Why is there an obesity epidemic?

millerll

I believe that a lot of it has to do with society's acceptance level. When I was a child in the 60s and 70s, it was socially unacceptable to be fat. Now we have "fat acceptance". When I was young, gluttony was unseemly. Stuffing your face in a restaurant made people cringe. Now we have super-sized portions and eating contests where getting the most bang for your buck is considered fiscally responsible.

We had the same sugary treats in my house as there are today - soda, ice cream, cookies, etc. - but my father would only allow us to have a little at a time. I remember going back for seconds, and him telling me, "No. You've had enough for today." And he was right. Now, people are afraid that telling their kids this will lead to an eating disorder. Nonsense. It taught me self-control, portion control, and not to be a pig. He bought a certain amount of treats at the bi-weekly grocery shopping trip. If my brother and I ate all of it within three days, well, too bad, that's all there was until the next payday. If we gorged, we went without later. Today, parents will rush out to refill the pantry lest their little angels go without.

People today want instant gratification, and feel entitled to have whatever they want whenever they want it. I was raised differently. And it wasn't until my 40s when I bought into this mindset and went off the rails that I gained weight. My fault - no one else's. And my father was right, after all. He always did get the last word.

YouAreTheShit

Glycogen storage capacity and de novo lipogenesis during massive carbohydrate overfeeding in man

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/48/2/240.full.pdf+html

You folks who claim to have an understanding of de novo lipogenesis and carbohydrates, and yet still refuse to acknowledge how carbohydrates make people fat, are simply in denial over what you are reading. The science is clear. It's all about the inputs.

Fat does not make people fat, excess carbs and a sedentary lifestyle are what make people fat. One day, perhaps 50 years from now, this will be common knowledge.

366to266

Fat does not make people fat, excess carbs and a sedentary lifestyle are what make people fat. One day, perhaps 50 years from now, this will be common knowledge.

I agree with you, but I don't think it will take 50 years, because everyone now has access to the internet, where MANY people with qualifications, scientists, MDs etc are blogging and many low carb discussion groups thrive. These are all getting the message out.

Millions of people read low carb or paleo blogs like marksdailyapple.com, livinlavidalowcarb and many others. These people are arguing with the CICOs in social settings across the world.

There is absolutely NO argument from anyone that insulin caused fat storage. Even wikipedia will tell you that. And there is absolutely NO argument that carbs drive insulin. All it takes is for people to become intelligent enough to join two dots together. And hey presto - they'll get it. Surely that won't take 50 years?

quirkytizzy

*posted before I saw that the question had been answered. I must read the thread all the way through.*

MsPudding

sugar is not the evil bogeyman you are trying to make it out to be.

Sugar per see is not, but in the amounts the average person in the West is consuming it I'd say it most certainly is.

From Forbes magazine:

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the average American consumes 156 pounds of added sugar per year.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) puts the amount at 27.5 teaspoons of sugar a day per capita, which translates to 440 calories – nearly one quarter of a typical 2000 calorie a day diet.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2012/04/01/what-eating-too-much-sugar-does-to-your-brain/

Over consumption of sugar is increasingly looking to be the culprit behind a whole host of health issues that are rampant in the West - diabetes, depression, Alzheimer's and it also turns the volume way down on the mechanism in the body that says when we're full....which means we over-eat.

ETA: Now were could anyone possibly get 27.5 teaspoons of sugar a day without processed food? Transport the average American to a small island for a year where they live on a small-holding with land for vegetables, an orchard and chicken/goats/pigs to take care of eggs, milk and meat. It would be physically impossible for that American to eat 27.5 teaspoons of sugar a day living like that...even if he took up bee-keeping.

LiftAllThePizzas

When I go Any where- I can 100% say that the ratio is not 2 out of 3 for obese people vs people of a standard size. Can you? It's ridiculous to propagate such trash. and that is what that figure means- is that for every 2 obese people there is only 1 standard size person.

At my heaviest I was just a few pounds from obese and you wouldn't have guessed it. Have you weighed them all? Our perception of "standard size" is easily skewed. Back in 1997 I lived in France for several months. When I came back, I got off the plane and the FIRST thought that went through my head when I came out of the walkway from the plane was, "holy friggin crap everyone is fat as hell here!!!"

WBB55

I think added sugar consumption is the biggest culprit. Especially in the form of liquid calories. Here in the states, we give our kids sugar-laden chocolate milk with their school lunches. Cola, energy drinks, "juice" made mostly from sugar water, sugar in our Starbucks coffee, sugar in our drinks at the bar...

Easily accessible, highly processed food is a huge factor. Calorie dense but nutrient poor foods are available on every corner. And the way they're packaged makes them seem so convenient vs. a 10# bag of potatoes. It's hard to be obese if all you drink is plain milk and water and all you eat is whole grains and fresh produce you prepare for yourself in your own kitchen.

