Look How Quickly the US Got Fat? (1985-2010)

[JoeWras]

I always imagine what the colonial founding fathers like Ben Franklin would be impressed by if transported to today. Autos, airplanes, TVs? Sure.

But he'd also be knocked out by the common ball point pen, and especially our FOOD. Dessert for everybody, every day? No way! Chocolate 3 times a day? No way!

Sugar and fine flour were holiday-only things for the middle class. For everyone else, forget it. You were lucky to get a touch of honey every now and then. Chocolate? Only the top 0.01% ever saw it.

It is no wonder we are where we are today.

 

[REWahoo]

I always imagine what the colonial founding fathers like Ben Franklin would be impressed by if transported to today.

YouTube cat videos...

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

Ed, your posts can be cryptic. But you have a long way to go before you approach the famous Uncle Mick.

Ha

Two old engineers from the UW, raised on Dave Horsey, Gary Larson, B. Kliban and Louie-Louie. Perhaps we bumped into each other at the Red Robin or the Blue Moon or the Harvard Exit or a certain disreputable place on Lake City Way on Friday nights (eyes averted). I aspire to his obtuseness.

 

[haha]

Two old engineers from the UW, raised on Dave Horsey, Gary Larson, B. Kliban and Louie-Louie. Perhaps we bumped into each other at the Red Robin or the Blue Moon or the Harvard Exit or a certain disreputable place on Lake City Way on Friday nights (eyes averted). I aspire to his obtuseness.

You forgot coffee and pie at the Last Exit on Brooklyn. And I think that the old Red Robin #1 on the south side of the Roosevelt Bridge has been closed. But I love the garden of the Red Robin at Northgate in summer, it is really fun.

Ha

 

[freebird5825]

I am currently fighting this battle, and WINNING!

Menopause weight gain: Stop the middle age spread - MayoClinic.com

Move more, eat less.

 

[timwalsh300]

No doubt a sedentary life style is part of the picture. But so is age. At 26 your body is flooded with hormones needed to keep in good shape. At 50, well.... things slow done.

Maybe it's been harder over the last 30 years not because you got older, but because your aging coincided with major technological/societal changes that encouraged a more sedentary lifestyle. Of course, you could say the same about the other factors up for discussion.

It's likely that the overall trend has been caused by a perfect storm of an increasing abundance of food, the rise of processed foods, and being more sedentary. But from my vantage point I see a lot of fat people tinkering with their diet; I see very few fat people out there running hard on the streets/track/treadmill.

Tim

 

[samclem]

It takes over an hour of hard running to work off that big blueberry bagel from breakfast. I don't care what type of metabolic magic we assume occurs for the rest of the day because of the exercise, it's just much easier (and easier on one's schedule) not to eat the bagel in the first place.

We are incredibly efficient machines, honed by millions of years during which food was scarce and starvation a very big killer. There are good reasons to exercise, but for weight control I think watching the diet has to be a very big part of the equation.

 

[timwalsh300]

I don't think the goal is necessarily to burn calories during exercise, or even through "metabolic magic" over the remainder of the day (certainly not to cancel out your entire breakfast... choosing not to eat breakfast isn't good either). I think it's more about forcing adaptations to muscle tissue; making more of it, and causing it to regenerate more quickly. That's why I talk about really trying to get faster/stronger, not just logging time.

I can't point to any evidence at the moment, but I would bet that the metabolism of a serious athlete is more active, even on days when they don't workout, than the metabolism of an average American on days when they do get some exercise.

Tim

 

[samclem]

I can't point to any evidence at the moment, but I would bet that the metabolism of a serious athlete is more active, even on days when they don't workout, than the metabolism of an average American on days when they do get some exercise.

No doubt. And we know that muscle burns fat even when it isn't doing anything (studies show approx 20-50 calories per day per pound of muscle). But building up a lot of lean muscle mass takes resistance training of a fairly serious kind. And it needs to be maintained (our bodies look for the first chance possible to dump lean muscle mass if we restrict our caloric intake. From an evolutionary perspective, muscle is "expensive" to keep onboard, fat is cheap. When starvation is the constant enemy, dumping muscle ASAP makes a lot of sense).

