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Fat Acceptance Movement
Replies
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heiliskrimsli wrote: »heiliskrimsli wrote: »CipherZero wrote: »FatPorkyChop wrote: »I just had the shock of my life, I actually decided to go on blogs, sites and reading their posts...
The movement have nothing to do with the so called fat shaming, their message is full of hatred and simply crazy dangerous...
Please go and check it out by yourself!
> thisisthinprivilege.org
Realize that the site's "stories" are mostly *kitten* made up by people trolling them. Poe's Law applies.
You obviously haven't read the work of Virgie Tovar, Marilyn Wann, Ragen Chastain, Kath Reid, Lindy West or Jes Baker.
Or Kelli Jean Drinkwater, Julianne Wotasik, Kath Read, Jeanette DePattie...
Ragen Chastain flat out told a woman not to lose weight after the woman's doctor said that weight loss could prevent her from going blind.
What do doctors know anyway? They're just hiding their 'fatphobia' under the guise of medical qualifications /sarcasm
That is exactly what Ragen Chastain believes, minus the /sarcasm.Gallowmere1984 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »nevadavis1 wrote: »What is this new mental health pandemic sweeping the globe causing billions of people to eat above their maintenance calories?
I think we've evolved that way--much of human history involved periods of low food/starvation. We were made to eat as much as we could when we could and store fat for lean times. Then our science out-paced our evolution. Food is more widely available, at all times, but much of that food is high in calories, often empty calories. Our ancestors likely would have been fat too if they'd had donuts on every corner.
Evolutionary changes in a species take many generations. The industrial world has developed the obesity problem in a very short time.
This is pretty obvious when you look at races like the Hadza: one of the few hunter-gatherer civs left in the modern world. These people will gorge themselves at times of availability, sometimes throwing down 10k+ kcals at once in things like honey, tubers and meats. They still manage to average in the 8-13% bodyfat range for males.
Something about that whole "have to actually work for food and don't know how big the next meal will be anyway" allows for such things, with no ill consequences on health.
And that means the next meal could be two or three days from now, not "I don't know if I'm going to have time for lunch today."
Going 24 hours without food occasionally for someone of normal health will not hurt them at all.
Yeap. That's kinda the whole point of fat stores: so your body doesn't start coming unglued within a short period of time without food. Hell, I'm pretty sure that if guys who chill in the 8-12% range can do it regularly, most of our...robust population could manage for a week or two.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »nevadavis1 wrote: »What is this new mental health pandemic sweeping the globe causing billions of people to eat above their maintenance calories?
I think we've evolved that way--much of human history involved periods of low food/starvation. We were made to eat as much as we could when we could and store fat for lean times. Then our science out-paced our evolution. Food is more widely available, at all times, but much of that food is high in calories, often empty calories. Our ancestors likely would have been fat too if they'd had donuts on every corner.
Evolutionary changes in a species take many generations. The industrial world has developed the obesity problem in a very short time.
Surely you understand that the poster you are responding to was not at all suggesting that recent evolutionary changes are why we are (on average) fat now, right? Your comment therefore does not seem to follow.
The poster said that in the environment in which we evolved food was more scarce, not nearly as available (and not nearly in as convenient, high cal packages) as it often is now. We evolved under different circumstances and so tend to find it easy to want to eat when food is available (precisely because it was common for food to not be available for periods of time and it was important to be able to eat when it was). Not everyone is this way, but that humans biologically are often prone to becoming overweight when food is easily available in huge amounts and in forms that appeal to our senses is not surprising and does not suggest there is something sick about us, that we'd all be perfect intuitive eaters if we weren't suffering from some preexisting problem, as some claim.
Obviously (IMO), this does NOT mean that we can't lose weight or find ways of dealing with our instincts and desires when it comes to the prevalence of food. I think we can -- figuring that out is also one of our skills as humans, IMO. For a long time culture played a role in it (customs about eating), and for many of us the answer is to impose our own structure in some way so that it's not all about "food there, I want, I eat."
The post I responded to was saying a factor related to current obesity levels was the eating habits of our ancestors.
"I think we've evolved that way--much of human history involved periods of low food/starvation. We were made to eat as much as we could when we could and store fat for lean times. Then our science out-paced our evolution. Food is more widely available, at all times, but much of that food is high in calories, often empty calories. Our ancestors likely would have been fat too if they'd had donuts on every corner."
I personally call BS on this. Take a look at a picture of the fans at a July baseball game in Wrigley Field in the 1960's vs 2016. The people are from the same geographic area, most people at major league baseball games are middle class or above. You will see many more fat people at a game in 2016.
By the 1960's middle class people in Chicago did not have to worry about when they would get their next meal. They had gotten over the idea they had to eat as much as they could in times of plenty. Looks like we've regressed.
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Trying to figure out where someone said that going without food occasionally for 24 hours will hurt you. Maybe it wasn't this thread?
Most years I do it for Good Friday and Ash Wednesday (no food for anywhere between 32 and 36 hours really, with a full day fast), and no one has said I'm going to die or expressed any concern whatsoever, except that some people think it would be hard (it's really not, just different from what I'm normally used to).
I don't think full day fasts (let alone multiple day fasts) is a particularly good weight loss plan in the current world, at least not for most, and that's not why I do it, but that's not the same thing as saying it's dangerous.2 -
Gallowmere1984 wrote: »heiliskrimsli wrote: »heiliskrimsli wrote: »CipherZero wrote: »FatPorkyChop wrote: »I just had the shock of my life, I actually decided to go on blogs, sites and reading their posts...
The movement have nothing to do with the so called fat shaming, their message is full of hatred and simply crazy dangerous...
Please go and check it out by yourself!
> thisisthinprivilege.org
Realize that the site's "stories" are mostly *kitten* made up by people trolling them. Poe's Law applies.
You obviously haven't read the work of Virgie Tovar, Marilyn Wann, Ragen Chastain, Kath Reid, Lindy West or Jes Baker.
Or Kelli Jean Drinkwater, Julianne Wotasik, Kath Read, Jeanette DePattie...
Ragen Chastain flat out told a woman not to lose weight after the woman's doctor said that weight loss could prevent her from going blind.
What do doctors know anyway? They're just hiding their 'fatphobia' under the guise of medical qualifications /sarcasm
That is exactly what Ragen Chastain believes, minus the /sarcasm.Gallowmere1984 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »nevadavis1 wrote: »What is this new mental health pandemic sweeping the globe causing billions of people to eat above their maintenance calories?
I think we've evolved that way--much of human history involved periods of low food/starvation. We were made to eat as much as we could when we could and store fat for lean times. Then our science out-paced our evolution. Food is more widely available, at all times, but much of that food is high in calories, often empty calories. Our ancestors likely would have been fat too if they'd had donuts on every corner.
Evolutionary changes in a species take many generations. The industrial world has developed the obesity problem in a very short time.
This is pretty obvious when you look at races like the Hadza: one of the few hunter-gatherer civs left in the modern world. These people will gorge themselves at times of availability, sometimes throwing down 10k+ kcals at once in things like honey, tubers and meats. They still manage to average in the 8-13% bodyfat range for males.
Something about that whole "have to actually work for food and don't know how big the next meal will be anyway" allows for such things, with no ill consequences on health.
And that means the next meal could be two or three days from now, not "I don't know if I'm going to have time for lunch today."
Going 24 hours without food occasionally for someone of normal health will not hurt them at all.
Yeap. That's kinda the whole point of fat stores: so your body doesn't start coming unglued within a short period of time without food. Hell, I'm pretty sure that if guys who chill in the 8-12% range can do it regularly, most of our...robust population could manage for a week or two.
In wilderness survival you learn about a guideline called the rule of threes.
Three minutes without air.
Three hours without shelter.
Three days without water.
Three weeks without food.
It's a guideline used to tell you what to worry about first. Food is always last. Always.11 -
Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »nevadavis1 wrote: »What is this new mental health pandemic sweeping the globe causing billions of people to eat above their maintenance calories?
I think we've evolved that way--much of human history involved periods of low food/starvation. We were made to eat as much as we could when we could and store fat for lean times. Then our science out-paced our evolution. Food is more widely available, at all times, but much of that food is high in calories, often empty calories. Our ancestors likely would have been fat too if they'd had donuts on every corner.
Evolutionary changes in a species take many generations. The industrial world has developed the obesity problem in a very short time.
Surely you understand that the poster you are responding to was not at all suggesting that recent evolutionary changes are why we are (on average) fat now, right? Your comment therefore does not seem to follow.
