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Adult Obesity Facts

cdc.gov

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Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#221

Post by feudalism »

nradov wrote: post #153
throw8383833jj wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are, if they're designed to be addictively delicious. McDonalds and their ilk, have created taste formulas that are nearly irresistable. I've seen people from foreign countries come to america who've never tasted anything other than their local cuisines who can't imagine eating anything else. but the second they sink their teeth into a McDon hamburger, they are hooked. MSG has been shown as a super reliable way…

Nonsense. McDonald's hamburgers don't taste any better than hamburgers cooked at home. They're just more convenient. And they don't contain MSG. https://www.mcdonalds.com/ae/en-ae/your-right-to-know.3807.d...

The myth of MSG being terrible for one's health has been debunked.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#222

Post by baggy_trough »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #38
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?

Michael Pollan (in his cooked netflix show) has pointed out that the cost of "junk food" has been heavily subsidized (eg corn subsidy), but fresh produce has not. Subsequently the consumer price of each has fallen, or risen a lot, respectively. One policy choice (amongst many required) could be to stop subsidizing the inputs to junk food. Another policy I've heard talked about by Joel Salatin is that a lot of low pro…

That's precisely the point of much of this legislation as it favors the big players who are in bed with the regulators.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#223

Post by mmarq »

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"

I wouldn't generalize to the whole first world, obesity is mainly a problem in English speaking countries and in northern and eastern Europe, ie places with a subpar (eg Germany) or non-existent (eg UK, US) cuisine.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#224

Post by lkey »

lkey wrote: post #215
yupper32 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Irresponsible to whom? You are the one advocating for this exact kind of analysis, not me, I merely obliged you. It's irresponsible to say that you need to be on a 700 calorie diet for 3-4 years to lose 120 pounds. That's so far from reality that it's irresponsible. > Do you control for water and glycogen loss? I lose more in the first week or so to what I assume is water retention. After that it settles into 2lbs/…

"That's so far from reality that it's irresponsible." I think your "larger male that can still safely run every week" perspective is skewing your understanding of this problem. It is perfectly reasonable to expect weight loss of that magnitude to take that long for people that are older, sicker, or just not male . Moreover, you starting BMR often is significantly higher than it will be when you finish a crash diet, s…

Edit: "If you're calling 1500 a day a crash diet, making up numbers, and think education is a pointless endeavor, then I can't continue this conversation."

I said previously, I don't care about your personal diet, as it has little to do with how the CDC should dictate policy. The diet I described was a crash diet.

'education is a pointless endeavor'. You are putting words in my mouth, my point, of course, was that knowing about CICO doesn't change the fact that weight loss takes a long time, is hard, and requires resources that many don't have access to. A word of warning, keeping it off is also hard when you've been fat, so prepare for that.

Since we won't speak again, I want you to interrogate why you are emotionally engaged with this topic. I had similar thoughts about how other people should behave when I discovered how to lose the weight, but realized only later that those thoughts made me view all fat people in a dim light, that it was ok to assume bad things about them, to view them as in need of 'education' like you advocate for.

If you ignore everything else I've said, please think about the perspective of a person who has lost 120 lbs, but is still 280lbs, and are receiving their 100th unsolicited lecture about CICO from someone like you. Most fat people go through that, from elementary school to adulthood in the US. It's pointless, they definitely don't want to hear about that from a stranger.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#225

Post by wccrawford »

rm445 wrote: post #150
wccrawford wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm medically "obese", but nobody looking at me would say that. Whenever I tell people that I'm dieting, they're surprised and often tell me that I look good. So with the medical definition of obese not matching what peoples' eyes tell them, I'm not surprised that 42% are "obese".

Do you really think anyone reading this is going to think you're anything other than an obese person with polite friends and a mild case of self-delusion? Of course, there are many nuances. Your musculature (though surely if you were a bodybuilder you'd have said so). Your sex, both for where fat sits on your body and for social expectations. The clothes you wear. Normal human variation - if your femurs just happen t…

I'm sure some people will just say "Yeah, he's a fatty that's lying to himself." Others will believe me, possibly because I can't think of any reason to lie about it.

