The Obesity Epidemic: What Can Be Done to Stop It?

[Proton Soup]

Please post the study that shows corn is the reason that chicken contains more fat and not a change in breeding.

The only thing I could even remotely find is this article, which at the end is disputed.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article376661.ece

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/" shows 0.790g sat fat per 100g for "Chicken, broilers or fryers, meat only, raw"

i wouldn't doubt feeding affects the fat profile, but it's still not much fat (and even less sat fat), and even less if you eat breast meat only. bigger problem is people getting their "meat" from frozen prepared dinners that easily triple calories and carbs and fats by battering and frying the product.

 

[Proton Soup]

as for why we are fat:

Am J Clin Nutr. 2009 Oct 14. [Epub ahead of print]

Increased food energy supply is more than sufficient to explain the US epidemic of obesity.

Swinburn B, Sacks G, Ravussin E.

From Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia, and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA.

BACKGROUND: The major drivers of the obesity epidemic are much debated and have considerable policy importance for the population-wide prevention of obesity. OBJECTIVE: The objective was to determine the relative contributions of increased energy intake and reduced physical activity to the US obesity epidemic. DESIGN: We predicted the changes in weight from the changes in estimated energy intakes in US children and adults between the 1970s and 2000s. The increased US food energy supply (adjusted for wastage and assumed to be proportional to energy intake) was apportioned to children and adults and inserted into equations that relate energy intake to body weight derived from doubly labeled water studies. The weight increases predicted from the equations were compared with weight increases measured in representative US surveys over the same period. RESULTS: For children, the measured weight gain was 4.0 kg, and the predicted weight gain for the increased energy intake was identical at 4.0 kg. For adults, the measured weight gain was 8.6 kg, whereas the predicted weight gain was somewhat higher (10.8 kg). CONCLUSIONS: Increased energy intake appears to be more than sufficient to explain weight gain in the US population. A reversal of the increase in energy intake of approximately 2000 kJ/d (500 kcal/d) for adults and of 1500 kJ/d (350 kcal/d) for children would be needed for a reversal to the mean body weights of the 1970s. Alternatively, large compensatory increases in physical activity (eg, 110-150 min/d walking), or a combination of both, would achieve the same outcome. Population approaches to reducing obesity should emphasize a reduction in the drivers of increased energy intake.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

And what are some examples of these cheap high calorie foods? Because the vegetables I make my salads out of and the fruit I eat is pretty cheap. Same with my cans of beans.

Many canned vegetables are processed in such a manner as to have far less nutritional value and often they contain significant quantities of sodium. They are not very good for you.

I can get frozen burritos for about $0.25 a piece or less. I can get a bag or can of chips for about $2-$3 and a bunch of grapes costs approximately $8-$10. There are frozen dinners that cost approximately $2, or less if they are on sale. A bag of good spaghetti noodles will cost about $2 dollars, a jar of sauce will cost about $3, a few pieces of chicken will cost about $4-$5 dollars, and even just some frozen vegetables will cost about $2-$3. Compare a box of mac and cheese for $1-$2 and a package of hotdogs for about $3-$4 with those same vegetables and you can see a significant price difference with a significant health difference. How about buying in quantity to save? A large bag of frozen chicken at about $10 versus a large package of hotdogs for about $6. Buy a large bag of oranges or apples for about $8-$10? Or a large variety pack of small bags of chips for about $5-$6?

A few months ago I got tired of snacking on chips at work so I went to look at fruits and the options were at least twice as expensive as chips. Tortilla chips and salsa aren't that bad for me any way I hope.

 

[DanP]

You said "really running and not just fast jogging". That implies faster than "fast jogging", which is starting to get into the realm of sprinting.

You are not correct. Please stop making all those kinds of unfounded statements, it helps no one. I guess you never run a track event in your life, this is OK, but just let qualifications on what consist "sprinting" aside.

 

[DanP]

No one is denying the role personal responsibility plays in obesity, but how many people ask questions about what happened to the quality of our food?

I do believe that the quality of the food declined a bit, but I don't consider it the main factor for on raise the obesity epidemic. Rather than food origin (organic vs normal) , I believe that a more important determinant is food availability. (Not that I deny the fact that left unregulated the food industry would make us very bad surprises).

