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What new or revised public policy/law would make it easier for people to maintain a healthy weight?
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magnusthenerd wrote: »cayenne_007 wrote: »Theoldguy1 wrote: »Not a thing, we have enough laws and regulations as it is. Generally a restaurant is going to have a meal higher in calories than you can make at home. Humans managed thousands of years without being obese. No nuntrion labels, no macro counting they got by. If you can’t manage your weight (excluding medical reasons) that’s on you. One meal at a restaurant isn’t going to cause obesity.
...no convenience stores, no chocolate bars, no cake or cookies, no ice cream, no restaurants, no modern fruits, vegetables and grains, no fatty meats, no food without walking miles to hunt or gather...
...sorry, what was your point again?
The point is no one is forcing you to purchase those items. A rational thinking person knows that if they eat fried chicken everyday they will gain weight. On top of that nearly all of the things you listed have nutrition info available to a majority of the world.
Nobody is ‘forcing’ anyone to purchase those items, but humans evolved to deal with food scarcity, not abundance. As a result we have all sorts of inbuilt mechanisms to try to make sure we eat enough (eg hunger) but no similar drives to avoid overeating tasty high-calorie food. And you just can’t willpower 24/7.
So once you’ve finished telling fat people that everything is their own fault, do you have anything to offer that’s actually helpful?
Your firat phraae 'nobody is forcing anyone to purchase those items" is correct.
IMO, the rest of the post regarding evolution, etc pretty much excuses for lack of personal eesponsibility.
Not going to fix a problem if one does not admit one is there.
Well, in that case nothing anyone can do is gonna change a thing. If it’s 100% personal responsibility, might as well just let fat people be fat and stop any kind of efforts to help ‘em.
You can't help someone that isn't motivated to make a change - it has to be their idea. All the information is readily available but they have to do the work.
I can't think of a single overweight friend that I have that doesn't know what they need to change to lose weight - it's just not important enough to them to stay consistent and do the work. One of my good friends is really heavy -she knows eating sugar and junk food doesn't help and yet she still does it because she enjoys it. I love her to pieces but there's nothing anyone else can do to help her - it's on her.
I find that statement a bit off in a policy discussion. We literally can cause people to change behavior. Certainly at a given individual, there could be people that will do something if they want it strongly enough, but most people fall on a bell curve of what they'll do to something as simple as a price increase - it is a bit of the most fundamentals of economics. We literary can change or influence behavior at the aggregate level, that's what policies are for.
And what is missed in discussing "well when was the chocolate bar invented" is the question of how can personal responsibility be explanatory of the issue, if we're making it an alternative hypothesis? Did the human capacity for self control just simply change in the last century?
That bold might be a difficult concept to digest (pun intended) for anyone who has lived in a fairly free society long enough. "They" would never....is the mindset/rationale I've been offered regarding certain, previously unthinkable policy changes. These were hypothetical discussions not related to weight control though.2 -
magnusthenerd wrote: »cayenne_007 wrote: »Theoldguy1 wrote: »Not a thing, we have enough laws and regulations as it is. Generally a restaurant is going to have a meal higher in calories than you can make at home. Humans managed thousands of years without being obese. No nuntrion labels, no macro counting they got by. If you can’t manage your weight (excluding medical reasons) that’s on you. One meal at a restaurant isn’t going to cause obesity.
...no convenience stores, no chocolate bars, no cake or cookies, no ice cream, no restaurants, no modern fruits, vegetables and grains, no fatty meats, no food without walking miles to hunt or gather...
...sorry, what was your point again?
The point is no one is forcing you to purchase those items. A rational thinking person knows that if they eat fried chicken everyday they will gain weight. On top of that nearly all of the things you listed have nutrition info available to a majority of the world.
Nobody is ‘forcing’ anyone to purchase those items, but humans evolved to deal with food scarcity, not abundance. As a result we have all sorts of inbuilt mechanisms to try to make sure we eat enough (eg hunger) but no similar drives to avoid overeating tasty high-calorie food. And you just can’t willpower 24/7.
So once you’ve finished telling fat people that everything is their own fault, do you have anything to offer that’s actually helpful?
