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Calorie Counting App Has No Effect on Mental Health or Health Behaviors

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Re: Calorie Counting App Has No Effect on Mental Health or Health Behaviors

#61

Post by justsomehnguy »

adrianN wrote: post #60
ericmcer wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire point of bread is turning wheat seeds into a digestible food. Part of that is milling, part is baking, and a big part is the fermenting and the long natural yeast rise. Mass produced bread never does this long natural yeast rise. Cheap versions use all kinds of chemicals to get the texture right, even the high quality variants use rapid rising yeast because natural yeast is way too slow. Only in a local ba…

I usually buy sourdough rye bread in the supermarket because that's the cheapest form of bread and I like it. It contains no "chemicals" that the legislator deemed necessary for inclusion in the ingredient list, save some sodium acetate as pH regulator and preservative. Sure, the artisanal bread at my local bakery is tastier, but it also costs about ten times as much. To my knowledge yeast doesn't touch gluten at all…

> I really doubt that there are measurable health benefits of artisanal bread. Do you have any studies to back up that claim?

There are clear health benefits of artisanal foods: they costs more, you buy less (for the same weight), you get less calories - you aren't obese.

/s

Re: Calorie Counting App Has No Effect on Mental Health or Health Behaviors

#62

Post by spdionis »

halpert wrote: post #42
jader201 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or even throwing up after every time you eat if that’s a choice you make I think that’s a misleading statement to make. While this could be theoretically true, I imagine, in practice, no one would choose to throw up after every meal without having a disorder.

Sure, but the point is that if you choose to do it, then your behavior is not a disorder, it's just a weird choice that you're making. Just like drinking heavily doesn't automatically make you an alcoholic.

I think the line of "choice" here gets blurred, which is exactly what disorder refers to in the usual context.

Re: Calorie Counting App Has No Effect on Mental Health or Health Behaviors

#63

Post by knaik94 »

russdill wrote: post #51
knaik94 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moderation in eating isn't equivalent to a minor eating disorder. I agree though that some behavior you need to do today might have been seen as symptoms of a type of disordered eating in the past. But by definition, if it's keeping you healthy, it mostly shouldn't be considered disordered. I know in the past cutting up food into very small pieces was seen as a symptom of disordered eating because the thought was tha…

Really wish there was a polite and socially acceptable way to ask for a reasonable portion.

It's both fortunate and unfortunate that I come from a culture with rich delicious food and implicit pressure from elders to never deny an extra serving or leave food on the plate. It's hard saying no to a loving aunt or grandma. And most celebrations are marked by giving deserts and sweets.

Re: Calorie Counting App Has No Effect on Mental Health or Health Behaviors

#64

Post by KptMarchewa »

throw__away7391 wrote: post #33
armchairhacker wrote: post #15

This may be a hot take, but I think the obesity crisis and that most people are overweight actually increases the prevalence of eating disorders. People don't know what a genuinely healthy body and diet/fitness regimen look like, and thinness (even extreme, unhealthy thinness) is popularized and praised as a sign of beauty and willpower because so many people are trying to lose weight and so few are trying to gain.

In my whole life I've known like two people with eating disorders (the not eating enough kind). Almost every single other person aside from those two eat too much, and I'd say mostly they eat way, way too much. Now, those two people definitely had a problem, but knowing them it was one I knew couldn't begin to understand, and I can't imagine that any of the pithy things people say all they time to express concern abo…

As formerly obese person, I can't imagine anyone obese that doesn't know that they ate way too much. You'd have to have astrology nut delusion to not know that. There's no point in stating the obvious.

Re: Calorie Counting App Has No Effect on Mental Health or Health Behaviors

#65

Post by netizen-936824 »

smegsicle wrote: post #34
joe-collins wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass production isn't inherently bad, and you're explicitly making an appeal to nature of questionable worth. There's plenty to find fault with in the modern food industry: toxic or carcinogenic pesticides, antibiotic-resistant pathogens created by human abuse, contamination of water supplies and oceans with runoff, the role of government in creating various health crises by subsidizing high-carb/high-glycemic index…

> Mass production isn't inherently bad Mass production is inherently corner-cutting, and, given that nutrition is an unsolved problem, natural is inherently wholesome in a way that artificial can, at best, only attempt to duplicate.

