Current Events > Obesity: Whoose fault is it?

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myzz7 posted...

nutrient low food padded by synthetic ingredients, in part caused by depleted soils - the brain craves nutrients with caloric intake being not what it prioritizes - double the food as before to make up the nutrient levels = fatter people. then there's the deliberate addictive chemicals added to western foods that boosts sales for the industry >_>

Pretty much. Part of the reason sugar/fast food is so devious is that you don't get micronutrients and thus your brain wants more food to make up for it. Sugar is particularly devious as very few foods high in sugar have other micros to help out (on top of the potential issues fructose may or may not play).

Other lifestyle factors are important as well, primarily that modern people are sleep deprived. Everyone stays up to go out/watch Netflix/do more work, wake up tired and craving calorie dense foods to stay alert. They are then too tired to exercise, which would have helped them sleep better. So they eat sugar, drink more caffeine (which also wreck sleep quality in higher doses).
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COVxy posted...

Xelltrix posted...

I agree. Government wastes money on pointless studies literally all the time. There is absolutely no magic trick involved with weight gain and obesity.

You're right, kids born to obese parents should have willed their physiology and the neural feedback systems in particular, to not be so damned maladaptively developed. Silly kids, stupid really. Just a lack of intelligence causes this shit. Stop shoving so much shit down your gullet, problem solved!

No, kids born to obese patterns have to work harder to maintain their weight and unfortunately have to deal with parents who don't feed tem properly but the end result is still caloric intake versus expenditure.


There are outliers where this is not the case but since they ARE outliers, they have little impact on the overall statistic on how many people are overweight. The rules for why they're fat are the same for almost everyone.



Stop making excuses for them and also stop trying to downplay my point by acting like I'm some rabid fat people hater.
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Anything that will help statistics like these (from the CDC's own website from 2012) decrease before diabetes starts killing more than cancer, aids, or any of the other epidemics humanity faces is good. Especially since Type 2 diabetes is almost 100% preventable if you take care of your body. Sugar coating the desperate need to stop obesity before it becomes diabetes doesn't help. If you don't want a friend or a loved one to be a statistic then they'll have to face their weight.

http://imgur.com/a/ppMwA
https://www.cdc.gov/features/diabetesfactsheet/
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Xelltrix posted...

There are outliers where this is not the case but since they ARE outliers, they have little impact on the overall statistic on how many people are overweight. The rules for why they're fat are the same for almost everyone.

We're not talking about exceptions here, that's the point. This is not some rare genetic disorder. Kids born from unhealthy parents on average going to be physiologically predisposed to obesity. And no, they aren't to blame for that. When they really try just as hard as the kid next door who was born from healthy parents, but is still obese, you can't claim that he's just lazier. Yeah, he has control to change his situation, just as those who are born poor. But to pretend like it's some sort of level playing field and being lower on that playing field is evidence of either bad life choices or stupidity or laziness is simply ignorant.
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COVxy posted...

Xelltrix posted...

There are outliers where this is not the case but since they ARE outliers, they have little impact on the overall statistic on how many people are overweight. The rules for why they're fat are the same for almost everyone.

We're not talking about exceptions here, that's the point. This is not some rare genetic disorder. Kids born from unhealthy parents on average going to be physiologically predisposed to obesity. And no, they aren't to blame for that. When they really try just as hard as the kid next door who was born from healthy parents, but is still obese, you can't claim that he's just lazier. Yeah, he has control to change his situation, just as those who are born poor. But to pretend like it's some sort of level playing field and being lower on that playing field is evidence of either bad life choices or stupidity or laziness is simply ignorant.

Never said any laziness or stupidity. I said they need to try harder but the results are still the same. They're taking in more than they're expending. End of story. Plenty of friends who were fat that lost the weight and they worked for it, they had proper diet and exercises. There is no magic solution or trick that they had to use because they're fatter than the average. The only people who have some kind of actual problem they have to overcome are the outliers I spoke of.


Fat people with fat parents still need to use diet and exercise like skinny people with skinny parents.
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Xelltrix posted...

Fat people with fat parents still need to use diet and exercise like skinny people with skinny parents.

And expecting every obese person to be able to expend way more effort in maintaining diet than the average skinny person is simply silly and missing the point. It's not going to happen, and it's the reason the obseity epidemic has been blooming. Because all we can do is berate them to try harder.

There's a reason research is underway. If we could reduce the feedback mechanisms that make it so hard to maintain a new diet, when your brain is directing your body to eat what it thinks you need to survive, then it would be much more feasible, and there would be much more success. Presumably you'd only need to utilize such a drug for a year or so after you biological set point adapts, and then these people would be able to live a healthy and happy life.

