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Why so many food myths?
Replies
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suzyjane1972 wrote: »I honestly knew a woman who spent all day eating and was still skinny....really skinny. Any form of stomach flu sent her to the hospital as she didn't have any reserves. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't spent a week on a course with her....boy she could pack it away. Her doctor said he wished he could find the gene that ramped up her metabolism as he'd be rich.
Energy can't disappear, so it must come out one way or another. Be that from moving like Sonic the Hedgehog on fire, increased body temperature to a point where it's not healthy anymore or undigested through the back or front door if you catch what I'm saying.4 -
I agree, but sometimes I think about slow vs fast metabolisms from the standpoint of how much one needs on the basis of bodyweight (and there are a lot of sites that try to estimate calories needed based on that). For instance, someone who is 110 lbs may need 20 calories per lb of bodyweight, while someone who is 180 lbs may need 17 calories per lb (at the same activity level). So from that perspective I would say the smaller person has a faster metabolism, as he/she needs more calories per lb of bodyweight.amusedmonkey wrote: »thefuzz1290 wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »thefuzz1290 wrote: »The problem is that everyone's body responds differently to different stimulus. I work with a guy who is 6'00" and 180lbs, in great shape, but he can eat anything he wants and doesn't gain weight (now granted, he does put the work into the gym). I also work with a guy who puts work into the gym, but has to run a strict low-carb diet to stay leanish. You essentially have to find out how your body responds to different foods.
There is no healthy person on the planet who can eat "anything they want" and not gain, unless "anything they want" is less than they burn.
But if their metabolism is high enough, they have to force feed themselves when they're not hungry to achieve a caloric excess. Genetics matter a great deal.
Metabolic rate actually doesn't differ that much among people if you control for stats and activity. We're talking about a 200-300 calorie difference for the majority of healthy people. A good slice of pizza or a rich scoop of ice cream and they're gone. No force feeding needed. What does differ is how the person perceives the amount of food they are eating. For one person a certain amount may feel huge, for another it's a passing snack.
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Never mind. Steven had it covered already.0
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Because unconventional methods sometimes work when conventional methods didn't. Now, there could be a multitude of legitimate reasons why they didn't work (I.e. they weren't implemented properly), but the fact remains that they didn't work. So when unconventional methods prove successful (possibly because they made it easier to properly implement the basis of the conventional methodology), those experiencing the success are prone to conclude that the unconventional method is superior.4
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like someone else alluded to, people are more inclined to take advice from someone who is reinforcing someone's bad habits, then to look for real answers and try to figure out if there have been any studies/pubmed articles published on the subject.
Broscience is king when you are looking for an easy way out, that way if anyone questions what you are doing, you can just back it up with "bro, didnt you see so and so's new video/article?!?".6 -
paulgads82 wrote: »Eating 30 bananas a day is hard. People still do it.
That grosses me out beyond gross.4 -
Because the media publicizes the exception in studies rather than the rule? Because many people don't understand the difference between causation and correlation? Because many people read or find one study rather than knowing how to review the bulk of the literature? Because it is easier to access dumbed-down media versions of science than real studies? Because it is easy to make money off of people trying to lose weight? Because a lot of people still ask their doctors for dietary advice even when most doctors have minimal nutrition knowledge or out of date recommendations? Because there is a lot of bad science and biased studies and many people don't take the time to criticize methods and evaluate for bias? It's rough and a frequent rant of mine, but a lot of schooling is teaching people to regurgitate facts. We are asking for memorization more than critical thinking a lot of the time. Sometimes you just have to shake your head and leave it alone.9
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MalcolmX1983 wrote: »"Cause the big guy at the gym told me bro"
"Her bum looks good, so she must know what she's talking about"
I think this is most often the right answer.
I don't look like him/her because I don't eat <whatever diet he/she is promoting>. If only I'd known!0 -
People weigh the facts and determine whether or not a plan sounds reasonable based on their own personal foundation of knowledge. Unfortunately, for many people that foundation is built on things like Pinterest, infomercials, and fad diets. It's a bit like if someone grew up in a place where dandelions were prized flowers only to find their neighbor ripping them out of their garden with gusto.5
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Because "eat less, move more" is so boring and unsexy compared to the idea of quick fixes. People ask me all the time "what I'm doing" and almost seem disappointed with my answer.10
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The government starts more myths than mere mortals do.
'Green' create more myths to try and get us to do what they want us to do. Kill off cattle and dairy cows except those needed to produce organic fertilizer.
Vegan fanatics (not all vegans are 'religious' fanatics) spread other myths like that humans are not meant to eat meat.
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Why so many *kitten* questions1
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fitton4fitness wrote: »Why so many *kitten* questions
Why so many bumped threads with one-liners?7 -
This content has been removed.
