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A Cultural History of Fat

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Re: A Cultural History of Fat

#11

This article does not discuss in depth the change in diet from mainly protein and fat based diets of the hunter-gatherers to carb-rich diet of today.

Why should it? You haven't offered any concrete reason for why.

It is a book review. I would expect it to cover whatever the book covers, from whatever angle the book decides to approach things.

Re: A Cultural History of Fat

#12
post #10

This article does not discuss in depth the change in diet from mainly protein and fat based diets of the hunter-gatherers to carb-rich diet of today.

We've had a carb rich diet since the neolithic revolution. The obesity epidemics started after WW2. I don't think that they are related.

Also physical activity for most people took a nosedive in the past decades. Work has mostly shifted to static jobs and that shifts the balance of any diet.

Re: A Cultural History of Fat

#13
post #5

A company that produces food that is more appetizing and less filling than its competitors will sell more of it and beat them in terms of revenue and profit. They either have to align themselves or die/be assimilated. Even without any ill intent, growth seeking in the food industry would have lead to an obesity epidemics. https://soundcloud.com/user-876103472/grow

If I eat a snickers bar and afterwards I'm still hungry, I'm not necessarily going to eat another snickers bar. If I eat a very flavorful salad but perhaps am not feeling quite satiated, next time I'm not necessarily going to order the competitor's product that is drenched in olive oil.

I'm sure there is some truth to these sorts of "survival of the fittest" arguments, but you can only simplify how people reason about food or how they consciously or subconsciously decide what to eat so much before it becomes a parody of itself.

Re: A Cultural History of Fat

#14
post #5

A company that produces food that is more appetizing and less filling than its competitors will sell more of it and beat them in terms of revenue and profit. They either have to align themselves or die/be assimilated. Even without any ill intent, growth seeking in the food industry would have lead to an obesity epidemics. https://soundcloud.com/user-876103472/grow

If I eat a snickers bar and afterwards I'm still hungry, I'm not necessarily going to eat another snickers bar. If I eat a very flavorful salad but perhaps am not feeling quite satiated, next time I'm not necessarily going to order the competitor's product that is drenched in olive oil. I'm sure there is some truth to these sorts of "survival of the fittest" arguments, but you can only simplify how people reason abou…

So you agree with me, but still want to ridicule my argument ("parody of itself")? I'm also quite surprised to see a statistician use anecdata as arguments.

Humans are predictably irrational, there are mountains of scientific evidence on the topic [0, 1].

The industry plays us like fiddles to get us to consume ever more. There are more parameters than the ones I described above (socialization and long term hormonal effects come to mind), but the growth of the food industry is the main driver behind the obesity epidemics.

All that food has to be bought, otherwise there's no growth, and investors are not happy and they put their money elsewhere.

The easiest way to convince people to buy food is to make them want to eat it. Modern food has been engineered and optimized to be deceptive and take advantage of our instinctive and cognitive biases, in order to get us to eat more than we need to be healthy.

0. https://web.mit.edu/ariely/www/MIT/

1. https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Rober...

Re: A Cultural History of Fat

#15
post #10

This article does not discuss in depth the change in diet from mainly protein and fat based diets of the hunter-gatherers to carb-rich diet of today.

We've had a carb rich diet since the neolithic revolution. The obesity epidemics started after WW2. I don't think that they are related.

The carbs we get now in modern processed foods are not the same carbs we've been used to for millenia.

Re: A Cultural History of Fat

#16
post #15
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've had a carb rich diet since the neolithic revolution. The obesity epidemics started after WW2. I don't think that they are related.

The carbs we get now in modern processed foods are not the same carbs we've been used to for millenia.

Now we're getting somewhere...

Re: A Cultural History of Fat

#17
post #15
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've had a carb rich diet since the neolithic revolution. The obesity epidemics started after WW2. I don't think that they are related.

The carbs we get now in modern processed foods are not the same carbs we've been used to for millenia.

Please tell me more ? At which level ? Genuinely interested :) !

Re: A Cultural History of Fat

#19
post #17
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The carbs we get now in modern processed foods are not the same carbs we've been used to for millenia.

Please tell me more ? At which level ? Genuinely interested :) !

For one, the amount of refined sugar in our diet exploded recently.

More generally, even if the molecular building blocks didn't change, the way food is prepared industrially and marketed makes us more likely to eat too much of it.

Re: A Cultural History of Fat

#20
How are the cultural metaphors verified, like the connection between focus on the afterlife and fatness attributed to the rise of Christianity in Europe?

I still can't put a handle on how historians are able to determine what a culture's prevailing attitude is toward something when it seems so ephemeral.

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