Why are you against discussing the complex biological underpinnings of obesity in favor of a purely behavioral intervention which has been demonstrated for decades now to be unsuccessful?
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They don't have to expand more effort, just eat less. Diet is the biggest part. Furthermore, that still doesn't make it even remotely complex. Nothing you're saying is changing how fat gain works. The question is why and the answer is more input than output, it's incredibly basic.
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Xelltrix posted...

They don't have to expand more effort, just eat less. Diet is the biggest part.

Diet is effort, how don't you understand that?

Go a day without drinking any water, and tell me that it's not effortful by the end of the day to resist taking a drink of water.
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COVxy posted...

Xelltrix posted...

They don't have to expand more effort, just eat less. Diet is the biggest part.

Diet is effort, how don't you understand that?

Go a day without drinking any water, and tell me that it's not effortful by the end of the day to resist taking a drink of water.

Having lost 120lbs, its not that hard. Yes it takes some discipline and effort but its not that bad. Life is hard, we can't just excuse away obesity because its slightly inconvenient for some.
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COVxy posted...

Xelltrix posted...

They don't have to expand more effort, just eat less. Diet is the biggest part.

Diet is effort, how don't you understand that?

Go a day without drinking any water, and tell me that it's not effortful by the end of the day to resist taking a drink of water.

Um, water is essentially, soda isn't. I cut soda my first day of college and stupid eating fried food as frequently and haven't looked back. I recently cut out juice except for OJ in the morning and that sucked worse but I stick to it. But yes, I get it, that is effort. So they need to out in more effort, that doesn't change the basics on how it works, just that they need to be stricter with it. Just like someone who isn't as skilled at a subject has to study harder. That doesn't change the physics of anything.


You're still not saying anything that makes how people get fat complex.
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Xelltrix posted...

Um, water is essentially, soda isn't.

But overall caloric intake is. And when you're overweight, your body expects something different than when you're not.
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Teen Girl Squad posted...

Having lost 120lbs, its not that hard. Yes it takes some discipline and effort but its not that bad. Life is hard, we can't just excuse away obesity because its slightly inconvenient for some.

the whole point he's making is that how hard it is is different for different people

also, not talking about you specifically, but a lot of people who lose weight end up gaining it back within a few years.
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Xelltrix posted...

the end result is still caloric intake versus expenditure.

It's so funny to see people endlessly parrot this.
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COVxy posted...

Xelltrix posted...

Um, water is essentially, soda isn't.

But overall caloric intake is. And when you're overweight, your body expects something different than when you're not.

Um, caffeine addiction is a thing, yes. Short of that, no, your body doesn't expect burgers and fries. You want burgers and fries. Stop eating them and you won't die.
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Xelltrix posted...

You're still not saying anything that makes how people get fat complex

that's because you keep reducing it to a simple mathematical equation

weight loss is only hard psychologically -- and the psychology of weight loss is more than just cals in vs cals out, particularly when we're talking about populations rather than individuals. you can harass a person into eating a strict diet for a certain amount of time, but you can't use that as your strategy in terms of what policies you're going to adopt to combat the obesity epidemic

isn't that obvious? we've known that you just eat less to lose weight literally forever but we keep getting fatter
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Xelltrix posted...

Um, caffeine addiction is a thing, yes.

I didn't say anything about caffeine.
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KrustyTheClown posted...

Xelltrix posted...

the end result is still caloric intake versus expenditure.

It's so funny to see people endlessly parrot this.

Probably because it's the sinplist thing to state and largely the biggest issue. We can get into the finer details like what type of food you eat but if avoid junk foods and pull from different food groups without going overboard on calories, you're not going to be fat.
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Too much fast food and lack of exercise
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Balrog0 posted...

Xelltrix posted...

You're still not saying anything that makes how people get fat complex

that's because you keep reducing it to a simple mathematical equation

weight loss is only hard psychologically -- and the psychology of weight loss is more than just cals in vs cals out, particularly when we're talking about populations rather than individuals. you can harass a person into eating a strict diet for a certain amount of time, but you can't use that as your strategy in terms of what policies you're going to adopt to combat the obesity epidemic

isn't that obvious? we've known that you just eat less to lose weight literally forever but we keep getting fatter

Because we live a sedentary life with access to fatty foods, that's not hard to understand. our society now versus in the past has a lot more access to readily available food and a lot less need for physical labor.

COVxy posted...

Xelltrix posted...

Um, caffeine addiction is a thing, yes.

I didn't say anything about caffeine.

And as I said in the rest of the post, that's the only thing you'd have a "need" or "expectation" for in your body. Well, sugar, but that has other sources and fulfills an actual need.
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Food companies that literally put trash in food for flavor enhancement
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COVxy posted...

