mr_pedro

Here is an interesting BBC documentary about what makes some people overweight: https://vimeo.com/64960883

chasm54

The truth about fat is that I have too much of it.

The idea that fat people lack an "off" switch isn't new. I was interested in the evidence linking poor nutrition in utero with childhood obesity. But I don't buy the idea that these things can account for the explosion in obesity rates during the last thirty years. I can't see any reason to suppose that previous generations of pregnant women were less likely to be poorly nourished, or that our ancestors were less likely to experience stressful life events that triggered hormonal changes. So something else has to be going on.

Machka 

Too much food.
Too little exercise.

gregf83 

It's quite possible that the combination of a particular genetic disposition and a calorie rich environment leads to obesity. What has changed in the last 30 yrs is the availability of high-calorie foods.

In previous generations you had to pay more or do more work to obtain food. Now, high calorie foods are abundant, relatively low cost and one can easily overeat with little effort.

Machka 

That ... and people aren't as active anymore. Cars, public transportation, computers, TV, video games, labour-saving devices ..... who needs to move?


I work in an office. I live 500 metres from work, and so I walk 2 km/day (I walk home at lunch). But some of my coworkers, who don't live much further away (less than 1 km) drive to work.

And then there's the potential of sitting at our computers in the office all day. If it weren't for toilet breaks, some people would never leave their desks.

And then there's the potential of going home and sit at our computers in front of the TV all evening.


30+ years ago, people were more active.


Extremely sedentary people can lose a fair amount of weight simply by becoming a bit more active. Walk to and from work (or cycle). Get up and walk around the office at least once an hour. Get out and exercise in the evenings ... go for walks, ride bicycle, lift weights, toss the ball around with the kids, do some gardening.

MEversbergII

What you eat is also very important, as we all know. We eat too much carbohydrates. Here in the US, they recommend 300g a day! Good luck with that!

Problem with being overweight is you have a long "suffer" period trying to transition from crappy diet and inactivity to better diet and being active. Withdraws from food substances and joint and muscle pain from moving harder than before. Been there for sure.

Also, a crummy diet can really sap your energy, especially if it's based around low quality carbs. I clearly remember a long stretch of time where I couldn't motivate myself to do much of anything, let alone lose some weight.

M.

lenA

Dr Gabby is hot

FrenchFit 

"go for walks, ride bicycle, lift weights, toss the ball around with the kids, [do some gardening]"...exactly what I never saw my parents, grandparents or their friends doing. Heck, I doubt anyone in my family owned a pair of sneakers before me. I never saw any of that generation running, I doubt think I knew of any oldster who had a gym membership.

My personal experience is we are ten times more active than previous generations. Everyone I know has a gym membership, gets exercise, and owns work-out gear and clothing.

I go think its the quantity of daily food, and/or what's in the food.

Machka 

Older generations didn't need "sneakers" (??) and gym memberships ... they were more active in general because there weren't as many conveniences as there are now, and they got outside and did stuff.



But then ... maybe my family and many other families I grew up with were different.

My whole family has always been active. My grandfather was a cowboy and also trailblazed in the Canadian Rockies ... mountain climbing the old fashioned way with ladders and ropes. My grandmother walked and gardened ... huge gardens. Both my parents cycled and walked and hiked up mountains. I grew up surrounded by activity.

And the people we associated with were generally active as well. Not a gym membership in the bunch (until I got my first gym membership at 21) but who needs a gym membership when you're scaling a mountain.


These days people are not as likely to have a half-acre garden in the backyard to grow their own veggies, or to walk to the meat market and then the baker and then the hardware shop, etc. to get their groceries, or scrub their clothes clean, or chop wood for the fire to heat the house ...

Machka 

I was my most slender when I was car-ownership-free for 6 years in Winnipeg.

I commuted to and from work by bicycle, plus I did a lot of other cycling as well.

I walked 2 km round trip about 3 times a week to get groceries ... I could only buy as much as I could carry for that 1 km walk home, so junk food was expendable, especially on the days I needed to get things like kitty litter (I had 3 cats) and toilet paper.

Plus I often walked 1-2 km at lunch, and then anywhere from about 3-5 km on the weekends ... in addition to all the cycling I was doing, of course.

