Why people get fat.

rabbitjb wrote: »

Couldn't get past first paragraph saying "The reason why this has happened is still debated among scientists, but it must be due to changes in the environment because our genes don’t change this quickly."

What? Who said it was anything genetic...ever?

It basically boils down to people eat too much and move too little

With graphs

This. They could have just put #12 in there, and been done with it.

#12 should be #1...certainly many of those other things contribute to #12...but #12 is the bottom line.

Ok, 2 sincere questions. #2...did someone really track sugar consumption from the 1700's and #5...food was really more expensive in the 1950's than now?? really? and last question, why are people always trying to find why we are fat? We all know how to become "unfat" so lets just eat less, move more and move on!

zamphir66 wrote: »

I think it's important for never-overweight people to realize that most people don't become overweight by sitting down with a pint of B&J every night for a Gilmore Girls marathon, waking up with a cold pizza or two, and mainlining McDonald's all afternoon.

In the same way that eating a little less and moving a little more has helped me lose 40ish pounds, I gained that weight in a gradual, fractional way. A 5% change at most.

I think most people realize this...

Who are the "never-overweight" people you are referring to? Many, if not most of the fit and trim folks you see here on MFP were in fact overweight at one time....

I put on 40 - 50 Lbs very gradually over the course of about 8 years or so...I was able to lose it in about 9 months.

TimothyFish wrote: »

If you're looking for an environmental cause, it is likely because of the increased availability of automobiles for transportation and the migration to city life. People naturally burned more calories when they walked, rode horses, or rode bicycles to get where they were going. Also, people who had to grow their own food burned more calories to produce it. Our bodies were not designed for sitting all day.

Yep. And in addition jobs in general are more sedentary on average.

Cities actually have some benefits these days, because you can manage to do almost everything on foot/by bike vs. many suburbs or smaller cities/towns where walking places is more difficult. One of the first things I did when starting this process was get back to my old habits of just walking everywhere I possibly could or taking public transportation, and it upped my activity tremendously, despite still having a desk job.

And I know my grandparents and great grandparents were more naturally active on a daily basis when my age, simply because of what they were required to do to live.

rabbitjb wrote: »

Couldn't get past first paragraph saying "The reason why this has happened is still debated among scientists, but it must be due to changes in the environment because our genes don’t change this quickly."

What? Who said it was anything genetic...ever?

It basically boils down to people eat too much and move too little

With graphs

+1

People love to blame something other than themselves for their obesity

The people I encounter, both on other message boards and occasionally even in real life, who imply or outright state that being overweight is only ever a result of eating 5000 calories of junk food every day and never getting out of a recliner. People whose well-considered solution to the obesity epidemic is "Just stop eating so dang much you stupids!" It's a not uncommon POV.

I agree that such people exist, but it's also possible to think eating less is one of the solutions to obesity (along with moving more) and not think that people only get fat from daily Big Macs, large fries, plus a couple pints of ice cream and some donuts.

I gained weight from eating too much/becoming inactive and lost from doing the reverse, even though I never ate fast food or crazy amounts. It's just that when I stopped exercising my TDEE probably ended up at under 1500, and even after I gained a bunch of weight it was probably at 1750 or less. Given that plus how easy it is to eat lots of calories even without the stereotypical kinds of eating, I gained weight regularly, easily, and pretty rapidly over the course of a few years.

Understanding that and adding back in activity has made a huge difference and doesn't require that I think of myself as a "stupid" or whatever negative attitude you are assuming must be included in such advice.

This content has been removed.

ninerbuff wrote: »

The reality and direct result based on physiology is that eating more than you burn will result in weight gain. That's NOT disputed amongst any journal of medicine or science.
The reality also is that the solution to reducing obesity is to get oveweight and obese people to eating less that what their body needs. Choice of foods aside, weight loss still comes down to calories in/out.

[/quote]

Ok, deep breath. I think I'm being misunderstood. I'm not at all disputing any of that. I am currently losing weight at a healthy clip following those best practices.

What I'm saying, and I guess just not communicating very well, is that there seems to be a widely held perception -- and maybe this is just my own heightened sensitivity to trollish commentary -- that the diet of someone who becomes obese must be substantially and obscenely different from a "normal" person's diet. I.e, fast foot and pizza and donuts, hooray!!! When really, that's rarely the case. If you're not relatively aware of what's "in" your food, then it's super easy to eat 3000 calories in a day, no sweat. I remember a YouTube video with two identical-looking days' worth of food. Yet one of them was X calories and the other was like 1.5X or 2X calories.

TimothyFish wrote: »

If you're looking for an environmental cause, it is likely because of the increased availability of automobiles for transportation and the migration to city life. People naturally burned more calories when they walked, rode horses, or rode bicycles to get where they were going. Also, people who had to grow their own food burned more calories to produce it. Our bodies were not designed for sitting all day.

I think you have to qualify that to say "the migration of people to the sprawling, car-centric cities in the south and west". Most northern cities are older, and because they grew up before cars were the center of the universe are not particularly car friendly. Plus, those northern cities tend to be more neighborhood-centric than the ones in the south. Long story short, you walk a lot more in a city like New York, Boston, or here in Toronto than you do in places like L.A., Phoenix, Dallas, or Tampa.

I don't know where they're getting accurate sugar consumption statistics from the 18th Century. I have never been a fan of sugary foods, but was morbidly obese until recently, now just very obese.

noexcusesjustresults2014 wrote: »

rabbitjb wrote: »

Couldn't get past first paragraph saying "The reason why this has happened is still debated among scientists, but it must be due to changes in the environment because our genes don’t change this quickly."

What? Who said it was anything genetic...ever?

It basically boils down to people eat too much and move too little

With graphs

+1

People love to blame something other than themselves for their obesity

I blame Obama, cropdusting, and the chupacabra.

zamphir66 wrote: »

ninerbuff wrote: »

The reality and direct result based on physiology is that eating more than you burn will result in weight gain. That's NOT disputed amongst any journal of medicine or science.
The reality also is that the solution to reducing obesity is to get oveweight and obese people to eating less that what their body needs. Choice of foods aside, weight loss still comes down to calories in/out.

Ok, deep breath. I think I'm being misunderstood. I'm not at all disputing any of that. I am currently losing weight at a healthy clip following those best practices.

What I'm saying, and I guess just not communicating very well, is that there seems to be a widely held perception -- and maybe this is just my own heightened sensitivity to trollish commentary -- that the diet of someone who becomes obese must be substantially and obscenely different from a "normal" person's diet. I.e, fast foot and pizza and donuts, hooray!!! When really, that's rarely the case. If you're not relatively aware of what's "in" your food, then it's super easy to eat 3000 calories in a day, no sweat. I remember a YouTube video with two identical-looking days' worth of food. Yet one of them was X calories and the other was like 1.5X or 2X calories. [/quote]

@ zamphir

1. What sparked your need to bring in this "widely held perception"? Did anyone in this thread insist that the typical diet of an obese person is largely based on "junk" food?
2. You're essentially saying that obese people do eat more than they burn, because they're not aware of the calories in their food, and that's caused them to gain weight, since CI>CO. So... what are you actually arguing against/for in a thread that centres on blaming environmental factors for weight gain?