Balrog0 posted...

LittleRoyal posted...

For kids yes. For adults it's your own fault.

i mean, your life is pretty path dependent based on what happens to you as a kid

I mean, it turns out that being born from a parent that is unhealthy, just in terms of the basic biology, not the relating to any learned behavior, drastically increases your weight gain. Turns out that some aspects of metabolism are prenatally programmed, or at least, this is what the evidence suggests.

It sounds like an excuse to have weight.

Idk. I eat healthy and excersize and I'm thin.
Not that I know everyone's life but it works for most people regardless of their parents
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Diet is obviously the primary driver but it is much more complicated that "people eat too much bad food". They obviously do but it's because of several factors. Availability to high-calorie, low-nutrition food is at an all time high. It is easier to find, better advertised, and faster than more nutritious, balanced foods. This is also compounded by the fact that these foods are typically full of fats and sugars which are chemically enticing, driving our desire to eat even more of the foods. A rise in dual-income households also means that more families don't have the time to make home-prepared meals, which while not-necessarily good for you are generally going to beat picking up a KFC dinner or ordering pizza all the time.

On the flip side nutrition education has not really caught up to the prevalence of unhealthy food. As people noted, large amounts of the populace really don't understand the calories in/calories out thing, and even people who exercise regularly will unknowningly over-eat, not realizing that their exercise comes nowhere near to offset what they just ate.

I don't think fat-acceptance is much of an issue, because despite the occasional outrage, America still idolizes being thin as perfection. The vast majority of our actors and models are thin. What I think we do have is a fat-indifference. We don't idolize fat people and if given the choice, most people would rather be a smaller weight, but because the population continues to get fatter, fat people just don't stand out anymore. They are part of the general group of people and as a result don't really feel self-conscious. Fat-shaming people won't make them change because they just need to take one look around and be like, "well everyone around me is fat too" and continue to do their thing. Shaming does nothing, except make the person feel bad for a little bit. It's certainly not addressing the core issues that made a person overweight to begin with.
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hyperpowder posted...

It's much harder to lose it than to gain. It's also hard to completely change your lifestyle to include a diet and exercise.

This is completely not true. Any fat/obese person who wants a lose weight has potential to lose and incredible amount of weight within only 3-6 months. But they have to take the life style change serious, as in maintain a proper workout program, be on a very stickt diet and also eat all less calories. The problem is, most overweight people are very lazy and don't have the motivation to do all this. Combined that with them being embarrased to workout and having self esteem issues. Lack of knowledge of maintaining a proper diet and workout regime and believe in the myth that it'll take years to lose weight, that's why overweight people make excuses for the way they are. Everyone would love to be and look fit, it takes a lot of effort and a serious state of mind.

But back to what I was originally saying, it is actually much harder to put on weight than to lose it. And anyone who has tried, knows what I'm talking about. You figure, it took and overweight person their entire life to get to the size they are now. Yet it only takes a few months to a year to lose most of that dead water weight/fat. All a skinny person can do to gain weight is simply eat more. And depending on your metabolism and body frame, sometimes it just doesn't cut it.

too much sugar in everything
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XXHornDogXX posted...

This is completely not true. Any fat/obese person who wants a lose weight has potential to lose and incredible amount of weight within only 3-6 months. But they have to take the life style change serious, as in maintain a proper workout program, be on a very stickt diet and also eat all less calories. The problem is, most overweight people are very lazy and don't have the motivation to do all this. Combined that with them being embarrased to workout and having self esteem issues. Lack of knowledge of maintaining a proper diet and workout regime and believe in the myth that it'll take years to lose weight, that's why overweight people make excuses for the way they are. Everyone would love to be and look fit, it takes a lot of effort and a serious state of mind.

But back to what I was originally saying, it is actually much harder to put on weight than to lose it. And anyone who has tried, knows what I'm talking about. You figure, it took and overweight person their entire life to get to the size they are now. Yet it only takes a few months to a year to lose most of that dead water weight/fat. All a skinny person can do to gain weight is simply eat more. And depending on your metabolism and body frame, sometimes it just doesn't cut it.

I think this is called equivocation.

It's hard to get muscular and stay lean, but it's not hard to gain weight. Your metabolism isn't any more meaningful there than it is in losing wieght
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Food manufacturers/ tech/ etc.

lets compare life style of say 1960s and under vs today? tech is a double edge sword. Look up some of the fast food people typically eat. Some pizza fat content is like worth 2-5 days of allowance of what you should have.

CmndrHurricane posted...

too much sugar in everything

its salt not sugar.

