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Study: people who eat and exercise the same as people 20 years ago are fatter

theatlantic.com

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Re: Study: people who eat and exercise the same as people 20 years ago are fatter

#31

Post by toomuchtodo »

im3w1l wrote: post #20
jfoutz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an absolute limit. Perhaps there are specific modes that are a a few percent more or less efficient. Nonetheless, you eat less than you burn, you lose weight.

Him burning it is not the only possibility. Maybe he is shitting it out? Maybe bacteria in his body are burning it for him?

Gut flora is a big possibility as to the discrepancy. I imagine there are some gut flora that are more adapt at breaking down carbohydrates than others, saturating the body in unnecessary energy to absorb.

Re: Study: people who eat and exercise the same as people 20 years ago are fatter

#32

Post by billjings »

tdylan wrote: post #13
hspak wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd recommend reading Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. He explains how this is not really the case. It was written back in 2007; I'm sure there's more research out there to prove this point.

From what I've seen Garrys hypothesis was proven wrong by Alan Aragon.

Taubes' end-of-the-book hypothesis about Atkins diets and the like isn't that great, but the whole initial portion of the book trashing the fat hypothesis is great. If you enjoy scientific writing, I promise that you will get a lot out of it, whether you agree with him or not. He's a fantastic writer, and an exhaustive researcher.

Re: Study: people who eat and exercise the same as people 20 years ago are fatter

#33

Post by ejcx »

Health studies, especially when reported by some article in som publication without an original source are a mess.

I personally am extremely skeptical of what the Atlantis says the findings of the paper are. I lost 50 lbs while eating a box of pop tarts per day while counting macros. It's anecdotal but that's the basis for my beliefs, and a lot of science supports it.

One issue with health studies is how data is collected. Numerous studies have shown that a huge number of people are incapable of accurately tracking the number of calories they consume per day, and consistently under report their numbers. I believe it, it's hard in today's eat out culture. So...how sure are we that people were consuming the same number of calories?

This is just one issue. There are tons more. If you happen to be in this thread and you are looking for health advice, my recommendation is to head to /r/fitness and read the FAQ.

Re: Study: people who eat and exercise the same as people 20 years ago are fatter

#34

Post by DiabloD3 »

com2kid wrote: post #12
personjerry wrote: post #4

Weight gain is simple: calorie intake - calorie expenditure. The amount of calories in our food tends to go up over 20 years. Doing the same activities consumes the same amount of calories after 20 years. Thus we would have more caloric surplus, and likely gain more weight than people 20 years ago with less caloric food. Pretty simple imo.

There is a type of seaweed that if your average American eats it, there are zero calories absorbed. If most Japanese citizens eat it, they will absorb calories from it. There is a gut bacteria common in the Japanese population that extracts calories from this type of seaweed. "calories in" is that calories that went down your throat. It is calories that your body was able to digest, and "your body" includes many type…

This sounds incredibly interesting, and I would like to know more about this. You wouldn't happen to know the name of the seaweed or have a link to a study, would you?

Re: Study: people who eat and exercise the same as people 20 years ago are fatter

#35

Post by NVI »

The original article is behind a paywall: http://www.obesityresearchclinicalpractice.com/article/S1871.... Summary:

Background

To determine whether the relationship between caloric intake, macronutrient intake, and physical activity with obesity has changed over time.

Methods

Dietary data from 36,377 U.S. adults from the National Health and Nutrition Survey (NHANES) between 1971 and 2008 was used. Physical activity frequency data was only available in 14,419 adults between 1988 and 2006. Generalised linear models were used to examine if the association between total caloric intake, percent dietary macronutrient intake and physical activity with body mass index (BMI) was different over time.

Results

Between 1971 and 2008, BMI, total caloric intake and carbohydrate intake increased 10–14%, and fat and protein intake decreased 5–9%. Between 1988 and 2006, frequency of leisure time physical activity increased 47–120%. However, for a given amount of caloric intake, macronutrient intake or leisure time physical activity, the predicted BMI was up to 2.3 kg/m2 higher in 2006 that in 1988 in the mutually adjusted model (P Conclusions

Factors other than diet and physical activity may be contributing to the increase in BMI over time. Further research is necessary to identify these factors and to determine the mechanisms through which they affect body weight.

