USA Obesity Epidemic - how fast it happened!!! 25 years!

[NW-Bound]

...I just imagine how frustrating it must be for a physician to see an obese person time after time, give then advice and direction for eating properly, only to have them back next time at the same weight. And then have to work them through and treat them, for all the illnesses, complaints, and discomfort that comes from it.

We have many medical doctors onboard. Time to them to chime in.

I have not seen an obese doctor in my life, in fact many are skinny, but then I do not see a lot of doctors. On the other hand, I have seen more nurses on the heavy side, but of course nobody was to the point of morbid obesity.

 

[donheff]

The folks in white coats are making rapid strides in palatable, affordable vat grown meat.

 

[audreyh1]

Are obese people hungrier? Maybe.

 

[Sunset]

I know for a fact that they have lowered the BMI for height. So if you were within your healthy BMI before, when they lowered it, your now "obese" without gaining an ounce.
For men especially, if you workout much and carry any real muscle, you'll have a tough time reaching your ideal BMI. I remember an NFL player, I believe it was Barry Sanders, had a 7% body fat ratio but because of his huge muscular legs was rated obese going by his BMI.

The simple height to weight ratio is only good for ordinary folks, but it's still very useful as that covers about 90% or more of people.

Muscle men/women get the wrong result as you said.
Super tall folks probably get the wrong result too.
Maybe even Dwarfs ?

Super fatties don't get the wrong result.

 

[Sunset]

Are obese people hungrier? Maybe.

I'm afraid to sit beside them on a long flight.. !

 

[NW-Bound]

Sweet corn is our summer corn on the cob.
But the came corn (maize') that we fed to hogs and chickens is the corn that that corn-based civilizations like Mexico, Central America etc. either grind or turn into hominy for human food. I have muyself ground feed corn to make corn dodgers, hush puppies, cornbread, etc.

I read that the field or dent corn that is grown now for animal feed or conversion into corn syrup or ethanol is very hard for the human digestive system. It may have been selected or engineered for robustness and good yield, and may be different than its ancestors that early civilization grew.

I may be all wrong, and the two are still the same but we are spoiled and no longer tolerate this hard-to-digest corn. Or there might be some processing involved even in the old days. I recall reading something about treating hard corn with lime, or something like that.

 

[brewer12345]

Sweet corn is our summer corn on the cob.
But the came corn (maize') that we fed to hogs and chickens is the corn that that corn-based civilizations like Mexico, Central America etc. either grind or turn into hominy for human food. I have muyself ground feed corn to make corn dodgers, hush puppies, cornbread, etc.

Ha

Quite right, although the stuff sold in the US for human consumption is generally a higher grade than feed corn. We buy blue corn by the sack and grind it into cornmeal and masa. We also turn it into posole via nixtamalization.

As far as FCR goes, we will be experimenting with a near-zero input feed supplement option. Quail (and all gamebirds) require much more protein in their feed than chickens do. Apparently with some cornmeal and food scraps (old carrots, apple cores, etc.) it is trivially easy to raise mealworms, a favorite food for pretty much all domestic birds which are ~50% protein by weight. If it does not prove feasible, at least DD2 will get to play with yet more bugs.

 

[audreyh1]

I read that the field or dent corn that is grown now for animal feed or conversion into corn syrup or ethanol is very hard for the human digestive system. It may have been selected or engineered for robustness and good yield, and may be different than its ancestors that early civilization grew.

I may be all wrong, and the two are still the same but we are spoiled and no longer tolerate this hard-to-digest corn. Or there might be some processing involved even in the old days. I recall reading something about treating hard corn with lime, or something like that.

Yes, Mexicans treated corn with slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) to loosen the hulls from the kernels, a process called nixtamalization still used today. This is what gives corn tortillas their characteristic flavor. It also made the corn/hominy more nutritious, adding calcium and making niacin more bioavailable, and made it easier to form dough. A diet high in hominy not treated with lime can result in malnutrition as happened in the Deep South where they treated their corn with lye.