During the spring, autumn, and winter, I also lifted weights and did some winter sports ... in addition to the walking and cycling.


And I ate ... a lot! Not so much junk food because I couldn't always carry that home, but I chose fairly high calorie food because I just kept dropping weight.

I attribute that weight loss to all the exercise.

CommuteCommando

The causes are mostly cultural. I recently read The Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan. He notes something called the French Paradox. The French diet consists of high amounts of fat from meat and dairy, yet they are far less obese than Americans. This is attributed to the fact that the French eat meals in social settings more than Americans, who often scarf down their Big Macs in the car. This causes the total caloric intake of the French to be lower. The conclusion drawn by Polan is interesting. The French have a thousand years of cultural knowledge of how to eat. America has no old traditional cuisine. What passes for a national cuisine in America is the product of sixty years of mass marketing by people with financial incentives to push a highly profitable industrialized food system on the public.

Want some chocolate milk on your Captain Crunch? YUM!

Chaco

Here's one thing that's going on: https://www.businessinsider.com/chart...umption-2012-2
Quote from the article: "In 1822, the average American ate the amount of sugar found in one of today's 12-ounce sodas every 5 days. Now, we eat that much every 7 hours."
Today's agribusiness has developed almost 60 different names for the sugar it puts in our food.

mr_pedro

Well, agreed that food choice and level of activity is a very determining factor and that is probably the main reason for why obesity numbers are going up in the last decades.
What the documentary shows is that for 2 people exposed to the same food, same activity and same determination it is still possible for one to eat more and be fatter than the other because of hormones regulating appetite.

chasm54

Yup. I'd also be interested to know if people are doing any research into whether being fat is itself a metabolic trigger for the relevant hormones. Visceral fat is metabolically active so I wonder if consuming more calories than one needs, because of the high fat/fructose content of many processed foods, causes people with "normal" hormonal responses to becoem somewhat overweight, and being overweight then affects their hormonal responses so they find it more and more difficult to abstain from food. Just speculation, but if that turned out to be true it would account for the fact that the increase in obesity appears to be exponential.

Carbonfiberboy 

Sure, people get addicted to food because of hormonal/brain center responses, just like getting addicted to anything else. Then they eat for satisfaction rather than fueling and off the rails they go. The interesting thing on this thread is that the corporate ideal is to get them addicted to particular foods by increasing the number and quantity of attractors.

Not to blame the corporations too much, because their charter is for them to make money and it is a competitive market. I compare everything to "fish politics." If they took the regulations off fishing, fishers would catch every fish in the ocean tomorrow, even though their descendants would have nothing, simply because if they didn't, someone else would. So it is. Tragedy of the commons, tragedy of capitalism.

We once had a woman call the police on our local food coop because she alleged that the coop was putting something addictive in the deli scones. That's a good laugh but there's truth there, too.

CommuteCommando

Puts me in mind of those who slam McDonald's for focusing their marketing on impressionable children. It is true that they target kids, but parents enable this for a number of reasons. Convenience, and apathy are among many reasons McDonald's gets away with it. The answer lies in education, not legislation.

chasm54

Would you say the same about pornography? Kids are, as you say, impressionable. It is impossible for parents to control the images their children see.

aramis

Having been skinny my whole life, I notice how much more most people that are overweight eat at a sitting (still amazes me) and how they are really excited about food. Even when I was more sedentary I didn't gain weight because I just ate less. I noticed when I worked at an office that some people didn't do much but sit all day. When I worked there I would go out and walk somewhere on breaks not because it was good for me, but because I had to get out and move.

When I go on a long ride it's a huge pain for me to have to go find extra calories and make sure I eat them.

I think some peoples brains just respond to food differently, and some people also have iron stomachs and can eat anything and feel fine. Some people are just more wired to move constantly whether they try to or not also.

What I'm trying to say is I think I'm skinny because I don't enjoy food that much, I get sick from a lot of foods, and I naturally want to move around, not because I'm super awesome and have mega willpower and drive. So it's hard for me to understand why other people eat so damn much!

Dunbar

I know several very lean people who eat like horses and have their whole lives.

aramis

If you actually would watch their calorie intakes I think you would be surprised. I've kind of noted how all the skinny people I know eat and even the ones that people say eat like crazy, aren't constantly snacking and don't have snacks/food around them all the time. They may eat a lot at a sitting but probably aren't constantly throughout their day or they go times without eating much.