Again, I agree there are a lot of good reasons to exercise. One of the main ones is that, if you've spent an hour at the gym or in the basement working out, you are generally disinclined to "throw it all away" by scarfing down that slice of cheesecake. You might take a bite or two, which I think is perfectly fine. Working out makes us aware of our body and I think it gives us a more tangible "stake" in thinking more carefully about what we put in our gob.

 

[sengsational]

To me, sedentary lifestyle is the singular issue.

I don't think there is a singular issue. We talked earlier in the thread about the push from all sides (doctors, government, food manufacturers) to remove dietary fat. Those calories were replaced with carbohydrates, for the most part, and carbohydrates drive appetite. Even the slightest knotch-up in appetite can make a person overweight/obese, it just takes a little time. We all have a limited amount of willpower (lots of studies suggest that's true), so after a while, you get worn-down and give in to your reptile brain, eating enough to satisfy the appetite. And oh, that same part of the brain, that's what makes you eat more when you exercise more. If it didn't work that way, humanity would never have made it this far.

We are incredibly efficient machines, honed by millions of years during which food was scarce and starvation a very big killer. There are good reasons to exercise, but for weight control I think watching the diet has to be a very big part of the equation.

Word.

And I'd add that you should eat things that don't drive appetite, like high glycemic index foods. Oh, by the way, dietary fats have zero glycemic index. Hmmm.

 

[Aruba50]

But Dean Ornish is not obese, is he?

I recall getting his book from the library years ago. As I recall, he had all sorts of data to justify his claims, just like the low carb people.

But I just skimmed it - I just could not imagine cutting fat to those low levels. I couldn't do it unless there was some super-proof that it was the only thing that would keep me from an extremely miserable health situation, so I didn't read much of it in detail.

-ERD50

It doesn't matter whether he was obese.

As for his data, it was fatally flawed and still is. In fact, most of the studies that purported to demonstrate that dietary fat was harmful have since been proven to be false.

While there are no absolutes in these things it is becoming apparent that there is no solid evidence to support the thesis that dietary fat is bad for you.

The whole low fat=good health mistake has made society fat and unhealthy. Ornish is one of the few that can't accept that truth. He has made a career of preaching the opposite.

 

[ERD50]

It doesn't matter whether he was obese.

As for his data, it was fatally flawed and still is. In fact, most of the studies that purported to demonstrate that dietary fat was harmful have since been proven to be false.

While there are no absolutes in these things it is becoming apparent that there is no solid evidence to support the thesis that dietary fat is bad for you.

The whole low fat=good health mistake has made society fat and unhealthy. Ornish is one of the few that can't accept that truth. He has made a career of preaching the opposite.

Not really disagreeing - AFAICT, ALL the data is seriously flawed.

But I'm pretty sure you can find some people on low fat diets that are healthy and at a good body weight. I just don't think it is so simple as 'this is good, or that is bad'.

Maybe one can be healthy on low fat, high fat, or middle amounts of fat? Maybe it depends on the persons genetic makeup?

-ERD50

 

[haha]

But I'm pretty sure you can find some people on low fat diets that are healthy and at a good body weight. I just don't think it is so simple as 'this is good, or that is bad'.

-ERD50

This is quite obviously true to anyone who has been around for a while. I had friends in the 70s who followed a very strict low fat diet that was in vogue then. I think it was called the Pritikin Plan. Some of these people lost a lot of weight, and also improved things like cholesterol and blood pressure.

I also know people today who have improved seriously out of whack blood pressure and blood chemistries on the Ornish Diet. I would say that if they can stay on it, it will have worked for them, although it is possible that other less stringent diets may have helped as much. Many of us would be uninterested in a diet that did not include meat, even if it promised us eternal life. We (I) would "find the data seriously lacking".

Often we tend to approach things like diets in the way that people formerly approached religions.

Ha

 

[Notmuchlonger]

Carbohydrates are poison.

Yeah I said it.

 

[sengsational]

Carbohydrates are poison.

Yeah I said it.

I might have thrown a "refined" in front of it, but yeah.


Things that ARE poison are hydrogenated fats. My personal (unsubstantiated) theory as to why the low fat thing got such traction (and made so many people obese and diabetic) is that dietary fat WAS making people sick and killing them! But in order to keep it simple, and to keep food producers happy, the message became "all dietary fat is bad", even though just the hydrodenated transfats were what was killing people.