 

[sengsational]

Probably several factors at work, three that come to mind are HFCS, antibiotics, and a large segment of the popular (boomers) aging concurrently.

I think the major culprit is sugar. It is in everything now. We eat far more sugar than ever before.

Interesting thread to see what peoples' opinions are on the topic. So many weird forces. If you're staring down the barrel of a Soviet nuke, you want something that you can stockpile. If you don't like to hurt furry creatures, then you've got another axe to grind. Those, and all the other forces mentioned that guide food into our mouths.

One thing I think that could use more air time is the composition of what helps us digest food in our digestive tract. I had to go all the way back to post #6 to find "antibiotics" mentioned. I see no mention of microbiome.

There's a really cool study about how generations after the Danish food shortage during WW2, there are lingering effects. This is not "evolution", as mentioned earlier. IMHO it just isn't happening that fast...we are essentially the same now as 100 or 1000 years ago, DNA-wise. But we in the developed world are WILDLY different in our supporting gut microbiome! We routinely kill-off our gut bacteria with anti-biotics, then toss in a bunch of sugar. Now we have a distribution of species that like sugar. Simply quitting sugar and throwing in veggies isn't going to undo the shift in the microbiome. Even if you stop eating sugar, the bad guys don't go away, they just pounce on every trace bit they find. Obviously highly simplified (because, among other reasons, I've been told that dinner was ready).

 

[karen1972]

Reminds me of Ireland in the 1990s. I was there in like 1997 I believe and they were just starting to get fast food, like 1 Mcdonalds and a select # of our food imports. Fast forward a few years and KFC and a few others had popped up plus you started seeing lots of influence from snack, candy, soda makers in the stores, but the most interesting thing is my coworkers spouse worked at a school and they said that once fast food was introduced, the kids got fat, like so fat so quickly the school had to change out desks because the kids stopped fitting in them. I call it the "Americanization" factor...and its not good for the waistline.

 

[Just_Steve]

That may be changing - at least I hope it is. Here is an example of what can happen when someone texts and drives...

"I'm sorry. I was texting" driver told witness after collision with church bus that killed 13 - Chicago Tribune

In Texas where texting and driving is still legal.

 

[JoeWras]

Interesting thread to see what peoples' opinions are on the topic. So many weird forces. If you're staring down the barrel of a Soviet nuke, you want something that you can stockpile. If you don't like to hurt furry creatures, then you've got another axe to grind. Those, and all the other forces mentioned that guide food into our mouths.

One thing I think that could use more air time is the composition of what helps us digest food in our digestive tract. I had to go all the way back to post #6 to find "antibiotics" mentioned. I see no mention of microbiome.

There's a really cool study about how generations after the Danish food shortage during WW2, there are lingering effects. This is not "evolution", as mentioned earlier. IMHO it just isn't happening that fast...we are essentially the same now as 100 or 1000 years ago, DNA-wise. But we in the developed world are WILDLY different in our supporting gut microbiome! We routinely kill-off our gut bacteria with anti-biotics, then toss in a bunch of sugar. Now we have a distribution of species that like sugar. Simply quitting sugar and throwing in veggies isn't going to undo the shift in the microbiome. Even if you stop eating sugar, the bad guys don't go away, they just pounce on every trace bit they find. Obviously highly simplified (because, among other reasons, I've been told that dinner was ready).

Interesting perspective, and one that is gaining steam.

Antibiotics have been a wonder drug, but I think they may ultimately be mankind's undoing.

 

[brett]

People make choices. We make choices to live within your financial means. You made choices about jobs and marriage. We makes choices about managing our finances/investments or not doing so.

In general I think the same is true about diet, given the constraints of one's budget. But, a fair amount of that junk food is actually quite expensive-especially on a per serving basis.

Nothing will change until those who are impacted make different choices. Until that happens, the plot will keep moving up and to the right.

