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

theatlantic.com

61–70 of 182 posts

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

#61

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 nutrit…

While I respect the knowledge of doctors, often the "wisdom" they have does not agree with one another. We need a better approach than gut feeling. I highly doubt simply telling a mantra like calories in vs. calories out to patients is going to change their behavior much (does the doctor spend months in the home of a patient helping them follow their advice?). It's not a very scientific way to go about it.

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

#62
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, the macros look sort of the same, but the source of those calories is much different. Just the types of cooking oil we use has changed a lot. Look at what goes into cookies now. It used to be butter, now I've seen recipes with canola oil. (if anyone tells you to use canola oil in your baked goods, ignore them and use butter!) There is evidence that gut bacteria is passed down from generation to generation, w…

> There is evidence that gut bacteria is passed down from generation to generation, we could very well be seeing a delayed effect from public policy and health decisions made around the time the previous generation was growing up. oops. This is something that doesn't get mentioned enough. Your gut bacteria play a large role in your health, and we're going so far as to do fecal transplants to resolve GI tract disorder…

This is actually quite a forefront of research right now and a lot gets overthrown, figured out anew and so on.

Very interesting, what might come from this line of research, but a lot of first insights really seem promising in furthering the understanding of how we process the things we ingest and what different role different types of colon-microorganisms play in what foods do us good and what not so much.

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

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is evidence that gut bacteria is passed down from generation to generation, we could very well be seeing a delayed effect from public policy and health decisions made around the time the previous generation was growing up. oops. This is something that doesn't get mentioned enough. Your gut bacteria play a large role in your health, and we're going so far as to do fecal transplants to resolve GI tract disorder…

> one of the primary causes of America's obesity > problems. As any European who's spent time in the US can tell you, a dramatically simpler explanation is that portion sizes are enormous and many foods are "low fat" which mean they're loaded with sugar.

Stuff's ridiculously loaded with sugar. I stopped eating sugar for a few months on a whim. It's rather difficult to do so. Everything just pointlessly has loads of it. Even trying to use no-calorie sweeteners is difficult as some places like to tout how natural they are.

I went back to eating sugar but I can no longer stomach a lot of foods I would happily have eaten before. Everything is so sweet.

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

#64
Does this study factor in the huge life style changes over 20 years? Far more access to cars, and far more spending entire days sitting down (computer jobs, Netflix binge watching, etc). A lot of how we live has changed in 20 years, I'm inclined to think the problem lies there, not in environmental factors.

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

#65
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Everyone seems to warn about sodium and potassium while on keto - magnesium too. Apparently the suggested intakes are quite high and supplementing is the only way to get there. It might have just been placebo or drinking a hot cup of broth (with potassium salt in) but it made me feel better some days.

I'd also second that it's really hard to eat a massive amount of calories on keto. Water loss and perhaps some changes might make you leaner but most likely, over time, you're simply getting a lot less than, I dunno 3000 that isn't hard to do on a sugary diet.

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

#66
post #26

The article mentions prescription drugs but doesn't mention a widely used over the counter one: nicotine. US smoking rates are down about 50% over the last 20 years. (That's overall, I couldn't find any details by cohort.)

Is the suggestion that people are channelling addictive behaviors from smoking to eating?

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

#67

Does this study factor in the huge life style changes over 20 years? Far more access to cars, and far more spending entire days sitting down (computer jobs, Netflix binge watching, etc). A lot of how we live has changed in 20 years, I'm inclined to think the problem lies there, not in environmental factors.

We had cars and tv/video games/films 20 years ago. I know, I was there.

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

#68
It's simple: Eat more fat.

The bacteria that processes fat (bacterocides) obviously needs fat to survive. By not eating fat you effectively kill your ability to process fat.

The rise in low fat products, coincides with the rise in obesity. One is not the cure for the other -it's the cause of the other.

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

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is evidence that gut bacteria is passed down from generation to generation, we could very well be seeing a delayed effect from public policy and health decisions made around the time the previous generation was growing up. oops. This is something that doesn't get mentioned enough. Your gut bacteria play a large role in your health, and we're going so far as to do fecal transplants to resolve GI tract disorder…

> one of the primary causes of America's obesity > problems. As any European who's spent time in the US can tell you, a dramatically simpler explanation is that portion sizes are enormous and many foods are "low fat" which mean they're loaded with sugar.

true but again just a part of the problem (although a big one).

I recall, back in 2004 during summer break, I worked 6 weeks in LA (Universal Studios), and then moved to Maine to work in some resort. Needless to say, those places were continents apart. In those 4 weeks in Maine, I've seen roughly 5 fat people, non obese (also cca 2 black... err african american altogether).

Different attitudes to activities, moving around and sport, different eating habits etc. They all play the game together to produce the result we all can see.

You want to have a real clue what you eat? Either do it yourself, or eat as much raw stuff as possible. Over time, you will get used to it and processed food will taste like a canal cooking.

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

#70
post #66
post #26

The article mentions prescription drugs but doesn't mention a widely used over the counter one: nicotine. US smoking rates are down about 50% over the last 20 years. (That's overall, I couldn't find any details by cohort.)

Is the suggestion that people are channelling addictive behaviors from smoking to eating?

Smoking reduces your appetite, leading to less eating and less weight.

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/09/137085989/the-skinny-on-smokin...

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