Tzippy7

Its a combination of a lot of things. Obviously exercise and portion control helped me lose weight, along with MUCH healthier food choices. But I do think its interesting that WHENEVER i travel to other countries with less processed food I lose weight, regardless of exercise or anything like that. In france I did not eat "healthy" food (aka I ate criossants and drank wine for 5 months) and yet I lost weight and was overall "healthier". In israel I had a similar experience. I think its a mistake to ignore the non calorie impact of what we eat.

Additionally, if you think about the evolution of human bodies in time vs. the evolution of agriculture, they dont line up. That could be part of it.

I think it can be controlled by healthy eating and exercise but I dont think lack of those things is necessarily the root cause.

mcflat29

Because Doctors and Scientists have switched to the all in one box of BMI?

Sorry, but BMI does not take into account a person's activity level and actual health. Hell just by BMI most NFL players are morbidly obese, bodybuilders even more so... While my size 2 friend who had the heart attack is just fine... :grumble: :noway:

Now do I think there might be a food industry/pharmaceutical company conspiracy in this country, absolutely. The fatter and sicker we are, the more money they make. We catch on, they give us manufactured "healthy" foods that turn out to be worse for us. (Think margarine, artificial sweeteners, almost anything that says zero calorie, non fat) While doing this, they keep the natural and less processed items in the higher price brackets. Interesting that the less "work" a product needs, the more it costs a consumer.

Okay, off my conspiracy soapbox, that was fun.

jennlandau

Believe it or not, there's a lot of psychology behind overeating. Stress eating, eating disorders, socialized eating, psychology of advertising, environmental learning, etc. Your brain is wired to derive pleasure in the easiest way possible. The link between having a delicious restaurant meal with friends and having a great time associates itself in your mind. A friend's reaction to eating vegetables can cloud your own judgment about how they taste, even if you liked them before.

I whole heartedly agree with this post. As I was reading this some of this thread I was struck by the answers that were very blunt and negative abour "personal choice", "lasy butts", etc. and completely ignored the social aspect of food (like everything else) since humans are social creatures. It reminds me of the discussions we social workers have around choice and when what on the surface seems like super self-destructive behavior is really a forced choice between very bad options. Yes I ultimately have control over what goes into my "gullet" (as one posted nicely put it) but most of the food that we have access to is a set up, reinforced by constant advertisting for all sorts of processed choices. Unless you are nearly hyper vigilant about the food you buy and have the ability to have large amounts of self control and the ability to adjust your food budget up to by more local or organic, which should probably cost less but in actuality often costs more, the task can seem nearly impossible. It can be done but it compounds the challenge of getting healthy.

I think that the food science industry, food producers and marketeers have created this forced choice situation. They are setting us all up for one thing. To make money! This is not about feeding the hungry, providing the best food we can, keeping small towns vibrant or any of the other crap they try to tell us. This is about one thing, greenbacks. If I had a way to divest my 401K (thank the universe that I even have one) from all of these specific monoliths of manupilation I would.

We often berate the individual for their poor choices instead of banding together to fight the entity that has the greater power in the situation. Obesity is just another example. I know that this sounds very idealistic but insteady of piling on the negative towards obese individuals, we should be working as a large group to demand, yes demand, that these things stop. That the porcessed food be what is expensive and hard to find. That we stop being programmed every day through every communication medium to want these things. That HFC is not in everything. And that we can all have a fighting chance to make the best choices possible with our food.

DebbieLyn63

People are fat because junk food is so cheap****. And the US seems crazy for huge portions. I don't base this comment on lack of knowledge. When in America, I had some fast food and noticed how huge the portions were compared to what I was used to. I absolutely loved Chipotle though.

And I hasten to add that that is just one side of things because I know Americans are hugely keen on exercise. I've never seen a 24hour gym in the UK and the concept kind of baffles me. Who wants to work out at 4am?

****.... The last time I went into a grocery store an orange was around 10c A dinky bag of chips was 1.25- about an ounce of chips. ... People always say this- but it's ridiculous. And I apologize if the units of measurement for money are not the same- but I think you get the picture.

I would love to know where you live, that an orange is only 10 cents? Here in Texas, where they actually GROW oranges, they are always way over $1 per pound, sometimes up to $2. So one orange is usually around $1 or more. I paid $3 for one pomegranate the other day, and it was so not worth it.

That said, I didn't see a huge increase in my grocery bill when I started buying more fresh and healthy food. I did have to compare prices and buy things when they were on sale.
But I must say that a box of mac and cheese, on sale is only about 75 cents and would be a meal for 2-3 people is you are on a super strict budget. So I can see how people who really are struggling with money to buy food, will buy a lot of the carb products that pack a lot of calories for the price.