The poster said that in the environment in which we evolved food was more scarce, not nearly as available (and not nearly in as convenient, high cal packages) as it often is now. We evolved under different circumstances and so tend to find it easy to want to eat when food is available (precisely because it was common for food to not be available for periods of time and it was important to be able to eat when it was). Not everyone is this way, but that humans biologically are often prone to becoming overweight when food is easily available in huge amounts and in forms that appeal to our senses is not surprising and does not suggest there is something sick about us, that we'd all be perfect intuitive eaters if we weren't suffering from some preexisting problem, as some claim.
Obviously (IMO), this does NOT mean that we can't lose weight or find ways of dealing with our instincts and desires when it comes to the prevalence of food. I think we can -- figuring that out is also one of our skills as humans, IMO. For a long time culture played a role in it (customs about eating), and for many of us the answer is to impose our own structure in some way so that it's not all about "food there, I want, I eat."
The post I responded to was saying a factor related to current obesity levels was the eating habits of our ancestors.
"I think we've evolved that way--much of human history involved periods of low food/starvation. We were made to eat as much as we could when we could and store fat for lean times. Then our science out-paced our evolution. Food is more widely available, at all times, but much of that food is high in calories, often empty calories. Our ancestors likely would have been fat too if they'd had donuts on every corner."
I personally call BS on this. Take a look at a picture of the fans at a July baseball game in Wrigley Field in the 1960's vs 2016. The people are from the same geographic area, most people at major league baseball games are middle class or above. You will see many more fat people at a game in 2016.
By the 1960's middle class people in Chicago did not have to worry about when they would get their next meal. They had gotten over the idea they had to eat as much as they could in times of plenty. Looks like we've regressed.
Looks like we've gotten even more sedentary, even though we don't eat all that differently.
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Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »nevadavis1 wrote: »What is this new mental health pandemic sweeping the globe causing billions of people to eat above their maintenance calories?
I think we've evolved that way--much of human history involved periods of low food/starvation. We were made to eat as much as we could when we could and store fat for lean times. Then our science out-paced our evolution. Food is more widely available, at all times, but much of that food is high in calories, often empty calories. Our ancestors likely would have been fat too if they'd had donuts on every corner.
Evolutionary changes in a species take many generations. The industrial world has developed the obesity problem in a very short time.
Surely you understand that the poster you are responding to was not at all suggesting that recent evolutionary changes are why we are (on average) fat now, right? Your comment therefore does not seem to follow.
The poster said that in the environment in which we evolved food was more scarce, not nearly as available (and not nearly in as convenient, high cal packages) as it often is now. We evolved under different circumstances and so tend to find it easy to want to eat when food is available (precisely because it was common for food to not be available for periods of time and it was important to be able to eat when it was). Not everyone is this way, but that humans biologically are often prone to becoming overweight when food is easily available in huge amounts and in forms that appeal to our senses is not surprising and does not suggest there is something sick about us, that we'd all be perfect intuitive eaters if we weren't suffering from some preexisting problem, as some claim.
Obviously (IMO), this does NOT mean that we can't lose weight or find ways of dealing with our instincts and desires when it comes to the prevalence of food. I think we can -- figuring that out is also one of our skills as humans, IMO. For a long time culture played a role in it (customs about eating), and for many of us the answer is to impose our own structure in some way so that it's not all about "food there, I want, I eat."
The post I responded to was saying a factor related to current obesity levels was the eating habits of our ancestors.
"I think we've evolved that way--much of human history involved periods of low food/starvation. We were made to eat as much as we could when we could and store fat for lean times. Then our science out-paced our evolution. Food is more widely available, at all times, but much of that food is high in calories, often empty calories. Our ancestors likely would have been fat too if they'd had donuts on every corner."
I personally call BS on this. Take a look at a picture of the fans at a July baseball game in Wrigley Field in the 1960's vs 2016. The people are from the same geographic area, most people at major league baseball games are middle class or above. You will see many more fat people at a game in 2016.
By the 1960's middle class people in Chicago did not have to worry about when they would get their next meal. They had gotten over the idea they had to eat as much as they could in times of plenty. Looks like we've regressed.
Looks like we've gotten even more sedentary, even though we don't eat all that differently.
Plus we are eating more. There is a graphic in this article that shows calories per capita for the countries of the world:
https://ourworldindata.org/food-per-person/
1961 in the US, 2,881 calories per capita per day, in 2009, 3,688.0 -
Packerjohn wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »nevadavis1 wrote: »What is this new mental health pandemic sweeping the globe causing billions of people to eat above their maintenance calories?
I think we've evolved that way--much of human history involved periods of low food/starvation. We were made to eat as much as we could when we could and store fat for lean times. Then our science out-paced our evolution. Food is more widely available, at all times, but much of that food is high in calories, often empty calories. Our ancestors likely would have been fat too if they'd had donuts on every corner.
Evolutionary changes in a species take many generations. The industrial world has developed the obesity problem in a very short time.
Surely you understand that the poster you are responding to was not at all suggesting that recent evolutionary changes are why we are (on average) fat now, right? Your comment therefore does not seem to follow.
The poster said that in the environment in which we evolved food was more scarce, not nearly as available (and not nearly in as convenient, high cal packages) as it often is now. We evolved under different circumstances and so tend to find it easy to want to eat when food is available (precisely because it was common for food to not be available for periods of time and it was important to be able to eat when it was). Not everyone is this way, but that humans biologically are often prone to becoming overweight when food is easily available in huge amounts and in forms that appeal to our senses is not surprising and does not suggest there is something sick about us, that we'd all be perfect intuitive eaters if we weren't suffering from some preexisting problem, as some claim.
Obviously (IMO), this does NOT mean that we can't lose weight or find ways of dealing with our instincts and desires when it comes to the prevalence of food. I think we can -- figuring that out is also one of our skills as humans, IMO. For a long time culture played a role in it (customs about eating), and for many of us the answer is to impose our own structure in some way so that it's not all about "food there, I want, I eat."
The post I responded to was saying a factor related to current obesity levels was the eating habits of our ancestors.
"I think we've evolved that way--much of human history involved periods of low food/starvation. We were made to eat as much as we could when we could and store fat for lean times. Then our science out-paced our evolution. Food is more widely available, at all times, but much of that food is high in calories, often empty calories. Our ancestors likely would have been fat too if they'd had donuts on every corner."
I personally call BS on this. Take a look at a picture of the fans at a July baseball game in Wrigley Field in the 1960's vs 2016. The people are from the same geographic area, most people at major league baseball games are middle class or above. You will see many more fat people at a game in 2016.
By the 1960's middle class people in Chicago did not have to worry about when they would get their next meal. They had gotten over the idea they had to eat as much as they could in times of plenty. Looks like we've regressed.
Looks like we've gotten even more sedentary, even though we don't eat all that differently.
Plus we are eating more. There is a graphic in this article that shows calories per capita for the countries of the world:
https://ourworldindata.org/food-per-person/
1961 in the US, 2,881 calories per capita per day, in 2009, 3,688.
The food per person is really measuring food purchased per person, it does not measure consumption.
According to the NHANES data (1971-2010) there's been an increase, but it's a couple of hundred calories per person, not 800 cals. Even though NHANES does rely on 24 hr recall (practically guaranteeing under-reporting at all time points), it is likely closer to correct. Average US weight gain per person over that time period does not support an 800 cal per person increase in consumption, especially considering that we are also much less active than we were.
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Oh, I somehow missed this before.Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »nevadavis1 wrote: »What is this new mental health pandemic sweeping the globe causing billions of people to eat above their maintenance calories?
I think we've evolved that way--much of human history involved periods of low food/starvation. We were made to eat as much as we could when we could and store fat for lean times. Then our science out-paced our evolution. Food is more widely available, at all times, but much of that food is high in calories, often empty calories. Our ancestors likely would have been fat too if they'd had donuts on every corner.
Evolutionary changes in a species take many generations. The industrial world has developed the obesity problem in a very short time.
Surely you understand that the poster you are responding to was not at all suggesting that recent evolutionary changes are why we are (on average) fat now, right? Your comment therefore does not seem to follow.
The poster said that in the environment in which we evolved food was more scarce, not nearly as available (and not nearly in as convenient, high cal packages) as it often is now. We evolved under different circumstances and so tend to find it easy to want to eat when food is available (precisely because it was common for food to not be available for periods of time and it was important to be able to eat when it was). Not everyone is this way, but that humans biologically are often prone to becoming overweight when food is easily available in huge amounts and in forms that appeal to our senses is not surprising and does not suggest there is something sick about us, that we'd all be perfect intuitive eaters if we weren't suffering from some preexisting problem, as some claim.
Obviously (IMO), this does NOT mean that we can't lose weight or find ways of dealing with our instincts and desires when it comes to the prevalence of food. I think we can -- figuring that out is also one of our skills as humans, IMO. For a long time culture played a role in it (customs about eating), and for many of us the answer is to impose our own structure in some way so that it's not all about "food there, I want, I eat."
