Horizon Documentary 26/1/09 9pm: "Why Are Thin People Not Fat?"

rubadub

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hbsk2

The world is affected by an obesity epidemic, but why is it that not everyone is succumbing? Medical science has been obsessed with this subject and is coming up with some unexpected answers. As it turns out, it is not all about exercise and diet. At the centre of this programme is a controversial overeating experiment that aims to identify exactly what it is about some people that makes it hard for them to bulk up.

I think it will be repeated here

Fat. How TV loves fat. Fat on tummies, fat in food, people with too much fat, people with too little. It's everywhere. Now a quaking Horizon puts our fascination into context in a film full of tummy shots, chocolate gateaux and nuggets of striking research. The peg is an experiment where a bunch of naturally skinny people have to eat vast quantities of pizza and cake to see whether and how they put on weight. So far, so dull. What makes this interesting is the latest thinking on why thin people are thin and fat people fat. So, for instance, appetite may be genetic: some children merrily eat when they're not hungry, others don't. And some people's bodies appear to actively resist weight gain, however much they eat. There's even evidence that certain viruses make you fat - so you could catch obesity like a cold. A terrifying thought

This should be interesting. There was a program on before which followed to female friends one bigger than the other who claimed to eat the same. Turned out the big one ate far more, it was dispelling the concept of super fast/slow metabolisms. I see this all the time, and others have said it in other threads. I have a really thin mate whos GF is a little big, I see them eat, he never finishes, and she finishes hers and his. Also I shared a flat and saw he did only eat maybe twice a day, it might be big enough meals so people thought he did eat a lot. Same with 2 girls in work, both will sit down to the same size meals, but one picks at it, while the other finishes the lot.

Other mates of mine just do a lot of sports and do not drink that much.

Later on channel 4 is a repeat of dispatches "The True Cost of Cheap Food"

g'em

I'm finding that I'm beginning to avoid programmes like this at all costs.

Why are thin people not fat?

It's because their energy balance dictates it. It's because their calorie intake is on par with their energy output and physical activity levels. It's. That. Simple. I don't need pseudo-scientific documentaries to conduct "experiments" to tell me that, or prove that "OMG - if you overfeed a thin person they put on weight and underfeed an overweight one they lose it - OMFG!!"

The role that genes play in obesity are important, I don't wish to undermine or disregard that, but even so-called 'fat-genes' do not defy the laws of thermodynamics.

the BBC bumpf above says... wrote:

As it turns out, it is not all about exercise and diet.

No, but that's the largest determinant by a long shot.

WHO Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health wrote:

The rising [obesity] epidemic reflects the profound changes in society and in behavioural patterns of communities over recent decades. While genes are important in determining a person's susceptibility to weight gain, energy balance is determined by calorie intake and physical activity. Thus societal changes and worldwide nutrition transition are driving the obesity epidemic. Economic growth, modernization, urbanization and globalization of food markets are just some of the forces thought to underlie the epidemic.

As incomes rise and populations become more urban, diets high in complex carbohydrates give way to more varied diets with a higher proportion of fats, saturated fats and sugars. At the same time, large shifts towards less physically demanding work have been observed worldwide. Moves towards less physical activity are also found in the increasing use of automated transport, technology in the home, and more passive leisure pursuits.

Programmes like this simply tend to muddle the issue and provide more excuses for folk to excuse ignorance and laziness with, without addressing the core problem.

BossArky

This program should be good ... for a laugh.

There was something in the paper this morning along the lines of "the common cold makes people fat". Obviously, if you are ill you probably won't exercise.

rubadub

g'em wrote: »

I'm finding that I'm beginning to avoid programmes like this at all costs.

I don't follow soccer so this is my excuse to scream at the TV, instead of "ahhh referee!!"

g'em wrote: »

The role that genes play in obesity are important, I don't wish to undermine or disregard that, but even so-called 'fat-genes' do not defy the laws of thermodynamics.

Don't start me off on thermodynamics! If there were such gross differences in metabolism I would guess it would be well known in animal husbandry, not sure if it is studied. Also doctors would have to adjust food for comatose patients etc.

