Why we're getting fatter

[omni550]

Today's NYT has an article on a mathematician's analysis on why we are getting fatter....(it's because we have cheap, plentiful food)....

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/science/a-mathematical-challenge-to-obesity.html

omni

 

[donheff]

Yeah, same old same old. We eat out a lot and get big, fat soaked portions. All of these hypothesis seem to be pure speculation. And they often make sense. But some of the books I have read recently ask a simple rejoinder - so, our bodies are so incapable of regulating themselves that a slight change in eating volumes is going to precipitate a massive health crisis? Or, is it more likely that a change in our diet is wreaking havoc with our bodies metabolism? I am more persuaded that the dietary chage is doing it and it ain't fats.

 

[ziggy29]

It seems like everyone wants to scapegoat food because it's easier than getting everyone off their collective butts and getting enough physical exercise.

 

[eridanus]

I once met someone involved in packaging and selling food items. He told me that, often, the FDA numbers on the side (calories, vitamins), are "borrowed" from other food items.

In other words, calories in must equal calories out, but calories in might be reported poorly.

 

[FinanceDude]

I once met someone involved in packaging and selling food items. He told me that, often, the FDA numbers on the side (calories, vitamins), are "borrowed" from other food items.

In other words, calories in must equal calories out, but calories in might be reported poorly.

It is called "grouping", and the FDA has been trying to crack down on it for 20+ years. All sorts of chicanery done by the big foodies, laziness I guess. Kind of like "may contain nut extract".........it either had nuts or it doesn't. The fact that some food company is unwilling to shut dow the line and clean and sanitize the line after making nutty bars to make non-nutty bars is laziness, and slapping a CYA label on the product does not make it better. I personally know a former USDA meat inspector, and the stories I have heard gives me the shivers...........

 

[packrat44]

Why we're getting fatter

Simple - we burn less calories than the calories we take in. Solution - we burn more calories or we take in less calories. I don't like either choice.

 

[Letj]

It seems like everyone wants to scapegoat food because it's easier than getting everyone off their collective butts and getting enough physical exercise.

There's way too much emphasis on physical activity which more often than not means going to gym (a money making gimmick as far as I am concerned). In practically all developed societies people do not routinely go to gyms, yet they live longer than us and for the most part are not overweight. Formal exercise is frankly quite overrated. All we really need is to walk and keep moving. Ask the Japanese. The real reason for being overweight is over consumption of food. It's that simple.

 

[donheff]

Why we're getting fatter

Simple - we burn less calories than the calories we take in. Solution - we burn more calories or we take in less calories. I don't like either choice.

This concept is often linked to the second law of thermodynamics as if our bodies are some sort of 100% efficient machine. How our bodies function must vary drastically based on our genetics and our diet composition. How else could I have gone for decades eating half a pound of candy a day, in addition to burgers, fries, and pasta yet gaining little weight (until recently) while others who ate bird food by comparison ballooned into obesity? The reality is we are not a 100% efficient machine. If you eat a massive pile of fatty hot dogs tonight most of it will exit to the toilet and never make it to your belly fat. But more and more evidence is piling up showing that if your caloric intake consistently contains a high proportion of sugar and other refined carbs you will more efficiently convert those dogs to fat.

 

[packrat44]

donheff,

I hate it when you bring logic into the picture.

 

[harley]

Well, I'm not getting any fatter. So based on my observations I have to call BS on the entire concept. Ipso facto.

 

[Ksols]

There's way too much emphasis on physical activity which more often than not means going to gym (a money making gimmick as far as I am concerned). In practically all developed societies people do not routinely go to gyms, yet they live longer than us and for the most part are not overweight. Formal exercise is frankly quite overrated. All we really need is to walk and keep moving. Ask the Japanese. The real reason for being overweight is over consumption of food. It's that simple.

Or could it be that we just don't "do work" ? We let/pay others to mow our yard, clean our gutters, paint our house? We don't clean/ vaccuum/dust our own homes, or as quoted above...keep moving?

 

[TheWizard]

Reason we're getting fatter is: CORN SYRUP...

 

[harley]

Reason we're getting fatter is: CORN SYRUP...

Nope, it's computers. Everything's bigger, but smaller...

 

[obgyn65]

Yes, it is really that simple. The problem is having the willpower to change things...

Simple - we burn less calories than the calories we take in. Solution - we burn more calories or we take in less calories.