If you get to the 2nd part of the video it talks about how skinny people have a hard time gaining weight even if they want to.

Dunbar

Trust me, these people don't skip meals and are usually putting away twice what I do at lunch or dinner. They are just fortunate enough to have skinny genes. They fly in the face of the concept that it's all about calories in vs. calories out.

Machka 

Probably not. I don't think genetics plays much of a role in it at all.

I would bet if you and they honestly and accurately added up the calories consumed in a week, and the calories burned in a week, you'd discover that the calories in vs calories out thing actually is applicable.



I've read that slender people tend to fidget and move more in general. Instead of plunking down in their chair at work, or sofa at home, and never moving for the rest of the day, they are up and down, and rushing here and dashing there, and getting up to tidy this or that, and even just tapping their feet to the music. A little bit of movement burns more calories than being completely stationary. The fact that they are more active may not be obvious on the surface because they are doing the same general things as everyone else (going to work, going home after work to watch TV, etc.) but if you really observe you'll see that they do move more.



According to this site
https://www.nutristrategy.com/activitylist4.htm

Sitting upright burns at least 89 calories per hour
Standing burns 136 calories per hour
Cleaning, dusting burns 148 calories per hour
Walking at 2.5 mph burns 177 calories per hour

And according to some other sites, sleeping burns about 55 calories per hour.


So for example ... 2 people could say that they went home after work and spent 4 hours watching TV.

Person 1 - lies down on the sofa and doesn't move for the next 4 hours. 55 calories/hour * 4 hours = 220 calories

Person 2 - sits upright for those 4 hours. 89 calories/hour * 4 hours = 356 calories ... 136 calories more than Person 1 for those 4 hours.

Assuming the 3500 calories = 1 lb calculation, in 25 days, Person 2 will have burned 1 lb more than Person 1. Given a year like that, and Person 2 could burn 14 lbs more than Person 1.

Now suppose Person 2 stands up for 5 minutes 4 times an hour, during commercials. For 20 minutes each hour, that person is burning an extra 15 calories per hour ... an extra 60 calories in the 4 hours of our example. 356 calories + 60 calories = 416 calories in an evening ... 196 calories more than Person 1 for those 4 hours.

In 17 days, Person 2 will have burned 1 lb more than Person 1. Given a year, Person 2 could burn 20 lbs more than Person 1.

Now suppose Person 2 not only stands up for 5 minutes 4 times an hour, but also dashes about doing some housework ... you get the picture.


Both could comment, "Yeah, I spent the evening watching TV" but in reality, Person 2 could easily burn twice the calories of Person 1 because Person 2 sat up, stood up, and moved around a bit.

Shimagnolo

I'm almost finished watching it.
What really surprised me is how the gastric bypass changes food preferences.
This is the first I'd heard of that.

BigAura

Well it's certainly not surprising that a surgeon sees the answer to obesity as MORE SURGERY.

Chaco

One of the things it seemed that video overlooked was the danger associated with bariatric surgery. Yes, the benefits of doing the surgery if you're morbidly obese probably outweigh the risks, but for moderately obese people, the jury is still out, according to what I've read.

The video does show how complex metabolism really is. The whole "calories in, calories out" argument makes human metabolism simpler than a car engine, when it is much more complicated. I experienced this first hand during a bout with liver poisoning (caused by a reaction to the antibiotic, Augmentin) earlier this year. At the height of my toxic reaction, I was eating fairly normally. I was doing no exercise at all, since I was totally exhausted, and sleeping less than 3 hours a day. No matter what I ate, I lost an average of 1/2 pound per day. This continued until I had lost 27 pounds over a 60 day period. Then my liver started healing itself, and now no matter what I ate, I gained 1/2 pound per day, until I was back to my starting weight. Your liver, your pancreas, and a bunch of other things play a huge role in metabolism, and metabolism plays a huge role in whether or not you gain or lose weight.

I don't claim to be any sort of expert, but I do believe that this is not such a simple thing that it can be explained by a single factor, whether it's sugar consumption, culture, lack of exercise, etc. I am glad the AMA has decided to classify obesity as a disease, since that may spur more research into effective treatments.