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Adult Obesity Facts

cdc.gov

121–130 of 236 posts

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#121

Sugar and its synthetic brothers are addictive. Sugar addiction should be classified as an addiction and given the same sort of attention and funding that alcohol and drug addictions receive.

What harm is there from artificial sweeteners? Or rather, how much consumption of artificial sweeteners is harmful?

They may mess with your sense of taste, making you crave even sweeter foods.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/artificial-sweeteners-su...

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#122
post #109
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.

My pet hypothesis is that widespread use of endocrine disruptor chemicals such as phthalates (plastic softeners) is one of several key causes for increasing obesity. There isn't real proof of that yet. But exposure is correlated with lower testosterone levels, and we know that low T can cause growth of adipose tissue. https://www.endocrine.org/news-and-advocacy/news-room/2014/r...

Being sedentary is also associated with lower testosterone.

People are less active in their work and lives, and not just a little bit.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#123

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…

Everyone knows the principle of calories in calories out. That’s not the issue. The issue is the huge array of factors - including economic, social, physiological (particularly hormonal) and emotional (particularly subconscious emotional) that influence the volume of calories in and out. If it was just a case of making conscious choices to consume fewer calories and expend more, there would not be the widespread problem there is. Clearly there is more to it, which is why people are downvoting you. You’re not making a point that everyone hasn’t heard before a thousand times.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#124

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…

CICO is probably valid but it's easy to misinterpret. For example, in the presence of insulin, fat and muscle cells take in calories, regardless of the energy state of the rest of the body, resulting in hunger and probably more calories-in. While insulin is elevated, the calories stored wIthin fat cells is inaccessible to the rest of the body … would those calories be considered "in" or "out" according to CICO?

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#125
post #56

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…

I think a third major thing is that people often have very skewed ideas of how many calories things have, like you decide to have a salad instead of a burger at a restaurant because it's the "healthy" choice, but often, because of the dressing, the salad will have as many calories as the burger, and then you feel like you were "good" so you have dessert! Or people will try to do something like cutting the 30 calories…

Related: a common mistake is treating foods as binary “healthy” or not. Nuts, for example, can be “healthy” but ten handfuls is probably excessive.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#126

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…

> I think so much has to do with these two points:

I think it entirely has to do with impatience and desire for a "tip" or "shortcut" to get where they want to go. Why diet (aka suffer) for 2 years to lose 100 lbs, when someone else is promising you can lose 10lbs a week for 10 weeks?

We want to believe there is a cheap, easy, fast, solution to all our problems.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#127
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.

Unpopular opinion: It's both a personal and societal failing, but personal choice is dominant. You can choose to eat rice and beans and drink water. You don't have to eat hamburgers and fries and drink sugar.

Hamburgers aren't necessarily more obesogenic than rice and beans, depending on the specific type of bun and condiments.

Rice has a fairly high glycemic index. Nothing wrong with eating some rice in moderation, but getting the majority of your calories from rice isn't healthy.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/a-good-guide-to-go...

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#128
There are two classes of people you can validly look to for advice on how to avoid Problem X (x = obesity / insomnia / constipation / badly-behaved children):

1) Those who had X but overcame it, or 2) Those who've never had it.

Almost everyone, AFAICT, looks to Class #1. Indeed that's useful.

However, Class #2 also can instruct. Asians are much less obese than non-Asians. What do they eat that you can learn from?

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#129
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.

There have been many suggestions in this thread about the root cause of obesity. While I'm sure these things do contribute to the issue, they are not the main cause - the main cause is that being fat is socially acceptable. I don't believe that if the average person placed great importance on being healthy - as great as making more money, getting a better job etc., they would be unable to afford the extra cost of healthy food, fit a couple of hours of exercise per week into their routines, or do whatever it takes to maintain a healthy physique.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#130

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…

I used to believe in that, and I felt my problem was I was eating too much and not moving around enough, however, I recently started a "lazy keto" diet and am currently down 30 pounds (back to a normal BMI - and I didn't even change how much I exercise). I don't watch my calories at all, nor do I starve myself. I just watch my carbs. It's been really eye opening. There's a lot of talk online about how processed foods…

CICO doesn't mean that every diet that works counts calories. It means that all diets require the calories you consume to be lower than the calories you burn. Including keto.

Can some diets impact how many calories you burn? Sure. Not really to the extent that you need to worry about it, though.

Can some diets be effective but unhealthy? Of course. You can follow CICO and lose weight by eating nothing but twinkies[1]. That doesn't mean it's healthy.

At the end of the day, your lazy keto diet allowed you to consume fewer calories than you burned. You just didn't have to keep track.

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/...

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