s Diet anc Exercise “a Big Fat Lie’? EREMY JOHNSON STAFF WRITER In the nutritional ommunity, it’s a very well known scenario. Personstops exercising, eats more fatty foods, land then becomes ‘morbidly obese”. The real question is simple, how does one lose all is extra, weight? One author says he has not only found a solution, but suggests that the medical community lhas been deliberately ignoring evidence that suggests that diet and exercise is, at best, a podcast on CBC called ‘Quirks & Quarks’ which does feature authors. On November 17%, McDonald inter- viewed Taubes. If the CBCs podcast wasn’t enough publicity, the story spread throughout the internet. The story - even found its way _ onto BoingBoing, the internets most popular blog which is looked after by a number of posters including inter- net celebrity, advocate and established science fiction author Cory Doctorow. _ Literally millions from around the world heard what things such as diet and excercise. Todd Whit- combe, a chemistry professor who has a column in the Prince George Citizen was more than happy to share a few words on the matter, "I found the inter- view with Mr. Taubes somewhat troubling.” Todd told Over the Edge, “Many reasons for that. For example, he kept talking about how the ‘medical es- tablishment’ _ latches on to certain theories and ignores all of the data to the contrary - and yet, that is exactly “The explanation he puts forth is that when one exercises, that person becomes much hungrier and ends up eating that weight back and then some.” aste of time, and at orst, dangerous. The author goes by the name of Gary aubes. He wrote a book called Good Cal- ories, Bad Calories. he cover does a good ob at explaining his arguments on the key o losing that excess flab. He argues that eating a low calorie, mot low fat, diet will lower ones weight. aubes also says that exercise won't help la person lose weight. He admits that people who exercise more are generally healthier, but says that it isn’t the exercise keeping the pounds away. The ex- planation he puts forth is that when one exer- ises, that person be- omes much hungrier and ends up eating that eight back and then ome. In essence, he ays that diets like the Atkins diet would ac- ally work. This author and his heories brought the attention of the CBC. Bob McDonald hosts a Gary has to say about diet. Gary says that there is no evidence to sug- gest that a low fat, high exercise diet would actually melt away the fat. He explains that the human body is a very well-regulated _ thing when it comes to fat, etc. He also suggests that people who deliber- ately gain weight don’t really eat a lot of things like meat to gain it. He claims that he wrote the book as a plea to the medical commun- ity to reconsider the idea of “you are what you eat” and consider the idea of eating a low calorie diet. Consider- ing obese people face, among other things, heart problems, should obese people be jump- ing onto the bandwagon of a low calorie diet as Taubes suggested? Over The Edge tried contacting UNBCs Health and Wellness centre, but unfortunate- ly no one was available for comment. So we contacted an expert on what he was doing! How hypocritical.” “Maybe there was just a fundamental lack of understanding of the basic metabolic pathways in much of what he was saying. Getting rid of carbohy- drates from one’s diet is a dangerous road to walk.” explains, “In the end, Todd further MicHeLLe MARTINS News Epiror OVER THE EDGE December 5, 2007-January 9, 2008 Save seats for minorities? eighty-nine seats in 2009 then an estimated twenty-five nominations would be either women or a representa- tive of one of the above listed minorities. After the 2009 British Columbia’s New Democratic Party has pro- reflected in politics. posed a resolution to set aside forty percent of non- incumbent seats for women and minorities. This was oted on at their convention last weekend. The new agenda focusing on affirmative action will pecify that thirty percent of non-incumbent seats will be held by women and 10 percent are reserved for min- orities, people of gay and lesbian communities, and per- ons from disabled groups, so that all faces are better In 2005 only seven women were elected as MLAs for he NDP out of thrity-three. With this policy, if there are election the policy could be subject to change as well. Arguments have been made that this example of af- firmative action could be seen as undemocratic but counter arguments suggests evidence that this deci- sion would only be bridging the gap between the sexes. Studies conducted at Simon Fraser University conclude that women are eight to ten times more likely to lose running against male competitors. Similar experiments have been performed at the University of Victoria, re- sulting in the same outcome. Newspaper’s existence threatened Student union doubles rent, cuts fee transer, demands audit By Davip Karp THe MARTLET (University oF Vicroria) VICTORIA (CUP) - The Gleaner, the in- dependent student news- paper at Langara College, is wondering whether or not they will even exist in 2008. Their fees have been reduced, rental rates in- reased and they are being forced to conduct seven years worth of forensic audits. The Gleaner, one of two student-run newspapers fat the college, had its stu- dent fee slashed to $1.75 per student per semester, same level they were lat in 1996. The fees had previously increased ac- ording to the consumer price index. Gleaner managing edi- or Tanya West said that eir fees have been rolled back to 1991 levels and