The Obesification of the U.S.

It is interesting as you figure our evolutionary history has been shaped more by starvation than excess. Our ancestors that had adaptations to survive famine passed on genes that now with easy calorie access equals morbid obesity.

You can fix the majority of the obese issues by removing refined carbohydrates from the diet.

Naturally occurring carbohydrates are fine.

Overconsumption of refined carbs in combination with a lack of vigorous exercise leads directly to weight gain. Each gram of carbohydrate that you store (rather than burn off) makes you also store 2.5 grams of water = 3.5 grams of "fat" on the body. Watching prime time tv with deserts, chips and crackers and ice-cream and then crashing for the night from the insulin spike and crash is behavior that needs to change.

Meat is fine, eating fats is necessary, naturally occurring carbohydrates are fine because whole food comes packed with micronutrients, fiber, vitamins, minerals etc etc as they were meant to be.

The person who posted about wine and tacos and muffins.

A muffin and coffee in the morning are fine. That's not overconsumption. A taco is perfectly fine. Tortillas are super healthy, but a couple of tacos for dinner is within reason.

Wine in moderation (two glasses per night) is probably fine and is much lower in refined carbs than beer.

Add in exercise and you are good. Not super-elite, high-end amazingly healthy, but you won't get obese from that.

Eating, for example, a bowl of cold cereal with a banana and 1 or 2% milk every day is like having a big bowl of sugar as far as your body is concerned, high glycemic meal with an insulin spike, followed by a crash — once oe twice a week would be okay. Better to have two eggs on toast or the banana with peanut butter....or intermittent fast or eggs and bacon or yogurt with a bit of fruit.

So refined sugar must go.

Sedentary people's perception of what exercise is, needs to change. Gardening for a couple hours on Saturday is nothing. Slowly riding around on a bicycle for 30 - 40 minutes is nothing. Strolling is nothing.

Need to get the heart rate up, and keep it up and have some real effort.

The old three square meals per day idea was meant for the person who works on the farm for 12-16 hours per day and therefore needs fuel. That's real work. Look at old pictures of farmers: skinny but healthy.

Overconsumption of anything is toxic, but refined carbohydrates is the worst and terrible is hydrogenated fats (margarine).

Flour

Sugar

Cookies

Pasta

Bread

Bagels

Wraps

Doughnuts

Candy

Candy bars

Soda

Crackers

Some chips

High volume of popcorn

Slurpees

High energy drinks

etc.

Error:

The tortilla is not super healthy is what I meant to say and a couple at dinner is okay for an active person.

slowerthanu wrote:

Genetics plays a major role as well.

kalory wrote:

This has nothing to do with diet and EVERYTHING to do with exercise.

The genetics of the population are the same as they were 50 years ago. The difference is how our genetics interact with our lifestyle.

pharma wrote:

I mean, sure, ignore it the link if you want. You can google this stuff all day, but pretending it like its a nonfactor is certainly your choice.

https://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/childhood-adhd/news/20140317/adhd-drugs-linked-to-later-weight-gain-in-kids#1

A 6lb difference among a subset of the population is noise when talking about the obesity epidemic.

its because people become more and more lazy and because the large majority of the population is fat or obese it becomes more and more accepted.

Some obese internet activist who thinks he/she/it is beautiful is only an extreme symptom for that. The worse thing is your overweight or obese family that only sees fat people around them and things they have an acceptable weight.

China is much better about this. If you are a little overweight people will actively tell you that you are getting fat, unhealthy and not handsome.

And it works!

+1

Beautifully stated

kalory wrote:

This has nothing to do with diet and EVERYTHING to do with exercise.

I'm 54, drink a bottle of wine with my wife every night, eat as much of anything that I want (I have a chocolate chip muffin every morning with coffee) and eat some form of meat with tortillas every night as we are a spanish culture. But I weigh 128lbs, still run under 17:50 for 5km regularly and run 30-40 miles per week.

I know this is per the individual, but my brothers do not exercise as much and weigh 160-180 lbs at my same height. My sister is like me and she is under 110lbs at 50.

It's all about lifestyle and exercise.

Same here. I'm 51, 6'0" and 154 lbs and have a similar diet and exercise routine. No health problems whatsoever.

