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Plastic might be making us obese

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#261

Post by DiabloD3 »

I don't know why they're still grasping at straws. We know why we're fat, the science has already been concluded, and a dozen papers get published every year continuing to hammer nails in a coffin we already buried: diets low in salt and/or low in saturated fat and/or high in oxidized unsaturated fats and/or high in carbohydrates and otherwise devoid of nutrition case weight gain, and the Standard American Diet prides itself on being all four.

Washington Post doesn't publish stories about those papers.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#262

Post by causality0 »

kccqzy wrote: post #210

If a factor can't explain why non-Hispanic Asians have much lower prevalence of obesity than any other race, I tend not to trust it. Are Asians simply using less plastic than other races? Look at the chart: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db288.pdf The chart is simply striking. We should all be investigating what are the Asians doing right that all of us should learn from.

Exactly. Lack of obesity in Asians, like good grades, is only a mystery to people who didn't grow up with Asian friends. It's behavior. More specifically it's discipline, both personal and familial. For an Asian kid, drifting out of line often means getting insulted and humiliated at home. I'm not saying it's worth it, but someone who gets shamed for ordering extra fries tends not to grow up to eat fast food five times a week.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#263

Post by Tao3300 »

tdehnel wrote: post #216

This has got to be the most idiotic, speculative comment section of the year. Literally not a single coherent explanation of how plastics might actually cause obesity, and a bunch of people going on about sugar and hormones.

> Literally not a single coherent explanation of how plastics might actually cause obesity

I don't think the onus for that is on the commentariat here. Rather it's on the Washington Post article to bridge these studies of mouse adipose tissue to human health outcomes. It doesn't do that very well, so you're going to see some decrying of potential alarmism and alternative explanations.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#264

Post by spywaregorilla »

elil17 wrote: post #177
oneoff786 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing a tough 1 hour exercise is not the same as being on your feet all day. You may be able to offset doing nothing all day with a burst of effort. You may not. People who are moving constantly are very rarely fat. I cannot find their article on professions. I’d be very skeptical. In general being poor in America means a terrible diet is likely so that’s a huge part of the equation. It seems very unlikely that expos…

Why then, for example, are cleaning services workers, mechanics, and health workers all more obese than average? Those are jobs where you are much more active than an office worker. Those are all cases where someone gets exposed to chemicals (cleaning chemicals, lithium grease, and PFAS-based medical fabrics). In fact, healthcare support workers are more obese than healthcare technicians, even though technicians are…

The number one most obese job is a truck driver. Your hypothesis is that chemicals cause obesity. You cite cleaning services workers as receiving substantially more chemicals due to their work than the average person. Why then, are truckers more obese? If this is the primary factor causing obesity, and these people are receiving substantially more exposure than everyone else, why aren't they substantially the fattest group?

Also fwiw, the idea that healthcare support workers are supposed to represent the largest exposure to PFAS because they're handling garments is ridiculous. I doubt healthcare support workers are even in the top 10% of actual exposure levels.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#265

Post by less_less »

Melatonic wrote: post #260
kccqzy wrote: post #210

If a factor can't explain why non-Hispanic Asians have much lower prevalence of obesity than any other race, I tend not to trust it. Are Asians simply using less plastic than other races? Look at the chart: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db288.pdf The chart is simply striking. We should all be investigating what are the Asians doing right that all of us should learn from.

I would say food - most asian people I know (even ones that eat a pretty western diet) still randomly incorporate a lot of things that are Real Foods or processed type foods that are close to Real Foods. They also eat a lot (generally) more mushrooms and fermented food (and great variety of fermented food - not just yeast based stuff like yogurt). Does it really make sense that Western diets basically just ignore a w…

> They also eat a lot (generally) more mushrooms and fermented food (and great variety of fermented food - not just yeast based stuff like yogurt).

Not that this detracts from the rest of your point at all, but yogurt is fermented by bacteria. There are milk drinks that are fermented by SCOBY though, like kefir.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#266

Post by klipt »

Melatonic wrote: post #260
kccqzy wrote: post #210

If a factor can't explain why non-Hispanic Asians have much lower prevalence of obesity than any other race, I tend not to trust it. Are Asians simply using less plastic than other races? Look at the chart: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db288.pdf The chart is simply striking. We should all be investigating what are the Asians doing right that all of us should learn from.

I would say food - most asian people I know (even ones that eat a pretty western diet) still randomly incorporate a lot of things that are Real Foods or processed type foods that are close to Real Foods. They also eat a lot (generally) more mushrooms and fermented food (and great variety of fermented food - not just yeast based stuff like yogurt). Does it really make sense that Western diets basically just ignore a w…

Yeast is a fungus? So if you eat bread or drink wine/beer you're probably consuming some amount of fungus that way.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#267

Post by pjdesno »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #261

I don't know why they're still grasping at straws. We know why we're fat, the science has already been concluded, and a dozen papers get published every year continuing to hammer nails in a coffin we already buried: diets low in salt and/or low in saturated fat and/or high in oxidized unsaturated fats and/or high in carbohydrates and otherwise devoid of nutrition case weight gain, and the Standard American Diet pride…

"A significant rise in obesity incidence has even been noted in laboratory rodents and primates – animals raised under strictly controlled conditions of caloric intake and exercise. The only possible factors driving weight gain for these animals, researchers believe, would be subtle chemical changes in the nature of the foods they eat, or in the materials used to build their pens."

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#268

Post by Melatonic »

moistly wrote: post #218

Overlooked throughout this discussion, afaict, is an explanation as to why animals are also getting fatter. > The problem of obesity isn't confined to just humans. A new study finds increased rates of obesity in mammals ranging from feral rats and mice to domestic pets and laboratory primates. https://www.livescience.com/10277-obesity-rise-animals.html

This is certainly an interesting one if true

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#269

Post by noja »

kccqzy wrote: post #210

If a factor can't explain why non-Hispanic Asians have much lower prevalence of obesity than any other race, I tend not to trust it. Are Asians simply using less plastic than other races? Look at the chart: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db288.pdf The chart is simply striking. We should all be investigating what are the Asians doing right that all of us should learn from.

Why does the Mediterranean diet work so well? Because of the socialized healthcare.

(in other words: "it's not the diet dummy", just like it's not the plastic)

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