The post I responded to was saying a factor related to current obesity levels was the eating habits of our ancestors.
Yes, she was saying that we evolved in an environment where food was scarce, so tend to have biology fit for that. Now food is abundant. Thus, we have to adjust.
It isn't that unclear -- she was absolutely not claiming that we are fat because we've evolved since the '50s or some such as you seemed to think.I personally call BS on this. Take a look at a picture of the fans at a July baseball game in Wrigley Field in the 1960's vs 2016. The people are from the same geographic area, most people at major league baseball games are middle class or above. You will see many more fat people at a game in 2016.
Yes, the food environment is different now than it was in the '60s. It's different now than it was when I grew up, in the '80s.By the 1960's middle class people in Chicago did not have to worry about when they would get their next meal. They had gotten over the idea they had to eat as much as they could in times of plenty. Looks like we've regressed.
People had stronger customs regulating when we ate, servings sizes were smaller, most people still cooked at home and ate mostly just at meals, people didn't consume a lot of high cal drinks between meals (maybe at a Cubs game they would have some Old Style, granted), the amount of food in the grocery stores was less, the amount of high cal snacky things (and size) was less, people didn't consume lots of super high cal coffee drinks routinely, on and on.
People were also more active in daily life for a lot of reasons and more apt to have active jobs.
NONE of these means that we have to be fat now, but the food environment has changed.
Claiming that the only difference between then and now is that we are now without discipline or some such is weird. Humans don't really change that much as to our basic nature, so the environment is what has changed.5 -
CipherZero wrote: »FatPorkyChop wrote: »I just had the shock of my life, I actually decided to go on blogs, sites and reading their posts...
The movement have nothing to do with the so called fat shaming, their message is full of hatred and simply crazy dangerous...
Please go and check it out by yourself!
> thisisthinprivilege.org
Realize that the site's "stories" are mostly *kitten* made up by people trolling them. Poe's Law applies.
You obviously haven't read the work of Virgie Tovar, Marilyn Wann, Ragen Chastain, Kath Reid, Lindy West or Jes Baker.
Oh, I have. And I think they're all as full of *kitten* as Dr. Oz, and half as useful.2 -
Shaming someone for their body type or any choice they make about themselves should never be ok, and there is no need to make this specific about weight. Bullying is not ok, what you are bullied about is irrelevant.
How this translates to not being able to state facts, like that being fat increases health risks, I do not get it. It is like saying we should never mention smoking has health risks because it will make smokers feel uncomfortable.
i can understand this, but theres a difference between being frank with someone while having a discussion and simply being an a**hole, fat shaming isnt the "being frank" its the a**hole who shouts at someone who they dont know while laughing, thats where the "shaming" aspect of this come in. if you need to talk to someone about their health its usually comes from someone who loves / cares about you - thats not shaming - thats concern.
as for the fat acceptance movement, its a double edged sword (like most things)4 -
Shaming someone for their body type or any choice they make about themselves should never be ok, and there is no need to make this specific about weight. Bullying is not ok, what you are bullied about is irrelevant.
How this translates to not being able to state facts, like that being fat increases health risks, I do not get it. It is like saying we should never mention smoking has health risks because it will make smokers feel uncomfortable.
i can understand this, but theres a difference between being frank with someone while having a discussion and simply being an a**hole, fat shaming isnt the "being frank" its the a**hole who shouts at someone who they dont know while laughing, thats where the "shaming" aspect of this come in. if you need to talk to someone about their health its usually comes from someone who loves / cares about you - thats not shaming - thats concern.
as for the fat acceptance movement, its a double edged sword (like most things)
Would it surprise you to know that the prominent players in Fat Acceptance oppose even this?
They call it concern trolling.7 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Oh, I somehow missed this before.Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »nevadavis1 wrote: »What is this new mental health pandemic sweeping the globe causing billions of people to eat above their maintenance calories?
I think we've evolved that way--much of human history involved periods of low food/starvation. We were made to eat as much as we could when we could and store fat for lean times. Then our science out-paced our evolution. Food is more widely available, at all times, but much of that food is high in calories, often empty calories. Our ancestors likely would have been fat too if they'd had donuts on every corner.
Evolutionary changes in a species take many generations. The industrial world has developed the obesity problem in a very short time.
Surely you understand that the poster you are responding to was not at all suggesting that recent evolutionary changes are why we are (on average) fat now, right? Your comment therefore does not seem to follow.
The poster said that in the environment in which we evolved food was more scarce, not nearly as available (and not nearly in as convenient, high cal packages) as it often is now. We evolved under different circumstances and so tend to find it easy to want to eat when food is available (precisely because it was common for food to not be available for periods of time and it was important to be able to eat when it was). Not everyone is this way, but that humans biologically are often prone to becoming overweight when food is easily available in huge amounts and in forms that appeal to our senses is not surprising and does not suggest there is something sick about us, that we'd all be perfect intuitive eaters if we weren't suffering from some preexisting problem, as some claim.
Obviously (IMO), this does NOT mean that we can't lose weight or find ways of dealing with our instincts and desires when it comes to the prevalence of food. I think we can -- figuring that out is also one of our skills as humans, IMO. For a long time culture played a role in it (customs about eating), and for many of us the answer is to impose our own structure in some way so that it's not all about "food there, I want, I eat."
The post I responded to was saying a factor related to current obesity levels was the eating habits of our ancestors.
Yes, she was saying that we evolved in an environment where food was scarce, so tend to have biology fit for that. Now food is abundant. Thus, we have to adjust.
It isn't that unclear -- she was absolutely not claiming that we are fat because we've evolved since the '50s or some such as you seemed to think.I personally call BS on this. Take a look at a picture of the fans at a July baseball game in Wrigley Field in the 1960's vs 2016. The people are from the same geographic area, most people at major league baseball games are middle class or above. You will see many more fat people at a game in 2016.
Yes, the food environment is different now than it was in the '60s. It's different now than it was when I grew up, in the '80s.By the 1960's middle class people in Chicago did not have to worry about when they would get their next meal. They had gotten over the idea they had to eat as much as they could in times of plenty. Looks like we've regressed.
People had stronger customs regulating when we ate, servings sizes were smaller, most people still cooked at home and ate mostly just at meals, people didn't consume a lot of high cal drinks between meals (maybe at a Cubs game they would have some Old Style, granted), the amount of food in the grocery stores was less, the amount of high cal snacky things (and size) was less, people didn't consume lots of super high cal coffee drinks routinely, on and on.
People were also more active in daily life for a lot of reasons and more apt to have active jobs.
NONE of these means that we have to be fat now, but the food environment has changed.
Claiming that the only difference between then and now is that we are now without discipline or some such is weird. Humans don't really change that much as to our basic nature, so the environment is what has changed.
@lemurcat12, you are misunderstanding my point. The poster I was referring to said the human race evolved over thousands of years to eat in times of plenty to prepare for times of shortage and this is a factor in the obesity crisis today.
My point is, I think we (in the industrialized world at least) are past this eat for shortage thing. As per my example, by the 1950's/1960's most of the US did not have to worry about a supply of food. And if you look at typical US residents in the 1960's (my Wrigley Field example) there are few obese individuals compared to current day. I'm not saying evolution caused the increase in obesity from 1960 to today. The high calorie, nutrient poor foods we shove down our throats and the lack of movement have both increased since the 1960's, this IMO, is the root cause.2 -
Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Oh, I somehow missed this before.Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »nevadavis1 wrote: »What is this new mental health pandemic sweeping the globe causing billions of people to eat above their maintenance calories?
I think we've evolved that way--much of human history involved periods of low food/starvation. We were made to eat as much as we could when we could and store fat for lean times. Then our science out-paced our evolution. Food is more widely available, at all times, but much of that food is high in calories, often empty calories. Our ancestors likely would have been fat too if they'd had donuts on every corner.
Evolutionary changes in a species take many generations. The industrial world has developed the obesity problem in a very short time.
Surely you understand that the poster you are responding to was not at all suggesting that recent evolutionary changes are why we are (on average) fat now, right? Your comment therefore does not seem to follow.
The poster said that in the environment in which we evolved food was more scarce, not nearly as available (and not nearly in as convenient, high cal packages) as it often is now. We evolved under different circumstances and so tend to find it easy to want to eat when food is available (precisely because it was common for food to not be available for periods of time and it was important to be able to eat when it was). Not everyone is this way, but that humans biologically are often prone to becoming overweight when food is easily available in huge amounts and in forms that appeal to our senses is not surprising and does not suggest there is something sick about us, that we'd all be perfect intuitive eaters if we weren't suffering from some preexisting problem, as some claim.