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thefuzz1290 wrote: »The problem is that everyone's body responds differently to different stimulus. I work with a guy who is 6'00" and 180lbs, in great shape, but he can eat anything he wants and doesn't gain weight (now granted, he does put the work into the gym). I also work with a guy who puts work into the gym, but has to run a strict low-carb diet to stay leanish. You essentially have to find out how your body responds to different foods.
Or maybe that guy runs a strict low carb diet to stay very lean because carbs do tend to make you retain a tad bit more water. On someone very lean, those few lb of water do make a difference in appearance.
I also just think that people truly look for a shortcut. A way to justify their lack of weight loss. It's not that many of these people are unintelligent. My step mom, for example, is an MD. Granted, not in nutrition. But she's an extremely intelligent human being. However, we recently got into a debate about the Atkins diet. She strongly believes that the only reason people gain weight is because they eat too many carbs. No matter how I tried to explain that it's about calories, she wouldn't have it. I also told her that low carb diets work for many (healthy people) because fats and proteins tend to help people be satiated more quickly on less foods. Which is great! But all she would quote is the Atkins book. She couldn't even think of any studies.
It is true there are a few studies that say short term low carb leads to quicker weight loss. The more longitudinal studies show no difference. Often the low carb studies that do show significant weight loss ARE funded by low carb foundations, such as the Atkins foundation that Dr. Atkins actually founded himself.
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fitton4fitness wrote: »Why so many *kitten* questions
Give me your best one.0 -
Everyone wishes for a magic formula, or to eat as much as they want of at least something. Some of us learn the hard way, I know I did fad diets for many years back in the day. No one wants to have to look at the elephant in the room - caloires. They all want to mask the truth - food energy. I don't care if it's called points, portions, carbons, meal plans, or caloires... Eventually when we face the truth it is all about food energy and we need all the things in food variety with no depriving. Nope, not very exciting. But it's truth and we know it.3
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Because they want to believe there is a "magic" way to lose weight. If that's eating 30 bananas a day or cutting out carbs or vilifying sugar, they want to believe that if they make that one change life will be unicorns and rainbows.
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paulgads82 wrote: »I understand this has probably been discussed before but I'm finding it a little disconcerting. Every time I log on to the forum I see at least one person regurgitating something I've previously come across from a YouTube "star" or "Expert". Why can't people evaluate sources? So much bad information no wonder people don't know how to lose weight
People don't wan to accept the fact that it is solely up to them, personal accountability. It is far easier to believe there is some "secret" or some list of foods, or food combination that will finally be the magic bullet to fat loss.4 -
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Diet industry is multi-billion dollars.......and people are gullible.3
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That all honestly sounds worse than just eating less and moving more.Because they want to believe there is a "magic" way to lose weight. If that's eating 30 bananas a day or cutting out carbs or vilifying sugar, they want to believe that if they make that one change life will be unicorns and rainbows.0 -
The_Enginerd wrote: »
That all honestly sounds worse than just eating less and moving more.Because they want to believe there is a "magic" way to lose weight. If that's eating 30 bananas a day or cutting out carbs or vilifying sugar, they want to believe that if they make that one change life will be unicorns and rainbows.
I know. I was actually thinking of responding to the quote above yours that to me, the path to rainbows and unicorns started the day that I realized that weight loss didn't have to be painful and difficult. That I could lose weight and not have to give anything up, that I could improve my health and my fitness and still eat ice cream and drink wine.3 -
Dietary habits are a religious subject, and have traditionally been prescribed in accordance with the spiritual views of a culture. If you read the old structuralist anthropologists like Claude Lévi-Strauss, you will see immediately what I mean. You might find record of a culture in which every animal they eat is killed ritualistically, as in Kosher-Halal, or is thanked and asked for forgiveness upon the conclusion of a hunt, as in many Native American cultures. You might find rules for preventing cross-contamination between cookware, such as, again, in Kosher. You might find certain foods whose consumption is firmly restricted to ceremonial occasions, as meat was in many kingdoms of bronze age Greece. And then of course we see some foods which are so rarefied and venerated that they can properly be called "sacred foods," such as fermented cod liver oil (according to the WAPF) or clarified butter (ghee) in Vedic India.
Anywhere you care to look you will find elaborate rituals and moral codes governing the preparation and consumption of food. The sharing of dietary habits is one of the chief mechanisms that human beings have evolved to promote group cohesion, and also safety -- when a culture is living in the presence of potential food matter that's actually dangerous, these codes can mean the difference between life and death.
And it's very effective. Life isn't possible without the sustenance and renewal afforded by food, so identifying food with the culture amounts to an identification of life itself with the culture.