No, profit maximization is inherently corner-cutting

Re: Calorie Counting App Has No Effect on Mental Health or Health Behaviors

#66

Post by Mumps »

ericmcer wrote: post #19

I feel like you almost need some kind of eating disorder these days. Our Bread, milk, meat is all unnatural and mass produced, there is a massive amount of sugar in everything. If you aren’t actively monitoring your food intake and making deliberate decisions to not eat your gonna be unhealthy. I like the quote: “keep whatever addictions kill you the slowest”. I think a minor eating disorder is preferable to eating 1…

> Our Bread, milk, meat is all unnatural

Please avoid this emotional appeal. All things are natural. What would be unnatural? Ectoplasm? Sorcery?

> there is a massive amount of sugar in everything

Not everything. This even lead to a somewhat humourous case against Subway's bread [0].

Other commenters have pointed out how flawed your mass production statement is as well, so I won't reheash.

* [0] https://www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/subwa...

Re: Calorie Counting App Has No Effect on Mental Health or Health Behaviors

#67

Post by vurpo »

ericmcer wrote: post #57
adrianN wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany we mass produce bread that essentially contains exactly the same things I'd put in it if I made it myself.

The entire point of bread is turning wheat seeds into a digestible food. Part of that is milling, part is baking, and a big part is the fermenting and the long natural yeast rise. Mass produced bread never does this long natural yeast rise. Cheap versions use all kinds of chemicals to get the texture right, even the high quality variants use rapid rising yeast because natural yeast is way too slow. Only in a local ba…

Mass produced bread can be produced like that. There's nothing about the concept of mass production that forbids products from taking a long time to produce.

Maybe in the US, nobody mass produces bread like that.

Re: Calorie Counting App Has No Effect on Mental Health or Health Behaviors

#68

Post by Bancakes »

joe-collins wrote: post #28
ericmcer wrote: post #19

I feel like you almost need some kind of eating disorder these days. Our Bread, milk, meat is all unnatural and mass produced, there is a massive amount of sugar in everything. If you aren’t actively monitoring your food intake and making deliberate decisions to not eat your gonna be unhealthy. I like the quote: “keep whatever addictions kill you the slowest”. I think a minor eating disorder is preferable to eating 1…

Mass production isn't inherently bad, and you're explicitly making an appeal to nature of questionable worth. There's plenty to find fault with in the modern food industry: toxic or carcinogenic pesticides, antibiotic-resistant pathogens created by human abuse, contamination of water supplies and oceans with runoff, the role of government in creating various health crises by subsidizing high-carb/high-glycemic index…

It does, white rice and white flour - for instance - don't exist. We're supposed to eat the whole grain with all the micronutrients. Industrialisation removed them for no reason, and enabled never-before-eaten substances like trans fats, and tablespoons of polyunsaturated fats (seed/vegetable oils). Then refined sugars come along, too.

So yes, you are not evolved to eat these substances. You do not need them. You can survive perfectly without them.

Re: Calorie Counting App Has No Effect on Mental Health or Health Behaviors

#69

Post by DanBC »

bluecalm wrote: post #43

Why would it? Most people eat too much or way too much. Eating disorders resulting in eating too little are rare in comparison and they stem from well known mental issues. Like, I don't even know how you could come up with a hypothesis that counting calories increases risk of eating disorder. The argument that most anorectic people count calories so there is correlation doesn't even work because most obese people don…

> Like, I don't even know how you could come up with a hypothesis that counting calories increases risk of eating disorder.

You've said that the weight loss is caused by the mental illness. You're ignoring all the research showing that weight loss that precedes mental illness can then cause that mental illness.

The causation is complex, certainly more complex than your post suggests, and is self-reinforcing.

This is why re-feeding is a core part of treatment for people with anorexia.

Re: Calorie Counting App Has No Effect on Mental Health or Health Behaviors

#70

Post by derbOac »

jasonhansel wrote: post #31

Note that this is calorie counting (i.e. just tracking calories consumed), not calorie restriction (trying to consume fewer calories). The study population was mostly normal weight (average BMI of 23.1). You can read the full study here: https://sci-hub.se/uptodate/S2212267221007346.pdf edit: Also: an interesting fact. 1 member of the (100-person) intervention group dropped out of the study because the app "made them…

Theres a really persistent lay theory that calorie counting, weighing yourself, etc. in itself causes eating disorder.

I think its used defensively to avoid health behaviors but thats a different issue.

I think this persistent popular idea is what this paper was trying to address.

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