Your firat phraae 'nobody is forcing anyone to purchase those items" is correct.
IMO, the rest of the post regarding evolution, etc pretty much excuses for lack of personal eesponsibility.
Not going to fix a problem if one does not admit one is there.
Well, in that case nothing anyone can do is gonna change a thing. If it’s 100% personal responsibility, might as well just let fat people be fat and stop any kind of efforts to help ‘em.
You can't help someone that isn't motivated to make a change - it has to be their idea. All the information is readily available but they have to do the work.
I can't think of a single overweight friend that I have that doesn't know what they need to change to lose weight - it's just not important enough to them to stay consistent and do the work. One of my good friends is really heavy -she knows eating sugar and junk food doesn't help and yet she still does it because she enjoys it. I love her to pieces but there's nothing anyone else can do to help her - it's on her.
I find that statement a bit off in a policy discussion. We literally can cause people to change behavior. Certainly at a given individual, there could be people that will do something if they want it strongly enough, but most people fall on a bell curve of what they'll do to something as simple as a price increase - it is a bit of the most fundamentals of economics. We literary can change or influence behavior at the aggregate level, that's what policies are for.
And what is missed in discussing "well when was the chocolate bar invented" is the question of how can personal responsibility be explanatory of the issue, if we're making it an alternative hypothesis? Did the human capacity for self control just simply change in the last century?
The primary change in the last century was a shift from scarcity to abundance. Self control isn't an innate human quality, although it is reinforced through cultural and societal means. As the cultural concepts of sacrificing the present for the future diminished much of the "old wisdom" has died.
Weight is simply one of the most visible symptoms of a deeper root cause.8 -
Dietitians should be included on any health insurance plan under the category preventative healthcare
Gym membership subsidies to all gyms, if you are obese, should be part of your insurance coverage.
No taxes on fresh produce, lean meats and cheeses.
Gym equipment in parks - they do this in Miami and it is great
This works in Europe where I lived for many years, it can work here.1 -
Work with reality not against it1
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I would say self-control is the innate quality of humans. When it comes to more instinct driven areas, are brains aren't much bigger or better than other primates, possibly worse since we use so much less sense of smell. What tends to make humans different is a large prefrontal cortex, the area that tends to make you do the hard thing when necessary. There's a very simple test of this in that give a chimp the choice to reach for an empty hand or hand with food, and even when they understand reaching for the empty hand will actually give food, they'll never do it - and chimps are the next closest primates to humans in PFC size. Almost any human child, on the other hand, can learn that you get a bigger reward for going against what is in front of your eyes drawing your desire.magnusthenerd wrote: »cayenne_007 wrote: »Theoldguy1 wrote: »Not a thing, we have enough laws and regulations as it is. Generally a restaurant is going to have a meal higher in calories than you can make at home. Humans managed thousands of years without being obese. No nuntrion labels, no macro counting they got by. If you can’t manage your weight (excluding medical reasons) that’s on you. One meal at a restaurant isn’t going to cause obesity.
...no convenience stores, no chocolate bars, no cake or cookies, no ice cream, no restaurants, no modern fruits, vegetables and grains, no fatty meats, no food without walking miles to hunt or gather...
...sorry, what was your point again?
The point is no one is forcing you to purchase those items. A rational thinking person knows that if they eat fried chicken everyday they will gain weight. On top of that nearly all of the things you listed have nutrition info available to a majority of the world.
Nobody is ‘forcing’ anyone to purchase those items, but humans evolved to deal with food scarcity, not abundance. As a result we have all sorts of inbuilt mechanisms to try to make sure we eat enough (eg hunger) but no similar drives to avoid overeating tasty high-calorie food. And you just can’t willpower 24/7.
So once you’ve finished telling fat people that everything is their own fault, do you have anything to offer that’s actually helpful?
Your firat phraae 'nobody is forcing anyone to purchase those items" is correct.
IMO, the rest of the post regarding evolution, etc pretty much excuses for lack of personal eesponsibility.
Not going to fix a problem if one does not admit one is there.
