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50 Years Ago, the Sugar Industry Paid Scientists to Blame Fat (2016)

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Re: 50 Years Ago, the Sugar Industry Paid Scientists to Blame Fat (2016)

#61

Post by zorga »

hannasanarion wrote: post #48
zorga wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That something is addictive doesn't absolve you of accountability; you still got addicted to it, you allowed it to happen, you are still responsible for yourself no matter the biology of how the effects work. With very very few exceptions, people are fat because they eat too much food, it's as simple as that. If you overeat (as an adult), you are to blame, it's not anyone else's fault. I agree with the OP.

So you're saying that it was your choice to have your first bite of sugar, and you could have abstained? This kind of "abstinence-only personal fitness" might work fine for cigarettes, but kinda breaks down when it's stuff you've been fed since you were 5 weeks old and has been injected into most pre-prepared foods in a "sweetness war" that's lasted decades.

You are responsible for what you eat, you are responsible for breaking your own addictions. Pointing the finger at sugar sellers is just a way to wallow in the avoidance of accepting responsibility for yourself.

Want to break a sugar addiction, stop eating, fast until you've broken all food addictions and shed much of the stored calories, and then build up a better diet when you start eating again.

Re: 50 Years Ago, the Sugar Industry Paid Scientists to Blame Fat (2016)

#62

Post by timbit42 »

darawk wrote: post #22
Passthepeas wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

except a low carb diet is completely possible without the use of animal products, so that point doesn't really hold water.

A low fat diet is completely possible without the use of sugar. What's your point?

It would taste like crap and no one would eat it.

Re: 50 Years Ago, the Sugar Industry Paid Scientists to Blame Fat (2016)

#63

Post by zorga »

purple_ducks wrote: post #46
zorga wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That something is addictive doesn't absolve you of accountability; you still got addicted to it, you allowed it to happen, you are still responsible for yourself no matter the biology of how the effects work. With very very few exceptions, people are fat because they eat too much food, it's as simple as that. If you overeat (as an adult), you are to blame, it's not anyone else's fault. I agree with the OP.

> That something is addictive doesn't absolve you of accountability; you still got addicted to it A fantastic lesson in how to not understand addiction in the slightest. I look forward to a more mature response when you get past whatever juvenile phase your comment is the product of.

Look in the mirror, running around calling people juvenile is juvenile.

I understand addiction just fine, addictions can be broken: that is a fact; you can break your body of any such dependency and that you can, means it's your responsibility to do so and thus your fault if you remain addicted. I understand addiction, you don't understand that we don't all then conclude from that that one has no culpability. Other people have different moral reasoning than you do, that they disagree with you about something does not mean it's because they don't understand it.

Re: 50 Years Ago, the Sugar Industry Paid Scientists to Blame Fat (2016)

#64

Post by timbit42 »

koboll wrote: post #60
Passthepeas wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

except a low carb diet is completely possible without the use of animal products, so that point doesn't really hold water.

Really? I'm trying it now and finding it tremendously challenging to eat adequate calories without either grains or lots and lots of meat. Vegetables are so calorie-poor and expensive that they're untenable, so you better love beans and lentils, because that's the vast majority of what you'll be consuming.

Beans and lentils aren't low carb.

Re: 50 Years Ago, the Sugar Industry Paid Scientists to Blame Fat (2016)

#66

Post by sn41 »

xkgt wrote: post #38

While there is no doubt that this happened, any one has any idea why there was no reverse push from the fat industry? Was it less organized than the sugar industry or were the profit margins more slender?

Here's a conjecture - "Sugar" is a product. There is an industry and a lobby for that. Fat is not really a single product (meat, edible oil, chocolate etc.), so probably there was no single lobby which could co-ordinate the effort. Now there is a lot of effort from the meat industry to promote particular diets, so that's perhaps a form of "pushback".

