, weight, sexuality, etc., A hell of a lot of realisations seem to happen around that age so it may also be related to a leap in brain and nervous system development.

I'm aware of course this is anecdotal and may increase with a bit of confirmation bias and the old Jesuit motto "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man," comes to mind. In spite of all that, I still think it's a significant period which can influence weight especially in those susceptible to this.