Sugar is only an argument if your going for breads and such (carbs > sugar issue), salt is in like everything. That and too much bad fats in crap, and in ultra high amounts. Then ofc top the perfect storm with high calories.
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My 3 year old has never had fast food, eats mostly carbs, enjoys treats, some fruit/veggies and he's a rail with rock hard calves.
I can't stop him from moving.

I blame fast food and not enough time outside.
If you've got a fat kid under 5, you're doing it wrong.
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Gheb posted...

Diet is obviously the primary driver but it is much more complicated that "people eat too much bad food". They obviously do but it's because of several factors. Availability to high-calorie, low-nutrition food is at an all time high. It is easier to find, better advertised, and faster than more nutritious, balanced foods. This is also compounded by the fact that these foods are typically full of fats and sugars

https://www.kfc.com/nutrition/full-nutrition-guide
https://www.nutritionix.com/m/1WBs1K
its SALT

ONE!! chicken Brest over 1k
ONE slice of pizza from a med is 520

the salt amounts is insane, sugar don't help, but the main thing is salt by far
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I believe it is largely the parents fault. If you are an adult, you are able to control what you eat. Figure out a schedule so you don't have to eat out so often and have time to exercise.

Another thing that would help is if Food Stamps did not cover things like cookies and pop that are not good for you. I've literally seen people buy nothing but junk food when they come in my line and pay for it with food stamps. I know not that many people are on food stamps, but it would definitely help.
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If you're going to eat some unhealthy food; at least walk 2-3 miles every other day. Balance it out a bit.
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Squidkids posted...

Sugar is only an argument if your going for breads and such (carbs > sugar issue), salt is in like everything.

sugar sweetened beverages are a yoog part of people being fat, though
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The research and literature we have been fed for decades is fake news. That and people are morons. That's the simple explanation.
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Ba diet, very lazy, being greedy, no self control, bad parenting.
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Balrog0 posted...

Squidkids posted...

Sugar is only an argument if your going for breads and such (carbs > sugar issue), salt is in like everything.

sugar sweetened beverages are a yoog part of people being fat, though

has nothing to do with KFC or pizza though, ya that is an issue if your just looking at that
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1) Lack of Moderation. It isn't what **** you eat, it's how much you eat. You can eat at Mickey D's and KFC. Just don't do it everyday.

2) Doing nothing to burn off calories you eat. If you're going to eat crap, better burn it off.

3) Wide Convenience. Little incentive to actually get off and actually do something yourself when you can have others do it for you.

4) The person itself. Outright laziness. The "Fat Acceptance" movement is a complete testament to that laziness.

5) Bad relationships.
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EdwardoMario16 posted...

4) The person itself. Outright laziness. The "Fat Acceptance" movement is a complete testament to that laziness.

This is a more considerable factor than many like to think it is.

Fat shaming needs to be acceptable.
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Because I eat too much pizza and ice cream.
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unpleasant_milk posted...

EdwardoMario16 posted...

4) The person itself. Outright laziness. The "Fat Acceptance" movement is a complete testament to that laziness.

This is a more considerable factor than many like to think it is.

Fat shaming needs to be acceptable.

It is in some cultures. Bully people into health.
I'm not sure that would work
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The rapid increase in urban sprawl has seriously limited how much physical activity people get. It's one of the things that separates us from leaner countries.

Though I suspect it's more complicated than just how much you walk.
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Squidkids posted...

Gheb posted...

Diet is obviously the primary driver but it is much more complicated that "people eat too much bad food". They obviously do but it's because of several factors. Availability to high-calorie, low-nutrition food is at an all time high. It is easier to find, better advertised, and faster than more nutritious, balanced foods. This is also compounded by the fact that these foods are typically full of fats and sugars

https://www.kfc.com/nutrition/full-nutrition-guide
https://www.nutritionix.com/m/1WBs1K
its SALT

ONE!! chicken Brest over 1k
ONE slice of pizza from a med is 520

the salt amounts is insane, sugar don't help, but the main thing is salt by far

Salt being bad for you is a myth up there saturated fats being bad. Excessive sodium intake is mostly bad because the foods high in salt tend to be processed junk food. Unless you have a real disease, most people can have much higher sodium than the FDA guidelines in the context of a balanced diet.
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Balrog0 posted...

The rapid increase in urban sprawl has seriously limited how much physical activity people get. It's one of the things that separates us from leaner countries.

Though I suspect it's more complicated than just how much you walk.

I wouldn't be stunned to find out that availability of grocery stores and urban sprawl have an inverse correlation. Which would lead to a higher consumption of junk food.
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99% of the time it's the person fault, most people can't even cook now so buy either pre-made or fast food rubbish.

Hayame Zero posted...

A combination of things. The sugar/food industry, parents not setting boundaries, misinformation, etc.

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