And I happen to think my legs are short for my height, and my arms are a bit long. It's worked out quite well for me.

But my point was simply that the number will seem hard to believe for many people if they don't realize that the layman word "obese" means something slightly different than the medical term.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#226

Post by wccrawford »

gibagger wrote: post #72
wccrawford wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm medically "obese", but nobody looking at me would say that. Whenever I tell people that I'm dieting, they're surprised and often tell me that I look good. So with the medical definition of obese not matching what peoples' eyes tell them, I'm not surprised that 42% are "obese".

In this age of normalised obesity, the idea of what an obese person looks like has also shifted. Plenty of overweight and slightly obese people would consider themselves as normal weight in countries where obesity is prevalent. And normal they are, but it's just a bad reference point.

My point was more about what other people perceive than what a person perceives about themselves.

I agree that the perception of "normal weight" has probably changed over the years, but I think "obese" has always meant something more extreme to the layman than it has to a medical professional.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#227

Post by CabSauce »

epi789 wrote: post #113
CabSauce wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Taxes won’t work. People want autonomy. If you provide healthy meats and unprocessed foods, people will choose it. It’s a problem of access and convenience not necessarily choice.

That's just clearly not true with current incentives. Healthy options are more available now than any time in the past.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#228

Post by kiba »

feudalism wrote: post #219
kiba wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Seems to be a form of victim blaming. Sorry, but no. The person you're replying to made some spot on points. If a person wants to maintain some semblance of physical fitness then they are going to have to work for it. It's astounding that this concept gets lost on so many people, as if having a normal-sized physique should come naturally to someone who lives a sedentary yet gluttonous lifestyle. Also, to their poin…

If a person wants to maintain some semblance of physical fitness then they are going to have to work for it. It's astounding that this concept gets lost on so many people, as if having a normal-sized physique should come naturally to someone who lives a sedentary yet gluttonous lifestyle.

I am mostly concerned about health, rather than physical fitness.

Really depends on how hard they "tried". If a person is actually determined to maintain a good physique, then yes they have to work at it AND they need to be honest with themselves about how much food (as well as the type of foods) that they consume. If someone gives up after a week of dieting and exercise because they don't see significant results or because it's just too hard for them to maintain then that's entirely on them. If they want to then view themselves as a victim, then that just shows a lack of accountability.

Trust me, I am the first to sign up for accountability and looking over your health. I exercised fairly consistently and lost 30-40 pounds to the point of being almost normal BMI. Just need to lose like 5 more than I'll be happy.

People really do want to get healthy, and they spent prodigious amount of effort, and failed anyway. Maybe it's something wrong with our strategies/approach then it is something's wrong with the victim.

In the end, I don't really think it's an issue of gluttony either. I love food. I still eat a lot when I can, maybe even too much. However, I basically don't drink soda, or even artificially sweet soda, and excluded most sweets thing. Trying to make sure I eat veggies.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#229

Post by maerF0x0 »

kiba wrote: post #206
maerF0x0 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

anecdotally, fasting can help restore this sensitivity. Ever noticed "healthy" foods like say broccoli taste amazing after fasting >= 24 hrs?

Sadly, I haven't been able to ascertain these food as tastier despite fasting for 48 hours or more. They're probably more delicious though.

The key is to not reintroduce competing foods. To pick a cliche thing, if you reintroduce oreos then yeah, the broccoli will pale.

The key is to break the flavor dependence, then to only have healthy foods.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#230

Post by cf100clunk »

lkey wrote: post #179

Every top comment here tries to distill the problem into this or that based on hunches or links to books or blog posts. "It's cities" "It's society" "It's portions" "It's plastics" "It's activity" "It's overeating" "It's contaminates" "It's education" "It's just calories" This is a complex problem, and you are not experts. It could be some or all of those things, but this kind of pet-theory reductivism doesn't get us…

That's about as wet a blanket as you could throw on an HN comment thread. This kind of judgementalism doesn't get us anywhere.
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