Calories abundant meals are everywhere. In your house, on the streets , near your school at McWhatever. Many times when you drink something, you don't drink water, but a soft drink with even more calories. There is a general availability of food even for some of the most poor members of the society, while at the same time the daily energy expenditure dropped by more than 1000kcal in the last 150 years.

A thing which I always considered interesting is the obsession of ppl with various kinds of diets. Especially with diets which consist of what they perceive was the diet of "paleolithic man". Big strong primitive hunter which our average fat guy wants so much to be.

Why just don't follow the governmental guidelines for nutrition ? A site like mypyramid.gov contains all the information required for average Joe to eat reasonably healthy and correctly.

 

[leroyjenkens]

Many canned vegetables are processed in such a manner as to have far less nutritional value and often they contain significant quantities of sodium. They are not very good for you.

That's why I specified beans. They're a great source of protein. And there's reduced sodium versions, too. They have more sodium, but that doesn't automatically make the food bad, especially if you're not getting enough sodium from other things. I think most of that sodium comes from the thick syrup stuff that they put it in. I pour that out anyway.
And besides all that, we're talking about calorie dense foods.

I can get frozen burritos for about $0.25 a piece or less. I can get a bag or can of chips for about $2-$3 and a bunch of grapes costs approximately $8-$10. There are frozen dinners that cost approximately $2, or less if they are on sale. A bag of good spaghetti noodles will cost about $2 dollars, a jar of sauce will cost about $3, a few pieces of chicken will cost about $4-$5 dollars, and even just some frozen vegetables will cost about $2-$3. Compare a box of mac and cheese for $1-$2 and a package of hotdogs for about $3-$4 with those same vegetables and you can see a significant price difference with a significant health difference. How about buying in quantity to save? A large bag of frozen chicken at about $10 versus a large package of hotdogs for about $6. Buy a large bag of oranges or apples for about $8-$10? Or a large variety pack of small bags of chips for about $5-$6?

Seems like you're estimating a little low for the unhealthy foods and a little high for the fruits and vegetables. I've never seen grapes, oranges and apples that expensive. And 25 cents per burrito is extremely cheap.
You could make your own burritos which could be healthy for not much more than the pre-made ones. My friend and I made a healthy pizza with whole wheat crust, low fat cheese and vegetables on it for cheaper than it would be to buy from Dominos.
Chips are expensive. I love Doritos, but 4 dollars for a bag of them isn't worth it. There's other, cheaper brands, but I'm not paying that much for a bag full of mostly air.

What about other foods that are healthy and cheap? Like eggs. I once bought a dozen eggs for 75 cents from Walgreens. Cereal is sometimes expensive, but when you notice you get at least three meals out of one box, it's not that expensive. The least sugary ones are usually the least expensive too. Just look for sales. Like a huge box of plain mini wheats for two dollars. Put a little honey on it and it tastes fine.

It's just most people don't want to find the healthy, cheap alternatives. They reason that they can either buy 50 burritos for 25 cents each, or they can buy all organic foods. Since obviously those must be the only two options.

Tortilla chips and salsa aren't that bad for me any way I hope.

Well if you hold it to the same standard you do for the canned beans, then it's horrible for you.

You are not correct. Please stop making all those kinds of unfounded statements, it helps no one. I guess you never run a track event in your life, this is OK, but just let qualifications on what consist "sprinting" aside.

There's so many things wrong with what you just said, I don't even know where to begin.
I'm not correct? What am I not correct about? I said a couple of different things. Am I just wrong about the entire thing? Not even one thing I said was right? Saying someone is wrong and not giving the correct answer is fruitless.
What did I say that was unfounded? And how do you know it's not correct, since it's not something you said, it's something someone ELSE said? You're speaking FOR them.
And the icing on the cake is taking a jab at me that I've never ran a track event in my life. How is that even relevant? If you run a track event, you suddenly become magically enlightened at what the exact definition of "fast jogging" is?

 

[Count Iblis]

If you run a track event, you suddenly become magically enlightened at what the exact definition of "fast jogging" is?

Perhaps if you just visit a track event, you'll see that the participants are running much faster than most people who you see jogging every day on the street.

