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A Mathematical Challenge to Obesity

nytimes.com

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Re: A Mathematical Challenge to Obesity

#81

Post by dkarl »

lukifer wrote: post #20

Math alone is the wrong tool to solve a problem that is biochemical and behavioral in nature. On an individual level, the fix is straight-forward: eat more "good" fats, and little or no grains and sugars. I have yet to encounter someone who has done this and not seen dramatic results. It's a trickier problem on a broad sociological level, though. The sugar peddlers have an incentive to create and maintain the addicti…

We shouldn't get so worked up about exactly what we eat. When we look around the world, we see that people who eat a modest diet and are physically active every day live long, healthy lives.

If we go back to what we would think of as the dark ages of nutritional knowledge, there were lean, healthy, athletic people back then. And it wasn't just people who ignored all the nutritional dogma of the day, either. The people who swallowed it most conscientiously were lean as well. It seems like so much has changed since then, but has it? Go to the gym today and you'll see a bunch of people who work out, eat paleo, and have low body fat. Thirty years ago they'd still be lean and in great shape, but they'd believe an entirely different dogma about nutrition.

If what we ate was anywhere near as important as how much, then the people who were most disciplined about following the old low-fat, relatively-high-carb diets would have been at a disadvantage compared to people who paid no attention and half-assed it. Or, if the low-fat guys were right, they should have been leaner than the guys who thought milk and eggs were the secret. But consistently, decade after decade, people who are disciplined about diet and exercise are lean and fit no matter what they believe. When people let their discipline slip, most of them end up overweight to some degree. The entire sum of our nutritional knowledge has yet to change that.

Re: A Mathematical Challenge to Obesity

#82

Post by Mz »

codebaobab wrote: post #65
Mz wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really short version: I worked on correcting the extreme acidity my genetic disorder promotes and I consumed a combo of high brine sea salt, coconut oil, glyconutrients and organic yogurt. I did a lot more than that but that is a good place to start, assuming you are hoping to act on the info. Organic yogurt has more varieties of flora than other yogurts and coconut oil does good things for gut flora.

By "extreme acidity" do you mean in your gastrointestinal system or elsewhere? (I've heard people talk about blood-level acidity before.) Was there a test that let you track/monitor acidity as you made changes?

I have a form of cystic fibrosis. It is well established that it makes all the tissues generally more acid but it is not really treated under conventional medicine.

I know of people who tested urine or saliva to monitor ph levels but I did not. I monitored it symptomatically. I could feel when my gut was more acid and it eventually became clear that lung inflammation was directly correlated.

As for blood ph, the body works really hard to keep that within a narrow range. Otherwise, you die. And pretty quickly. The body will strip your bones of calcium to try to keep blood ph stable. If you have an acidity issue, it is best to assume it is systemic rather than localized.

Re: A Mathematical Challenge to Obesity

#83

Post by maneesh »

sliverstorm wrote: post #64
zkirill wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> eat more "good" fats, and little or no grains and sugars. Grains, specifically cereal grains, may serve as a limited dietary source of fiber, essential amino acids, vitamins, and minerals. As with everything, it is best to exercise moderation but I wouldn't recommend fully removing grains from the diet. Refined (table) sugar is a common offender but small dosages of fructose and sucrose from a daily serving of fre…

Oats are a grain, and I've never heard anything but praise for oats, from anyone. Such things as russet potatoes are probably more questionable than oats, for example, as I believe they are almost entirely starch.

I follow the Paleo diet, and oats are not allowed. And potatoes, definitely not.

Re: A Mathematical Challenge to Obesity

#84

Post by stdbrouw »

dkarl wrote: post #81
lukifer wrote: post #20

Math alone is the wrong tool to solve a problem that is biochemical and behavioral in nature. On an individual level, the fix is straight-forward: eat more "good" fats, and little or no grains and sugars. I have yet to encounter someone who has done this and not seen dramatic results. It's a trickier problem on a broad sociological level, though. The sugar peddlers have an incentive to create and maintain the addicti…

We shouldn't get so worked up about exactly what we eat. When we look around the world, we see that people who eat a modest diet and are physically active every day live long, healthy lives. If we go back to what we would think of as the dark ages of nutritional knowledge, there were lean, healthy, athletic people back then. And it wasn't just people who ignored all the nutritional dogma of the day, either. The peopl…

> But consistently, decade after decade, people who are disciplined about diet and exercise are lean and fit no matter what they believe.

Proof?