Obviously (IMO), this does NOT mean that we can't lose weight or find ways of dealing with our instincts and desires when it comes to the prevalence of food. I think we can -- figuring that out is also one of our skills as humans, IMO. For a long time culture played a role in it (customs about eating), and for many of us the answer is to impose our own structure in some way so that it's not all about "food there, I want, I eat."
The post I responded to was saying a factor related to current obesity levels was the eating habits of our ancestors.
Yes, she was saying that we evolved in an environment where food was scarce, so tend to have biology fit for that. Now food is abundant. Thus, we have to adjust.
It isn't that unclear -- she was absolutely not claiming that we are fat because we've evolved since the '50s or some such as you seemed to think.I personally call BS on this. Take a look at a picture of the fans at a July baseball game in Wrigley Field in the 1960's vs 2016. The people are from the same geographic area, most people at major league baseball games are middle class or above. You will see many more fat people at a game in 2016.
Yes, the food environment is different now than it was in the '60s. It's different now than it was when I grew up, in the '80s.By the 1960's middle class people in Chicago did not have to worry about when they would get their next meal. They had gotten over the idea they had to eat as much as they could in times of plenty. Looks like we've regressed.
People had stronger customs regulating when we ate, servings sizes were smaller, most people still cooked at home and ate mostly just at meals, people didn't consume a lot of high cal drinks between meals (maybe at a Cubs game they would have some Old Style, granted), the amount of food in the grocery stores was less, the amount of high cal snacky things (and size) was less, people didn't consume lots of super high cal coffee drinks routinely, on and on.
People were also more active in daily life for a lot of reasons and more apt to have active jobs.
NONE of these means that we have to be fat now, but the food environment has changed.
Claiming that the only difference between then and now is that we are now without discipline or some such is weird. Humans don't really change that much as to our basic nature, so the environment is what has changed.
@lemurcat12, you are misunderstanding my point. The poster I was referring to said the human race evolved over thousands of years to eat in times of plenty to prepare for times of shortage and this is a factor in the obesity crisis today.
I think you misunderstood her when you made fun of the idea that our evolutionary make up changed recently (as of course it did not). Her point is that a lot of our impulses relate to what would have been helpful in a time of scarcity (like the fact we crave fat and sugar so easily), and so we have to find a way to adjust to a different kind of environment. The environment wasn't one of scarcity 50 years ago, but it wasn't nearly as conducive to becoming overweight as the current one. There were checks on what we ate that don't exist today.
Again, I don't think she was claiming food was scarce 50 years ago or that we have changed our biology. The environment has changed in ways that I discussed above, but our longstanding biology (which was useful thousands of years ago) makes this hard to deal with and something we need to address with our minds and can't assume that absent something being physically messed up we can just follow desires or hunger cues or whatever. We traditionally ate when food was available, so it's really normal to want to eat even when you shouldn't be hungry (doesn't mean you should or have to, but it's normal to want to).My point is, I think we (in the industrialized world at least) are past this eat for shortage thing. As per my example, by the 1950's/1960's most of the US did not have to worry about a supply of food. And if you look at typical US residents in the 1960's (my Wrigley Field example) there are few obese individuals compared to current day. I'm not saying evolution caused the increase in obesity from 1960 to today. The high calorie, nutrient poor foods we shove down our throats and the lack of movement have both increased since the 1960's, this IMO, is the root cause.
How is this all that different from what I also said?
The extent to which the environment contributes to the consumption of excessive amounts of high cal, nutrient poor foods has changed, so we need to take steps to address that in our own lives.2 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Oh, I somehow missed this before.Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »nevadavis1 wrote: »What is this new mental health pandemic sweeping the globe causing billions of people to eat above their maintenance calories?
I think we've evolved that way--much of human history involved periods of low food/starvation. We were made to eat as much as we could when we could and store fat for lean times. Then our science out-paced our evolution. Food is more widely available, at all times, but much of that food is high in calories, often empty calories. Our ancestors likely would have been fat too if they'd had donuts on every corner.
Evolutionary changes in a species take many generations. The industrial world has developed the obesity problem in a very short time.
Surely you understand that the poster you are responding to was not at all suggesting that recent evolutionary changes are why we are (on average) fat now, right? Your comment therefore does not seem to follow.
The poster said that in the environment in which we evolved food was more scarce, not nearly as available (and not nearly in as convenient, high cal packages) as it often is now. We evolved under different circumstances and so tend to find it easy to want to eat when food is available (precisely because it was common for food to not be available for periods of time and it was important to be able to eat when it was). Not everyone is this way, but that humans biologically are often prone to becoming overweight when food is easily available in huge amounts and in forms that appeal to our senses is not surprising and does not suggest there is something sick about us, that we'd all be perfect intuitive eaters if we weren't suffering from some preexisting problem, as some claim.
Obviously (IMO), this does NOT mean that we can't lose weight or find ways of dealing with our instincts and desires when it comes to the prevalence of food. I think we can -- figuring that out is also one of our skills as humans, IMO. For a long time culture played a role in it (customs about eating), and for many of us the answer is to impose our own structure in some way so that it's not all about "food there, I want, I eat."
The post I responded to was saying a factor related to current obesity levels was the eating habits of our ancestors.
Yes, she was saying that we evolved in an environment where food was scarce, so tend to have biology fit for that. Now food is abundant. Thus, we have to adjust.
It isn't that unclear -- she was absolutely not claiming that we are fat because we've evolved since the '50s or some such as you seemed to think.I personally call BS on this. Take a look at a picture of the fans at a July baseball game in Wrigley Field in the 1960's vs 2016. The people are from the same geographic area, most people at major league baseball games are middle class or above. You will see many more fat people at a game in 2016.
Yes, the food environment is different now than it was in the '60s. It's different now than it was when I grew up, in the '80s.By the 1960's middle class people in Chicago did not have to worry about when they would get their next meal. They had gotten over the idea they had to eat as much as they could in times of plenty. Looks like we've regressed.
People had stronger customs regulating when we ate, servings sizes were smaller, most people still cooked at home and ate mostly just at meals, people didn't consume a lot of high cal drinks between meals (maybe at a Cubs game they would have some Old Style, granted), the amount of food in the grocery stores was less, the amount of high cal snacky things (and size) was less, people didn't consume lots of super high cal coffee drinks routinely, on and on.
People were also more active in daily life for a lot of reasons and more apt to have active jobs.
NONE of these means that we have to be fat now, but the food environment has changed.
Claiming that the only difference between then and now is that we are now without discipline or some such is weird. Humans don't really change that much as to our basic nature, so the environment is what has changed.
@lemurcat12, you are misunderstanding my point. The poster I was referring to said the human race evolved over thousands of years to eat in times of plenty to prepare for times of shortage and this is a factor in the obesity crisis today.
I think you misunderstood her when you made fun of the idea that our evolutionary make up changed recently (as of course it did not). Her point is that a lot of our impulses relate to what would have been helpful in a time of scarcity (like the fact we crave fat and sugar so easily), and so we have to find a way to adjust to a different kind of environment. The environment wasn't one of scarcity 50 years ago, but it wasn't nearly as conducive to becoming overweight as the current one. There were checks on what we ate that don't exist today.
Again, I don't think she was claiming food was scarce 50 years ago or that we have changed our biology. The environment has changed in ways that I discussed above, but our longstanding biology (which was useful thousands of years ago) makes this hard to deal with and something we need to address with our minds and can't assume that absent something being physically messed up we can just follow desires or hunger cues or whatever. We traditionally ate when food was available, so it's really normal to want to eat even when you shouldn't be hungry (doesn't mean you should or have to, but it's normal to want to).My point is, I think we (in the industrialized world at least) are past this eat for shortage thing. As per my example, by the 1950's/1960's most of the US did not have to worry about a supply of food. And if you look at typical US residents in the 1960's (my Wrigley Field example) there are few obese individuals compared to current day. I'm not saying evolution caused the increase in obesity from 1960 to today. The high calorie, nutrient poor foods we shove down our throats and the lack of movement have both increased since the 1960's, this IMO, is the root cause.
How is this all that different from what I also said?
The extent to which the environment contributes to the consumption of excessive amounts of high cal, nutrient poor foods has changed, so we need to take steps to address that in our own lives.
And the bolded in my opinion is a poor excuse/victim mentality.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »We traditionally ate when food was available, so it's really normal to want to eat even when you shouldn't be hungry (doesn't mean you should or have to, but it's normal to want to).
If this is a principle anyone is basing cause analysis, then this is fundamentally incorrect. It is not natural to eat at maintenance. There is nothing instinctual that tells a person that they have eaten enough to match the amount of calories they burned. There is no biological mechanism that tells you I'm going to run a marathon and I need to eat more today. There is no biological mechanism that tells you I need to eat more as I just ran a marathon. This is behavioral.