Compare with cycling. A top sprinter can deliver a power of 2000 Watt for a minute or so. A top cyclist in a time trial lasting for one hour can manage 500 Watt (e.g. Indurain). An amateur cyclist will typically manage 300 Watt. When I was training on home trainers a long time ago, I trained at 220 Watt for 25 minutes. But this was not my maximum. Not only should one train at around 70% to 80% of maximum effort, but on a hometrainer you sweat so much when you get above 200 watt that you won't perform optimally. I was also training outside on my bike and I'm sure I was doing more than 220 Watt there, but there is no way to know exactly how much.

If someone who is fast jogging were to train on a home trainer and exert himself to the same degree, I think he would fall well short of 200 Watt. If you are not fit, you'll have trouble getting to 100 Watt even for a few minutes.

 

[leroyjenkens]

Perhaps if you just visit a track event, you'll see that the participants are running much faster than most people who you see jogging every day on the street.

That's obvious. You don't have to go anywhere to know that people who run track run faster than your average joe on the street.

If someone who is fast jogging were to train on a home trainer and exert himself to the same degree, I think he would fall well short of 200 Watt. If you are not fit, you'll have trouble getting to 100 Watt even for a few minutes.

Fast jogging is dependant on the person. It's not a set speed. My fast jogging would be Usain Bolt's slow jogging. Just because people exist who "fast jog" faster than me, doesn't mean that what I'm doing isn't fast jogging too.

 

[Phrak]

Corn. I blame it all on corn and clever chemists. The major components of a happy meal derive from corn--minus the fries, that is.

Produced in the US at 5 pounds per person per day, it's very popular.

 

[GeorginaS]

I think that one of the big issues with healthy eating (not including people like turbo who can grow most of what they need) is the cap-investment cost of ingredients. Sure, once you have that homemade pot of stew on the stove, per-serving its cost is less than the cost of fast food, but the initial amount of money on-hand required to make that pot of stew is far more than the cost of one McBurger.

And decent food prices are had at larger versions of the chain supermarkets that are located at city limits, not in downtown cores. So people living in the middle of cities require some form of transportation to get them to and from. Public transit doesn't always get you there. Most inner-city people don't own cars. Taxis to go and do groceries is an expensive proposition. Corner grocery stores in inner cities are far, far more expensive than the Superstore on the city limits. People with means have way better access to less expensive foods.

There was a study done here not too long ago that demonstrated that the cost of food in lower-income neighbourhoods was than that in more affluent areas. A Safeway store in a less affluent neighbourhood charges more for the same items as a Safeway store out in suburbia. The first reason is that the inner-city Safeway likely has a captive audience. They're the only large chain grocer in the neighbourhood and most people are on foot. When you travel to the outer limits of the city, there's more competition, and people are driving, and therefore have choices. Safeway has to be more competitive in those areas therefore food costs less.

But, truly, a pound of lean ground beef is going to cost, on average, around $3.50 - $4.00. Add a can of tomatoes, a can of beans, some spices (that have an initial cost outlay) a little salt, pepper, and what has a pot of chili cost to make? (And one pound of ground beef isn't making a large quantity. How many people are you going to be able to feed with that?) (That's without adding, say, an onion and some chopped garlic for flavour.) (And never mind adding a green vegetable like a salad, a glass of milk, and maybe a piece of fruit for desert.) Using an actual grocery receipt for numbers, and guessing at the actual cost of spices used (not what it cost to buy the whole package of spice in the first place) and I've come up with $9.12 to make a small pot of chili. Now, what's easier to come by, particularly near the end of the month before payday? $10.00 (assuming you already have the balance of ingredients at home) or $1.49 for a McHappy Meal?

 

[DanP]

What did I say that was unfounded? And how do you know it's not correct, since it's not something you said, it's something someone ELSE said? You're speaking FOR them.
And the icing on the cake is taking a jab at me that I've never ran a track event in my life. How is that even relevant? If you run a track event, you suddenly become magically enlightened at what the exact definition of "fast jogging" is?

There is nothing wrong with what I said. You don't understand what a sprint event is. You don't understand the bio-energetics. Its as simple as that. Painfully clear from your posts, and your statements that a fast run over 30 mins gets into the realm of sprinting. ~30 min at high levels represents 10km, a long distance event. The average 10k tempo is somewhere close to 90% of your Vo2 max.

Actually trying some of the things you talk about won't magically make you understand the theory you lack. But you will gain a pretty good idea of what sprint events are. And how medium distance running is different from them. And why they can't qualify as "getting into the realm of sprinting".