Programmes like this simply tend to muddle the issue

What I did like about the other program was that it showed up the 2 women to be basically lying, conciously or not. I think they were drinking some special water "zero-something" which tracked energy intake.

g'em

BossArky wrote: »

There was something in the paper this morning along the lines of "the common cold makes people fat".

I saw that too - it was in one of the free papers? I think they were talking about the 'obesity virus' itself though? I don't have a copy of the Metro but iirc there's an adenovirus that's linked with obesity and in the paper they were discussing how the virus can be caught in the respiratory system much like the cold or flu viruses?

Note though that the virus is only linked with obesity (i.e. infection rates are higher in obese people than those with normal BMI), it's not a cause of obesity.

BossArky

Here we go.

metro.co.uk wrote:

One in three fat people could have 'caught' obesity in the same way they might catch a cold.
A cold-like virus also attacks tissue and makes fat cells multiply – leading to weight gain, scientists told the BBC's Horizon.

'This virus increases the number of new fat cells, which may explain why people get fat when infected,' said Dr Nikhil Dhurandhar, who led the US study.

rubadub

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7851031.stm

Could it really be possible to catch obesity?

One doctor in the US believes that a common cold virus can interfere with our normal body processes and make us fat.

For the past ten years, Dr Nikhil Dhurandhar from Louisiana has been carrying out animal and human studies on the virus, Adenovirus-36.

He believes it could be one of the mechanisms causing some people to put on weight more quickly.

His team at the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre have now documented more than 1,000 patients whose obesity appears to be linked to infection with the virus.

Dr Dhurandhar's team took blood samples from people an obesity clinic.

They tested it for antibodies to Adenovirus-36 and found that 20% of the patients had encountered the virus at some point and were significantly heavier than their antibody negative counterparts.

In another study, they showed that obese people were nearly three times more likely to have the virus than a non obese person and even amongst the non obese group, those with the virus were heavier than average.

OBESITY FACTS
One in three adults in the UK will be obese by 2012
By 11 years of age, 33% of children in the UK are overweight or obese
9,000 adults in the UK die early every year because of obesity

Dr Dhurandhar said: "When this virus goes to the fat tissue it replicates making more copies of itself and in the process increases the number of fat cells, which may explain why people get fat when infected with this virus."

So if we want to remain slim, should we be shunning fat people?

Dr Dhurandhar said we probably encounter it first when we are small children and only remain infective for two to three months and there are many other reasons why we get fat.

And Dr Carel Le Roux, an obesity expert at Imperial College, whose been carrying out experiments to see if he can make thin people fat, said: "It's very important to know that it's not the reason why we're seeing a major epidemic of obesity.
"It may be a small contributing factor and we need to explore all the avenues because so many people need help and we're just not clever enough to help them at the moment."

The World Health Organisation says that globally there are more than a billion overweight adults and a third of them are obese.

Obesity rates that have risen three-fold or more since 1980 in some areas of North America, the United Kingdom, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Pacific Islands, Australasia and China.

But Dr Tam Fry, chair of the Child Growth Foundation, said: "I'm sceptical because this theory has been around for 10 years and no-one has come up with a comparable study to back this up.

"Concern over the obesity epidemic seems to be throwing up a whole load of off-the-wall ideas but the message remains the same, that sensible eating and exercise are the major components to get your weight under control."


This will be discussed in tonight's Horizon programme on BBC2 at 2100 "Why are thin people not fat?"

I hear the virus thrives in fastfood joints;)

madmik

the last thing we need now is waves of fat lazy people convinced a virus made them fat

and looking for a vaccination for their fatness

but thanks to the op-il watch both of those programs for a laugh later on

i wanted to watch that fast food one last time but i missed it

RealEstateKing

that drink 3 or 4 pints ever night, and eat burgers and chips constantly, and they are rake thin, and wish to **** they could put on weight to look beefier but they cant.

It is absolutely the case that some human beings are designed to be tall, and some are designed to be small. Some are diesigned to be larger than normal and some are designed to be smaller than normal.

Nobody is fat ONLY because they have genetiuc predisposition to it, of course, but genetics are definitely a factor.