There are plenty of theories about why this might be the case, but it's not really worth talking about them in this thread. The only thing that matters is knowing that this is the case. That's why tech-libertarian-brogrammers skew paleo, why hippies skew vegan, why people without any particular subculture eat whatever's cheapest at the grocery store, and why the mainstream culture is convulsed by a sweeping fad every few years. All these groups have their own ideology, and eating in accordance with their chosen diets is a signal to others in the group that one has subscribed to that ideology.
Your question about why there are so many dietary "myths" contains its own answer. This way of thinking about food, having originated hundreds of thousands of years before even the rudiments of scientific method, is mythical in the historical sense of the word, and represents an innate human tendency that appears consistently across massive spans of time and distance, among various peoples who are outwardly very different from each other.
The reason why people are pushing their dietary myths is that they are trying to recruit new members for their tribe. Why do people get so passionate about this? Because in their minds, however obscurely, converting outsiders to their culture is still connected with their own ability to survive. Every convert is a person who can be controlled with law and custom and judicial force, rather than with military force; who won't compete with the tribe for resources; etc., etc.9 -
This seems as a fitting follow up for my post. Woo, including food woo is pretty attractive to some people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U
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This is how I view the food myths...
“I suppose it’s hard for a fanatic to admit a mistake. Isn’t that the point of being a fanatic? You’re always right. Everything is the Lords will…”
–Varys, Game of Thrones1 -
Strauss and GoT. This thread just got interesting.2
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schibsted750 wrote: »Dietary habits are a religious subject, and have traditionally been prescribed in accordance with the spiritual views of a culture. If you read the old structuralist anthropologists like Claude Lévi-Strauss, you will see immediately what I mean. You might find record of a culture in which every animal they eat is killed ritualistically, as in Kosher-Halal, or is thanked and asked for forgiveness upon the conclusion of a hunt, as in many Native American cultures. You might find rules for preventing cross-contamination between cookware, such as, again, in Kosher. You might find certain foods whose consumption is firmly restricted to ceremonial occasions, as meat was in many kingdoms of bronze age Greece. And then of course we see some foods which are so rarefied and venerated that they can properly be called "sacred foods," such as fermented cod liver oil (according to the WAPF) or clarified butter (ghee) in Vedic India.
Anywhere you care to look you will find elaborate rituals and moral codes governing the preparation and consumption of food. The sharing of dietary habits is one of the chief mechanisms that human beings have evolved to promote group cohesion, and also safety -- when a culture is living in the presence of potential food matter that's actually dangerous, these codes can mean the difference between life and death.
And it's very effective. Life isn't possible without the sustenance and renewal afforded by food, so identifying food with the culture amounts to an identification of life itself with the culture.
There are plenty of theories about why this might be the case, but it's not really worth talking about them in this thread. The only thing that matters is knowing that this is the case. That's why tech-libertarian-brogrammers skew paleo, why hippies skew vegan, why people without any particular subculture eat whatever's cheapest at the grocery store, and why the mainstream culture is convulsed by a sweeping fad every few years. All these groups have their own ideology, and eating in accordance with their chosen diets is a signal to others in the group that one has subscribed to that ideology.
Your question about why there are so many dietary "myths" contains its own answer. This way of thinking about food, having originated hundreds of thousands of years before even the rudiments of scientific method, is mythical in the historical sense of the word, and represents an innate human tendency that appears consistently across massive spans of time and distance, among various peoples who are outwardly very different from each other.
The reason why people are pushing their dietary myths is that they are trying to recruit new members for their tribe. Why do people get so passionate about this? Because in their minds, however obscurely, converting outsiders to their culture is still connected with their own ability to survive. Every convert is a person who can be controlled with law and custom and judicial force, rather than with military force; who won't compete with the tribe for resources; etc., etc.
That was a great read. You've encapsulated several ideas that have been floating around, just out of grasp.2 -
WinoGelato wrote: »The_Enginerd wrote: »
That all honestly sounds worse than just eating less and moving more.Because they want to believe there is a "magic" way to lose weight. If that's eating 30 bananas a day or cutting out carbs or vilifying sugar, they want to believe that if they make that one change life will be unicorns and rainbows.
the path to rainbows and unicorns started the day that I realized that weight loss didn't have to be painful and difficult. That I could lose weight and not have to give anything up, that I could improve my health and my fitness and still eat ice cream and drink wine.
That was exactly my experience. It was a "eureka" moment for me.1 -
So many myths? Because there are Billions of dollars to be made on this issue. Can't sell books based on plain facts(that anyone would read) so the myths must exist.
They must exist to balance the universe too, as I wouldn't type this if the myth didn't exist.1
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