 

[Proton Soup]

I think that one of the big issues with healthy eating (not including people like turbo who can grow most of what they need) is the cap-investment cost of ingredients. Sure, once you have that homemade pot of stew on the stove, per-serving its cost is less than the cost of fast food, but the initial amount of money on-hand required to make that pot of stew is far more than the cost of one McBurger.

maybe also a time thing and fewer stay-at-home moms.

And decent food prices are had at larger versions of the chain supermarkets that are located at city limits, not in downtown cores. So people living in the middle of cities require some form of transportation to get them to and from. Public transit doesn't always get you there. Most inner-city people don't own cars. Taxis to go and do groceries is an expensive proposition. Corner grocery stores in inner cities are far, far more expensive than the Superstore on the city limits. People with means have way better access to less expensive foods.

There was a study done here not too long ago that demonstrated that the cost of food in lower-income neighbourhoods was than that in more affluent areas. A Safeway store in a less affluent neighbourhood charges more for the same items as a Safeway store out in suburbia. The first reason is that the inner-city Safeway likely has a captive audience. They're the only large chain grocer in the neighbourhood and most people are on foot. When you travel to the outer limits of the city, there's more competition, and people are driving, and therefore have choices. Safeway has to be more competitive in those areas therefore food costs less.

shoplifting raises the costs of doing business, and taxes may be higher.

But, truly, a pound of lean ground beef is going to cost, on average, around $3.50 - $4.00. Add a can of tomatoes, a can of beans, some spices (that have an initial cost outlay) a little salt, pepper, and what has a pot of chili cost to make? (And one pound of ground beef isn't making a large quantity. How many people are you going to be able to feed with that?) (That's without adding, say, an onion and some chopped garlic for flavour.) (And never mind adding a green vegetable like a salad, a glass of milk, and maybe a piece of fruit for desert.) Using an actual grocery receipt for numbers, and guessing at the actual cost of spices used (not what it cost to buy the whole package of spice in the first place) and I've come up with $9.12 to make a small pot of chili. Now, what's easier to come by, particularly near the end of the month before payday? $10.00 (assuming you already have the balance of ingredients at home) or $1.49 for a McHappy Meal?

you can certainly pay a lot more to eat decent food. some staples aren't so bad, tho. milk/eggs/dried beans/rice/potatoes/bananas/apples & oranges (by the bag!)/frozen chicken breasts/frozen veggies & berries won't set you back too bad, at least at the walmarts.

 

[GeorginaS]

shoplifting raises the costs of doing business, and taxes may be higher.

Are you suggesting that there's defacto higher stealing in lower income neighbourhoods? But, so, anyway, I was quoting a prof and material from a marketing course that supports personal observation about the cost of groceries in lower income neighbourhoods.

you can certainly pay a lot more to eat decent food. some staples aren't so bad, tho. milk/eggs/dried beans/rice/potatoes/bananas/apples & oranges (by the bag!)/frozen chicken breasts/frozen veggies & berries won't set you back too bad, at least at the walmarts.

And, again, each individual ingredient may not be so costly, but the number of ingredients required for decent meals leads to an up-front larger cost than an individual junk food purchase, and Wal-Mart tends to be on city limits and hence requires a car and then has the attendant transportation problems I pointed out and etc.

 

[Proton Soup]

Are you suggesting that there's defacto higher stealing in lower income neighbourhoods? But, so, anyway, I was quoting a prof and material from a marketing course that supports personal observation about the cost of groceries in lower income neighbourhoods.

yes, I'm suggesting higher stealing. i'd also suggest a lower sales volume in lower income neighborhoods that adds to the expense of doing business there. in any case, there certainly valid reasons for the prices being higher, i'd think. the captive audience theory sounds appealing if you think companies are just mean, but around here, wherever Home Depot has opened a store, Lowes locates nearby. it's almost as if capitalism is captive to its consumers.

 

[leroyjenkens]

Painfully clear from your posts, and your statements that a fast run over 30 mins gets into the realm of sprinting. ~30 min at high levels represents 10km, a long distance event. The average 10k tempo is somewhere close to 90% of your Vo2 max.

I never said that. When did I specify over 30 minutes?

Actually trying some of the things you talk about won't magically make you understand the theory you lack. But you will gain a pretty good idea of what sprint events are. And how medium distance running is different from them. And why they can't qualify as "getting into the realm of sprinting".

