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Monbiot: increase in obesity due to food industry
Replies
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What's an editor?
Excellent point. Unfortunately.2 -
NorthCascades wrote: »
Excellent point. Unfortunately.
In 2000 I wrote an piece on the dangers of trusting information without sourcing or editing. I used the example of Pierre Salinger in regards to his investigation of TWA flight 800. This respected journalist fell prey to the lure of conspiratorial theories and lost a career because of righteous zeal. I hope that someone saves me from the same fate and hope I have the wisdom to listen to them at that time.7 -
Zeal is a hard thing to get over. It just feels so good.
This forum has changed my mind about some health and diet related things, for what it's worth. I was raised by hippies, and brought up with the idea that certain foods were "good" and others were "bad." It's a hard thing to shake. Really doesn't help to have respected newspapers running stories about how it isn't eating too many calories that makes you fat, it's evil sugar, sprung on an unwitting public by ruthless corporate henchmen. But a story like that just lines up with so many things that people feel zealous about. So all this talking we do, some good comes out of it.
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Sugar being problematic is nothing new. Barbra Cartland was recorded in 1968 saying the very same thing, even quoting Prof Judkin. it may seem more logical in the minds of regular people for fats to be stored as fat more easily, when the white stuff has to go through additional bodily processing to present it for storage.
its not necessarily any food being bad, its too much, for that one person which means its best taken at a reduced level.11 -
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NorthCascades wrote: »Zeal is a hard thing to get over. It just feels so good.
This forum has changed my mind about some health and diet related things, for what it's worth. I was raised by hippies, and brought up with the idea that certain foods were "good" and others were "bad." It's a hard thing to shake. Really doesn't help to have respected newspapers running stories about how it isn't eating too many calories that makes you fat, it's evil sugar, sprung on an unwitting public by ruthless corporate henchmen. But a story like that just lines up with so many things that people feel zealous about. So all this talking we do, some good comes out of it.
I note one key error many make - this being the natural state of man. Ours is war. Peace is abnormal and takes tremendous effort. This is only achieved through discussion.
We stop talking, we revert to our primal selves...and we all lose.
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Obviously you are eating too much if you have become obese. I get what the video is getting at, but if you aren't eating too much, you won't become overweight.2
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George Monbiot looks at the increase in obesity in the last four decades and concludes that it isn't that people are eating more, have less activity, or lack willpower. He puts the blame on the food industry. Article has lots of interesting links, including one on the use of subliminal scents to manipulate us.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/15/age-of-obesity-shaming-overweight-people
Possible, but I have to note one experience with subliminal messages that were piped into a now-defunct "department store" back in the early 80s left me with an incredible urge to SHOPLIFT. I was in my early 20's or some such, and really had a strong urge to walk off with stuff that really did not interest me. I rather freaked out, and left the place as fast as I could, without even purchasing the item I'd gone in to get. Not long later I heard about subliminal messages being embedded into the "muzak"... since I loathed the "muzak", the message apparently got reversed in my mind to : STEAL, Baby, STEAL. TAKE!!!
So.. I am curious about subliminal scents. Some few years before that, I waited for the bus back to college campus outside a bakery. If the weather outside was inclement, I and others waited inside. I learned early and quickly that the aromas were wonderful, but that I just wasn't quite so interested in the actual taste. I was satiated there on aroma alone, no need to buy and eat. (The owners of the establishment probably hated me...)10 -
cmriverside wrote: »So eat less processed food. Ta Da :drinker:
Shocker that a company would manipulate its products to make them more palatable, more delicious, so more people would buy them and that company would make more money.
Sales and Marketing 101.
Yes, this worked well for the tobacco industry too. I think back to my mother bringing home margarine because it is so much better for us. I guess I am for companies having freedom to adjust food to make it better tasting and profitable. I also see the people that are possibly lured in to a way of eating that can greatly diminish their health. I just can't seem to reconcile to two points.8 -
No. The rise in obesity coincides with the government subsidising grains then faking a study to justify pushing more grains in one's diet.10
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No. The rise in obesity coincides with the government subsidising grains then faking a study to justify pushing more grains in one's diet.
I think the recommendation that we should lower fat and increase grains will not workout well. It seems that very little quality sound peer reviewed research went into pushing this out to the masses. Adding sugars to "Low Fat" products isn't helping either.4 -
I think the recommendation that we should lower fat and increase grains will not workout well. It seems that very little quality sound peer reviewed research went into pushing this out to the masses. Adding sugars to "Low Fat" products isn't helping either.