My 5 siblings are ALL overweight and have constant health problems and think taking various supplements will help them get healthy, but make zero effort to change their diet or exercise.

I've given up trying to encourage them because they don't want to hear it.

Sugar is the main perpetrator, but overall the marketing of products is kind of misleading because people are severely uninformed and thus believe what it says on the box:

Contains: High fat. Labeled as: Low sugar

Contains: High sugar. Labeled as: Low fat

Contains: High sugar and fat. Labeled as: Salt reduced

Contains: High sugar, fat and salt. Labeled as: Great source of vitamins.

No matter how unhealthy there's always a feel-good excuse in place to convince the consumer.

Doesn't the bible say something about gluttony? And yet the states with the most bible bashers have the most fatties.

John Scott wrote:

Sugar is the main perpetrator, but overall the marketing of products is kind of misleading because people are severely uninformed and thus believe what it says on the box:

Contains: High fat. Labeled as: Low sugar

Contains: High sugar. Labeled as: Low fat

Contains: High sugar and fat. Labeled as: Salt reduced

Contains: High sugar, fat and salt. Labeled as: Great source of vitamins.

No matter how unhealthy there's always a feel-good excuse in place to convince the consumer.

Very easy to look at the nutritional information instead of just reading the marketing on the front.

jd333 wrote:

I believe stress has something to do it. I know for a fact that on a daily basis I deal with stress way more than I did 20 years ago. Seems to me people are much more depressed and stressed now. Combined with eating out more and bigger portions no wonder we are fatter. I think back to when I grew up we ran outside all day playing. Dinner was home cooked with conversation with our parents. Look outside. You never see kids playing anymore.

There's no reason you can't cook at home. Eating out all the time is just lazy.

dullard wrote:

There's no reason you can't cook at home. Eating out all the time is just lazy.

Exactly!

I believe it's simply the technology has replaced the vital time that was spent moving one's boy. For example, in 1990 if I wanted to buy a CD I had to actually put on clothes, walk out of the house, get in the car, drive to the record store, stand (actually stand!) and look through the CD's. Then I would have to drive back, walk into the house and actually have to unwarp the CD and put it into the player. Today I literally do not even need to get out of bed and I can listen to music from all over the world! This I believe has created the obesity epidemic. I have been running 4 times week since 1987 so I am as lean and trim and as tiger.

The U.S. government spends billions of dollars to promote consumption of toxic junk food by the poor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ezg_DqUSQs&t=0s

My parents and their friends were born early 1930's. They started families in the early '50's. I remember all of the women had thin waists; especially my mom (who had a 19"waist before I was born). The pictures of all of them so thin in those years is astonishing. But they worked their tails off keeping house , prepping meals, etc. And most of both the men and women smoked and drank and partied on the weekends like crazy.

YMMV wrote:

The U.S. government spends billions of dollars to promote consumption of toxic junk food by the poor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ezg_DqUSQs&t=0s

We also created the USDA grade system for the beef industry to convince the public that the way we totally screwed up cattle equals quality.

Flawed math wrote:

That Cartoon YouTube video has flawed math. burning 500 kcals in an hour on the treadmill? Not really, especially for many the Letsrun community, who can easily burn 1200+ kcals in a hard 1 hour run (If I walked briskly on a flat surface for an hour I'd burn 500kcals).

The assumption is that every is unfit and will stay unfit, and therefore couldn't POSSIBLY burn enough calories from exercise.

Also, making a point with a cartoon video that says "studies show" without citations isn't a great reference.

Most of the articles about exercise not working use comically small doses of exercise. 30 mins of walking 4x/week (call it like 800 calories) isn't going to change anything. 60 mins of intense aerobic exercise 5x week (call it 4000) will.

But this is not really an OR case. Clean up your diet by 500 calories and add in another 300 calories of burning, and you are talking about a decent weight shift. Once you start dieting down to the 1500-2000 calorie range, it is tough for most people to go much lower for extended periods of time (more than 6 months).

It's pretty interesting. I've been watching the James Bond movies in order over the last few weeks. Pretty much no fat people. Goldfinger, a gigantic fatf*ck in the movie, would be considered only slightly above average now.