Using the balanced check book analogy it is natural to want to spend more than we earn, but are limited as the concept of finance (as abstract as this is) is firmly rooted in reality through tradition, education, and a host of reinforcing actions. Calorie maintenance is no different - another abstract quantifier, but a relatively new concept in human history.
Making the excuse that high cal, nutrient poor food is causing weight gain is as flawed as blaming Check n' Go's for people's poor financial state.
1 -
Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Oh, I somehow missed this before.Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »nevadavis1 wrote: »What is this new mental health pandemic sweeping the globe causing billions of people to eat above their maintenance calories?
I think we've evolved that way--much of human history involved periods of low food/starvation. We were made to eat as much as we could when we could and store fat for lean times. Then our science out-paced our evolution. Food is more widely available, at all times, but much of that food is high in calories, often empty calories. Our ancestors likely would have been fat too if they'd had donuts on every corner.
Evolutionary changes in a species take many generations. The industrial world has developed the obesity problem in a very short time.
Surely you understand that the poster you are responding to was not at all suggesting that recent evolutionary changes are why we are (on average) fat now, right? Your comment therefore does not seem to follow.
The poster said that in the environment in which we evolved food was more scarce, not nearly as available (and not nearly in as convenient, high cal packages) as it often is now. We evolved under different circumstances and so tend to find it easy to want to eat when food is available (precisely because it was common for food to not be available for periods of time and it was important to be able to eat when it was). Not everyone is this way, but that humans biologically are often prone to becoming overweight when food is easily available in huge amounts and in forms that appeal to our senses is not surprising and does not suggest there is something sick about us, that we'd all be perfect intuitive eaters if we weren't suffering from some preexisting problem, as some claim.
Obviously (IMO), this does NOT mean that we can't lose weight or find ways of dealing with our instincts and desires when it comes to the prevalence of food. I think we can -- figuring that out is also one of our skills as humans, IMO. For a long time culture played a role in it (customs about eating), and for many of us the answer is to impose our own structure in some way so that it's not all about "food there, I want, I eat."
The post I responded to was saying a factor related to current obesity levels was the eating habits of our ancestors.
Yes, she was saying that we evolved in an environment where food was scarce, so tend to have biology fit for that. Now food is abundant. Thus, we have to adjust.
It isn't that unclear -- she was absolutely not claiming that we are fat because we've evolved since the '50s or some such as you seemed to think.I personally call BS on this. Take a look at a picture of the fans at a July baseball game in Wrigley Field in the 1960's vs 2016. The people are from the same geographic area, most people at major league baseball games are middle class or above. You will see many more fat people at a game in 2016.
Yes, the food environment is different now than it was in the '60s. It's different now than it was when I grew up, in the '80s.By the 1960's middle class people in Chicago did not have to worry about when they would get their next meal. They had gotten over the idea they had to eat as much as they could in times of plenty. Looks like we've regressed.
People had stronger customs regulating when we ate, servings sizes were smaller, most people still cooked at home and ate mostly just at meals, people didn't consume a lot of high cal drinks between meals (maybe at a Cubs game they would have some Old Style, granted), the amount of food in the grocery stores was less, the amount of high cal snacky things (and size) was less, people didn't consume lots of super high cal coffee drinks routinely, on and on.
People were also more active in daily life for a lot of reasons and more apt to have active jobs.
NONE of these means that we have to be fat now, but the food environment has changed.
Claiming that the only difference between then and now is that we are now without discipline or some such is weird. Humans don't really change that much as to our basic nature, so the environment is what has changed.
@lemurcat12, you are misunderstanding my point. The poster I was referring to said the human race evolved over thousands of years to eat in times of plenty to prepare for times of shortage and this is a factor in the obesity crisis today.
I think you misunderstood her when you made fun of the idea that our evolutionary make up changed recently (as of course it did not). Her point is that a lot of our impulses relate to what would have been helpful in a time of scarcity (like the fact we crave fat and sugar so easily), and so we have to find a way to adjust to a different kind of environment. The environment wasn't one of scarcity 50 years ago, but it wasn't nearly as conducive to becoming overweight as the current one. There were checks on what we ate that don't exist today.
Again, I don't think she was claiming food was scarce 50 years ago or that we have changed our biology. The environment has changed in ways that I discussed above, but our longstanding biology (which was useful thousands of years ago) makes this hard to deal with and something we need to address with our minds and can't assume that absent something being physically messed up we can just follow desires or hunger cues or whatever. We traditionally ate when food was available, so it's really normal to want to eat even when you shouldn't be hungry (doesn't mean you should or have to, but it's normal to want to).My point is, I think we (in the industrialized world at least) are past this eat for shortage thing. As per my example, by the 1950's/1960's most of the US did not have to worry about a supply of food. And if you look at typical US residents in the 1960's (my Wrigley Field example) there are few obese individuals compared to current day. I'm not saying evolution caused the increase in obesity from 1960 to today. The high calorie, nutrient poor foods we shove down our throats and the lack of movement have both increased since the 1960's, this IMO, is the root cause.
How is this all that different from what I also said?
The extent to which the environment contributes to the consumption of excessive amounts of high cal, nutrient poor foods has changed, so we need to take steps to address that in our own lives.
And the bolded in my opinion is a poor excuse/victim mentality.
Really? I think understanding our impulses is a great way to take control of our lives. Understanding that I'm the product of an evolutionary process that rewarded those who ate even when they weren't hungry doesn't mean that I personally have to engage in that behavior. In fact, understanding how easily I can slide into that behavior helps to keep me on guard and remind myself that I can be in control, regardless of my impulses.8 -
How does the enzyme/hormone which promotes hunger fit in to this, grenalin (sp/). Some make much more than they need others make the right amount for them.3
-
Plus we are eating more. There is a graphic in this article that shows calories per capita for the countries of the world:
https://ourworldindata.org/food-per-person/
1961 in the US, 2,881 calories per capita per day, in 2009, 3,688.
And it was 3800 in 2000. That is INSANE! That's what I eat when I am bulking and trying to gain ~1 lb/week. It is literally torturous to eat that much food.
3 -
janejellyroll wrote: »In fact, understanding how easily I can slide into that behavior helps to keep me on guard and remind myself that I can be in control, regardless of my impulses.
I agree, when we have no idea why something is happening, then we feel powerless against it. If we understand then we feel like we're in control. Also, not understanding leads people to weird assumptions--I had a coworker who said that she got cravings for potato chips and figured it was because there was something in them she needed.
6 -
Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Oh, I somehow missed this before.Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »nevadavis1 wrote: »What is this new mental health pandemic sweeping the globe causing billions of people to eat above their maintenance calories?
I think we've evolved that way--much of human history involved periods of low food/starvation. We were made to eat as much as we could when we could and store fat for lean times. Then our science out-paced our evolution. Food is more widely available, at all times, but much of that food is high in calories, often empty calories. Our ancestors likely would have been fat too if they'd had donuts on every corner.
Evolutionary changes in a species take many generations. The industrial world has developed the obesity problem in a very short time.
Surely you understand that the poster you are responding to was not at all suggesting that recent evolutionary changes are why we are (on average) fat now, right? Your comment therefore does not seem to follow.
The poster said that in the environment in which we evolved food was more scarce, not nearly as available (and not nearly in as convenient, high cal packages) as it often is now. We evolved under different circumstances and so tend to find it easy to want to eat when food is available (precisely because it was common for food to not be available for periods of time and it was important to be able to eat when it was). Not everyone is this way, but that humans biologically are often prone to becoming overweight when food is easily available in huge amounts and in forms that appeal to our senses is not surprising and does not suggest there is something sick about us, that we'd all be perfect intuitive eaters if we weren't suffering from some preexisting problem, as some claim.
Obviously (IMO), this does NOT mean that we can't lose weight or find ways of dealing with our instincts and desires when it comes to the prevalence of food. I think we can -- figuring that out is also one of our skills as humans, IMO. For a long time culture played a role in it (customs about eating), and for many of us the answer is to impose our own structure in some way so that it's not all about "food there, I want, I eat."
The post I responded to was saying a factor related to current obesity levels was the eating habits of our ancestors.
Yes, she was saying that we evolved in an environment where food was scarce, so tend to have biology fit for that. Now food is abundant. Thus, we have to adjust.
It isn't that unclear -- she was absolutely not claiming that we are fat because we've evolved since the '50s or some such as you seemed to think.I personally call BS on this. Take a look at a picture of the fans at a July baseball game in Wrigley Field in the 1960's vs 2016. The people are from the same geographic area, most people at major league baseball games are middle class or above. You will see many more fat people at a game in 2016.