Well, in that case nothing anyone can do is gonna change a thing. If it’s 100% personal responsibility, might as well just let fat people be fat and stop any kind of efforts to help ‘em.
You can't help someone that isn't motivated to make a change - it has to be their idea. All the information is readily available but they have to do the work.
I can't think of a single overweight friend that I have that doesn't know what they need to change to lose weight - it's just not important enough to them to stay consistent and do the work. One of my good friends is really heavy -she knows eating sugar and junk food doesn't help and yet she still does it because she enjoys it. I love her to pieces but there's nothing anyone else can do to help her - it's on her.
I find that statement a bit off in a policy discussion. We literally can cause people to change behavior. Certainly at a given individual, there could be people that will do something if they want it strongly enough, but most people fall on a bell curve of what they'll do to something as simple as a price increase - it is a bit of the most fundamentals of economics. We literary can change or influence behavior at the aggregate level, that's what policies are for.
And what is missed in discussing "well when was the chocolate bar invented" is the question of how can personal responsibility be explanatory of the issue, if we're making it an alternative hypothesis? Did the human capacity for self control just simply change in the last century?
The primary change in the last century was a shift from scarcity to abundance. Self control isn't an innate human quality, although it is reinforced through cultural and societal means. As the cultural concepts of sacrificing the present for the future diminished much of the "old wisdom" has died.
Weight is simply one of the most visible symptoms of a deeper root cause.
There have always been people with access to abundance since we've had classed societies. I don't think the lords of Europe had an obesity epidemic like we see now.
I also don't think there is some great store of old wisdom where people have lost the ability to sacrifice for future gain. That seems to be saying we did lose the capacity for self control3 -
magnusthenerd wrote: »
I would say self-control is the innate quality of humans. When it comes to more instinct driven areas, are brains aren't much bigger or better than other primates, possibly worse since we use so much less sense of smell. What tends to make humans different is a large prefrontal cortex, the area that tends to make you do the hard thing when necessary. There's a very simple test of this in that give a chimp the choice to reach for an empty hand or hand with food, and even when they understand reaching for the empty hand will actually give food, they'll never do it - and chimps are the next closest primates to humans in PFC size. Almost any human child, on the other hand, can learn that you get a bigger reward for going against what is in front of your eyes drawing your desire.magnusthenerd wrote: »cayenne_007 wrote: »Theoldguy1 wrote: »Not a thing, we have enough laws and regulations as it is. Generally a restaurant is going to have a meal higher in calories than you can make at home. Humans managed thousands of years without being obese. No nuntrion labels, no macro counting they got by. If you can’t manage your weight (excluding medical reasons) that’s on you. One meal at a restaurant isn’t going to cause obesity.
...no convenience stores, no chocolate bars, no cake or cookies, no ice cream, no restaurants, no modern fruits, vegetables and grains, no fatty meats, no food without walking miles to hunt or gather...
...sorry, what was your point again?
The point is no one is forcing you to purchase those items. A rational thinking person knows that if they eat fried chicken everyday they will gain weight. On top of that nearly all of the things you listed have nutrition info available to a majority of the world.
Nobody is ‘forcing’ anyone to purchase those items, but humans evolved to deal with food scarcity, not abundance. As a result we have all sorts of inbuilt mechanisms to try to make sure we eat enough (eg hunger) but no similar drives to avoid overeating tasty high-calorie food. And you just can’t willpower 24/7.
So once you’ve finished telling fat people that everything is their own fault, do you have anything to offer that’s actually helpful?
Your firat phraae 'nobody is forcing anyone to purchase those items" is correct.
IMO, the rest of the post regarding evolution, etc pretty much excuses for lack of personal eesponsibility.
Not going to fix a problem if one does not admit one is there.
Well, in that case nothing anyone can do is gonna change a thing. If it’s 100% personal responsibility, might as well just let fat people be fat and stop any kind of efforts to help ‘em.
You can't help someone that isn't motivated to make a change - it has to be their idea. All the information is readily available but they have to do the work.
