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Plastic might be making us obese

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#61

Post by londons_explore »

I doubt that obesity is caused by "hundreds" of chemical pollutants... I suspect it to be more like a handful that cause the most effect.

Since obesity causes millions of deaths annually, solving this warrants a covid-scale response. It should therefore be easy enough to direct a few billion dollars of funding into hundreds of avenues of research to find which those handful of pollutants are, what the main sources of them are, how to remove them, and how the effects of damage already done might be reversed.

I imagine that with a covid-scale response, we could guarantee that nothing new would contain any of the offending chemicals within a year, and perhaps within 5 years we could have replaced every piece of tupperware/insulation foam/whatever already manufactured goods contain it.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#62

Post by Tade0 »

elil17 wrote: post #40
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…

I think saying that physical activity accounts for the differences in weight isn't supported by the evidence. I mean, surely if eating pure honey for half your calories but exercising a bunch led to good health outcomes and lower weight, we'd see people losing weight by exercising without dieting. We don't see that. Similarly, look at their article on obesity in different professions - it does not align with who does…

There's an interesting book supporting this idea:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/603894/burn-by-herm...

Basically measurements of calorie intake and burn rate indicate, that physical activity doesn't appreciably speed up metabolism.

You still should exercise to avoid chronic diseases, but you can't outrun a bad diet.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#63

Post by Ozzie_osman »

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…

It could be both, and might even include other factors as well.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#64

Post by dayvid »

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…

Spend 2 days and write down everything you eat or drink in a spreadsheet with calorie count (including oil and condiments). Use a digital scale if possible for more accurate measurement. The answer will be glaringly obvious.

Most people don’t do this and spend their lives wondering why they can’t control their weight.

Some quick culprits: sodas and juices (huge amount of calories), excess oil in food cooking (oil has a ton of calories), side dishes and snacks (chips, French fries, crackers, etc.).

On the satiety level, if you eat out a lot or processed foods, most have little fiber and aren’t that satiating (e.g. you can eat a whole bag of chips or thing of crackers and want more). Either more fiber or protein.

Really the main solution is to limit eating out if you live in America. I eat out once a day maximum. Otherwise you’ll most likely hit a caloric surplus.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#65

Post by jjallen »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #47
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…

> And if you are looking for a biological mechanism, it might be related to epigenetics Very unlikely as afaik everything non parasitic gets broken down by our saliva and stomach acids.

That's not my understanding, at least in animals. Those who ate younger plants and/or animals lived longer.

Sorry can't find a citation right now.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#66

Post by [deleted] »

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...

[deleted]

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#67

Post by arbitrage »

loopdoend wrote: post #55
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".

No post body was provided.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#68

Post by jjallen »

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…

I'm American living in Europe. There is sugar in every packaged food here too just FYI.

And not just in the country I live in, it's basically everywhere in grocery stores.

So sugar is not the only culprit.

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#69

Post by JTbane »

loopdoend wrote: post #55
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".

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

Re: Plastic might be making us obese

#70

Post by wyre »

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…

I’ve seen it discussed here in the past that when controlling for sugar consumption there isn’t any correlation with obesity and that the causes of the obesity epidemic are more enigmatic than blaming it on sugar.
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