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More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

diabetes.co.uk

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Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

#181

Post by vecter »

syshum wrote: post #78
vecter wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s all diet. I visited Nashville a couple of years ago and everything on the menu was fried or just terrible for you. Most of weight is diet. Exercise helps a tiny amount but is more for your cardiovascular health and strength. Running for an hour burns far fewer calories than half of a muffin.

I agree it is diet, I disagree that it "fried foods" that are the source High Fructose based drinks like Soda, Mass produced Tea's, etc combined with decades of government "education" around the high carb diet is the main source of the Mid Wests Obesity problem When you are drinking 1500-2000 calories a day, and eating mainly pasta / potato heavy meals that is going to kill your weight. Fried Chicken is not the probl…

That's a good callout. The prevalence of sugar in the American diet is pretty insane.

Fried food doesn't help either ...

Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

#182

Post by falcolas »

I mean, duh?

Eating makes you feel good. It releases all kinds of feel-good chemicals in your body, and it just feels good to be, if not full, satiated. It's an activity chock-full of positive reinforcements.

Exercise, in contrast, is filled with various forms of pain (short and long term) and lots of tedium. If you're lucky, you get an endorphin rush to help offset these, but not everybody (and not every exercise regimen) provides these. It's an activity with lots of built-in negative reinforcements.

And dieting? Dieting is constantly saying "No" to the positive feelings associated with eating. A piece of Christmas fudge? No. A side of fries with your hamburger? No. A full rack of sauced BBQ ribs? No. Creamy dressing for your salad? No. Seconds? A whole lot of No.

It takes a lot of willpower and a long term goal to maintain a certain body shape to consistently - over the course of your entire lifetime - exercise more and eat less. And any mistake, any injury or illness which pushes you into obesity, and you're having to go even further into the "this doesn't make me feel good" category.

Throw in a continuing shift towards jobs which don’t burn thousands of calories every day (e.g. forced exercise, overhead for increased caloric intake), and the availability of cheap meals with lots of calories, and boom. Obesity.

Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

#183

Post by grecy »

falcolas wrote: post #182

I mean, duh? Eating makes you feel good. It releases all kinds of feel-good chemicals in your body, and it just feels good to be, if not full, satiated. It's an activity chock-full of positive reinforcements. Exercise, in contrast, is filled with various forms of pain (short and long term) and lots of tedium. If you're lucky, you get an endorphin rush to help offset these, but not everybody (and not every exercise re…

Everything you said it true, but why isn't it such a big percentage in other developed countries?

Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

#184

Post by bpodgursky »

rsynnott wrote: post #171
bpodgursky wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you on about? You can get a perfectly health meal at subway for $5. Just get a turkey club with vegetables or whatever. If you think Subway is garbage food, the problem is not Subway, the problem is that you're a rich food snob.

A couple of months ago, the Irish Supreme Court ruled that Subway's 'bread' wasn't bread (the reason this went to court was that it's important for setting a VAT rate), due to containing too much added sugar. In Ireland (and, as far as I know, most places in Europe) it would not be normal for bread to contain added sugar _at all_. So, yeah, a sandwich made with what is legally cake seems fairly garbage (though, I do…

It has like 3-5 grams of sugar in a loaf. A Coke is 60. Somehow, I think you will survive. And if you don't like it, get a wrap instead.

It's bread. Would I get it without sugar? Sure. Is it a real problem? No.

Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

#185

Post by bpodgursky »

jessaustin wrote: post #172
bpodgursky wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you on about? You can get a perfectly health meal at subway for $5. Just get a turkey club with vegetables or whatever. If you think Subway is garbage food, the problem is not Subway, the problem is that you're a rich food snob.

A) Subway is not garbage, but it's neither good nor good for you. If you get rid of the loaves of sugar and nitrites, you're left with a small amount of salad, which shouldn't cost $5. B) I typically bring my lunch from home, and that costs less than $5. [EDIT:] It's not too late to edit out the baseless "rich snob" accusation... you're calling me "rich" and you regularly waste $5 on terrible unethical food.

You're dismissing perfectly reasonable and macronutritionally balanced food as "loaves of sugar and nitrites" (I guess you don't like meat either?). See above, the 3-5g sugar content is meaningless.