I can't think of a single overweight friend that I have that doesn't know what they need to change to lose weight - it's just not important enough to them to stay consistent and do the work. One of my good friends is really heavy -she knows eating sugar and junk food doesn't help and yet she still does it because she enjoys it. I love her to pieces but there's nothing anyone else can do to help her - it's on her.
I find that statement a bit off in a policy discussion. We literally can cause people to change behavior. Certainly at a given individual, there could be people that will do something if they want it strongly enough, but most people fall on a bell curve of what they'll do to something as simple as a price increase - it is a bit of the most fundamentals of economics. We literary can change or influence behavior at the aggregate level, that's what policies are for.
And what is missed in discussing "well when was the chocolate bar invented" is the question of how can personal responsibility be explanatory of the issue, if we're making it an alternative hypothesis? Did the human capacity for self control just simply change in the last century?
The primary change in the last century was a shift from scarcity to abundance. Self control isn't an innate human quality, although it is reinforced through cultural and societal means. As the cultural concepts of sacrificing the present for the future diminished much of the "old wisdom" has died.
Weight is simply one of the most visible symptoms of a deeper root cause.
There have always been people with access to abundance since we've had classed societies. I don't think the lords of Europe had an obesity epidemic like we see now.
I also don't think there is some great store of old wisdom where people have lost the ability to sacrifice for future gain. That seems to be saying we did lose the capacity for self control
So what's your explanation?0 -
magnusthenerd wrote: »
I would say self-control is the innate quality of humans. When it comes to more instinct driven areas, are brains aren't much bigger or better than other primates, possibly worse since we use so much less sense of smell. What tends to make humans different is a large prefrontal cortex, the area that tends to make you do the hard thing when necessary. There's a very simple test of this in that give a chimp the choice to reach for an empty hand or hand with food, and even when they understand reaching for the empty hand will actually give food, they'll never do it - and chimps are the next closest primates to humans in PFC size. Almost any human child, on the other hand, can learn that you get a bigger reward for going against what is in front of your eyes drawing your desire.magnusthenerd wrote: »cayenne_007 wrote: »Theoldguy1 wrote: »Not a thing, we have enough laws and regulations as it is. Generally a restaurant is going to have a meal higher in calories than you can make at home. Humans managed thousands of years without being obese. No nuntrion labels, no macro counting they got by. If you can’t manage your weight (excluding medical reasons) that’s on you. One meal at a restaurant isn’t going to cause obesity.
...no convenience stores, no chocolate bars, no cake or cookies, no ice cream, no restaurants, no modern fruits, vegetables and grains, no fatty meats, no food without walking miles to hunt or gather...
...sorry, what was your point again?
The point is no one is forcing you to purchase those items. A rational thinking person knows that if they eat fried chicken everyday they will gain weight. On top of that nearly all of the things you listed have nutrition info available to a majority of the world.
Nobody is ‘forcing’ anyone to purchase those items, but humans evolved to deal with food scarcity, not abundance. As a result we have all sorts of inbuilt mechanisms to try to make sure we eat enough (eg hunger) but no similar drives to avoid overeating tasty high-calorie food. And you just can’t willpower 24/7.
So once you’ve finished telling fat people that everything is their own fault, do you have anything to offer that’s actually helpful?
Your firat phraae 'nobody is forcing anyone to purchase those items" is correct.
IMO, the rest of the post regarding evolution, etc pretty much excuses for lack of personal eesponsibility.
Not going to fix a problem if one does not admit one is there.
Well, in that case nothing anyone can do is gonna change a thing. If it’s 100% personal responsibility, might as well just let fat people be fat and stop any kind of efforts to help ‘em.
You can't help someone that isn't motivated to make a change - it has to be their idea. All the information is readily available but they have to do the work.
I can't think of a single overweight friend that I have that doesn't know what they need to change to lose weight - it's just not important enough to them to stay consistent and do the work. One of my good friends is really heavy -she knows eating sugar and junk food doesn't help and yet she still does it because she enjoys it. I love her to pieces but there's nothing anyone else can do to help her - it's on her.
