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Adult Obesity Facts

cdc.gov

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Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#191

Post by jka »

torginus wrote: post #129
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.

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 hea…

> they are not the main cause

Well, perhaps. If multiple different factors (say: car culture, ease of food delivery, prevalence of tasty-if-unhealthy food, peer prestige via excess, and targeted advertising) -- or perhaps more -- combine, they can actually create an overriding sense of social acceptability that you then cite.

In that sense, the social acceptability becomes a defensive moat for all of the problematic practices that have created the obesity problem in the first place; and rational people will join in defending the moat rather than questioning what is behind it.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#192

Post by torginus »

kiba wrote: post #183
torginus wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hea…

Seems to be a form of victim blaming. If people tried to follow normal dieting advice, and they failed, do we keep telling them to try harder? I am speaking as someone who had lost a lot of weight and achieved near normal BMI and had prioritized health. I found intermittent fasting to be much easier and less willpower taxing than counting calories, which was way too much work. People do want to be healthier and a lot…

I disagree - I think it's a matter of perspective. Many people see the task of getting in shape as some herculean effort requiring inhuman willpower, subconsciously setting themselves up for failure.

Consider this - most people spend 40+ hours at work, 5+ hours in commute, only to go home and spend most of the rest of the waking hours doing house chores or attending to family needs - this is a truly epic investment of human effort, yet almost every adult does it without thinking and nobody thinks it's exceptional, thing is, it's kind of expected of people. Compared to that, the amount of sacrifice needed to get healthy is miniscule - only the lack of boring routine and social expectations make it seem otherwise.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#193

Post by asciimov »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #55
ErikVandeWater wrote: post #18

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?

One issue with artificial sweeteners is that they can make a person feel hungry an hour or two after consumption. Thus causing a person to consume more calories than they normally would.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#194

Post by kiba »

Loughla wrote: post #71
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…

People like to say that it's something else, in my experience, because they do, in fact, know what CICO is, and have tried it, and have failed when they tried it. With broad strokes, those failures can be lumped into 2 categories: 1) lack of willpower (pretty self-explanatory) and 2) hoodwinked, bamboozled, and otherwise tricked by food package nutrition labels. It is genuinely hard to discern real calories consumed…

I had lost weight without counting calories. CICO works, but it didn't work in the long term for me.

My method of losing weight and eventual weight maintenance, is intermittent fasting.

It just means that I don't eat for long periods of time. Every week, I undergo a 48 hours fast and for the rest of time, I effectively only eat one meal a day.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#195

Post by woodruffw »

paulddraper wrote: post #156
woodruffw wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fortunately, the U.S. has plenty of each, to accommodate multiple preferences. As of 2010, close to 24 million Americans lived in a "food desert"[1], i.e. an area without adequate access to healthy eating choices. These areas are disproportionately lower SES areas, and the people in them don't get to have a "preference"; the decision is being made for them. Edit: Here's a paper explaining the correlation and absenc…

My point was the the U.S. has plenty of each place. So, yeah, that's exactly my point.

Your point is that food deserts are evidence of preference? That doesn’t make a lot of sense: privation is defined by the absence of actual choice.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#196

Post by ErikVandeWater »

CanceledAccount wrote: post #135
ErikVandeWater wrote: post #18

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.

Being against artificial sweeteners is like being against vaping. Even if they cause some harm, the alternative is a massive danger, so we should still encourage people to switch.

Artificial sweeteners haven't had the effect of making people thinner in the real world because it affects your sense of taste and the microbiome in your digestive system.

> Dr. Robert Lustig, an obesity expert and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco, said that artificial sweeteners confuse the body: Their sweet flavors send a signal to the brain and the digestive system to brace for a flood of sugar. But when those calories never arrive, it can send hormones like insulin out of whack, over time leading to metabolic dysfunction, he said. > “The short answer is that artificial sweeteners are probably better than sugar, but not by much,” Dr. Lustig said.