hat the students’ union never informed the news- paper about the cuts. “They did not inform he Gleaner or Langara’s you crap out your liver {students about these cut- and kidneys and are no healthier for the exercise. He didn’t mention the damage that comes to the hu- man body when con- strained to high pro- tein/low carbohydrate diets. I suspect that he didn’t want people to realize that this was all a thinly disguised push for the “Aitken’s Diet” which has been largely discredited.” Todd Whitcombe also added, “There are so many things wrong with his approach that it is hard to know where to begin a cri- tique but it should be critiqued and laid wide open.” backs,” West said in an e-mail. “It took us a long ime to figure out what as going on and now, it’s practically too late to fix it. “Student unions should Inever be allowed to cut funding to an autonomous paper without a referen- dum. Nor should they be allowed to withhold fees at they collect on behalf lof a student publication.” But Alexander Moser, iLangara Students’ Union imedia liaison, said the move was within the stu- dent union’s jurisdiction. “Sometime last year, e consulted with our legal counsel, and the advice he gave us at the time was ... that it would be OK to return it to the original terms of the con- tract,” Moser said, but he didn’t say why the Lan- gara Students’ Union re- quested the advice. “T wasn’t a director at that time. It would have been an executive deci- sion. In addition, the legal team here has a great de- gree of autonomy when it comes to consulting with our lawyers, so it wouldn’t be recorded who asked.” The legal team is made up of two members of the LSU executive and/or staff. Additionally, the Lan- gara Students’ Union has more than doubled the newspaper’s rent. The paper now pays $7,000 per year for their space in students’ union building instead of the $3,000 it paid in Sept. 2006. “As far as square foot- age goes, the Gleaner Publications Society has a very large space for the rent they’re paying, and that hasn’t increased for 20 years. So an attempt was made to correct that,” said Moser. The rates for other stu- dent-run newspapers in B.C. are as follows: Peak (Simon Fraser University): $6,500 per year Ubyssey (University of British Columbia): Free, with an agreement to provide conditional free ad space to the student union. Martlet (University of Victoria): $5,040 per year. Nexus (Camosun Col- lege): Free The newspapers listed above operate on budgets approximately $100,000 larger than the Gleaner’s annual operating budget Now, the students’ soci- ety is demanding that the paper provide audits for the past seven years. If it doesn’t, a motion passed by the students’ society says the society will cease forwarding any money to the Gleaner. The next scheduled fee transfer to the Gleaner is in February. Moser, how- ever, said the society isn’t sure if they have the juris- diction to hold back fees. “Our legal counsel] is checking into our juris- diction, but now is a bet- ter time to say we’re with- holding fees, because if it comes that it’s outside of our jurisdiction then we can rescind the motion. “There are concerns, and: the main concerns are their failure to have an an- nual audit, which is in vio- lation of their own consti- tution,” said Moser. “We want them to be autono- mous, but it’s students’ money. We don’t want to be transferring funds to a fiscally irresponsible or- ganization.” According to Michael Galea, a professional aud- itor based out of Toronto, a seven year forensic audit would cost the Gleaner or the LSU up to $40,000. Galea also said that so- cieties that size do not need to undergo audits, and that auditing for the current year and one year past would be more than sufficient to find fiscal mismanagement, if there were any, Under the Societies Act of B.C. (Part 5-— audit), the Gleaner does not re- quire an annual audit, and the requirements for an annual audit within its own constitution is rare among student-run news- papers. _ West also said that she was under the impres- sion that the newspaper was being audited with the student union’s annual audit. “The Gleaner has no problem being audited,” West wrote. “In fact, as the business manager of the Gleaner since 2000, I certainly believed we were being audited.” But Moser said that’s not the case. “We had no formal agreement with them to audit their books,” said Moser. “We don’t have a lease agreement with them. We don’t have a contract with them.” Moser said the student union is willing to provide a loan to the Gleaner to pay for the audit. But West said it won’t be enough. “The Gleaner is broke,” West wrote. “Unless some- thing changes soon, we are printing our last issue and laying off the staff next week — possibly the week after — we’re work- ing on the numbers.” If that happens, Moser said the paper’s assets would become property of the students’ society and that the Langara Students’ Union would rebuild the paper or put a vote to stu- dents to dismantle it. “If the Gleaner goes under, we will have to re-form another Gleaner unless we change our by- laws, which we’ll have to tun a referendum or do at an AGM,” said Moser. “Because we're still going to be collecting money, as per our bylaws, for a Gleaner Publications Society.” If the Gleaner were to dissolve, approximately $85,000 per year would be redirected to the stu- dents’ union. The students’ union has also moved to construct a new students’ union building, the construc- tion of which is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2008.