I find that statement a bit off in a policy discussion. We literally can cause people to change behavior. Certainly at a given individual, there could be people that will do something if they want it strongly enough, but most people fall on a bell curve of what they'll do to something as simple as a price increase - it is a bit of the most fundamentals of economics. We literary can change or influence behavior at the aggregate level, that's what policies are for.
And what is missed in discussing "well when was the chocolate bar invented" is the question of how can personal responsibility be explanatory of the issue, if we're making it an alternative hypothesis? Did the human capacity for self control just simply change in the last century?
The primary change in the last century was a shift from scarcity to abundance. Self control isn't an innate human quality, although it is reinforced through cultural and societal means. As the cultural concepts of sacrificing the present for the future diminished much of the "old wisdom" has died.
Weight is simply one of the most visible symptoms of a deeper root cause.
There have always been people with access to abundance since we've had classed societies. I don't think the lords of Europe had an obesity epidemic like we see now.
I also don't think there is some great store of old wisdom where people have lost the ability to sacrifice for future gain. That seems to be saying we did lose the capacity for self control
So what's your explanation?
There is a multitude of things going on, but I absolutely do believe advertising has an effect on people's eating habits. Perhaps I'm biased in that I work for an advertising company. I think a number of large scale social effects and policies matter - I don't think it is as simple as people make choices in a vacuum unimpacted by society, economics, or stressors. My point isn't that I secretly am the one man with the actual perfect solution for the obesity epidemic. I am, however, here to say social policy absolutely can work: we have fewer smokers now, and it is absolutely measurable that some of the reasons why are things like sin tax on cigarrettes and anti-smoking informational campaigns. While I'm ambivalent about the moral arguments - the shoulds - anyone that wants to say we can't influence these things via policy is ignorant or motivated to deluded their self in my esteem. Yet I think people want that delusion sometimes because it is easier to handle than having to come up with the hard arguments in the realm of morals for why we can or can't justify acting or not acting to change things.4 -
magnusthenerd wrote: »
I would say self-control is the innate quality of humans. When it comes to more instinct driven areas, are brains aren't much bigger or better than other primates, possibly worse since we use so much less sense of smell. What tends to make humans different is a large prefrontal cortex, the area that tends to make you do the hard thing when necessary. There's a very simple test of this in that give a chimp the choice to reach for an empty hand or hand with food, and even when they understand reaching for the empty hand will actually give food, they'll never do it - and chimps are the next closest primates to humans in PFC size. Almost any human child, on the other hand, can learn that you get a bigger reward for going against what is in front of your eyes drawing your desire.magnusthenerd wrote: »cayenne_007 wrote: »Theoldguy1 wrote: »Not a thing, we have enough laws and regulations as it is. Generally a restaurant is going to have a meal higher in calories than you can make at home. Humans managed thousands of years without being obese. No nuntrion labels, no macro counting they got by. If you can’t manage your weight (excluding medical reasons) that’s on you. One meal at a restaurant isn’t going to cause obesity.
...no convenience stores, no chocolate bars, no cake or cookies, no ice cream, no restaurants, no modern fruits, vegetables and grains, no fatty meats, no food without walking miles to hunt or gather...
...sorry, what was your point again?
The point is no one is forcing you to purchase those items. A rational thinking person knows that if they eat fried chicken everyday they will gain weight. On top of that nearly all of the things you listed have nutrition info available to a majority of the world.
Nobody is ‘forcing’ anyone to purchase those items, but humans evolved to deal with food scarcity, not abundance. As a result we have all sorts of inbuilt mechanisms to try to make sure we eat enough (eg hunger) but no similar drives to avoid overeating tasty high-calorie food. And you just can’t willpower 24/7.
So once you’ve finished telling fat people that everything is their own fault, do you have anything to offer that’s actually helpful?
Your firat phraae 'nobody is forcing anyone to purchase those items" is correct.
IMO, the rest of the post regarding evolution, etc pretty much excuses for lack of personal eesponsibility.
Not going to fix a problem if one does not admit one is there.
Well, in that case nothing anyone can do is gonna change a thing. If it’s 100% personal responsibility, might as well just let fat people be fat and stop any kind of efforts to help ‘em.
You can't help someone that isn't motivated to make a change - it has to be their idea. All the information is readily available but they have to do the work.