 

[BigNick]

I wonder if there isn't an effect whereby the kind of food we eat nowadays (especially processed carbs: pizza, soda, etc) doesn't trigger our "full" responses until after we've consumed more calories than we need. Clearly our brains, and in particular our reflex systems which determine "full", can't analyse every mouthful of food for its exact calorie content, so presumably we evolved on the basis that a certain volume of stomach contents will probably give us X amount of calories. If it's in fact giving us X+20% because it's high on carbs and low on water/fibre, we ought to stop while still feeling "not-full".

I'm thinking of meals I've had in fine dining places, where you get a tasting menu of 6 or 7 courses, each of them tiny, but with concentrated sauces and beautiful ingredients. At the end you feel stuffed, but I wonder if you've had vastly more calories than if you ate several large slices of take-out pizza.

 

[MichaelB]

It seems like everyone wants to scapegoat food because it's easier than getting everyone off their collective butts and getting enough physical exercise.

Well, we do need someone to blame for our collective excess weight.

There are probably many reasons that lead to heavier society. This is not a US problem - it can be seen around the world, and is most evident where the standard of living is improving. It probably has a lot to do with greater access to less expensive food.

 

[Richard4444]

And this thread's connection to Early Retirement: Now that we are more in control of our time, and suggesting that we want to spend these ER years kinda healthy, we now have the time and can place our energy into eating better and exercising / moving more than our j*bs allowed us.

 

[donheff]

Or could it be that we just don't "do work" ? We let/pay others to mow our yard, clean our gutters, paint our house? We don't clean/ vaccuum/dust our own homes, or as quoted above...keep moving?

This feels like a sensible explanation to us, but we are a relatively affluent crowd and don't do a lot of manual labor. Studies have shown that poorer populations (in the US), that do a lot more manual labor than the ER crowd, skew farther to the obese end of the scale than do us relatively wealthy desk sitters.

It probably has a lot to do with greater access to less expensive food.

And those poor manual laborers are buying cheap, processed food.

 

[braumeister]

This whole thing started about when the Commies began putting fluoride in the water, didn't it?

 

[misanman]

Seems simple to me - we consume more calories than we expend.

 

[MikeD]

This whole thing started about when the Commies began putting fluoride in the water, didn't it?

I went to school from kindergarten to 12th grade in the same large brick building built by the WPA program. We had 1100 students total. I knew our janitor, Homer from the very first day when he was introduced to us in orientation. He was in the top 5 nicest men I have ever known. He was also a John Birch Society member, who would argue with my mother constantly in a good natured way. My mother was a flaming liberal and PTA president for my entire school career. I distinctly remember Homer saying to me when I was drinking at the water fountain, "You're drinking that stuff? I don't even like mopping with it." When I asked my mom what he was talking about she just said "Fluoride." She agreed with him.

Mike D.

 

[GandK]

It seems like everyone wants to scapegoat food because it's easier than getting everyone off their collective butts and getting enough physical exercise.

Yes. No one in this country wants to hear that anything is their own flipping fault. You can almost hear some people mentally straining whenever they talk about their problems: "Must... blame... something..."

I'm sure this isn't a revelation to anyone here, but I discovered a few years ago that, in general, the only circumstances in my life that I have the power to change are the ones that were my own flipping fault. So now I blame myself for everything. I have found it so empowering that I now go out of my way to blame myself for things I was never even involved in, just to get the blamestorming out of the way so we can focus on fixing problems.

It makes my staff meetings fun sometimes. "Who was it that-" "Me. It was me." "You were out that day." "I did it remotely." "You remoted in and broke off the printer tray?" "Yes. I'm that bad at printing."

 

[Zero]

Ate lunch in the company cafeteria with my colleagues for 20+ years and the folks that ate big got big, the ones that ate lite, stayed lite. Everyone worked long hours and likely got minimal exercise.

A good friend started work in 1985 at 6' about 170, now is about 6' and about 270-290. He would bring a bag of Kraft grated cheddar, 2 cans of Hormel Tamales (the ones in paper wrappers with added red grease) and a can of Chili with Beans. He'd open them up put them in a big tupperware bowel with the chili atop the tamales, top with the bag of cheese, and microwave it. Wash it down with a diet Coke.


That was his "go-to" meal but any meal that I ever witnessed was excessive amount of food, and terrible choices.

But, maybe it was just his thyroid acting up.

 

[TromboneAl]

Why we're getting fatter

Simple - we burn less calories than the calories we take in.

If it were just as simple as that, a 300 pound man could simply stop eating until his weight dropped to 150 pounds.

 

[Bestwifeever]

If it were just as simple as that, a 300 pound man could simply stop eating until his weight dropped to 150 pounds.

Sadly, that was proven to be true in the concentration camps in WW2.