Yes, the food environment is different now than it was in the '60s. It's different now than it was when I grew up, in the '80s.By the 1960's middle class people in Chicago did not have to worry about when they would get their next meal. They had gotten over the idea they had to eat as much as they could in times of plenty. Looks like we've regressed.
People had stronger customs regulating when we ate, servings sizes were smaller, most people still cooked at home and ate mostly just at meals, people didn't consume a lot of high cal drinks between meals (maybe at a Cubs game they would have some Old Style, granted), the amount of food in the grocery stores was less, the amount of high cal snacky things (and size) was less, people didn't consume lots of super high cal coffee drinks routinely, on and on.
People were also more active in daily life for a lot of reasons and more apt to have active jobs.
NONE of these means that we have to be fat now, but the food environment has changed.
Claiming that the only difference between then and now is that we are now without discipline or some such is weird. Humans don't really change that much as to our basic nature, so the environment is what has changed.
@lemurcat12, you are misunderstanding my point. The poster I was referring to said the human race evolved over thousands of years to eat in times of plenty to prepare for times of shortage and this is a factor in the obesity crisis today.
I think you misunderstood her when you made fun of the idea that our evolutionary make up changed recently (as of course it did not). Her point is that a lot of our impulses relate to what would have been helpful in a time of scarcity (like the fact we crave fat and sugar so easily), and so we have to find a way to adjust to a different kind of environment. The environment wasn't one of scarcity 50 years ago, but it wasn't nearly as conducive to becoming overweight as the current one. There were checks on what we ate that don't exist today.
Again, I don't think she was claiming food was scarce 50 years ago or that we have changed our biology. The environment has changed in ways that I discussed above, but our longstanding biology (which was useful thousands of years ago) makes this hard to deal with and something we need to address with our minds and can't assume that absent something being physically messed up we can just follow desires or hunger cues or whatever. We traditionally ate when food was available, so it's really normal to want to eat even when you shouldn't be hungry (doesn't mean you should or have to, but it's normal to want to).My point is, I think we (in the industrialized world at least) are past this eat for shortage thing. As per my example, by the 1950's/1960's most of the US did not have to worry about a supply of food. And if you look at typical US residents in the 1960's (my Wrigley Field example) there are few obese individuals compared to current day. I'm not saying evolution caused the increase in obesity from 1960 to today. The high calorie, nutrient poor foods we shove down our throats and the lack of movement have both increased since the 1960's, this IMO, is the root cause.
How is this all that different from what I also said?
The extent to which the environment contributes to the consumption of excessive amounts of high cal, nutrient poor foods has changed, so we need to take steps to address that in our own lives.
And the bolded in my opinion is a poor excuse/victim mentality.
Why, when I specifically said "NONE of these means that we have to be fat now, but the food environment has changed."
There are some people who claim that if you have to watch what you eat you must be ill, because humans should naturally eat intuitively unless something is wrong. I think that's obviously off-base. We evolved under situations in which food scarcity was common, getting fat did not prevent reproduction (since among other things it was so uncommon). We evolved to want to eat when food was available, to crave/enjoy fat and sugar (since they were in higher cal foods available to us), so on. These are the kinds of factors people like Stephan Guyenet and Brian Wansink, among others, point to in giving what I think is good advice about weight control.
To read it as "excuse to stay fat" or victim mentality is 100% wrong and IMO offensive as that is pretty obviously NOT what I am saying.
Also, the question is WHY are people fat now compared to 1960? You seem to be saying that we just became lazy and gluttons, but the fact is that we haven't really changed biologically, so that seems unlikely. Our environments are different, including more prevalence of foods, different cultural messages about food and when we eat, different sizes, things being cheaper and more things being more easily available, etc. I think this is somewhat good, somewhat bad, but the bad part we are smart enough to learn to control. BUT we need to understand it to best control it, IMO -- at least that helps me.lemurcat12 wrote: »We traditionally ate when food was available, so it's really normal to want to eat even when you shouldn't be hungry (doesn't mean you should or have to, but it's normal to want to).
If this is a principle anyone is basing cause analysis, then this is fundamentally incorrect. It is not natural to eat at maintenance. There is nothing instinctual that tells a person that they have eaten enough to match the amount of calories they burned. There is no biological mechanism that tells you I'm going to run a marathon and I need to eat more today. There is no biological mechanism that tells you I need to eat more as I just ran a marathon. This is behavioral.
Sigh, I think you are saying the same thing I did. It's not natural to eat at maintenance. It's perfectly normal to want to overeat and to need some kind of check on that. There were once more cultural checks than there are now, IMO, and now we have to add them ourselves.
Did you misread me? I'm feeling like everyone in this thread is trying to misread each other and it's frustrating.Making the excuse that high cal, nutrient poor food is causing weight gain is as flawed as blaming Check n' Go's for people's poor financial state.
I did not say it was CAUSING weight gain. Are you arguing with Packerjohn? I think he said that.
I said it presents a different food environment that we have to (and can) learn to navigate and control for ourselves. Calorie counting is one tool to do so, not the only one (not the one I mostly use, although I have).4 -
janejellyroll wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Oh, I somehow missed this before.Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »nevadavis1 wrote: »What is this new mental health pandemic sweeping the globe causing billions of people to eat above their maintenance calories?
I think we've evolved that way--much of human history involved periods of low food/starvation. We were made to eat as much as we could when we could and store fat for lean times. Then our science out-paced our evolution. Food is more widely available, at all times, but much of that food is high in calories, often empty calories. Our ancestors likely would have been fat too if they'd had donuts on every corner.
Evolutionary changes in a species take many generations. The industrial world has developed the obesity problem in a very short time.
Surely you understand that the poster you are responding to was not at all suggesting that recent evolutionary changes are why we are (on average) fat now, right? Your comment therefore does not seem to follow.
The poster said that in the environment in which we evolved food was more scarce, not nearly as available (and not nearly in as convenient, high cal packages) as it often is now. We evolved under different circumstances and so tend to find it easy to want to eat when food is available (precisely because it was common for food to not be available for periods of time and it was important to be able to eat when it was). Not everyone is this way, but that humans biologically are often prone to becoming overweight when food is easily available in huge amounts and in forms that appeal to our senses is not surprising and does not suggest there is something sick about us, that we'd all be perfect intuitive eaters if we weren't suffering from some preexisting problem, as some claim.
Obviously (IMO), this does NOT mean that we can't lose weight or find ways of dealing with our instincts and desires when it comes to the prevalence of food. I think we can -- figuring that out is also one of our skills as humans, IMO. For a long time culture played a role in it (customs about eating), and for many of us the answer is to impose our own structure in some way so that it's not all about "food there, I want, I eat."
The post I responded to was saying a factor related to current obesity levels was the eating habits of our ancestors.
Yes, she was saying that we evolved in an environment where food was scarce, so tend to have biology fit for that. Now food is abundant. Thus, we have to adjust.
It isn't that unclear -- she was absolutely not claiming that we are fat because we've evolved since the '50s or some such as you seemed to think.I personally call BS on this. Take a look at a picture of the fans at a July baseball game in Wrigley Field in the 1960's vs 2016. The people are from the same geographic area, most people at major league baseball games are middle class or above. You will see many more fat people at a game in 2016.
Yes, the food environment is different now than it was in the '60s. It's different now than it was when I grew up, in the '80s.By the 1960's middle class people in Chicago did not have to worry about when they would get their next meal. They had gotten over the idea they had to eat as much as they could in times of plenty. Looks like we've regressed.
People had stronger customs regulating when we ate, servings sizes were smaller, most people still cooked at home and ate mostly just at meals, people didn't consume a lot of high cal drinks between meals (maybe at a Cubs game they would have some Old Style, granted), the amount of food in the grocery stores was less, the amount of high cal snacky things (and size) was less, people didn't consume lots of super high cal coffee drinks routinely, on and on.
People were also more active in daily life for a lot of reasons and more apt to have active jobs.
NONE of these means that we have to be fat now, but the food environment has changed.
Claiming that the only difference between then and now is that we are now without discipline or some such is weird. Humans don't really change that much as to our basic nature, so the environment is what has changed.
@lemurcat12, you are misunderstanding my point. The poster I was referring to said the human race evolved over thousands of years to eat in times of plenty to prepare for times of shortage and this is a factor in the obesity crisis today.
I think you misunderstood her when you made fun of the idea that our evolutionary make up changed recently (as of course it did not). Her point is that a lot of our impulses relate to what would have been helpful in a time of scarcity (like the fact we crave fat and sugar so easily), and so we have to find a way to adjust to a different kind of environment. The environment wasn't one of scarcity 50 years ago, but it wasn't nearly as conducive to becoming overweight as the current one. There were checks on what we ate that don't exist today.