I can't think of a single overweight friend that I have that doesn't know what they need to change to lose weight - it's just not important enough to them to stay consistent and do the work. One of my good friends is really heavy -she knows eating sugar and junk food doesn't help and yet she still does it because she enjoys it. I love her to pieces but there's nothing anyone else can do to help her - it's on her.
I find that statement a bit off in a policy discussion. We literally can cause people to change behavior. Certainly at a given individual, there could be people that will do something if they want it strongly enough, but most people fall on a bell curve of what they'll do to something as simple as a price increase - it is a bit of the most fundamentals of economics. We literary can change or influence behavior at the aggregate level, that's what policies are for.
And what is missed in discussing "well when was the chocolate bar invented" is the question of how can personal responsibility be explanatory of the issue, if we're making it an alternative hypothesis? Did the human capacity for self control just simply change in the last century?
The primary change in the last century was a shift from scarcity to abundance. Self control isn't an innate human quality, although it is reinforced through cultural and societal means. As the cultural concepts of sacrificing the present for the future diminished much of the "old wisdom" has died.
Weight is simply one of the most visible symptoms of a deeper root cause.
There have always been people with access to abundance since we've had classed societies. I don't think the lords of Europe had an obesity epidemic like we see now.
I also don't think there is some great store of old wisdom where people have lost the ability to sacrifice for future gain. That seems to be saying we did lose the capacity for self control
In comparison to animals, yes.
In your example the bigger reward for going against what is in front of your eyes (sacrificing your present for your future) is learned - not innate.
I suspect it's more an issue of the rate of abundance:
Note the explosion in food production and population following WWII and the conversion from military build up to agricultural and industrial build up. Also has a great deal to do with the logistical issue of transporting and storing food. Refrigeration is a relatively new concept and localized to colder climates prior to the 1920s. Most of the calorie dense food we commonly eat today was created out of necessity for storage during winter - heavy breads, jellies, cheeses, etc. These tend to taste better laden with sugar and salt and while rare treats historically these are used everyday.
There's also the issue of physical expenditure. Those of the higher class in the past needed to move more than the average person today.
I can't remember the term, but there was a calculation for the amount of work required for an individual to survive throughout the ages. This has dropped dramatically in the 1900s and is down to only a few hours. Compare this to anyone attempting to survive in Alaska which is over 100 hours/week.
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I don’t know if any of this would/could/should be changed as a matter of law but I’d like to see:
-insurance companies cover visits with dietitians or even subsidize the cost of or add incentives for participating in validated weight loss programs. I think it would ultimately cost less for them in the long run.
-healthier school lunches
-teaching more in high school about cooking and balancing nutrition
-more portion size options at restaurants. I’d like what is considered one portion, not 2-3. I can take food home, I know, I know this is a “me” issue, but it seems like restaurant portions just keep growing and growing. I don’t think it’s good for the overall health of the community.6 -
If we are considering an effective public policy to alleviate a problem (obesity), we should consider what worked for other public health issues. Tobacco use diminished with a combination of higher taxes, warning labels, and restrictions on sales and advertising. I know that e-cigarettes and vaping are reintroducing tobacco to a younger market, but my point is that there may be some strategies that could be applied to the obesity epidemic.
6 -
Carlos_421 wrote: »Not a thing, we have enough laws and regulations as it is. Generally a restaurant is going to have a meal higher in calories than you can make at home. Humans managed thousands of years without being obese. No nuntrion labels, no macro counting they got by. If you can’t manage your weight (excluding medical reasons) that’s on you. One meal at a restaurant isn’t going to cause obesity.
...no convenience stores, no chocolate bars, no cake or cookies, no ice cream, no restaurants, no modern fruits, vegetables and grains, no fatty meats, no food without walking miles to hunt or gather...
...sorry, what was your point again?
With the exception of convenience stores, all of those things have existed for centuries, at least.
Centuries is not the same as 'thousands of years'. And even if chocolate bars and ice cream existed in the 1700s (did they really?) , I'm preeetty confident they were not widely available for everyday consumption by the masses...