NYT: https://archive.ph/MoRg7#selection-887.0-891.114

The difference between smoking and vaping is far more vast than the difference between sugar and artificial sugar

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#197

Post by lkey »

yupper32 wrote: post #161
lkey wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing calories matter doesn't solve a thing. You pointing it out like it's a revelation indicates you don't understand the difficulty of what you expect. Let's say you are now 120 lbs over weight. You know CICO. How long will it take you to get skinny, assuming you ate nothing at all until you hit your goal weight? A pound of fat is 454g. A gram of fat contains 9 kcal. Being 120 lbs over weight means you have to bu…

Not only is this post wildly incorrect, you also seem to have just given up with the populous? I lose around 2 lbs per week at 1500 calories/day. This is pretty normal. 120lbs would be 60 weeks of that. Little over a year. You are completely off with 700 calories for 3-4 years. It's irresponsible to spout that nonsense. > A more reasonable position is to just accept that some people are going to remain fat and focus…

"Given up" is an interesting way of putting it. Given up on what or whom? Do fat people want me to save and educate them? You're acting like I should be doing something personally about other people being fat.

I think it should be treated just like any other chronic condition, you try to be as healthy as possible within the paradigm. If you want to lose weight, great, but people starting to lose weight need to understand that the habits they are using will likely have to be permanent fixtures for the rest of their life. Returning to a "normal" lifestyle is how the weight was gained in the first place after all.

Irresponsible to whom? You are the one advocating for this exact kind of analysis, not me, I merely obliged you.

Your stated solutions below are 'ban food' and 'education'.

If you know anything about how fat people are treated at doctor's offices, 'stop being fat, eat less' is probably the first and last thing they hear at any checkup.

It's not working. ' Ban food' is intriguing, but I don't believe it's practical for, I hope, obvious reasons.

- I lose around 2 lbs per week at 1500 calories/day. I don't care about your anecdotal data. Show me your CICO analysis.

Do you control for water and glycogen loss?

What about exercise, what's your basal metabolic rate? etc...

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#198

Post by sershe »

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.

Well if it's pet theory time, mine is that it's all the sauces, dressings, ketchups, breadcrumbs, and other additions, and indirectly salt and spices. My exhibit #1 are 800-calories salads at Cheesecake Factory. My exhibit #2 is an American dude in Munich telling me the (wonderful, tasty) local pork is "flavorless" and they needs to add some crap to it, or at least give him some ketchup.

You can eat anything - vegetables, meat, fish, potatoes, pasta, bread - and be pretty thin. If you add 500 calories of dressing to a salad, then no matter what you eat, you are doomed... also, that and spices would bomb out your taste buds, so you wouldn't even be able to enjoy "purer" food anymore.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#199

Post by asciimov »

foolfoolz wrote: post #108
avelis wrote: post #22

One major contributor to growing obesity is the US diet. It is terrible IMO. I believe we need massive corporate responsibility to solving this issue. Without some form of intervention we are going to see rising costs to our healthcare system to sustain high levels of obesity among the populous.

we now have requirements in most places that nutrition must be on the label or accessible. this hasn’t slowed down the obesity rates. people don’t care what they’re eating and don’t try to figure it out. this is a personal responsibility and it’s cultural, not universal. from this link not every demographic has the same obesity rates

Nutrition facts don't matter if all your choices are unhealthy.

If you visit any chain restaurant, nearly every meal (even the healthy looking ones) has added sugars and simple carbs.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#200

Post by kiba »

rm445 wrote: post #164
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…

The nice thing about calories in minus calories out is, IF you maintain a calorie deficit, the laws of physics of the universe guarantee you must lose weight. The laws of physics are a pretty powerful thing to have on your side. But that doesn't make it necessarily the most useful model for a complex animal to modify its own behaviour. We are dynamic systems that can voluntarily and involuntarily vary the amount of e…

Your body can adjust basal metabolism to be lower or higher, based on physical activity level. IIRC, it can also adjust based on how much you're eating.
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