Obesity isn't just about eating habits

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TKRV
TKRV Posts: 165 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Or , at least it might not be. the jury of scientists is still out on the matter. Check this out.

http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/david-berreby-obesity-era/

The long story short is, humans are not the only ones getting bigger. So are household pets, feral cats and rats. Even lab animals, whose diet is strictly monitored and hasn't changed in decades, are getting bigger.

Why? I found this article to be a great read as it went into great detail about all the different things that contribute to weight gain. I think it is especially good for people who feel like they are in a rut. Maybe this article can shed light on other areas of life that could be contributing to weight gain.

Excerpt:
"Yet the scientists who study the biochemistry of fat and the epidemiologists who track weight trends are not nearly as unanimous as Bloomberg makes out. In fact, many researchers believe that personal gluttony and laziness cannot be the entire explanation for humanity’s global weight gain. Which means, of course, that they think at least some of the official focus on personal conduct is a waste of time and money. As Richard L Atkinson, Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Wisconsin and editor of the International Journal of Obesity, put it in 2005: ‘The previous belief of many lay people and health professionals that obesity is simply the result of a lack of willpower and an inability to discipline eating habits is no longer defensible.’"

Replies

  • helenrosemay
    helenrosemay Posts: 375 Member
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    The only thing that makes you gain weight is eating more calories than what you burn.
    People can come up with so many reasons, excuses, but it's down to each persons' choice. I chose to eat rubbish and not exercise, I got fat. I now choose to eat healthily and exercise, I lost weight. Simple as that.
    Just like drugs, alcohol, smoking we all know the dangers, but if we chose to take/drink/smoke them knowing the risks and the damage they can do, then that's up to us and we have no one else to blame but ourselves.
  • JesterMFP
    JesterMFP Posts: 3,596 Member
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    The only thing that makes you gain weight is eating more calories than what you burn.
    People can come up with so many reasons, excuses, but it's down to each persons' choice. I chose to eat rubbish and not exercise, I got fat. I now choose to eat healthily and exercise, I lost weight. Simple as that.
    Just like drugs, alcohol, smoking we all know the dangers, but if we chose to take/drink/smoke them knowing the risks and the damage they can do, then that's up to us and we have no one else to blame but ourselves.
    Why does it have to be about who's to blame? Isn't there value in trying to understand the reasons (biochemical, genetic, environmental, psychological, sociological, cultural etc) why some people eat more than they need to, while others do not? Why some people struggle to maintain a healthy weight while others do not? It's good to take responsibility for our own actions, but it can also help to understand why we behave in the ways that we do. We all make our own individual choices, but we don't live in a vacuum, completely unaffected by our biochemistry, environment, social structures, upbringing, the genetic tendencies we're born with etc.
  • stealthq
    stealthq Posts: 4,298 Member
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    As far as humans, household pets, and feral rats and cats go, we eat a lot more food. We feed a lot more table scraps and tend to overfeed pet food, which explains the pets. We throw out a lot more food than we used to and cities are increasing in population density, which provides a bounty for the feral critters. At least until the predators get them.

    As far as lab animals go, that's news to me. Been working in and for various forms of research labs for close to twenty years and haven't heard a single comment about increasing lab animal size. Not one.
  • Showcase_Brodown
    Showcase_Brodown Posts: 919 Member
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    "As Richard L Atkinson, Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Wisconsin and editor of the International Journal of Obesity, put it in 2005: ‘The previous belief of many lay people and health professionals that obesity is simply the result of a lack of willpower and an inability to discipline eating habits is no longer defensible.’"

    Everything you know is wrong. Black is white, up is down, and short is long.

    I don't know what all is at work here, but the simple fact remains that weight gain is due to a calorie surplus. If that is the "previous belief" Atkinson is talking about, I'm afraid it is still very much defensible.

    We're all capable of monitoring our calorie balance and making adjustments when necessary.
  • TKRV
    TKRV Posts: 165 Member
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    I don't know if any of you guys read the article, but the point was mostly about metabolism and the things in our environment that influence it. So, yes, if you eat the amount of calories you need for the day and no more, you will have a healthy weight. But, more than that, the article went into theories about different chemicals, behaviors and viruses that have been seen to have an affect on the metabolism. While there isn't enough out there yet to say for sure, some of the studies seem to imply that it might not matter if you work a candy bar into your daily calories. The face that you ate it at all may be enough to disrupt your normal metabolism.

    I found the science behind fetus development especially interesting. If there is little food to be hand, meaning a pregnant woman is not eating a lot, the metabolism of the fetus will set itself up to prepare for survival in that world - as in a slower metabolism and the ability to gain weight to survive through times of little food. But if that fetus as a person never encounters a period of little food, it is pre-disposed for weight gain.

    And of course, none of this implies that eating healthy and working out don't work or don't make you healthy. Of course monitoring caloric intake helps. The point of the article is that that's far to simplistic to solve the entire problem. There are a large number of factors that influence how the body metabolizes food, how it's processes store fat and how it burns off that fat. If there is a person who is eating healthy, working out and still having problems with weight, this article points out some other factors that may be having an influence on the weight management of the body.
  • jovalleau
    jovalleau Posts: 127 Member
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    Everything you know is wrong. Black is white, up is down, and short is long.

    Just forget the words and sing along.

    Cause EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WROOOOONG!

    That was a Weird Al reference, yes?
  • Michelletbrown
    Michelletbrown Posts: 6
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    "I don't know what all is at work here, but the simple fact remains that weight gain is due to a calorie surplus. If that is the "previous belief" Atkinson is talking about, I'm afraid it is still very much defensible."

    The point of science is to test our beliefs and figure out what's actually true. Sometimes what's true is contrary to our beliefs. For example, this shocked many people: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W147ybOdgpE

    Atkinson is a well-respected researcher who wrote an remarkably detailed chapter (which is where this quote comes from) where he lays out a good bit of evidence demonstrating that obesity is is complex. When people respond to scientists like this by saying, "Nope, I'm going to keep believing the thing that science is disproving" I just think of all the folks who thought trains were going to cause our hearts to explode or that the earth was the center of the solar system. Here is the Atkinson chapter if you're interested: http://www.indiana.edu/~k536/articles/etiology/etiology atkinson 2005.pdf

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