So here's a question. If you believe that the modern food-rich environment has nothing to do with obesity, what is your explanation for why obesity is a modern phenomenon?
I was responding to what appeared to be an implication that the existence of cake, cookies, fatty meats, etc. were to blame for current obesity rates.
I said nothing about whether or not current day access to an abundance of food in general played a role.
In fact, I believe that modern innovations that allow us to have a abundance of food while simultaneously providing opportunity for a sedentary lifestyle (but mostly the sedentary lifestyle, considering the obesity rates more closely align with the tech boom than with 20th century grocery shopping) is exactly why the obesity rate has risen so dramatically.
That has nothing to do with foods like grains existing.
ETA: Obesity hasn't been the problem it is today for even one century. So yes, it is fair to rule out alleged causes that have been around for many.3 -
Carlos_421 wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »Not a thing, we have enough laws and regulations as it is. Generally a restaurant is going to have a meal higher in calories than you can make at home. Humans managed thousands of years without being obese. No nuntrion labels, no macro counting they got by. If you can’t manage your weight (excluding medical reasons) that’s on you. One meal at a restaurant isn’t going to cause obesity.
...no convenience stores, no chocolate bars, no cake or cookies, no ice cream, no restaurants, no modern fruits, vegetables and grains, no fatty meats, no food without walking miles to hunt or gather...
...sorry, what was your point again?
With the exception of convenience stores, all of those things have existed for centuries, at least.
Centuries is not the same as 'thousands of years'. And even if chocolate bars and ice cream existed in the 1700s (did they really?) , I'm preeetty confident they were not widely available for everyday consumption by the masses...
So here's a question. If you believe that the modern food-rich environment has nothing to do with obesity, what is your explanation for why obesity is a modern phenomenon?
I was responding to what appeared to be an implication that the existence of cake, cookies, fatty meats, etc. were to blame for current obesity rates.
I said nothing about whether or not current day access to an abundance of food in general played a role.
In fact, I believe that modern innovations that allow us to have a abundance of food while simultaneously providing opportunity for a sedentary lifestyle (but mostly the sedentary lifestyle, considering the obesity rates more closely align with the tech boom than with 20th century grocery shopping) is exactly why the obesity rate has risen so dramatically.
That has nothing to do with foods like grains existing.
ETA: Obesity hasn't been the problem it is today for even one century. So yes, it is fair to rule out alleged causes that have been around for many.
Wow. Didn't realize how late I was in responding.0 -
If we are considering an effective public policy to alleviate a problem (obesity), we should consider what worked for other public health issues. Tobacco use diminished with a combination of higher taxes, warning labels, and restrictions on sales and advertising. I know that e-cigarettes and vaping are reintroducing tobacco to a younger market, but my point is that there may be some strategies that could be applied to the obesity epidemic.
This is a good idea in theory but I think it would be virtually impossible to implement. Who decides which foods are “unhealthy”? Every fad diet proclaims some food group as the reason for all our health problems.
And even if you got a common consensus on a set of products, then you have the huge issue of food desserts, where low income individuals only have access to corner stores filled with processed, high calorie foods. If you tax those foods at a higher rate, you’re introducing another economic barrier to people with limited transportation or access to fresh food options.
And then how would this work in restaurants? Would all McDonalds products be taxed at a higher rate or just certain items? Some salads are loaded with bacon and fried chicken, not exactly the healthiest options.
Warning labels might work, like a label next to meal items that say “warning: this meal exceeds 50% of the recommended daily calorie allotment” or something. Although that might be categorized as some kind of shaming.
2 -
I posted this in another thread but I don't think people understand the magnitude of food abundance and how this exploded in 1950s in comparison to human history. Couple this with the other impact of cheap and abundant energy - decreased physical activity and you then understand the root cause of the problem.
4 -
I posted this in another thread but I don't think people understand the magnitude of food abundance and how this exploded in 1950s in comparison to human history. Couple this with the other impact of cheap and abundant energy - decreased physical activity and you then understand the root cause of the problem.