Secondly, obesity, or extreme fatness, is almost always linked to pschological disease of some kind: Nobody eats that much because they are simply greedy: There are often very deep psychologiocal emptiness/low self-esteem and depression that makes people want to do this to themselves.

Most civilised (non -Daily Mail-reading) people nowadays, have a reasonble amount of sympathy for , say, alcoholics, or drug addicts. We all now accept that there is a massive complex of psycholigical, genetic and experiential factors that lead somebody to want to get high all the time.

But for some, reason, we dont want to apply the same enlightened attitude to the obese. "Oh their just fat and lazy and they eat too much." Its as ignorant as saying that an anorexic is just a narcissist, an alcoholic is too lazy to stay sober, and a chronically depressed suicidal person just needs to "cheer up fer feck sake."

Its that most typical of Irish traits, rank stupidity and ignorance dressed-up as "Common sense" and "Plain speaking"

kevpants

The amount of fat people who will be watching this tonight while crossing their chubby little fingers in the hope they'll be given an excuse will be monumental.




I know I will!

floggg

RealEstateKing wrote: »

Most civilised (non -Daily Mail-reading) people nowadays, have a reasonble amount of sympathy for , say, alcoholics, or drug addicts. We all now accept that there is a massive complex of psycholigical, genetic and experiential factors that lead somebody to want to get high all the time.

But for some, reason, we dont want to apply the same enlightened attitude to the obese. "Oh their just fat and lazy and they eat too much." Its as ignorant as saying that an anorexic is just a narcissist, an alcoholic is too lazy to stay sober, and a chronically depressed suicidal person just needs to "cheer up fer feck sake."

Its that most typical of Irish traits, rank stupidity and ignorance dressed-up as "Common sense" and "Plain speaking"

TBH as a recovering fat person, while i will admit that genetics do play a part, a its really mainly down to eating habits and exercise. For years i thought i ate reasonably healthy just because i avoided mars bars. i used to think coke was grand to drink, because how could you have calories in somethinh that was just a drink. I thought i was doing good by eating vegetable stir frys all the time, but never realised that eating them with a massive plate of pasta or rice two hours before bed was the reason i was fat.

Now, i've changed my diet completely and started to exercise properly and am reaping the rewards. i eat good clean food, and have cut out the crap. And i'm far from starving myself - i eat 4 meals a day.

While i did have self esteem issues, they weren't the cause of being fat. they were a result of it.

So again, while genetics etc play a part, and the end of the day, people just need to get, get out and do something about it.

The long and the short of it is, its not rank ignorance and stupidity - it IS common sense. seriously, how many fat people have you come across with healthy diets (and i don't mean whatever avocado based fad diet paris hilton is currently advocating) and who exercise regularly - and if they are fat i guarantee they won't stay that way for long.

Roper

RealEstateKing wrote: »

But for some, reason, we dont want to apply the same enlightened attitude to the obese. "Oh their just fat and lazy and they eat too much." Its as ignorant as saying that an anorexic is just a narcissist, an alcoholic is too lazy to stay sober, and a chronically depressed suicidal person just needs to "cheer up fer feck sake."

Its that most typical of Irish traits, rank stupidity and ignorance dressed-up as "Common sense" and "Plain speaking"

Are you talking about personal psychological issues, or societal ones? Personal ones I have a great deal of sympathy for and I agree there are lots of factors that make people eat and get out of shape. Societal ones, I'm not so sure.

I sort of agree with you. But I think you have to divide people with genuine eating disorders from people who are genuinely lazy aswell. Bad eating is often ingrained from an early age (I've seen it first hand as part of my work) and very, very curable. But often it's doing things like cooking and shopping and making things tasty that's just too much like hard work.