I know exactly what sprinting events are. You don't have to compete in them to know that they're short distance.
Anyone who thinks sprinters sprint for 30 minutes is living on another planet.

 

[DanP]

No, as DanP said, that's not what I meant. Look, there is a difference between "jogging" and "running". I work out almost every day for 25 minutes at quite a fast speed, but of course not "sprinting speed".

I'm sure most people will not be able to keep up with my pace. People who are not fit could perhaps keep up with me for 2 minutes and then have to stop. They could also run for 30 minutes at slow jogging speed and then, as whs said, feel horrible afterwards.

I never said that. When did I specify over 30 minutes?

I know exactly what sprinting events are. You don't have to compete in them to know that they're short distance.
Anyone who thinks sprinters sprint for 30 minutes is living on another planet.

First quote below suggest you believe that a 10 km run can be sprinted by several ppl in the world. Noone can.

Second quote was a reply to exchange which *discussed 30 mins running intensities*. It also contains the statement that "fast jogging" is getting into the realm of sprinting. Actually, fast jogging running is way under 10km race intensity. Hence, your post contains the very nice issue of comparing 10km pace with sprinting.

I will end this dialogue now, I don't consider it productive for anyone. It will just end like in Kate Moss thread where ppl , including some PhDs in biology, tried to tell you simplistically how complex is apetite regulation, and you failed to hear anything.

Walk the walk before talking the talk.

So sprinting for 30 minutes? There's probably very few people in the world who can do that.

You said "really running and not just fast jogging". That implies faster than "fast jogging", which is starting to get into the realm of sprinting.

 

[Count Iblis]

Anyway, the point about physical fitness is that your weight will remain the same even if you increase your calorie intake and keep the amount of energy you expend during physical exertion the same.

This was put to the test in a BBC Horizon documentary last year. They took some volunteers (young students) and put them on a diet of about 5000 kcal per day for a month, about double their normal daily energy intake. They were not allowed to exercise.

Naively you would expect that the weight of the test persons would increase rapidly and roughly linearly with time. But what happened was that the weight only increased by some lmited amount, 5 to 10 kg, I think, and then stabilized at that level after a few weeks.

The people with the least weight increase had grown more muscles, even though they did not exercise. Muscles burn energy even if they are not used, so this then leads to an increase in the metabolic rate.

It was also explained in the documentary that the fact that calorie intake is irrelevant for weight control should be obvious even without the results of the experiment. 1 kg of fat contains about 8,000 kcal of energy. Many people have a constant weight over a period of 20 years. A weight increase of a few kg from the age of 25 to 45 is not that uncommon. But that requires a fine tuning between energy use and energy intake to the level of about the energy contained in a single French fry per day. There is no way you could consciously maintain the balance between energy intake and energy use to this level.

In the documentary it was mentioned that what matters is the nnumber of fat cells you have when you are an adult. This sets your weight. You can diet all you want, but as soon as you return to eating a normal diet (instead of, say, a 1000 Kcal starving diet to lose weight), the fat cells will start to refill until they are full. When they are full, your body will keep its weight stable by burning off any extra energy it absorbs from food. If you eat a little less than you burn, your body will lower its metabolic rate.

It is not known exactly how this mechanism functions. It could be that fat cells produce hormones such that when they are filled below a certain threshold level, they'll send signals to slow the metabolic rate while if they are filled above that level they'll send signals to the brain to increase the metabolic rate.

The cause of obesity must be sought at children eating too much. Children will increase the number of fat cells when they grow up. The more they eat, the more fat cells they will have as an adult.

Once you are an adult you won't change your number of fat cells as easily anymore. It could be that if you are not fit then the feedback mechanism as far as increasing metabolic rate is concerned fails and then the energy imbalance leads the body to create new fat cells.

 

[GeorginaS]

yes, I'm suggesting higher stealing.

So your opinion, then, is that lower-income people have a larger portion of criminals or people predisposed to crime in their population. I think there's some bigotry there.

i'd also suggest a lower sales volume in lower income neighborhoods that adds to the expense of doing business there.

Not when they're the only large-chain grocery store in the area. There are several examples scattered through the city where I live.

in any case, there certainly valid reasons for the prices being higher, i'd think.