 

[brewer12345]

Interesting perspective, and one that is gaining steam.

Antibiotics have been a wonder drug, but I think they may ultimately be mankind's undoing.

Funny, that. MIL#1 once remarked that I was born a century or two late, seeing as how I grind my own flour, hunt, fish, forage, etc. for preference. My response was that I certainly was not because the lack of antibiotics back then would have meant my childhood bout of scarlet fever would have killed me.

 

[sengsational]

Funny, that. MIL#1 once remarked that I was born a century or two late, seeing as how I grind my own flour, hunt, fish, forage, etc. for preference. My response was that I certainly was not because the lack of antibiotics back then would have meant my childhood bout of scarlet fever would have killed me.

There is no doubt that antibiotics saved lives and have been an overall huge plus for humanity. I wonder if new protocols will be created to mitigate the permanent loss of a healthy micro-flora.

 

[laurence]

Yeah it's not people being more sedentary. Think about the fact it takes an hour of excercise to burn 400 calories, which is about one taco bell chalupa. A professor proved how much it's simply calories in - calories out by going on a twinkie diet and lost 27 pounds:

Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds - CNN.com

It's not anything fancy or complicated, no secret chemicals big pharma is putting in your food. It's simply calories. The average fast food meal in the 60's was ~600 calories, now it pushes 1500.

Our perception of what fat looks like has changed, I'm guilty of yo-yo-ing on weight and when I down to about 20 lbs above normal range (i.e. overweight but not obese) everyone starts saying, "YOU'RE TOO SKINNY EAT SOMETHING!" but I still have love handles and a tire.

Now there are legitimate reasons to not eat Twinkies/chemicals and exercise, but weight loss is almost exclusively calories in - calories out. And we are bombarded with high calorie snack/food opportunities all day, every day. Advertising works, otherwise they wouldn't do it.

 

[karen1972]

Interesting thread to see what peoples' opinions are on the topic. So many weird forces. If you're staring down the barrel of a Soviet nuke, you want something that you can stockpile. If you don't like to hurt furry creatures, then you've got another axe to grind. Those, and all the other forces mentioned that guide food into our mouths.

One thing I think that could use more air time is the composition of what helps us digest food in our digestive tract. I had to go all the way back to post #6 to find "antibiotics" mentioned. I see no mention of microbiome.

There's a really cool study about how generations after the Danish food shortage during WW2, there are lingering effects. This is not "evolution", as mentioned earlier. IMHO it just isn't happening that fast...we are essentially the same now as 100 or 1000 years ago, DNA-wise. But we in the developed world are WILDLY different in our supporting gut microbiome! We routinely kill-off our gut bacteria with anti-biotics, then toss in a bunch of sugar. Now we have a distribution of species that like sugar. Simply quitting sugar and throwing in veggies isn't going to undo the shift in the microbiome. Even if you stop eating sugar, the bad guys don't go away, they just pounce on every trace bit they find. Obviously highly simplified (because, among other reasons, I've been told that dinner was ready).

There was an awesome microbe exhibit at the Raleigh Museum of Science and it talks about the variety of microbe (bad ones that cause cancer and illness, good ones that fend off cancer and illnesses.. it also touched on the study I saw from the UK where they took gut bacteria from a skinny mouse and put it in a fat mouse, and the fat mouse lost weight). It talked a lot of about "feeding" the good microbes and "starving" the bad microbes. Sugar tends to feed a lot of the bad ones, vs. a mass variety of foods and exposure to people will increase your variety of microbes..it even touched on that fiber isn't processed by human cells, its actually there to feed your microbes, so when you eat more fiber your likely feeding the good microbes. They suggest eating a very large variety of different foods to get the most diverse microbes for better health.

 

[NW-Bound]

...I believe Gary Taubes is woefully wrong and has misled the masses. And sadly, through his misinformation, he's won the narrative.