I sympathise with someone who has no time, no energy and really just wants to break the cycle. It's hard. I don't think attitudes like those above really help. In my experience, people who are out of shape are put off from going to the gym because they think they'll face that.

amacachi

Was the programme as hilarious as I was expecting?

madmik

amacachi wrote: »

Was the programme as hilarious as I was expecting?

it was ok

it followed a group of people whove been skinny their entire lives who were forced to double their calorific intake

they all gained a couple of kilos at the least and some of them gained 6-7 kilos

they concluded that some people are genetically designed to resist weight gain

i dont believe the subjects were monitored closely enough to ensure they were eating the correct amounts

some of them felt sick and didnt eat their total somedays and others puked while trying which equals lost calories but this was not taken in account at the final weigh in

also they were told not to exercise but some would probably have been more active than others

amacachi

madmik wrote: »

it was ok

it followed a group of people whove been skinny their entire lives who were forced to double their calorific intake

they all gained a couple of kilos at the least and some of them gained 6-7 kilos

they concluded that some people are genetically designed to resist weight gain

i dont believe the subjects were monitored closely enough to ensure they were eating the correct amounts

some of them felt sick and didnt eat their total somedays and others puked while trying which equals lost calories but this was not taken in account at the final weigh in

also they were told not to exercise but some would probably have been more active than others

I've a "naturally thin" friend who think he eats a lot and who everyone thinks eats a lot but I would easily eat twice as much as him at any stage. Portion size makes a feckin huge difference which people forget.

madmik

most people "think" theyre eating loads

id say if people were strapped to a trolley and drip fed by iv 5000 calories a day and then weighed they would have gained significant weight

actually for most people particularly the inactive-its difficult to be hungry enough to eat 5or 6000 calories per day

i was guilty of this myself ,i used to wonder why i wasnt gaining weight ,thinking i was eating loads but i was skipping breakfast,having coffees and cigarettes constantly,eating pizzas and chineses,drinking a bag of beer every night

Zamboni

The only thing worth concluding from that programme is that some people put on weight differently to others. (wow indeed)
So some people need to have more restraint than others. (omg)

Now get over it and put that doughnut down.

Roper

Do you want to know something? I'm going to get you all to post a photo of yourselves. I'm willing to bet that most people on this thread would meet someone's definition of either overweight or underweight.

rubadub

RealEstateKing wrote: »

drink 3 or 4 pints ever night, and eat burgers and chips constantly, and they are rake thin, and wish to **** they could put on weight to look beefier but they cant.

I know guys like that, but guys I know simply do not eat enough. I used to think they did, until I shared a flat with one guy, and realised how much training the other guys did (i.e. they burned it all off). One guy will sit down to ~6000kcal of chinese food no problem, people see this and figure he has some superfast metabolism, but if they realised/knew what he did for the rest of the week there is no mystery.

RealEstateKing wrote: »

But for some, reason, we dont want to apply the same enlightened attitude to the obese. "Oh their just fat and lazy and they eat too much." Its as ignorant as saying that an anorexic is just a narcissist, an alcoholic is too lazy to stay sober, and a chronically depressed suicidal person just needs to "cheer up fer feck sake."

Its that most typical of Irish traits, rank stupidity and ignorance dressed-up as "Common sense" and "Plain speaking"

Most do simply eat too much, you do not have to be lazy either you could run 10miles a day and be overweight if you eat enough, its a simple equation/concept. Of course psychological issues are in play in many cases. But for some it seems like the elephant in the room to mention that they eat too much. People are just pointing out the basic fundamentals. "Why is he drunk all day", "because he drinks all day", nobody doubts it is the alcohol making him drunk, yet many do think they are eating their exact energy needs and still putting on fat.

g'em wrote: »

The role that genes play in obesity are important, I don't wish to undermine or disregard that, but even so-called 'fat-genes' do not defy the laws of thermodynamics.

If you do have some superslow metabolism and only need 300kcal a day, yet eat 500kcal then you will put on weight, you are putting too much fuel in your body and if you want to stay the same weight you should adjust accordingly. People hate the thought of having an energy efficient body, yet would seek out an energy efficient car. If you changed from a jeep to a mini you do not put the same fuel in each week, if your tank is overflowing you have put too much in.

"When this virus goes to the fat tissue it replicates making more copies of itself and in the process increases the number of fat cells, which may explain why people get fat when infected with this virus."

Energy is required for any process like this to occur, energy from food.

