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Plastic might be making us obese

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#51

Post by refurb »

elil17 wrote: post #9
Havoc wrote: post #4

Well that plus the cheeseburger

Just saying "cheeseburgers" or "calories in, calories out" fails to explain why people eat more calories now than they did before. There is a vague, and I think very unhelpful, sense in society today that this is some sort of mass moral failing. In reality there are a few factors that could, alone or in combination, explain this change in average behavior. The most convincing to me: chemicals could be messing with ou…

I lived in SE Asia for a while. Obesity is almost non-existent, though rapidly increasing for children.

I tried to figure out why. Was it lifestyle? More manual labor? No, even office workers weren't obese. Running was viewed as some weird western habit. Few people went to the gym. Most just went for walks for exercise.

Was it diet? Maybe. But plenty of local foods weren't exactly healthy. Mostly processed carbs. Lots of salt. Plenty of deep fried foods.

Then after eating like a local for a while I realized it. Portion size. I'd say the average meal is maybe half the portion size you'd get in the US. I'd go out to eat at a restaurant and think "I'm not that hungry", then order something anyways. But it was never a lot of food. Very common for people to have a soup dish for lunch - maybe a few strips of meat, an egg, a handful of noodles and ton of vegetables. Add it all up and it's not many calories.

It looked to me like people weren't obese because they ate less. But that was the societal norm. Sure people would gorge themselves at special events like weddings or fancy dinners out. But most of the time they were eating meals of maybe 400-500 calories each.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#52

Post by vallassy »

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 bread. It seems like sugar is the elephant in the room that the mainstream doesn't want to talk about.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#53

Post by minton »

ianai wrote: post #32
oneoff786 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this to be a pretty lame analysis. > People in the 1800s did have diets that were very different from ours. But by conventional wisdom, their diets were worse, not better. They ate more bread and almost four times more butter than we do today. They also consumed more cream, milk, and lard. This seems closely related to observations like the French Paradox — the French eat a lot of fatty cheese and butter, so w…

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...

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#54

Post by johnatwork »

mellavora wrote: post #46

So something else I wonder. Over the last 50-90 years we've selectively bred our entire food chain to prioritize rapid growth, then pack it full of growth hormones to accelerate this. My dad decided to raise chickens back in the 80's. The broiler hens grew so fast that they broke their legs, and this was when fed on our kitchen waste (i.e. no growth hormones). I do wonder how much of this spills over into human obesi…

I've been wondering about this too.

I'm not well versed in the domain to say one thing or another so I will wait to form a concrete opinion before I hear from an expert in the field. I am very curious though like you, if there's a relation between the two.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#55

Post by loopdoend »

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…

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

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#58

Post by adrian_b »

elil17 wrote: post #9
Havoc wrote: post #4

Well that plus the cheeseburger

Just saying "cheeseburgers" or "calories in, calories out" fails to explain why people eat more calories now than they did before. There is a vague, and I think very unhelpful, sense in society today that this is some sort of mass moral failing. In reality there are a few factors that could, alone or in combination, explain this change in average behavior. The most convincing to me: chemicals could be messing with ou…

As an anecdotal experience, I have stopped eating any kind of commercial bread many years ago, despite the fact that I like bread.

The reason was that I could not become satiated when eating commercial bread, before eating huge quantities, which filled me up. It is much easier for me to not start eating something than to stop after beginning to eat, so I gave up completely on eating bread.

Nevertheless, I have started this year to make at home a bread every day when I wake up, which I eat at breakfast. Unlike commercial bread, this home-made bread satiates me completely without eating too much of it, and until late in the evening, when I usually have my 2nd daily meal.

This was unexpected and I am wondering about the cause. One possible reason is because this home-made bread is more protein-rich than commercial bread, because before baking I wash the dough for a few minutes, to remove a part of the starch.

There is also the possibility that it might matter that this is pure bread, made of flour and water without anything else added, unlike the commercial bread, which includes a huge list of additives. I believe that the additives may also have an influence because, as far as I remember, with the bread eaten when I was a child I did not have the same problem of lack of satiety like with the modern commercial bread.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#59

Post by psychphysic »

sithadmin wrote: post #43
psychphysic wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Within the UK they remain restricted too. However, more and more at target populations i.e. obesity + diabetes/obesity related secondary condition or even at risk for diabetes i.e. ethnicity based. Are being offered these treatments. It really will be a new age for obese patients. The first and exercise tactic is a lost battle, ideally we'd be bringing up a generation that can manage their weight but we've failed at…

As a non-diabetic (though demonstrably insulin resistant and leptin resistant), I've found metformin's gastro side effects and impact on blood glucose levels to be annoyingly unpredictable. Metformin also causes a noticeable drop in testosterone that can be especially counterproductive for men if weight loss/maintenance is a goal and one already has relatively low baseline testosterone levels.

Definitely heard that the gastro side effects are unacceptable to many and can even impact social life.

I'd heard a bit about the testosterone, i.e. that you don't get the testosterone rise associated with successful management for diabetes. And perhaps Metformin short circuits that. Also that it might correlate with the life expectancy improvement and it does make sense since Metformin is also used for PCOS with wide ranging benefits not limited to insulin resistance but actually reducing androgenic effects of the condition.

Do you think you'll continue with Metformin? I've genuinely was close to starting on it some years back (despite having no (pre) diabetes.).

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#60

Post by TheCoelacanth »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #16
elil17 wrote: post #9

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. There is a vague, and I think very unhelpful, sense in society today that this is some sort of mass moral failing. In reality there are a few factors that could, alone or in combination, explain this change in average behavior. The most convincing to me: chemicals could be messing with ou…

> fails to explain why people eat more calories now than they did before Wouldn't this also intuitively be related to the fact that a calorie today is much, much "cheaper" (in terms of labor required to acquire the calorie for both the producer and the consumer) than a calorie was even 100 years ago due to advancements in agriculture and distribution?

Possibly, but intuition is often wrong. We need actual research to prove or disprove that hypothesis.
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