Most of us in the US are not in that position, however, and most of us spend a lot of money on sodas and chips, eating out, and Starbucks, and if we were to direct those funds towards healthy foods, we could change our diet habits without having to spend more money.

smantha32

...Which has really done nothing for heart disease because your body turns all the extra sugar into fat anyway...

Quote a reputable source for this, please. While in a caloric deficit, nothing is converted into fat.

I watched a report on it. Sorry, for the life of me now I can't remember who was the source of it now.

As far as the '70s - I was a pre-teen and teenager through the '70s. I remember TV dinners, boxed instant meals like mac n cheese, more candy/chocolate bars than are on the market now, full-sugar sodas, Ding Dongs, Chocodiles, Twinkies, Fruit Pies and all other manner of sugary/processed things. I don't for one second buy the notion that there were less sugary things around in the '70s....I lived them. Anecdotally, I'll also note that in the '70s, I walked and/or rode my bicycle to and from school, delivered a daily paper route on my bicycle, and was outdoors playing and running around until after dark every day, as were most kids. I played sports, so I had practices/games all week long, then I raced bicycles and/or rode dirt bikes on weekends. Our activity levels were far higher than most children today. We didn't sit on our butts while our parents drove us to/from school, then go home and sit on our butts some more in front of a gaming console.

Yeah I was a preteen then too. And I also did all that active stuff.
But I didn't gorge on candy and my mom cooked dinner for us every night that was not made from processed food. So speaking for myself personally, I was NOT getting all the sugar in my diet that I'm getting now. I am one source.

smantha32

I am too drinkies and too lazy to read this thread. I'll tell you what I told my daughter recently, when explaining to her why we're trying to eat more whole foods...

Once upon a time, people had farms. They grew things and they sent them around the country for people to eat. Growing things and sending things started costing more money, so they started stretching out the food--using fillers and preservatives so it would last longer and be cheaper to produce. People just wanted to fill their bellies, so they were happy with this fake, stretched out food. Companies realized they could make a profit around it, and found new and "improved" ways to make it "taste good" to the consumers. They used less and less Real Food and made more and more Profit. We were already used to this 'compromised' food, so the companies--now actually Corporations--decided we need ways to make "food" even more "convenient" and came up with more and more ways to pump us full of filling, but ultimately unFULLfilling, food-type products. And now we're in a position where we are eating a diet of chemicals that is full of 'energy' (calories) and thinking it 'tastes good,' instead of actual food that is nourishing to our bodies. And because our bodies are not being nourished, we desire more and more of this fake food, with all of its 'energy,' to fulFILL us, and it never can.

You know, or something.

Like.

smantha32

True. Food is a drug. And I wanted to add something more informed - that people are more affluent now than they were in the early twentieth century and the rising numbers of working professionals means people are after food which is convenient. At the same time there is the emergence of the supermarket with ready prepared food. People used to buy base ingredients and cook from scratch which is happening much less now. In the past, people probably did much more outdoors as well so general fitness might have been better in some cases. But we have so many more ways to make a healthy lifestyle than we used to. Just seems like people don't know how to take advantage of that or don't want to.

So true. My grandma could make bread that melted in your mouth. It tasted 1,000 times better than anything I've ever bought in a supermarket. I think I don't cook because I'm not very good at it. But then I don't do it enough.

AnvilHead

...Which has really done nothing for heart disease because your body turns all the extra sugar into fat anyway...

Quote a reputable source for this, please. While in a caloric deficit, nothing is converted into fat.

I watched a report on it. Sorry, for the life of me now I can't remember who was the source of it now.

Probably Taubes, Lustig or one of the other propaganda crackpots - because it doesn't jibe with Thermodynamics 101 / basic human metabolism/physiology.

Sugar is not the debil. Caloric surplus is the debil. Sugar may facilitate it if one eats too much of it, creating a caloric surplus - but the same could be said of fat or protein in that context. It all comes down to moderation, which comes down to making the right choices - which comes right back down to personal responsibility.

MommyofMcKenzie

It is because we don't think about what we eat. We go for what tastes best and is cheap. Fried and fatty are cheaper and cheaper. We rely so much on technology that we don't get up and do things.

When I started my diet, I never thought I was going to make a lifestyle change. I am only in 5 days so far, but I feel comfortable and full eating what I am eating. Working out is a bit hard, but I have to push myself, because I know I have been incredibly lazy for years. In my opinion..it might be a little hard to get off fast food..well for me it is..but the last few times I have gone..lets say..McDonalds. I have gotten a grilled chicken sandwich. Once with out the bun (but added fries), and once with the bun, but no fries. It filled me up, and it tasted good.