You should consider that you might be a food snob.

Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

#186

Post by grecy »

war1025 wrote: post #113

A thing I wondered over the weekend: Is there a correlation between frequency of bowel movements and BMI? I read a book about pigs a couple years ago. It mentioned that once of the main differences between breeds of pigs that are high fat and those that are more lean is intestine length. Basically, the longer food is in your guts, the more energy gets extracted from it. My hypothesis would be that for an obese person…

Huh, I might have to look into that.

I've always had a "high metabolism" in that I can eat enormous quantities of food (and calories) and still struggle to put on weight. If I don't lift weights often I lose weight until people comment on how skinny I am.

I get the shakes and feel horrible if I skip a single meal, or if I don't constantly consume food - doubly so when working out.

I also use the bathroom often, certainly every day.

Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

#187

Post by titanomachy »

ekianjo wrote: post #105
titanomachy wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> running for an hour burns far fewer calories than in half a muffin As a guy who runs pretty hard and weighs over 200 lbs, I burn nearly 1000 calories in an hour of running (~11km distance). I've tried a few different models to estimate this and they all more or less agree. A lightweight person jogging at low intensity for an hour, maybe .

> I burn nearly 1000 calories in an hour of running (~12km distance). You get a lot more calories than you can physically burn in one day. A donut can be something like 500 kcal. Skipping on snacks is more much effective than exercising no matter how you look at it.

> you get a lot more calories than you can physically burn in one day.

I don't know if I do, since my weight has been pretty constant for a few years. But I'm sure some people do. Are most people in a state of constantly increasing weight?

Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

#188

Post by falcolas »

grecy wrote: post #183
falcolas wrote: post #182

I mean, duh? Eating makes you feel good. It releases all kinds of feel-good chemicals in your body, and it just feels good to be, if not full, satiated. It's an activity chock-full of positive reinforcements. Exercise, in contrast, is filled with various forms of pain (short and long term) and lots of tedium. If you're lucky, you get an endorphin rush to help offset these, but not everybody (and not every exercise re…

Everything you said it true, but why isn't it such a big percentage in other developed countries?

As pointed out by others, this is happening in other developed countries as well, it’s just lagging behind the US.

Personally, I largely blame our learned culture of referencing “children in Africa”. Want to fuck up a child’s eating patterns for life? Force them to clean their plate.

Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

#189

Post by titanomachy »

Sodman wrote: post #164
titanomachy wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> running for an hour burns far fewer calories than in half a muffin As a guy who runs pretty hard and weighs over 200 lbs, I burn nearly 1000 calories in an hour of running (~11km distance). I've tried a few different models to estimate this and they all more or less agree. A lightweight person jogging at low intensity for an hour, maybe .

Exercise is certainly helpful once you start getting close to your ideal caloric intake. If at rest you'd burn ~2000 cal/day, and you're consuming ~2300 cal/day, then exercising for one hour, three days a week can certainly make a difference. Most people that are actually overweight though, have a much higher surplus in their caloric intake. Strenuous exercise like running over 10km isn't possible for many of these f…

Yeah, eating less is probably the most important thing for people who want to lose weight. Not going to dispute that.

Just wanted to address the exaggeration/overgeneralization in GP comment.

Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

#190

Post by rsynnott »

bpodgursky wrote: post #184
rsynnott wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of months ago, the Irish Supreme Court ruled that Subway's 'bread' wasn't bread (the reason this went to court was that it's important for setting a VAT rate), due to containing too much added sugar. In Ireland (and, as far as I know, most places in Europe) it would not be normal for bread to contain added sugar _at all_. So, yeah, a sandwich made with what is legally cake seems fairly garbage (though, I do…

It has like 3-5 grams of sugar in a loaf. A Coke is 60. Somehow, I think you will survive. And if you don't like it, get a wrap instead. It's bread. Would I get it without sugar? Sure. Is it a real problem? No.

It all adds up. Okay, to acknowledge my biases, I’m coming at this from a cultural perspective of being vaguely disgusted by sugary bread, but... why is it there? It contributes to a general saturation of sugar in American food.
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