Re: A Mathematical Challenge to Obesity

#85

Post by ekianjo »

koeselitz wrote: post #57

"Well, what do people do when there is extra food around? They eat it! This, of course, is a tremendously controversial idea. However, the model shows that increase in food more than explains the increase in weight." This doesn't actually follow logically. I know Mr Chow is implying that there's a lot of data that this interview obviously doesn't present, but there are serious problems with this thesis on the face of…

This may not be exactly on subject, but "Well, what do people do when there is extra food around? They eat it!" is something that has been observed in several consumer-focused studies. I do not remember whether it was Pespsi or Coca-Cola, but one of them found that the consumption of their drink would increase significantly when they sold 2L bottles instead of 1.5L ones. When a 2L bottle is bought, consumers would simply drink it just as fast as a 1.5L, which gives credence to the above point. This was a fantastic way to increase their business. This has been observed among several consumer products companies, in different categories: a bigger packaging leads to higher consumption.

It is not too far-fetched to think the same could apply for Food. It's probably best to ask the question to people working for food products companies such as Nestle or Danone, where I expect a number of researches must have been conducted.

Re: A Mathematical Challenge to Obesity

#86

Post by dbecker »

Almaviva wrote: post #2

"An extra 10 calories a day puts more weight onto an obese person than on a thinner one." It needs to be explained how he determined that this isn't related to _why_ they are obese in the first place, i.e. whether these are purely correlational facts. It would be nice if the New York Times wasn't susceptible to elementary statistical fallacies like this but... well this is nutrition after all.

I've only flipped through this so far, which obviously isn't enough to fully grasp the argument. But you can find the researcher's reasoning explained in his slides at : http://sciencehouse.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/aaas122.pdf

Re: A Mathematical Challenge to Obesity

#87

Post by brady747 »

alexandros wrote: post #16
csmeder wrote: post #12

"What caused the obesity epidemic?" "And it’s something very simple, very obvious, something that few want to hear: The epidemic was caused by the overproduction of food in the United States. ...This, of course, is a tremendously controversial idea. However, the model shows that increase in food more than explains the increase in weight." This is analogous to saying: "What caused the increase in car accidents?" "And…

> I would argue the problem isn't the quantity, rather the quality But you didn't, argue. You simply asserted. You threw out the article's theory by constructing a straw-man you didn't even bother tearing down, then proceeded to inform us of your views.

You are right, but he didn't say he was arguing in his comment, he said he would. :)

Re: A Mathematical Challenge to Obesity

#88

Post by brady747 »

koeselitz wrote: post #57

"Well, what do people do when there is extra food around? They eat it! This, of course, is a tremendously controversial idea. However, the model shows that increase in food more than explains the increase in weight." This doesn't actually follow logically. I know Mr Chow is implying that there's a lot of data that this interview obviously doesn't present, but there are serious problems with this thesis on the face of…

I think the more interesting theory (Gary Taubes's I believe) is that most of us have the causation backwards. People are eating 'all this food we have' because they are obese, not that their obesity is caused because they ate all that food.

Re: A Mathematical Challenge to Obesity

#89

Post by jrockway »

derleth wrote: post #63
nazgulnarsil wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wtf guys obviously if you didn't drink a lot of this stuff before then losing it will have a correspondingly small effect. Calories in calories out.

> Calories in calories out. Every time someone says that, the people with a hobby-horse to ride come out and beat on the person for a bit. Especially if they imply that honey (no, sorry, the correct term now is HFCS) isn't the Devil's own temptation sent to corrupt and impurify our precious bodily fluids.

Indeed. The reason why I don't like HFCS is because its presence in a product says, "to make our profit margin as large as possible, we used a bunch of artifical ingredients that are slightly cheaper than the real things. that's just how much we care about you, the consumer." Have you ever heard anyone say, "we use HFCS because it tastes better than cane sugar?" Nope. So why use it?

Re: A Mathematical Challenge to Obesity

#90

Post by [deleted] »

Drbble wrote: post #80
its_so_on wrote: post #23

I disagree with the article, and don't believe mathematics has the answer to obesity. However, if someone would like to start a diet-centered startup with me, I believe I have an insight that invalidates every diet book on the planet. Every diet book on the planet makes one very false assumption. Before we get to the assumption, let's review something uncontroversial: - You put on fat by eating more calories than you…

You aren't wrong, but you could cut 70% of the words from your post without losing the point. Trim the fat.

[deleted]
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