Again, I don't think she was claiming food was scarce 50 years ago or that we have changed our biology. The environment has changed in ways that I discussed above, but our longstanding biology (which was useful thousands of years ago) makes this hard to deal with and something we need to address with our minds and can't assume that absent something being physically messed up we can just follow desires or hunger cues or whatever. We traditionally ate when food was available, so it's really normal to want to eat even when you shouldn't be hungry (doesn't mean you should or have to, but it's normal to want to).My point is, I think we (in the industrialized world at least) are past this eat for shortage thing. As per my example, by the 1950's/1960's most of the US did not have to worry about a supply of food. And if you look at typical US residents in the 1960's (my Wrigley Field example) there are few obese individuals compared to current day. I'm not saying evolution caused the increase in obesity from 1960 to today. The high calorie, nutrient poor foods we shove down our throats and the lack of movement have both increased since the 1960's, this IMO, is the root cause.
How is this all that different from what I also said?
The extent to which the environment contributes to the consumption of excessive amounts of high cal, nutrient poor foods has changed, so we need to take steps to address that in our own lives.
And the bolded in my opinion is a poor excuse/victim mentality.
Really? I think understanding our impulses is a great way to take control of our lives. Understanding that I'm the product of an evolutionary process that rewarded those who ate even when they weren't hungry doesn't mean that I personally have to engage in that behavior. In fact, understanding how easily I can slide into that behavior helps to keep me on guard and remind myself that I can be in control, regardless of my impulses.
Exactly this!5 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Oh, I somehow missed this before.Packerjohn wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »nevadavis1 wrote: »What is this new mental health pandemic sweeping the globe causing billions of people to eat above their maintenance calories?
I think we've evolved that way--much of human history involved periods of low food/starvation. We were made to eat as much as we could when we could and store fat for lean times. Then our science out-paced our evolution. Food is more widely available, at all times, but much of that food is high in calories, often empty calories. Our ancestors likely would have been fat too if they'd had donuts on every corner.
Evolutionary changes in a species take many generations. The industrial world has developed the obesity problem in a very short time.
Surely you understand that the poster you are responding to was not at all suggesting that recent evolutionary changes are why we are (on average) fat now, right? Your comment therefore does not seem to follow.
The poster said that in the environment in which we evolved food was more scarce, not nearly as available (and not nearly in as convenient, high cal packages) as it often is now. We evolved under different circumstances and so tend to find it easy to want to eat when food is available (precisely because it was common for food to not be available for periods of time and it was important to be able to eat when it was). Not everyone is this way, but that humans biologically are often prone to becoming overweight when food is easily available in huge amounts and in forms that appeal to our senses is not surprising and does not suggest there is something sick about us, that we'd all be perfect intuitive eaters if we weren't suffering from some preexisting problem, as some claim.
Obviously (IMO), this does NOT mean that we can't lose weight or find ways of dealing with our instincts and desires when it comes to the prevalence of food. I think we can -- figuring that out is also one of our skills as humans, IMO. For a long time culture played a role in it (customs about eating), and for many of us the answer is to impose our own structure in some way so that it's not all about "food there, I want, I eat."
The post I responded to was saying a factor related to current obesity levels was the eating habits of our ancestors.
Yes, she was saying that we evolved in an environment where food was scarce, so tend to have biology fit for that. Now food is abundant. Thus, we have to adjust.
It isn't that unclear -- she was absolutely not claiming that we are fat because we've evolved since the '50s or some such as you seemed to think.I personally call BS on this. Take a look at a picture of the fans at a July baseball game in Wrigley Field in the 1960's vs 2016. The people are from the same geographic area, most people at major league baseball games are middle class or above. You will see many more fat people at a game in 2016.
Yes, the food environment is different now than it was in the '60s. It's different now than it was when I grew up, in the '80s.By the 1960's middle class people in Chicago did not have to worry about when they would get their next meal. They had gotten over the idea they had to eat as much as they could in times of plenty. Looks like we've regressed.
People had stronger customs regulating when we ate, servings sizes were smaller, most people still cooked at home and ate mostly just at meals, people didn't consume a lot of high cal drinks between meals (maybe at a Cubs game they would have some Old Style, granted), the amount of food in the grocery stores was less, the amount of high cal snacky things (and size) was less, people didn't consume lots of super high cal coffee drinks routinely, on and on.
People were also more active in daily life for a lot of reasons and more apt to have active jobs.
NONE of these means that we have to be fat now, but the food environment has changed.
Claiming that the only difference between then and now is that we are now without discipline or some such is weird. Humans don't really change that much as to our basic nature, so the environment is what has changed.
@lemurcat12, you are misunderstanding my point. The poster I was referring to said the human race evolved over thousands of years to eat in times of plenty to prepare for times of shortage and this is a factor in the obesity crisis today.
I think you misunderstood her when you made fun of the idea that our evolutionary make up changed recently (as of course it did not). Her point is that a lot of our impulses relate to what would have been helpful in a time of scarcity (like the fact we crave fat and sugar so easily), and so we have to find a way to adjust to a different kind of environment. The environment wasn't one of scarcity 50 years ago, but it wasn't nearly as conducive to becoming overweight as the current one. There were checks on what we ate that don't exist today.
Again, I don't think she was claiming food was scarce 50 years ago or that we have changed our biology. The environment has changed in ways that I discussed above, but our longstanding biology (which was useful thousands of years ago) makes this hard to deal with and something we need to address with our minds and can't assume that absent something being physically messed up we can just follow desires or hunger cues or whatever. We traditionally ate when food was available, so it's really normal to want to eat even when you shouldn't be hungry (doesn't mean you should or have to, but it's normal to want to).My point is, I think we (in the industrialized world at least) are past this eat for shortage thing. As per my example, by the 1950's/1960's most of the US did not have to worry about a supply of food. And if you look at typical US residents in the 1960's (my Wrigley Field example) there are few obese individuals compared to current day. I'm not saying evolution caused the increase in obesity from 1960 to today. The high calorie, nutrient poor foods we shove down our throats and the lack of movement have both increased since the 1960's, this IMO, is the root cause.
How is this all that different from what I also said?
The extent to which the environment contributes to the consumption of excessive amounts of high cal, nutrient poor foods has changed, so we need to take steps to address that in our own lives.
And the bolded in my opinion is a poor excuse/victim mentality.
Why, when I specifically said "NONE of these means that we have to be fat now, but the food environment has changed."
There are some people who claim that if you have to watch what you eat you must be ill, because humans should naturally eat intuitively unless something is wrong. I think that's obviously off-base. We evolved under situations in which food scarcity was common, getting fat did not prevent reproduction (since among other things it was so uncommon). We evolved to want to eat when food was available, to crave/enjoy fat and sugar (since they were in higher cal foods available to us), so on. These are the kinds of factors people like Stephan Guyenet and Brian Wansink, among others, point to in giving what I think is good advice about weight control.
To read it as "excuse to stay fat" or victim mentality is 100% wrong and IMO offensive as that is pretty obviously NOT what I am saying.
Also, the question is WHY are people fat now compared to 1960? You seem to be saying that we just became lazy and gluttons, but the fact is that we haven't really changed biologically, so that seems unlikely. Our environments are different, including more prevalence of foods, different cultural messages about food and when we eat, different sizes, things being cheaper and more things being more easily available, etc. I think this is somewhat good, somewhat bad, but the bad part we are smart enough to learn to control. BUT we need to understand it to best control it, IMO -- at least that helps me.lemurcat12 wrote: »We traditionally ate when food was available, so it's really normal to want to eat even when you shouldn't be hungry (doesn't mean you should or have to, but it's normal to want to).
If this is a principle anyone is basing cause analysis, then this is fundamentally incorrect. It is not natural to eat at maintenance. There is nothing instinctual that tells a person that they have eaten enough to match the amount of calories they burned. There is no biological mechanism that tells you I'm going to run a marathon and I need to eat more today. There is no biological mechanism that tells you I need to eat more as I just ran a marathon. This is behavioral.
Sigh, I think you are saying the same thing I did. It's not natural to eat at maintenance. It's perfectly normal to want to overeat and to need some kind of check on that. There were once more cultural checks than there are now, IMO, and now we have to add them ourselves.
Did you misread me? I'm feeling like everyone in this thread is trying to misread each other and it's frustrating.Making the excuse that high cal, nutrient poor food is causing weight gain is as flawed as blaming Check n' Go's for people's poor financial state.
I did not say it was CAUSING weight gain. Are you arguing with Packerjohn? I think he said that.
I said it presents a different food environment that we have to (and can) learn to navigate and control for ourselves. Calorie counting is one tool to do so, not the only one (not the one I mostly use, although I have).
I'm not debating or misreading you or anyone (at least that is not my intent), but building upon the exiting thoughts stated in previous posts.
