Adult Obesity Facts • Hacker News Board

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#41

Post by minikites » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

waiseristy wrote: post #26

There are plenty of people who consume highly processed foods and stay skinny. There are plenty of people who eat greasy, sugary, fattening foods who stay skinny. The problem is not car culture, sugar, and processed foods. The problem is overeating. America, and the rest of the first world has major issues with food addiction and a culture associated with "eating until the plate is clean"

>The problem is overeating.

We've had a food surplus for a long time, why is obesity a relatively recent problem?

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#42

Post by yehudalouis » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

yupper32 wrote: post #23

Every time I comment on one of these threads, I mention how most people don't know about the most fundamental component of weight control: Calories-in calories-out. And then I get a mass of people complaining that "it's not that simple! x y and z also impact weight!" I think so much has to do with these two points: 1. Most don't know about CICO. 2. Many who do throw it away as not useful. We should be teaching this i…

Exactly. If you operate at caloric deficit (which can be achieved via caloric subsidies such as diet or exercise) you will lose weight. Even if your caloric deficit is achieved through processed junk, you'll still lose weight. Not a recommendation to do that, but, if you're simply optimizing for losing weight, it would technically work.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#43

Post by frabjoused » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

boomskats wrote: post #20

rjbwork wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walkable and bikable cities and suburbs. Increased transit. Reduced working hours so that people don't feel the need to choose between health and survival and stress. Getting the garbage out of our supermarkets. Not subsidizing massive amounts of corn syrup and sugar. I really could go on.

But who is going to lobby for any of those things?

20 years ago, who is going to lobby for electrical cars or solar power? They aren't financially profitable.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#44

Post by dragontamer » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

sam0x17 wrote: post #19

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we should try to fix the societal problems generating the poor outcome What would this look like policywise?

Legislation banning overly processed foods. Better school lunches. etc. Pick a "first world" country with much better BMI. Copy all of their regulations surrounding food and agriculture.

Every "processed food" definition is incredibly arbitrary, and not necessarily correlated to health.

What about rolled oats or steel cut oats? They're clearly "processed", oats don't look like that when they come off the plant.

Potato chips + fries are just cut potatoes dropping into a vat of oil. Oil itself isn't very much processed either. But we all know that potato chips / fries are unhealthy and shouldn't be eaten all the time.

Cheese or butter require incredible amounts of processing to get done. But when properly portioned, they are part of a healthy diet (more so than potato chips anyway).

--------

Is honey any healthier than sugar? Is juice healthier than soda? From an obesity perspective, not really. You really want to be cutting back on these empty calories. (Sure, juice is __slightly__ better than soda cause juice has vitamins in it. But... its actually not that good for you)

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#45

Post by justwalt » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #7

We need to stop putting sugar in everything. That's the root cause of most of our problems. It's not just industrialized preprocessed and prepackaged food, because restaurants are guilty of this too. I don't buy the "cars and suburbs" as a root cause argument. People would be less sedentary if they felt healthier and more energetic. Sugar is the problem.

I can't stand sugar in savory foods. I had a friend tell me a handy tip at Thai restaurants is to ask for your food made with no sugar, so I tried it at my favorite place. The college student waiter got a wide eyed look on his face and lowered his voice to say "can't do that, and it's in _everything_."

It sucks that this is as commonplace as it is.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#46

Post by avelis » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

asciimov wrote: post #5

We need to outlaw sugar and restrict simple carbs in made to order foods.

Processed sugar definitely. At least cap & trade sugar if possible.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#47

Post by maerF0x0 » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

CabSauce wrote: post #25

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we should try to fix the societal problems generating the poor outcome What would this look like policywise?

At a minimum, make it more costly to eat unhealthy foods by taxing added sugar and subsidizing healthy foods.

IMO we dont need more late (consumer) applied taxes, first we need to remove the negative taxes (subsidies) from the input.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#48

Post by op00to » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #31

rjbwork wrote: post #2

We've designed our cities, suburbs, food industry, and society such that the average person is at least overweight, nearing obese. If the average person suffers from what should be an anomaly, perhaps it is less a personal failing than a societal failing and we should try to fix the societal problems generating the poor outcome.

People love to rail on suburbs, but I'd be willing to bet that sugar is the real problem. Sugar is in everything. Snacks, restaurant food, drinks, sauces. It puts the metabolism into a bad state and desensitizes the body to its deleterious effects. Before you know it you're overweight, mentally foggy, and pre-diabetic. Not a good place to start working out or going for outdoor activities. People exercise and walk mor…

Sugar does not “sap your energy away”. Sitting on your ass 23 hours a day does.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#49

Post by waiseristy » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

minikites wrote: post #41

waiseristy wrote: post #26

There are plenty of people who consume highly processed foods and stay skinny. There are plenty of people who eat greasy, sugary, fattening foods who stay skinny. The problem is not car culture, sugar, and processed foods. The problem is overeating. America, and the rest of the first world has major issues with food addiction and a culture associated with "eating until the plate is clean"

>The problem is overeating. We've had a food surplus for a long time, why is obesity a relatively recent problem?

You don't get addicted to 2 lbs of turnips and some bacon fat. You get addicted to three 1500 calorie McDonalds meals per day

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#50

Post by raspasov » Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

sharkmerry wrote: post #8

Is this solely done based on BMI? Some of you may know that BMI can be wildly inaccurate. (this guy is technically obese on BMI scale - https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=153207891 ) I wonder if we would find better connections between disease and "weight" with body fat % or similar measure.

Most likely done based on BMI because most methods of measuring body fat are not easy to access and have significant variability. I agree with you that BMI is not the best method, but it's probably the best default because it's easy to measure.