Roper wrote: »

Bad eating is often ingrained from an early age (I've seen it first hand as part of my work) and very, very curable.

amacachi wrote: »

Portion size makes a feckin huge difference which people forget.

I am always shocked at documentaries on discovery. There was a huge guy who was convinced he ate normally, his weekly food bill was massive though. His wife was cooking breakfast and the interviewer was asking how many calories were in it, she couldn't even attempt a guess. Just before the doctors saying his life depended on it to them both, and saying how many he had to have a day. Another guy was eating 35oranges a day, thinking it was healthy food so you could not put on weight. I have encountered with similar bizarre ignorance like this a few times.

madmik wrote: »

it followed a group of people whove been skinny their entire lives who were forced to double their calorific intake

they all gained a couple of kilos at the least and some of them gained 6-7 kilos

they concluded that some people are genetically designed to resist weight gain

i dont believe the subjects were monitored closely enough to ensure they were eating the correct amounts

some of them felt sick and didnt eat their total somedays and others puked while trying which equals lost calories but this was not taken in account at the final weigh in

They could probably also conclude some people are genetically designed to simply have greater appetites and eat more than others, and vice versa. Many people just do not particularly like to eat. The guy I shared the flat with attacks his food, he takes fistfuls of nuts, if there is a plate of food he is extremely picky about it and never seems to really enjoy it. Thinking about it there are a few people I know like this, who never express any enjoyment or appreciation of the taste of food.

madmik wrote: »

most people "think" theyre eating loads

id say if people were strapped to a trolley and drip fed by iv 5000 calories a day and then weighed they would have gained significant weight

+1. If you are not weighing and calculating your food then you cannot know your calorie intake.

Zamboni

I thought the Asian guy Max or something was interesting.
He actually put on muscle mass which raised his RMR and this was done without exercise.
If you could stick that in a bottle, you'd make a few quid.
I daresay the muscle mass increase was negligable but it did manage to keep his body fat percentage gain, low in comparison to the others.

olaola

It seemed that this group of people were used to daily exercise, and were used to stopping eating when full. And generally were disgusted by the amount of food they had to eat during the experiment. Some of them even vomited as they were so full and complained about their general wellbeing. They did say that people had a predetermined weight. But I feel this is more associated with their lifestyle than genetics (bar the guy whose BMR rose significantly). Once they returned to their normal habits, they went back to their original weight. Are people genetically programmed to maintain a level of activity or practice self control?

I think one of the most interesting bits was the experiment with the children. After their lunch a group of 4-5 year olds were given extra (sweetie) snacks. Some pushed the plates away with no interest and others kept on eating even though they had said they were full. Did they say that this was environmental or genetic? I don't know if they really concluded this part of the experiment? I suppose this is the main battle when someone is trying to lose weight. Portion control and the power to say no.

Although, I had to discredit one of the scientists once he said 'sheeps'.

madmik

the chinese guy could have done a few exercises in the month the experiment was running

its not impossible since they didnt bother to keep the subjects under surveilance

you cant base the conclusion of an experiment on 1 guy anyway

i find it hard to believe his body "grew" new muscle with no stimulation except more food

although possibly the weight increase added resistance to his walking and his leg muscles developed a bit

El_Dangeroso

To reduce the body's weight regulation to simple calories in = calories out is a gross simplification and completely ignores the body's homeostatic systems as well as all the complex metabolic feedback pathways of the endochrine system.

The same way your body regulates its temperature, it regulates body fat, until something interrupts that process, namely high-glycemic carbohydrate. Hi GI carbs raise insulin, the weight storage hormone and lower glucogen, the 'release the fat from the cells' hormone. So an obese person will eat constantly as they cannot access their stored fat and their body is literally starving causing a drastic increase in appetite. Most obese people are seriously lacking in nutrients as they cannot access their stored energy. I know it's hard to get your head around but being insulin resistant causes obesity and obesity causes nutrient starvation and that causes extreme hunger and food obsession, not the other way around. That's why the skinny people found overeating such a struggle, their weight regulation systems were functioning perfectly.