I don't even think this is happening anymore. This is like an 80s/90s thing that is constantly brought up, but "low fat" is no longer a popular diet style. Even plans that recommend lower fat generally recommend avoiding products like the ones you're thinking about.5 -
janejellyroll wrote: »
I don't even think this is happening anymore. This is like an 80s/90s thing that is constantly brought up, but "low fat" is no longer a popular diet style. Even plans that recommend lower fat generally recommend avoiding products like the ones you're thinking about.
^^^ this is one of those dieting myths, along with "diet soda is high in sodium" that I just don't understand where it is coming from or why it is still spouted as objective fact...5 -
I found it frightful when I heard the other day, the NHS considers it good to put overweight diabetic patients on a daily 800 calorie low fat diet for 6 months. It simply flies in the face of so much we read in scientific papers. It was not April 1st either. I can't remember where I heard this.4
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Looks like, based on one article in the Lancet, they're trying it: https://www.dietdoctor.com/britains-nhs-to-fight-diabetes-with-very-low-calorie-liquid-diet (link references the lancet article). It doesn't look like they consider it "good" so much as "worth a try, because the faster the weight comes off, the more manageable the condition". And it's still an experiment, not policy.7
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It's not the processing...for instance, think about how much work is required in making french fries from scratch as opposed to boiled/mashed or oven roasted. Back before you could pop into a pub/fast food place and grab them quickly and cheaply or buy them in the freezer section ready to toss in the oven/microwave→how often do you think people ate them. Probably nowhere near as often. Did many people even own deep fryers back then? They were probably hesitant to throw cups and cups of oil into a frying pan that they would need to use for something else later (meaning having to discard or transfer, store the used oil). i.e. it would have been a p.i.t.a. and not the nearly ubiquitous (easy) side dish it has become today. And what they did make would have been shared amongst a larger family - so smaller portions out of necessity (you can only fit so much in the frying pan).4 -
I found it frightful when I heard the other day, the NHS considers it good to put overweight diabetic patients on a daily 800 calorie low fat diet for 6 months. It simply flies in the face of so much we read in scientific papers. It was not April 1st either. I can't remember where I heard this.
This may happen because so many people underestimate their intake by a huge amount (and the medical staff have probably realized it). ie many of these patients will think they are eating 800, but actually eating 2000+.1 -
I found it frightful when I heard the other day, the NHS considers it good to put overweight diabetic patients on a daily 800 calorie low fat diet for 6 months. It simply flies in the face of so much we read in scientific papers. It was not April 1st either. I can't remember where I heard this.
Also, in the case of serious medical complications from being overweight (ie where the obesity has become an imminent threat to life), it is sometimes considered best to get it off as quickly as possible.1 -
Possible, but I have to note one experience with subliminal messages that were piped into a now-defunct "department store" back in the early 80s left me with an incredible urge to SHOPLIFT. I was in my early 20's or some such, and really had a strong urge to walk off with stuff that really did not interest me. I rather freaked out, and left the place as fast as I could, without even purchasing the item I'd gone in to get. Not long later I heard about subliminal messages being embedded into the "muzak"... since I loathed the "muzak", the message apparently got reversed in my mind to : STEAL, Baby, STEAL. TAKE!!!
So.. I am curious about subliminal scents. Some few years before that, I waited for the bus back to college campus outside a bakery. If the weather outside was inclement, I and others waited inside. I learned early and quickly that the aromas were wonderful, but that I just wasn't quite so interested in the actual taste. I was satiated there on aroma alone, no need to buy and eat. (The owners of the establishment probably hated me...)
I'm trying to understand how a department store makes money by using subliminal messages to make people steal their stuff instead of paying for it?4 -
Subliminal messages are supposed to work on us all, some of us may have learned to avoid the ploys. Others on the other hand may fall for the inducements but do not have deep enough pockets and remove products instead.6
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NorthCascades wrote: »
I'm trying to understand how a department store makes money by using subliminal messages to make people steal their stuff instead of paying for it?
They are saying the subliminal message was telling you to "buy", but because they hated the muzak it was embedded in, they heard "steal".
I'm not sure that detour on the workings of subliminal messaging is a known issue, and if hating muzak made a person hear "steal" I'd think the store would have been stripped bare!
Anyway, the suggestive power of scents isn't really controversial. Scents can trigger powerful emotions and memories. You still have to make the conscious decision to buy the Cinnabon and stuff it in your piehole. A decision I have made more times than I should and was totally my responsibility.
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