Why is "captive audience" an invalid reason? Ever check out the cost of a very bad sandwich on an airplane?

the captive audience theory sounds appealing if you think companies are just mean,

Earning maximum profit by any means available, including using information such as demographics, has no moral compass. It's simply capitalism. There is no assumption of "nice" or "mean" involved.

but around here, wherever Home Depot has opened a store, Lowes locates nearby. it's almost as if capitalism is captive to its consumers.

And again, those are big box stores, are they not? And where are the located? And what is the best way to access those stores?

 

[leroyjenkens]

First quote below suggest you believe that a 10 km run can be sprinted by several ppl in the world. Noone can.

I have no idea if anyone can do that, so I didn't want to say positively that no one can when I don't have that information. But that statement proves that I don't believe sprinting EVENTS are long distance, which is the point. Not that some people MAYBE could do it.
Saying "probably very few" doesn't suggest I believe anyone can do it. You're reaching.

Second quote was a reply to exchange which *discussed 30 mins running intensities*. It also contains the statement that "fast jogging" is getting into the realm of sprinting. Actually, fast jogging running is way under 10km race intensity. Hence, your post contains the very nice issue of comparing 10km pace with sprinting.

You're using your interpretation of "fast jogging" as proof that I'm saying something I'm not saying. You've lost the original point.

I will end this dialogue now, I don't consider it productive for anyone. It will just end like in Kate Moss thread where ppl , including some PhDs in biology, tried to tell you simplistically how complex is apetite regulation, and you failed to hear anything.

You're don't know the whole story, you just want to insult me. Your bias has prevented you from accurately explaining what happened in that other thread, so this comment you made is futile.

Walk the walk before talking the talk.

I'm not even sure what point you're trying to make here is. You're misconstruing what I said, making assumptions, using fallacies, and getting upset about this for no apparent reason. If you're right, you're right, no problem. If you're wrong, you tend to get upset.

 

[dreiter]

This was put to the test in a BBC Horizon documentary last year. They took some volunteers (young students) and put them on a diet of about 5000 kcal per day for a month, about double their normal daily energy intake. They were not allowed to exercise.

Naively you would expect that the weight of the test persons would increase rapidly and roughly linearly with time. But what happened was that the weight only increased by some lmited amount, 5 to 10 kg, I think, and then stabilized at that level after a few weeks.

The people with the least weight increase had grown more muscles, even though they did not exercise. Muscles burn energy even if they are not used, so this then leads to an increase in the metabolic rate.

Nothing against you Count, but this study was flawed. An increased muscle mass (and metabolic rate) in that amount of time can account for a few hundred calories at most. If you eat double the Calories you are normally eating, you will gain fat, and continue to gain fat. Perhaps at a certain weight (very heavy) your body will have to work so hard for basic life and motion that you will start burning all of those 5000 Calories, but at the end of the month the people in the study will still be gaining weight.

The body can't violate the laws of thermodynamics. :)



Also, as an aside, I have noticed that BBC documentaries are rather light on the background/study information. Perhaps if you have a link to the published paper? Controls, variables, etc?

 

[DanP]

Anyway, the point about physical fitness is that your weight will remain the same even if you increase your calorie intake and keep the amount of energy you expend during physical exertion the same.

It was also explained in the documentary that the fact that calorie intake is irrelevant for weight control should be obvious even without the results of the experiment. 1 kg of fat contains about 8,000 kcal of energy. Many people have a constant weight over a period of 20 years. A weight increase of a few kg from the age of 25 to 45 is not that uncommon. But that requires a fine tuning between energy use and energy intake to the level of about the energy contained in a single French fry per day. There is no way you could consciously maintain the balance between energy intake and energy use to this level.

In the documentary it was mentioned that what matters is the nnumber of fat cells you have when you are an adult. This sets your weight. You can diet all you want, but as soon as you return to eating a normal diet (instead of, say, a 1000 Kcal starving diet to lose weight), the fat cells will start to refill until they are full. When they are full, your body will keep its weight stable by burning off any extra energy it absorbs from food. If you eat a little less than you burn, your body will lower its metabolic rate.
.

This is unfortunately full of partial truths. Documentaries are in permanent searching of sensational, and hence they may take on sound scientific facts and twist them to hell.

Your weight will **not** remain the same if you increase the calories intake and keep the amount the energy the same during physical exertion. This is how athletes move up weight classes. This is how ppl get fat :P

The statement that the number of calories you ingest is irrelevant for weight control is highly incorrect.

