Scientists Still Have It Wrong On Obesity?

[EDCMC]

This latest article from Guardian suggests that after 1980s, when many switched to a low-fat diet, the obesity epidemic took off. The article puts the blame on Sugar, but maybe that hypothesis is wrong too.

Could it be PUFA instead?

The sugar conspiracy | Ian Leslie

 

[PakPik]

If you haven't seen this thread yet, I strongly recommend you check it out :Gues Who Wins?Van Tulleken Twin Doctors Go On Month Long High-fat And High-sugar Diet (BBC Document)

Yes, it's the PUFA and also the endocrine problems people have nowadays due to food contaminants, xenoestrogens, inadequate nutrient intake, etc.

 

[Peater Piper]

That's the popular rallying cry now, that carbohydrates are evil, and fat (especially saturated fat) is the cure. It's a stark change from cholesterol and saturated fat being the work of the devil. They'll move onto something else eventually. I'm skeptical that low fat diets caused the obesity epidemic, because I doubt most people ever lowered their fat intake below 10%, 15%, or even 20% of calories, and then there's the question to the quality of their food (micronutrients, PUFA, heavy metals, pesticides, dioxins, endocrine disruptors, etc.). Plenty of cultures have relied primarily on carbohydrates without the weight struggles that Europeans and North Americans have experienced. Even relying on refined grains and sugars resulted in positive health benefits. In Defense of Low Fat: A Call for Some Evolution of Thought (Part 1)

 

[tara]

because I doubt most people ever lowered their fat intake below 10%, 15%, or even 20% of calories

I wonder how many lowered below 30% (which in some circles counts as low-fat).

I also wonder how much soil and food mineral depletion is at play. There's a really big difference between eating a kilo or two of fruit/juice and veges a day and not, and between a kilo of high-brix or low-brix produce. Soils are depleted by industrial agriculture, and some of the recent breeding and growing practice has produced fruit etc that grows fast and has a lot of water and sugar but not much minerals or flavour or resistance to disease.

There's also a lot of confounding in the mainstream media between added refined-sugar and sugars in real foods. There are studies that look at added refined sugars, and we know there areissues with nutrient deficiencies. But then they go on to assume that because eg OJ juice has as much sugar in it as fizzy lolly water, it must be just as problematic.

 

[Westside PUFAs]

People did not lower their fat intake. They've increased it. But they increased everything, pufa, mufa, safa, flour, sucrose, corn syrup, salt, everything has increased. Just because there were a few supermarket items that were labeled "low fat" that became available at the time does not mean that people ate "low fat."

In this article, Dean Ornish responds to a low carber and explains what they don't get, that we've increased everything and we did not "cut fat:"

Why Almost Everything Dean Ornish Says about Nutrition Is Wrong. UPDATED: With Dean Ornish's Response

 

[Tenacity]

Obesity is complicated. More complicated than simply 'you get fat when you eat too much'. I don't think we have all of the answers yet, but hopefully as people become more educated on physiology we'll begin finding out.

 

[tca300]

I think Westside is partly right. People havent gone low fat high carb. It's what is recommended but very few actually do that. I'm pretty sure someone posted information showing sugar consumption has decreased by about 30% since I think 1970, but PUFA ( mostly ) and other fats have increased, as well as total calories... Oh ya and people are pretty sedentary. For those of you who think dropping sugar and replacing it with fat is the cure for obesity...... May Oden have mercy on your soul.

 

[Tarmander]

I remember growing up in the low fat era and part of the dance was replacing butter with margarine...

 

[tara]

Obesity is complicated. More complicated than simply 'you get fat when you eat too much'. I don't think we have all of the answers yet, but hopefully as people become more educated on physiology we'll begin finding out.

Yeah.

There's also the point that only a small portion of the population has gained a lot of fat. And some of them probably have various other metabolic things going on aside from quantities of carbohydrates and fats etc ingested - there are lots of other contenders for hormonal dysregulation around, too.

Most of the population has gained just a little bit of fat. But that little bit on many many people, especially if combined with shifts in the definitions of 'overweight' and 'obese', can result in a lot of people nudging from just under to just over the arbitrary limits of these categories. This can generate statistics that look alarming to some people, and are made much of in the media, but isn't necessarily as big a deal as it's cracked up to be. Especially when one considers that it has occurred along with an increase in life expectancy in many countries.

I.e. the 'obesity epidemic' probably isn't one.

 

[superhuman]

This is just nitpicking for having something to write about. The total big picture is this and its very easy.
From 1980 till today, we are eating WAY more total daily calories from food. Are moving our bodies WAY less, everything else is secondary

 

[Tenacity]

This is just nitpicking for having something to write about. The total big picture is this and its very easy.
From 1980 till today, we are eating WAY more total daily calories from food. Are moving our bodies WAY less, everything else is secondary

It's probably not as simple as that. Adipose tissue seems to respond to physiological and psychological stress, not just the energy balance of the system.

 

[superhuman]

It's probably not as simple as that. Adipose tissue seems to respond to physiological and psychological stress, not just the energy balance of the system.

Sure that may be the case for max 10% the rest are just lazy and eat like ***t compared to 1980.