Re: 50 Years Ago, the Sugar Industry Paid Scientists to Blame Fat (2016)

#67

Post by basicplus2 »

zw123456 wrote: post #7

I dunno. You know… my grandpa drank a 5th of whiskey a day and smoked one cigar a day until the day he died. Age 102. Sometimes I think that you enjoy the heck out of life and don't worry about anything. Shrug. I hope genetics matters more :)

Imagine how long he would have lives if he had NOT drunk a 5th of whiskey a day and smoked one cigar a day until the day he died. Age 102!!

Re: 50 Years Ago, the Sugar Industry Paid Scientists to Blame Fat (2016)

#68

Post by antt »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #28

I took Intro to Psychology in my mid to late twenties. We were required to participate in a study as part of the class. IIRC, the study was being performed by a grad student in pursuit of their degree. So, really, both the "scientist" and subjects of the study were kind of compelled to participate. No one was there of their free will. We were all trying to tick off an educational checkbox on our way to a sheepskin in…

I'm not sure what a social science study has to do with a biology study.

If you feed rats sugar and 50% of them die of heart attacks and you have a control group where it's 10% you have found something about sugar and rats.

I'm not sure what the number in this case were but the sugar lobby scientists did a meta study where they used the logic in your post to throw out the studies that made sugar look bad, while keeping all the ones where it looked good.

At any rate the people who I've seen use the "It's just incompetence not malice" defense were most often both.

Re: 50 Years Ago, the Sugar Industry Paid Scientists to Blame Fat (2016)

#69

Post by oil25 »

xkgt wrote: post #38

While there is no doubt that this happened, any one has any idea why there was no reverse push from the fat industry? Was it less organized than the sugar industry or were the profit margins more slender?

> While there is no doubt that this happened, any one has any idea why there was no reverse push from the fat industry?

The "fat" industry is the animal agriculture industry and it has heavily swayed and influenced American dietary guidelines for decades.

Various food industries presented their side of the argument at a second senate hearing in 1977. This meeting resulted in a watered down version of the Dietary Goals, with less emphasis on reducing meat and dairy products. The American Medical Association also protested the McGovern Report, because it said that providing this basic knowledge on what we should eat might interfere with the medical doctor’s right to prescribe, even though doctors then, and now, know nothing about human nutrition. The effects of the McGovern Report were widespread, and as a result, the consumption of meat, eggs, and milk fell, temporarily.

Industries fought back successfully with every means at their disposal, including hiring lobbyists, purchasing medical and nutrition experts, launching huge advertising campaigns, driving the nutrition education of our children with their bias, and funding nutrition research that favored their products. Their success can be measured by the US food availability data, which documents an increase in mean daily total energy intake from 2,057 kcal in 1970, to 2,405 kcal in 1990, and 2,674 kcal in 2008. We eat more oil, meat, and dairy now than when the McGovern Report was published in 1977. The incidence of obesity and type-2 diabetes has both doubled in that same period of time. These figures are undeniable evidence that industry won and Americans lost.

https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2012nl/oct/mcgovern.htm

Re: 50 Years Ago, the Sugar Industry Paid Scientists to Blame Fat (2016)

#70

Post by paavoova »

alrs wrote: post #35
hoardack wrote: post #33

This is, like, the third time this month we’re seeing blah-blah-blah-sugar on the front page of HN. I have a lot of fat friends, and I hate to say it, but I watched them over the years, and it wasn’t sugar that made them huge and unhealthy. It was indulgence, carelessness and zero motivation to exert will power. And they were mostly really smart people. But they didn’t give a fuck. And I’m using past tense “were” bec…

The "selfish-lazy-greedy assholes" hypothesis doesn't do so well in the face of endocrinology. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15987666

This doesn't change the fact that the underlying mechanism of weight gain is a net caloric surplus over a given period of time, which is (hypothetically, at least) addressable without addiction ever coming into the discussion.

But if sugar/food addiction is relevant, there should be some data on its effects on non-obese, physically active individuals who maintain a lifestyle that allows them to burn enough calories to offset the caloric effects of sugar consumption. What you linked doesn't mention obesity, yet you're conflating addiction with obesity in your response.

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