The statement that once you have finished a diet and return to normal feeding, your body will put all the fat back is also highly incorrect. It will only happen when "ad libitum" feeding occurs in persons which present deficiencies in appetite regulation. Those persons will return to overfeeding instantly. Nota bene, this is not normal feeding. In the case of normal feeding, such a person will NOT return to the previous weight, despite the flaws in regulation. Said flaws cause "ad libitum" to constitute overfeeding.

 

[dreiter]

Should governments, through their healthcare policies, get involved in this issue ?

To answer the OP, unfortunately the government is already involved in this issue, and in the wrong way...

http://www.pcrm.org/magazine/gm07autumn/images/pyramid.jpg

 

[Count Iblis]

It was this documentary:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hbsk2

 

[Count Iblis]

What about this thought experiment. Suppose that in a prison an inmate is given a diet of 2500 kcal and his weight is constant. We then decide to feed the same inmate 2400 kcal while we keep all his activities the same. Will the inmate eventually starve to death?

 

[DanP]

What about this thought experiment. Suppose that in a prison an inmate is given a diet of 2500 kcal and his weight is constant. We then decide to feed the same inmate 2400 kcal while we keep all his activities the same. Will the inmate eventually starve to death?

No. If his maintenance is 2500, he will compensate by lowering his metabolic rate. It will happen usually by loosing some weight, or in case of small differences by hormonal adjustments. The body will be in energy balance again after loosing a small body mass. The new equilibrium will be at 2400.

But what happens if after you reduce the caloric intake to 2000 ? Then 1600 ? Then 1200 ?

The body can compensate for a while but the limits are quite small. You can run calculations and see how much a increase of say several kg in body mass will change your basal metabolic rate. Most of ppl which end up being obese overfeed way over it. They end up obese before nearing a new energetic equilibriumHitler and the SS tried your experiment in KZ lagers. The result is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Buchenwald_Slave_Laborers_Liberation.jpg

Those ppl where fed to the limit of subsistence. Further reduction of caloric intake would result most likely in death from respiratory failure.

 

[mgb_phys]

Nothing against you Count, but this study was flawed.
...
The body can't violate the laws of thermodynamics. :)

Especially if they didn't measure the calorific content of the 'output' - you can feed someone an extra 5000 calories, it doesn't mean they can metabolise them
Over a short timescale they will only be able to metabolise enough of the extra calories to put on an extra 10kg, if you continue feeding them 5000 calories for many years they will adapt to the diet and soon reach an impressive new body size.

 

[DanP]

...if you continue feeding them 5000 calories for many years they will adapt to the diet and soon reach an impressive new body size.

Which, if I may add, will mostly, but not entirely consist of body-fat. I have yet to see a single human which, while being overfeed constantly and not exercising , will end up looking like a power athlete or a bodybuilder. But by some sick twist of nature, they end up fat slobs.

That being said, there are 3 things which should be noted about adipocytes.

- adypocites manifest a strong preference for hypertrophy, instead of hyperplasia, exactly as the documentary notes. However, prof. K.N Frayn (Human metabolism, Oxford university) notes that once the capacity of storage of fat is exceeded, due to long time overfeeding hyperplasia will occur in adults as well. It basically occurs through differentiation of pre-adipocites into new adipocytes.

- liposuction surgery does extract physically from body large quantities of adypocites. This results in a lower number of fat cells, which may have additional short term benefits, to just loosing the 'fat'

- white adipose tissue has very low oxygen consumption requirements. While it is certainly incorrect to label adipose tissue as "metabolically inert" , since it is involved in a large multitude of metabolic processes and even functions as a endocrine organ, the effect of this is that a large increase in weight through fat storage does not alter very much the basal metabolic rates.

 

[DanP]

Naively you would expect that the weight of the test persons would increase rapidly and roughly linearly with time. But what happened was that the weight only increased by some lmited amount, 5 to 10 kg, I think, and then stabilized at that level after a few weeks.

1 kg of bodyfat = ~7700 kcal. 10Kg = 77000 kcal

2500 kcal excess over 30 days 75000kcal .