Re: Study: people who eat and exercise the same as people 20 years ago are fatter

#36

Post by toomuchtodo »

com2kid wrote: post #17
toomuchtodo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its strange really. I'm on a ketogenic diet, and hear people preach the caloric balance constantly, that it doesn't matter what my macros are as long as I consume less calories than I burn daily. Yet, I consume close to my previous garbage diet calories and I lose about 2-3lbs/week due to my high fat/moderate protein/very low carb ( Go figure, it appears that caloric energy balance isn't the only factor.

From someone who's been doing keto for several years now. A: Pre-Keto, odds are you we underestimating how many calories you were eating. Unless you were tracking every single thing you ate, there is a high probability you just didn't realize how many calories you were consuming. B: It is super hard to over eat on Keto. It is possible, take lots of liquid calories in (heavy cream can do this easily!), and there are s…

Thanks for that info! Did you ever experience symptoms similar to eye fatigue? I think I might be not consuming enough sodium and/or potassium; I'm going to up my doses of both to test my theory.

Re: Study: people who eat and exercise the same as people 20 years ago are fatter

#37

Post by DiabloD3 »

johnthedebs wrote: post #29
DiabloD3 wrote: post #23

I don't have access to the study, but I suspect it doesn't say what The Atlantic is saying it's saying. I lost weight: I went from 340 pounds to 214 pounds in exactly a year, and then bottomed out at 184 eventually (I've been purposely trying to gain muscle lately, which has been causing my weight to meander in the 190s since then). My caloric intake hasn't changed in a way that can explain such a weight loss. I went…

How carefully were you tracking calorie intake? It's notoriously difficult and I simply don't believe you ate 1500-2000 calories at 340lbs and didn't lose weight (not that you need to convince me). In any case, congrats on the achievement!

It is very difficult to track calories if you don't eat exact portion sizes listed on boxes. I calculated what I used to eat, and what I eat now, based on things I regularly ate. I figured I'd have to be off somewhere around 1000+ calories in my calculations to have lost as much weight as I did during the start of that year.

I have had this conversation with people before, and the only thing that would have probably helped here is measuring calories being flushed down the toiled, something that is difficult, expensive, and not really worth it outside of actual scientific studies.

Also, I went from being habitually tired, not sleeping well, and also diagnosed with pre-diabetus, to being full of energy, having a much better mood, sleeping well, and having a sharper mind. Weight loss alone doesn't explain this, my change in diet alone doesn't explain this, but both together increasing and stabilizing my energy levels seems to explain this.

Re: Study: people who eat and exercise the same as people 20 years ago are fatter

#38

Post by stevebmark »

personjerry wrote: post #4

Weight gain is simple: calorie intake - calorie expenditure. The amount of calories in our food tends to go up over 20 years. Doing the same activities consumes the same amount of calories after 20 years. Thus we would have more caloric surplus, and likely gain more weight than people 20 years ago with less caloric food. Pretty simple imo.

You think it's "pretty simple" because you haven't done any in depth research on the subject. Telling people to eat less and move more to lose weight is a recipe for failure. You have no qualifications but keep repeating the calories in calories out mantra. Until you've told this to hundreds of your patients and watching hundreds of them fail despite your useless advice, stop trying to shove your foot into the nutritional science door.

Re: Study: people who eat and exercise the same as people 20 years ago are fatter

#40

Post by tomp »

zacwest wrote: post #5
personjerry wrote: post #4

Weight gain is simple: calorie intake - calorie expenditure. The amount of calories in our food tends to go up over 20 years. Doing the same activities consumes the same amount of calories after 20 years. Thus we would have more caloric surplus, and likely gain more weight than people 20 years ago with less caloric food. Pretty simple imo.

From the article you're writing a comment to: > A given person, in 2006, eating the same amount of calories, taking in the same quantities of macronutrients like protein and fat, and exercising the same amount as a person of the same age did in 1988 would have a BMI that was about 2.3 points higher.

That doesn't mean much... Maybe people who eat the same now ate more in the past, which is why they're still fatter.
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