Regarding being genetically fat, I would say that the maternal diet inutero has a far bigger impact. Insulin cannot cross the placenta, but blood glucose can, if a mother eats a high GI diet, then the little foetus' pancreas has to work overtime to pump out enough insulin to cope, the baby is literally born insulin resistant and all that entails, including a propensity to gain weight.

The people in that documentary may not have bodies that deal with a poison diet by getting fat, but thin people get heart-disease, type two diabetes and dietary related cancers too.

Wibbs

rubadub wrote: »

Many people just do not particularly like to eat. The guy I shared the flat with attacks his food, he takes fistfuls of nuts, if there is a plate of food he is extremely picky about it and never seems to really enjoy it. Thinking about it there are a few people I know like this, who never express any enjoyment or appreciation of the taste of food.

I would be one of these. I'm not that pushed on food. If someone said here's a pill, take one a day and you never have to eat again, it would be no particular hardship(save for the odd bit of choccy;):))

The idea of looking forward to or thinking about the next meal, that I've heard people say has no meaning for me(I've heard more women say that for some reason). May as well be talking Martian to me.

Is it genetic? Possibly all my family are thin and stay that way. I will say this though, never once as a kid was I told to finish my plate. I ate when I was hungry and stopped when I wasn't. If I didn't eat I didn't get the lecture about kids starving in arsebekistan or wherever. Actually got into trouble in mates houses when their mums made me food and if I wasn't hungry I'd pick at it. Never really did the three meals a day thing much either. More a grazer or nothing. Now when I did vigourous exercise in the past I would then eat like a horse. Nurture or nature? I reckon the former is more at play than the latter. I personally think thin people just have a better feedback mechanism in place. If they're like me and others that have no emotional connection to food that just adds to it.

I think the documentary study was flawed for a number of reasons as others have pointed out. It was largely self reported and TBH if I had to double my food intake(and bear in mind I eat very little) I doubt I could sustain it. It was, like all too many "studies" one sees, a foregone result looking for backup.

The other "result" I would question is the bit about how everyone has a natural weight that the body tries to achieve, hence fatties can't lose weight without serious effort and scrawnys can't put it on without same. Whatever about scrawny types, I can't see how evolution would push for someone to be 20odd stones(in old money) of fat as a benefit. I would suggest that the very process of becoming obese actually tips the scale into the body thinking an unnatural weight is the right one.

Yet another was the stuff about our hunter gatherer ancestors. The usual "common knowledge" was trotted out. It was all feast or famine etc. Studies(and there are enough of them) of peoples who live that way of life now, have actually better and more varied nutrition and indeed more consistent nutrition than farmers in the area, and far better than a western diet. They consistently have none of the diseases we take for granted, CV disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, stomach ulcers, even depression is very rare(and no they don't die at 35 contrary to popular. Consider Otzi the iceman found in the high alps. He was at that transition between farmimg and hunter gathering and the bloke was in his mid to late 40's and was hiking across the high alps. Plus he was done in by persons unknown) In some ancient sites one of the ways of spotting whether a burial is a late hunter gatherer or a early farmer is by stature bone density and muscle attachment. The hunter gatherer is usually bigger and stronger than the farmer that followed. The only place that idea of feast famine could be applied would be in ice age Europe, where humans followed more the diet of a carnivore like the wolf. In those extremes there is some evidence of famine and of course in other regions an adaptation that would allow for famine is present, but not nearly to the degree suggested in the programme. Inuit who live on the traditional diet are much healthier than those Inuit that live on a western diet and that's a climate about as extreme as it gets.

IMHO by far the biggest flaw of all these purported reasons for climbing obesity rates and one that's inescapable is this; Where were the viruses, the "natural" bodyweight, the genes, the medical conditions etc a few generations ago?

Lets take the US(as they have the most obvious obesity issue, though we're hard on their heels in the rest of the developed world), now look at a photo of a group of Americans from the 1950's, then look at a group from 2009. Big diff. Same with our own grandparents or even parents generation. A mate of mine and myself were watching the Beatles famous playing on the roof gig on the goggle box a while back and he noticed something about the crowd scenes in the street. Not one single fat person. Not even a chunky person. OK it wasn't long before that Britain was still under rationing, but look at an Irish street scene of the same time and you won't see too many fat people either and that's the 60's. Where were the medical/genetic reasons then? Only 30 odd years ago.