It accounts for less than 10kg. Which you said is in the limit of variance in weight gained .This , only looking at the raw numbers, and not counting for increases in basal metabolic rate. If you count those, less than 10kg should be expected. So I really don't
wonder that the weight of subjects didn't exceeded the maximum physically possible. Let's continue the "study" for another half a year...Rest of variance seen can be explained through many factors. for once, I doubt that everyone had the same RMR, same daily activity levels (even if they didnt "exercised"), same hormonal profiles. I would also very much like to know details on how the feeding of test subjects over those 30 days was organized and supervised. Did the study accounted for variations in body mass due to, let's say, fluid retention ?

 

[edward]

Most of the documentary, FOOD INC is on youtube. It deals primarily with the quality of food. Parts of it are pretty gruesome.




Then we can't leave out SUPERSIZE ME also on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfBc-Rla0uI&feature=PlayList&p=A5CB4CD93FB2A4C7&index=0&playnext=1


As far as obesity and our diets just look at what many people are eating.

We had a big fight with the local school district to get them to pull the junk food vending machines from the schools. They didn't want to lose the revenue.

Whether or not there is a connection between obesity and high fructose corn sweetener is still being debated but a lot of food manufactures are replacing it with regular sugar.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/dining/21sugar.html

 

[leroyjenkens]

Whether or not there is a connection between obesity and high fructose corn sweetener is still being debated but a lot of food manufactures are replacing it with regular sugar.

Wouldn't replacing it with an equal amount of sugar do nothing?

 

[DanP]

Wouldn't replacing it with an equal amount of sugar do nothing?

Both leptin and insulin have important roles in appetite regulation and long term homeostasis.

One of the main issues which is studied today is the fact that fructose does not cause directly a release of insulin from the pancreas beta cells. Since insulin levels are one of the regulators of plasma leptin levels after a meal, using fructose as a source of CHO will result in lower leptin levels as well.

The concern is that the combined effect will negatively impact appetite regulation, and even long term homeostasis, cause insulin resistance, lower glucose tolerance and so on.

There are other negative effects associated with fructose, when consumed after a meal containing glucose. Normally, fructose would be converted to glucose in liver and stored as glycogen. But after a rich CHO meal, the time when you would most likely have a soft drink with a high content of fructose, the insulin / glucagon ratio in plasma is unfavorable to the onset of gluconeogenesis. Hence, fructose used in such conditions may end being preferentially metabolized to fats.

There is a lot of ongoing research on this.

 

[lisab]

Whether or not there is a connection between obesity and high fructose corn sweetener is still being debated but a lot of food manufactures are replacing it with regular sugar.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/dining/21sugar.html

Over the last ~1.5 years I've gradually been getting rid of high fructose corn syrup from my diet. I agree that the link is debatable, but I've found that when you get rid of HFCS you also get rid of processed junk and fast foods.

So whether HFCS causes obesity is irrelevant, because it acts as a proxy for a class that I'll call "foods you shouldn't be eating much of anyway".

I noticed a big improvement in my health since I've made the change.

 

[Proton Soup]

HFCS is better for you than it used to be, because the mercury cell process used to manufacture the acids and bases that control the acidity of the reaction have been mostly phased out.

 

[Count Iblis]

Perhaps that BBC documentary is still available online, I may have gotten some details wrong.

Anyway, I've just made dinner for myself so I'm off to eat. On the menu today: 1 kg of potatoes, 400 grams vegetables (beans and broccoli) and 100 grams of meat (chicken).

I can recommend this high carb, low fat diet to everyone. My weight is very stable and I have plenty of energy to exercise has hard as I want. I weigh 62 kg, exactly the same as I weighed 4 years ago. I eat a lot; I don't have to go hungry to manage my weight.

You do have to get used to the high volume of food. Most people eat minuscule amounts of high fat foods. Their stomachs will be too small to eat what I am used to eating.

 

[DanP]

Perhaps that BBC documentary is still available online, I may have gotten some details wrong.

Anyway, I've just made dinner for myself so I'm off to eat. On the menu today: 1 kg of potatoes, 400 grams vegetables (beans and broccoli) and 100 grams of meat (chicken).

Let us see ...

potatoes 80kcal/100g * 10 = 800 kcal
chicken 220 kcal/100g*1 = 220kcal
beans 80kcal / 100 * 2 = 160 kcal
brocolli 30kcal/ 100g * 2 = 60 kcal

grand total = 1240 kcal

I really do hope 1240 kcal is not your usual daily intake.