It is all about choices, people have to wake up and realize that they no longer want to be obese-FOR THEM. I tried dieting so many times because people called me fat..it didn't work. It took me to realize that I wasn't happy with myself. Being obese has made me depressed, tired, lazy, and just miserable. As soon as I started eating less and better, I started feeling better in general.

brevislux

I must add, I do think in the US it's somewhat related to social-economic issues. Junk food is much cheaper, while vegetables are extremely expensive. Here a meal at McDonald's costs about 10$ and a bag full of cucumbers costs 1$.

It's far too cheap and convenient.

RobynC79

Because modern animals (not just humans, not just mammals) have about a billion years of selection on surviving in an environment where calories are 1. patchily distributed in time and space and 2. hotly contested. That necessitates storing energy on our bodies (the best defended place we have) wherever possible, and selectively favors those individuals who can run their bodies on less energy and store more.

So humans and other animals who have the ability to gain weight rapidly and conserve it well when calories are plentiful are fitter (in the evolutionary sense, not the athletic sense), and therefore they should predominate in modern populations. This is evidenced by the fact that most modern humans, and indeed most animals, WILL get fat when consuming calories in excess.

How do animals get to be obese? Our appetite regulation, also the product of millions of years of evolution, tells us to eat more than we need strictly to survive and reproduce. This is a buffer for short-term exertion and long-term deprivation. 'Overeating' is adaptive, and a billion years of evolution is tough to counter when circumstances have changed only in the last 100 years or so.

Why are humans obese in such high proportion at the present time? Because we have removed the patchy distribution of calories, both temporally and spatially, such that calories are readily available and require little risk or effort to acquire. Humans are still adapted to eat more that necessary WHEN calories are available - but in the modern western world, they are available all the time. Until there is a selective advantage to not gaining weight on caloric excess, this pattern should remain. It is interesting that overweight humans tend to live longer - perhaps suggesting that the ability to efficiently store calories as fat comes with other, health preserving genes to make a generally 'fit' human.

The enjoyment we get from food is a way for our brains to get our bodies to overeat (in crude terms, appetite is a complex and elegant system), and a brain shaped by hundreds of millions of years of food scarcity has a tough time understanding that the food need not be eaten now because it will still be there tomorrow.

smantha32

...Which has really done nothing for heart disease because your body turns all the extra sugar into fat anyway...

Quote a reputable source for this, please. While in a caloric deficit, nothing is converted into fat.

I watched a report on it. Sorry, for the life of me now I can't remember who was the source of it now.

Probably Taubes, Lustig or one of the other propaganda crackpots - because it doesn't jibe with Thermodynamics 101 / basic human metabolism/physiology.

Sugar is not the debil. Caloric surplus is the debil. Sugar may facilitate it if one eats too much of it, creating a caloric surplus - but the same could be said of fat or protein in that context. It all comes down to moderation, which comes down to making the right choices - which comes right back down to personal responsibility.

No it wasn't Taubes or Lustig. I'd remember the name if I heard it again. I'll probably remember it two days from now when I don't care anymore.

I definitely agree with moderation, and personal responsibility and even eating at a calorie deficit.
I also believe you can lose weight eating non healthy foods.
I disagree with you about the sugar though, sorry.
I believe too much sugar and over processing are the culprits. And advertising.
There were a lot of people in this thread who described the process better than I can.

MsPudding

Now do I think there might be a food industry/pharmaceutical company conspiracy in this country, absolutely. The fatter and sicker we are, the more money they make. We catch on, they give us manufactured "healthy" foods that turn out to be worse for us. (Think margarine, artificial sweeteners, almost anything that says zero calorie, non fat) While doing this, they keep the natural and less processed items in the higher price brackets. Interesting that the less "work" a product needs, the more it costs a consumer.

Okay, off my conspiracy soapbox, that was fun.

It's actually a pretty good conspiracy theory. Roll back the clock 150 years and you had food producers (farmers), the merchant level selling the raw ingredients farmers produced and then the consumer who bought those ingredients and made them into a meal. Now we have food producers, an entire new artifical level of 'food manufacturers', then the merchant level and then the consumers. Food manufacturing is big, big business and it's obviously not in their best interests for everyone to suddenly switch to buying basic ingredients and cooking almost everything from scratch. It's also not in the interests of big food retailers - imagine your local out-of-town Tesco or Walmart as it is now; then imagine it if you removed all the aisles that contained manufactured products so that you were left with only base ingredients. How much vacant space would that Walmart or Tesco have do you think? I'd bet on a good 60-70%. That 30-40% left would be an awfully restrictive set of products to try and generate the billions of £s/$s of profit these big retailers make.

Then we have the diet industry...and it's no coincidence that the mega-corporations behind many of the famous diet brand names are also food manufacturers. It's a symbiotic relationship; one part of your industry pumps out nutrient-poor, calorie-dense crap whilst the other end suckers you into buying nutrient-poor, calorie-restricted crap in your panicked attempts to get the fat off. Either way...KERCHING!