I also don't think most people realize how few calories over maintenance it takes, averaged over the population in question, to explain a gradual, creeping obesity epidemic. I've forgotten the exact number, but I believe it's in the low hundreds of calories per day per person, on average.3 -
I posted this in another thread but I don't think people understand the magnitude of food abundance and how this exploded in 1950s in comparison to human history. Couple this with the other impact of cheap and abundant energy - decreased physical activity and you then understand the root cause of the problem.
I also don't think most people realize how few calories over maintenance it takes, averaged over the population in question, to explain a gradual, creeping obesity epidemic. I've forgotten the exact number, but I believe it's in the low hundreds of calories per day per person, on average.
100 kcals/day surplus = 36,500 kcals/year = divided by 3,500 kcals/pound = 10 lbs/year1 -
Theoldguy1 wrote: »OpulentBobble wrote: »If we are considering an effective public policy to alleviate a problem (obesity), we should consider what worked for other public health issues. Tobacco use diminished with a combination of higher taxes, warning labels, and restrictions on sales and advertising. I know that e-cigarettes and vaping are reintroducing tobacco to a younger market, but my point is that there may be some strategies that could be applied to the obesity epidemic.
This is a good idea in theory but I think it would be virtually impossible to implement. Who decides which foods are “unhealthy”? Every fad diet proclaims some food group as the reason for all our health problems.
A number of countries have implemented an excise tax of sugary drinks.
https://www.beveragedaily.com/Article/2017/12/20/Sugar-taxes-The-global-picture-in-2017
As to your question who decides, the government does. Whether or not one agrees with any law it has been shown it can be done.
I followed that statement up with an additional issue contingent upon a tax on unhealthy foods.
Also, given those countries implemented the tax in 2017, I doubt there is a visible trend yet in obesity rates. However, my hypothesis is it will not make much of an impact. All tobacco products are taxed at a higher rate, not just one brand. For something like a tax to make a marked difference, I think it would need to include the majority of heavily processed, high calorie foods in order to significantly alter eating habits so as to reverse obesity trends.
So then you’re bringing in the question of government’s role in consumer choices. Many in the United States have a specific idea of government overreach, which I believe would include a blanket tax on all obesity correlative foods.2 -
I posted this in another thread but I don't think people understand the magnitude of food abundance and how this exploded in 1950s in comparison to human history. Couple this with the other impact of cheap and abundant energy - decreased physical activity and you then understand the root cause of the problem.
I also don't think most people realize how few calories over maintenance it takes, averaged over the population in question, to explain a gradual, creeping obesity epidemic. I've forgotten the exact number, but I believe it's in the low hundreds of calories per day per person, on average.
100 kcals/day surplus = 36,500 kcals/year = divided by 3,500 kcals/pound = 10 lbs/year
Yes . . . but someplace I saw it translated into an estimate of how many extra calories the average (statistical) person would have to have eaten daily to account for the average change in bodyweight since the beginning of the "obesity crisis".
I can do that math, but I'm too lazy to look up the data.
The number is surprisingly small. 0 -
I posted this in another thread but I don't think people understand the magnitude of food abundance and how this exploded in 1950s in comparison to human history. Couple this with the other impact of cheap and abundant energy - decreased physical activity and you then understand the root cause of the problem.
I also don't think most people realize how few calories over maintenance it takes, averaged over the population in question, to explain a gradual, creeping obesity epidemic. I've forgotten the exact number, but I believe it's in the low hundreds of calories per day per person, on average.
100 kcals/day surplus = 36,500 kcals/year = divided by 3,500 kcals/pound = 10 lbs/year
Yes . . . but someplace I saw it translated into an estimate of how many extra calories the average (statistical) person would have to have eaten daily to account for the average change in bodyweight since the beginning of the "obesity crisis".
I can do that math, but I'm too lazy to look up the data. The number is surprisingly small.
I think I've seen this and it is shockingly low - as in 50-200 kcals/day resulting in 10-20 lbs gained a year. Considering the CO element this amounts to missing that 60 min of walking/day.
What throws most people outside of MFP is that they think "Why aren't people 800+ lbs?" Not realizing that metabolism is primarily based upon mass.2
This discussion has been closed.
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