I look at it in more general terms. We have an easier life and need to be more aware, hence the logical corrective action of calorie counting and MFP, or similar tool.
I don't think there's any one thing that is causing weight gain simply because this is impacting a percentage of a large populace, so each individual will have a different root cause. This is a culmination of smaller contributing factors. Increase of motor driven vehicles, diminishing physical labor, more eating out, larger food portions, increasing disposable income, increasing availability of foods, diminishing societal norms, unhealthy acceptance movements, etc.2 -
fat acceptance??/ Hmmm... more like lazy acceptance... I personally just started sitting on the couch after work because I figured after a hard day of doing nothing but sitting on my butt all day I deserved to sit on my but and flip channels for a few hours before I went to bed and began the whole process again the next day... well High blood pressure and a type 2 diabetes diagnosis later and I am doing what I can to cure my laziness acceptance...it began with a trip to the gym... that lasted all of 12 minutes on an elliptical set on level one... after 12 minutes... I thought I was going to need medical assistance... the adrenalin and endorphin buzz only created anxiety and fear... Lookin gback now... at all the things I couldn't do.. and was losing the ability to do... it is a long road back from the person I had become...to the person I really see myself being... BUT no one has to accept it... it's your world to create... you don't have to settle...and as the saying goes... nothing worth having is easy... and if it were easy everyone would do it... it is hard.. painful, distressing, angst and anxiety ridden and in the end there's no guarantee that you will be successful... BUT for me at least... it beats sitting on the couch and doing nothing.11
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RavenLibra wrote: »fat acceptance??/ Hmmm... more like lazy acceptance... I personally just started sitting on the couch after work because I figured after a hard day of doing nothing but sitting on my butt all day I deserved to sit on my but and flip channels for a few hours before I went to bed and began the whole process again the next day... well High blood pressure and a type 2 diabetes diagnosis later and I am doing what I can to cure my laziness acceptance...it began with a trip to the gym... that lasted all of 12 minutes on an elliptical set on level one... after 12 minutes... I thought I was going to need medical assistance... the adrenalin and endorphin buzz only created anxiety and fear... Lookin gback now... at all the things I couldn't do.. and was losing the ability to do... it is a long road back from the person I had become...to the person I really see myself being... BUT no one has to accept it... it's your world to create... you don't have to settle...and as the saying goes... nothing worth having is easy... and if it were easy everyone would do it... it is hard.. painful, distressing, angst and anxiety ridden and in the end there's no guarantee that you will be successful... BUT for me at least... it beats sitting on the couch and doing nothing.
Nice thoughts. Best of luck in your journey.1 -
FWIW, there is a big difference between having a few more expensive "healthy" choices and having mostly affordable healthy choices.
Many people pick the less healthy choices because of price, taste preference, etc.
By making most or all of the choices "healthy" and pricing them accordingly, the problem can begin to solve itself.
One might not like how Japan does it, but anyone would be hard pressed to argue with results.
Eating out is a social event in Japan; cooking, eating and food are part of the culture.
Food presentation by itself is literally an art form in Japan.
It doesn't cost anything to go for a walk. It doesn't cost anything to count your calories and make sure you don't consume too many of them.4 -
I think the fat acceptance movement is an attempt to normalize obesity and is very dangerous. We know that obesity is linked to many chronic diseases and can kill. Nobody should "accept" being fat.
Now, I am completely against shaming people, or ridiculing people, or discriminating against people who are obese. However, I am not going to say it's okay to be fat to make somebody feel better. This PC nonsense, especially in this case, is very dangerous.
I'm not saying people who are obese (and I was obese for many years) should hide away and have a negative self image. But they must acknowledge that being obese is horrible for their health, and will quite possibly take years off of their lives and rack up huge amounts of health care spending. Society, and the friends and loved ones of people who struggle with obesity, cannot afford to pretend it doesn't matter. You do nobody any favors by lying about something so serious to spare their ego.6 -
I dont hate people who are Fat. But hate is not necessary a bad thing. I mean if people hate you, you can stop,think and change yourself. OR, you can create a Fat Lover movement. Either way, only those people who hated me told me the truth about myself that I could not have seen. I thank people who hated because with Hate, I got the motivation to change.5
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Fat Acceptance is Death Acceptance.. It's that simple.. I say that as a formally obese person.. I wasn't shamed directly or mostly because I was tall but still looked extremely overweight.. But I got fat shamed in very subtle ways from looks of disgust to rude waiters.. I still kept myself groomed and neat despite my weight gain but that wasn't enough.. I even got denied a job because of my weight. I knew I was overweight but didn't really comprehend how much I gained until I stepped a scale at the Doctors.. I wanted to be desired and chased by tall fit men and women despite my fatness, without any regard to basic biology and that on some level a man isn't going to desire a 215 pound woman that's 5"9.
I was highly insecure around pretty slim girls and would get angry when men and women treated my thin friends with so much more compassion and human decency than I. It's not to say people called me fatty or were abusive but I was disregarded and no man went out of his way to hold the door open for me unlike for my thin or slimmer sized friends.. Despite that I tried to remain humble and said society has issues, rather than lash out on my thin friends.
Today I'm a size 14 and honestly soo much has changed.. I'm happier and have more energy.. I eat correctly and don't do extremes.. But with my weight loss came the loss of some friendships.. A couple of my friends that were slim pushed the idea of fat acceptance on me the heavier I got and told me to settle for the body I had.. They called me brave for wearing crop tops but laughed behind my back (I later found out) and called me a hot mess for being fat.. In reality they were insecure of themselves and loved having the "fat friend" around. It did take time to heal from that and trust people again but once I did, I was like a flower that bloomed..
I believe that people should be secure with themselves and have respect for other human beings.. However I don't believe that we should settle for mediocrity and accept unhealthy habits.
15 -
fitforeternity493 wrote: »Fat Acceptance is Death Acceptance.. It's that simple.. I say that as a formally obese person.. I wasn't shamed directly or mostly because I was tall but still looked extremely overweight.. But I got fat shamed in very subtle ways from looks of disgust to rude waiters.. I still kept myself groomed and neat despite my weight gain but that wasn't enough.. I even got denied a job because of my weight. I knew I was overweight but didn't really comprehend how much I gained until I stepped a scale at the Doctors.. I wanted to be desired and chased by tall fit men and women despite my fatness, without any regard to basic biology and that on some level a man isn't going to desire a 215 pound woman that's 5"9.
I was highly insecure around pretty slim girls and would get angry when men and women treated my thin friends with so much more compassion and human decency than I. It's not to say people called me fatty or were abusive but I was disregarded and no man went out of his way to hold the door open for me unlike for my thin or slimmer sized friends.. Despite that I tried to remain humble and said society has issues, rather than lash out on my thin friends.
Today I'm a size 14 and honestly soo much has changed.. I'm happier and have more energy.. I eat correctly and don't do extremes.. But with my weight loss came the loss of some friendships.. A couple of my friends that were slim pushed the idea of fat acceptance on me the heavier I got and told me to settle for the body I had.. They called me brave for wearing crop tops but laughed behind my back (I later found out) and called me a hot mess for being fat.. In reality they were insecure of themselves and loved having the "fat friend" around. It did take time to heal from that and trust people again but once I did, I was like a flower that bloomed..
I believe that people should be secure with themselves and have respect for other human beings.. However I don't believe that we should settle for mediocrity and accept unhealthy habits.
@fitforeternity493 you have a great success story to share.1 -
@fitforeternity493 I'm so sad for you that you've experienced so much pain and negativity as a consequence of other people's reactions to your weight.
I think you've completely misunderstood what body positivity is. It is NOT wanting people to be miserable, or wanting people to be discriminated against. It is actually the complete opposite. It's about changing people's inner dialogues about their own bodies and other people's bodies. It isn't just for overweight people, its for all people to stop hating ourselves and each other because we don't meet an arbitrary definition of "attractive".
No one has to "Settle for mediocrity" or "accept unhealthy habits" in themselves (body-positive or not). Although there's actually nothing wrong with being average. But I truly believe people should accept other people's lives are theirs to live. "Not accepting" other people because you don't like the way they look, well, there's words for that kind of thing, and it's not very flattering.
Also, I'm very sorry you have internalized so badly men's reactions to you. I assure you, there are many men who are quite attracted to 5'9" women who are 215, or even heavier. All you have to do is look around to see many, many overweight women in good, healthy, loving relationships with men of all sizes (and men of all sizes in good relationships with women of all sizes!). I agree it is easier to be pursued when you are slim (it happens more often) but not always for the right reasons, and the things that make a relationship stick generally have very little to do with whether you're overweight.
Nov 2014 - 270 lbs
May 2017 - 157 lbs6
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