Here's what I believe, though you'll find there's some agreement with GT, this is the exact opposite of what GT spouts:

https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2013nl/feb/pritikinpdf3.pdf

Between 5:00 and 5:10 of the video, the speaker says "you can get away with it" in regards to eating a high carbohydrate diet. He is speaking about an indigenous tribe and Asian people.

It's not a matter of "get away with it" in regards to eating a high carbohydrate diet. That is what all successful populations did in the past. Did I say "all"?

It was the storing of carbohydrates that built civilization.

Our brains, while only weighing ~3 pounds, uses 20-25% of the food we eat. Our brains can only use carbohydrates. (In a fasting state, the brain uses ketones.)

So to save us from the obesity epidemic, we should all (the whole world) be eating more butter, cheese, animals?

This man is wrong. And Gary Taubes is wrong. But this idea is mainstream and has won the narrative. Once more, here is a paper, the polar opposite but is backed by fact:
https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2013nl/feb/pritikinpdf3.pdf

I read the above paper, actually scanning through it. The author cited studies after studies purportedly showing that a diet high in carbohydrates and low in animal protein, and fat whether from animals or plants, resulted in far less disease occurrence such as coronary blockage, diabetes, and bone loss, etc...

It is contradictory to more recent studies. Note that this paper was published in 1976.

I am getting confused again.

 

[harley]

Antibiotics have been a wonder drug, but I think they may ultimately be mankind's undoing.

I'm pretty sure that people are going to be mankind's undoing.

 

[Music Lover]

I'm pretty sure that people are going to be mankind's undoing.

Without a doubt. Many would say that the process is already underway...

 

[audreyh1]

People make choices. We make choices to live within your financial means. You made choices about jobs and marriage. We makes choices about managing our finances/investments or not doing so.

In general I think the same is true about diet, given the constraints of one's budget. But, a fair amount of that junk food is actually quite expensive-especially on a per serving basis.

Nothing will change until those who are impacted make different choices. Until that happens, the plot will keep moving up and to the right.

So what happened 30 years ago that made people change their choices so drastically?

 

[audreyh1]

Yeah it's not people being more sedentary. Think about the fact it takes an hour of excercise to burn 400 calories, which is about one taco bell chalupa. A professor proved how much it's simply calories in - calories out by going on a twinkie diet and lost 27 pounds:

Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds - CNN.com

It's not anything fancy or complicated, no secret chemicals big pharma is putting in your food. It's simply calories. The average fast food meal in the 60's was ~600 calories, now it pushes 1500.

Our perception of what fat looks like has changed, I'm guilty of yo-yo-ing on weight and when I down to about 20 lbs above normal range (i.e. overweight but not obese) everyone starts saying, "YOU'RE TOO SKINNY EAT SOMETHING!" but I still have love handles and a tire.

Now there are legitimate reasons to not eat Twinkies/chemicals and exercise, but weight loss is almost exclusively calories in - calories out. And we are bombarded with high calorie snack/food opportunities all day, every day. Advertising works, otherwise they wouldn't do it.

I don't really believe the CICO dogma, but I do believe many people in the US are way overeating. Why is that?

I think people get used to eating more and more. Stomachs seem to grow to accommodate larger meals. Portions sizes have gotten so huge, and there is a psychological thing about eating everything on your plate - especially if your paying for it at a restaurant.

But I also believe certain foods make people hungrier, and set up vicious cycles with cravings. And that certain metabolic conditions make some people hungrier than others, and make some people store more fat than others from the same meal.

 

[meierlde]

There has been discussion of bowel bacteria transplants. (Assuming they can figure out which ones are the desired ones)

 

[jollystomper]

So what happened 30 years ago that made people change their choices so drastically?

Perhaps people started spending more time with personal computers and video games, contributing to reduced physical activity and more snacking?

 

[Nemo2]

Who had the bags of chips, popcorn, processed foods, baked goods, and other junk food.

Yabbut, to 'offset' all this there's always the obligatory 24 pack of Diet Coke/Pepsi riding on the bottom of the cart.