Plastic might be making us obese • Hacker News Board

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#111

Post by mfer » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

Our food chain has a lot to do with obesity. There are many studies on this stuff.

We eat 5 times as much meat on average as people did 100 years go. Animal based products are a major source of fat. People used to eat more fruits and vegetables. The fat type has shifted with more fat (which has higher calorie per gram amounts than carbs or protein) and fat moving from polyunsaturated fats to saturated fats (which causes lots of medical problems).

In there is the growth hormone. Kids "mature" physically at younger ages now than they used to. Kids to stop stop dairy or a lot of mean may physically mature at the older slower pace.

Eating less fruits, vegetables, and whole grains means less fiber. Most people (in the US anyway) are deficient in fiber. Fiber traps certain fats and cholesterols so they aren't absorbed. So, we absorb more fats.

Then there are processed foods.

So much about our diets have changed in the last 100 years. A lot is known and we even know how to eat to be really healthy. It's just not widely known by the general public.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#112

Post by tstrimple » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

fortran77 wrote: post #98

I'm very skeptical. I think there are some things that may make us "feel hungrier" but there's nothing changing our metabolism. If we are to believe this, it would mean that "plastic" is making our bodies so much more efficient that there's extra energy that's being stored as fat. I like to keep my weight exactly at 155# (as a 5'10 59 year old man). Once a year, I "bulk" and go up to 160 while doing more strenuous we…

> but there's nothing changing our metabolism.

Why would you be so confident when we know for a fact that hormone imbalances can absolutely impact our metabolism. Including signaling to your body to produce and store more fat than it normally would. Cortisol the hormone produced in stress responses is shown to do exactly that. Using yourself as an anecdote isn't useful in anyway.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#113

Post by davidn20 » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #102

davidn20 wrote: post #88

Yes, plastic MIGHT be making us obese. But, we definitely know high caloric intake and sedentary lifestyle makes us obese. I don't understand why obesity is such a mystery. People are creatures of path of the least resistance. Developed countries have highly dense caloric food and people are inactive most of the day due to cars and office jobs.

"Developed countries" don't have 40% of high school students clinically obese. Only the US does.

Yes, it's bad in the US, but obesity is rising worldwide. Obesity, in general, correlates with GDP per capital.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#114

Post by Broken_Hippo » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

VyseofArcadia wrote: post #92

vallassy wrote: post #52

Is it the plastic though, or is it the sugar? Over my last few years of reading, I've convinced myself that sugar is the main culprit in massive obesity in Western countries, especially the US (i.e. high fructose corn syrup). Sugar is in everything (like plastic, I suppose). Look at the ingredients of what you buy and you'll be surprised where it turns up. Peanut butter, mayonnaise, beef jerky, even bog standard brea…

> even bog standard bread Yes, we definitely have too much sugar in everything, but as an amateur baker I will defend sugar in bread. Sure, you don't need it in a baguette or a rustic boule, but it is indispensable for a nice, soft sandwich loaf. It's not there to make the bread sweeter. It makes the bread softer, it boosts the yeast for a nicer rise, and it keeps it from going stale as quickly. Granted, I don't use…

I'll add to this: A lot of home cooks were taught to add a bit of sugar to the bread to help the yeast. I used to mix yeast, water, and a bit of sugar together to get the yeast started. I mostly did this because I learned to make bread before the internet, and this was common in instructions that I could access.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#115

Post by bombcar » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

elil17 wrote: post #48

slothtrop wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just saying "cheeseburgers" or "calories in, calories out" fails to explain why people eat more calories now than they did before. Junk foods at high-availability, low cost, offering low-to-zero satiety per-calorie, and habit-forming addictive potential. The answer is pretty much in your sentence. Add to the fact, eating well on a budget requires you to prepare food at home. Lots of pressures funnel people to obesi…

Sure, I think that's a very plausible explanation. It also points to specific, testable policy changes. For example, a government could build a low cost (subsidized), healthy competitor to fast food. Alternatively, a government could implement a comprehensive "sin tax" scheme on "low quality" calories coupled with expanded food stamps (to ensure the poorest people can afford healthy alternatives). Governments could e…

I've often thought that government-run "soup kitchens" providing basic nutritional food in small portions should be everywhere - no requirements to eat there, if Bill Gates and Buffet want to have lunch at the free soup kitchen who cares.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#116

Post by pc86 » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #36

pc86 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are fast food portions actually larger? I remember getting super sized combos when I was a kid (maybe even in HS, I forget when they got rid of them) but they're gone now, and on the rare occasion I get fast food the portions seem reasonable.

Drink sizes are WAY bigger. I remember small fries used to come in a little white paper sleeve. In the US, I haven’t seen those in years. That said, this 2011 study from Cambridge University says portion sizes have not grown significantly. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/proceedings-of-the-n...

I received one of those paper sleeves the last time I went through a drive through maybe 4 or 5 weeks ago, but that's not to say the sleeve itself didn't get larger.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#117

Post by Broken_Hippo » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

arbitrage wrote: post #67

loopdoend wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sugar and seed oils (vegetable oils). Practically impossible to avoid especially in "food deserts".

Quoted post unavailable.

Yeah. It's not difficult.

Unless you are poor, that is.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#118

Post by FollowingTheDao » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

JTbane wrote: post #69

loopdoend wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sugar and seed oils (vegetable oils). Practically impossible to avoid especially in "food deserts".

I've seen a lot of broscience that says "seed oils and PUFAs are bad". Is there actual evidence for this?

Yes, broscience exaggerated the point, but they are not far from correct.

It depends on genetics and the amount and type of PUFA consumed. The Fatty Acid Destaurase genes will dictate how bad short chain PUFA's (Seed oil's) are for a person. These people should stick to fatty fish.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00260...

Omega 6 PUFAs are more inflammatory than long chain PUFA's.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7990530/

It just so happens that most seed oils contain tremendous amounts of Short Chain Omega 6 fatty acids.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#119

Post by ianai » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

minton wrote: post #53

ianai wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those diets also didn't have added sugars and salts to everything. It's serious work requiring reading all the nutrition labels to get groceries sans questionable additives in the US.

I found the Yuka app makes this much easier. Just scan the UPC and it’ll show you a x/100 score. I use it for nearly everything. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/yuka-food-cosmetic-scanner/id1...

Thank you! I’ve installed it and will try it out soon. Looks good.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#120

Post by bombcar » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 2:36 PM UTC

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #36

pc86 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are fast food portions actually larger? I remember getting super sized combos when I was a kid (maybe even in HS, I forget when they got rid of them) but they're gone now, and on the rare occasion I get fast food the portions seem reasonable.

Drink sizes are WAY bigger. I remember small fries used to come in a little white paper sleeve. In the US, I haven’t seen those in years. That said, this 2011 study from Cambridge University says portion sizes have not grown significantly. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/proceedings-of-the-n...

The "cost to supersize" seems to me (but I have no proof, maybe I have more money now) to have gone down relative to the meal cost, so it's more and more of a "no brainer" upgrade.

Maybe if they were required to price it backwards, where the meal costs $x and you can get a ten percent discount if you order small, that would "trick" people into eating less.