 

[Simonsays]

Then theres this, the big news story in the UK today. When i heard it on the radio news, fat wasnt mentioned just sugar and salt.
But the article mentions fat content. Sugar is enemy No1 in the UK at moment, what with the new sugar tax on soft drinks.

Dolmio and Uncle Ben's firm Mars defends limit on products - BBC News

 

[jyb]

This is just nitpicking for having something to write about. The total big picture is this and its very easy.
From 1980 till today, we are eating WAY more total daily calories from food. Are moving our bodies WAY less, everything else is secondary

I think my observations contradicts your intuition. In some European cities, where meeting anyone obese is rare, most people don't go to a gym for example. Sure we walk a bit, it's not like living in California where walking is only between your house and the car. But in terms of sports, nothing crazy really. When I went to California, almost everyone seemed fat, yet people were crazy about exercise, gym memberships, "working out"... I met so many people who talk a lot of "calorie restriction" and how they can't eat cheese because it's making them fat...you go to Europe with slim people who have never restricted calorie in their entire lives while pounding cheese and dairy cream daily (fatty cheese, butter, not fake reduced fat products)... It's such a huge contrast with California where it seems normal to be obese (by European standard) and constantly working out and restricting calories and drinking fruit smoothies...

 

[snowboard111]

This is just nitpicking for having something to write about. The total big picture is this and its very easy.
From 1980 till today, we are eating WAY more total daily calories from food. Are moving our bodies WAY less, everything else is secondary

Isn't that the same explanation we read over and over...???

I eat WAY more calories than my "need" and if I don't, I lose weight. I also only workout twice a week for like 45 min max...

When I was eating my pseudo normal calories and working out 5 times a week, I was gaining weight.

What you eat as way more to do than how much you burn while moving and so on

 

[tara]

This is just nitpicking for having something to write about.

I think there is a serious problem with the widespread propagation of the misleading 'obesity epidemic' meme in the mainstream media, which many people now believe. That's why I take the trouble to counter it. If it's a nitpicking, it's a big enough nit to be worth picking, IMO.

From 1980 till today, we are eating WAY more total daily calories from food. Are moving our bodies WAY less, everything else is secondary

If you are going for simple, I guess you could say the population eats a little more, works less hard physically, grows a little taller and rounder, lives a little longer.
(Personally I think it's more complex than this - there are other important factors too, such as PUFA, xenoestrogens, life-stresses and epigenetic inheritance.)

Just looking at WHO table of calorie consumption trends, it appears that most regions of the world have indeed increased mean calorie consumption since 1980 (and more since 1965). In many countries since the 80' inequality has increased a lot too, so I don't know what has happened to the mean, and the distribution of other nutrients often doesn't follow the distribution of calories (ie rich people are likely to get more protein, minerals and vitamins per calorie than the majority).

I agree that a lot of people eat from a seriously degraded food supply.

 

[EIRE24]

Isn't that the same explanation we read over and over...???

I eat WAY more calories than my "need" and if I don't, I lose weight. I also only workout twice a week for like 45 min max...

When I was eating my pseudo normal calories and working out 5 times a week, I was gaining weight.

What you eat as way more to do than how much you burn while moving and so on

So you lose weight eating more calories now?

 

[lindsay]

I think my observations contradicts your intuition. In some European cities, where meeting anyone obese is rare, most people don't go to a gym for example. Sure we walk a bit, it's not like living in California where walking is only between your house and the car. But in terms of sports, nothing crazy really. When I went to California, almost everyone seemed fat, yet people were crazy about exercise, gym memberships, "working out"... I met so many people who talk a lot of "calorie restriction" and how they can't eat cheese because it's making them fat...you go to Europe with slim people who have never restricted calorie in their entire lives while pounding cheese and dairy cream daily (fatty cheese, butter, not fake reduced fat products)... It's such a huge contrast with California where it seems normal to be obese (by European standard) and constantly working out and restricting calories and drinking fruit smoothies...

Yup. I always think of France & Italy when I think of people who look down upon eating fat - because they eat really lovely rich foods. It's all about the kinds of fat we eat. Also, look at the countries with great dairy and you'd probably not find a ton of obese people either. We are fat in the US because we are stressed, eat crappy PUFA and HFCS laden foods, think we need to work out all the time and rarely take time to truly enjoy the little things in life, etc. etc. I still remember growing up as a child in Maine and times have changed so much since then. Or maybe I just moved to one of the more stressful, fast-paced unhealthy regions of the country - LOL.

 

[Such_Saturation]

They'll move onto something else eventually.

Indeed

 

[Rafe]

I blame America's culture of overwork and low/no support systems for caregivers of children, elderly, and disabled for a high-stress national environment. This, plus a very degraded food supply means high-stress survival mode is how people live their normal, everyday lives. Walking around in public it seems clear that people are walking around very tense and defensive. You see a lot of grim expressions. It's hard to know what sources are reliable but from 40 - 70% of Americans report that even if they make 75k/yr they are still just a paycheck or 2 away from being homeless.

It would almost seem a wonder if people didn't get severely over or underweight under those conditions. Children living in poverty in America have been shown to have deranged cortisol levels.
Stress in low-income families can affect children’s learning : NewsCenter
This is just the first study that came up.

De-stressing seems like it puts you in a world outside this vibe. It's a beautiful thing to do.