 

[pb4uski]

I have news : losing weight is not as difficult as it sounds. It requires discipline, motivation, and effort. Any takers ?

I could claim the same thing about saving for retirement.

 

[Chuckanut]

The whole low fat=good health mistake has made society fat and unhealthy. Ornish is one of the few that can't accept that truth. He has made a career of preaching the opposite.

The fact is that his diet has been shown to reverse heart disease in some people. I would call that success.

After hearing an interview with him I concluded that Ornish would be the last person to recommend the low-fat, high sugar, junk food that we have been sold. His diet is rich in real food minimally processed, yes that includes carbs.

Whether most people can maintain an Ornish diet is another question. I doubt if most of us could. But, the diet does work.

Natural foods tend to be hi-fat or hi-carb. I can't think of natural food that is both high in fat and high in carbs.

This is not religion. N=1. If low-fat works for some people great! If low-carbs work for others, great! If one can eat triple bacon burgers, ice cream sundaes, potato chips and chocolate coated sugar bombs and still be healthy, great!

 

[HFWR]

This is not religion.

Unfortunately, yes it is...

 

[F4mandolin]

I'm one of those people who can lose weight just fine with a lot of carbo's. It's the beer + greasy food that's killing me. Fries just aren't the same since they took the addicting loving flavoring out...

 

[Chuckanut]

Unfortunately, yes it is...

Well.... I suppose we could all agree that trans-fats are the devil incarnate.

 

[Chuckanut]

Fries just aren't the same since they took the addicting loving flavoring out...

This reminds me of a local place that proudly states its fish and chips are fried in nothing but pork and beef fat.

 

[DeborahB]

Thanks to a glance at books at Costco, I'm reading "Wheat Belly". The thing that really struck me was this:

"... women of that era [1950s and 1960s] typically weighed in at 110 to 115 pounds, men at 150 or 165 pounds..." "The women of that world didn't exercise much at all." "...the increased consumption of....this genetically altered thing called modern wheat - explains the contrast between slender, sedentary people of the fifties and overweight twenty-first century people, triathletes included."

I am only 1/3 of the way through the book so forgive me. But the point he's made so far is that they genetically engineered wheat to be shorter and produce more per acre. It staved off famine but it did something to the grain. It affects our metabolism in ways that 1950s wheat did not.

There's a lot of info and data in the book but basically he says that the wheat we are eating is different in some serious ways. I haven't figured out if he's okay with organic brown rice.

So - anyhow I'm slowly losing weight on a very low carb diet. But when I went on vacation for a few days, despite seriously eating only what I should (in restaurants) - I stopped losing completely. What they put on the food is a mystery - steak and salad? But it stopped the diet (not because of calories). So it works when I'm home but not otherwise which is a real pain.

I have become one of those people who can't lose without cutting carbs out. A pity, I bake great bread.

 

[sengsational]

Interesting point that Davis makes about wheat. Maybe there's a market for heirloom wheat, hehe. I wonder if anybody saved any seeds. We could do a study! Who says there's nothing to do in retirement.

.. I'm slowly losing weight on a very low carb diet. But when I went on vacation for a few days, despite seriously eating only what I should (in restaurants) - I stopped losing completely. What they put on the food is a mystery - steak and salad? But it stopped the diet (not because of calories). So it works when I'm home but not otherwise which is a real pain.

They could have slipped sugar into things, but you sound like you're an experienced enough VLC'er to not get fooled by that. I'd say, then, that you're probably still burning the same amount of fat, but your fluids are probably just getting jacked around a bit. At home, it's stable, but when you're on vacation, it's changed. Also, if you're exercising more, muscles that are used more get more puffed up and weight a bit more. I try to ignore the single measurement on the scale, and instead read the five day moving average.

 

[JoeWras]

Doesn't smoking factor into this somewhere? 50's and 60's were huge smoking times. "Have a Lucky instead of a sweet."

I don't think it is simple as one item. There's a combination of many things converging on this obesity epidemic.

 

[DeborahB]

Interesting point that Davis makes about wheat. Maybe there's a market for heirloom wheat, hehe. I wonder if anybody saved any seeds. We could do a study! Who says there's nothing to do in retirement.

Actually there is someone with an organic farm growing heirloom wheat. I don't know that it's for sale but I have a grain grinder attachment for the kitchenaid mixer.... That's where Davis got the wheat to study.