Personal mad theory ahoy:o:D. The type of food has changed and we are ingesting more sugar particularly industrial fructose and crappy veg oils than before. Fructose may screw our insulin levels more radically and in different ways to natural sugars and screw with that natural feedback loop. New foods have also been suddenly introduced into our diets that weren't present before(Ireland has one of the highest rates of coeliac disease in the world. One theory is that we came to rely on the potato more than grains as carbs and that there was a fairly rapid adaptation, which left many susceptible to gluten). We obviously take less exercise than even our very recent ancestors. All of the above and some dubious dietary advice may have brought us to this point. I would also suggest that if the average someone can't go without eating for say 3 days without getting dizzy or weak, then there's something afoot.

El_Dangeroso

Wibbs wrote: »

Personal mad theory ahoy:o:D. The type of food has changed and we are ingesting more sugar particularly industrial fructose and crappy veg oils than before. Fructose may screw our insulin levels more radically and in different ways to natural sugars and screw with that natural feedback loop. New foods have also been suddenly introduced into our diets that weren't present before(Ireland has one of the highest rates of coeliac disease in the world. One theory is that we came to rely on the potato more than grains as carbs and that there was a fairly rapid adaptation, which left many susceptible to gluten). We obviously take less exercise than even our very recent ancestors. All of the above and some dubious dietary advice may have brought us to this point. I would also suggest that if the average someone can't go without eating for say 3 days without getting dizzy or weak, then there's something afoot.

Completely spot on in my opinion.

You just look at societies that have no 'diseases of civilisation' and there is a conspicuous absence of refined sugar and vegetable oils.

accensi0n

Wibbs wrote: »

I would also suggest that if the average someone can't go without eating for say 3 days without getting dizzy or weak, then there's something afoot.

Hope you mean hours?

delllat

accensi0n wrote: »

Hope you mean hours?

3 days does seem a bit long although i watched a survival guy saying the body can "easily live for 30 days without food" provided there is a water supply

without the water though ur dead in 3 days or so

this was in a jungle though so adjust accordingly if u dont live in a jungle

Wibbs

accensi0n wrote: »

Hope you mean hours?

Nope days. A person who is healthy should be able to breeze through 3 days with no food. Water obviously. Indeed that very programme had an obese guy who ate nothing for over a year. He took vitamins and water. No food. If someone can't go without food for 3 hours I would suggest there is something seriously outa whack. Basically you can't be actually hungry after 3 hours. It's a sugar drop or thirst you're feeling, and/or your insulin sensitivity is not exactly running right. Obviously I'm not suggesting people try this without medical supervision, though TBH even that sounds OTT to me if we're only talking about 3 days. I could go 3 days pretty easily. Have done.

nice_guy80

or you have worms...

arse..biscuits

3 days without food easy???? If I'm running late and skip breakfast I have to sneak out of work at about 9.30 to the shop and get something to eat, couldn't imagine 3 days

Wibbs

Granted maybe this is the wrong forum. People who would be heavily muscled like some around here would have a harder time of it, as their body composition is way more calorie needy than the average office cubicle bunny. Though given the dedication and drive needed to get to that level, they may actually have a lot less issue than some with not eating for a day or two.

Wibbs

arse..biscuits wrote: »

3 days without food easy???? If I'm running late and skip breakfast I have to sneak out of work at about 9.30 to the shop and get something to eat, couldn't imagine 3 days

I've done 6 days before a while back. I do NOT suggest trying this. I merely say it can be done, or at least I can do it. Now I'm skinny to start with and I would be quite sedentary. As I say if I up my physical output I also up my food intake and eat little though what I do eat would be for the most part nutrient dense if calorie light. Plus I would go a day without eating once a month as a natural thing for me. I simply wouldn't be hungry. Clearly for me, my calorie requirements are very low. Others are obviously higher. Everyones different, but even so, I think people, especially non athletic fitness types, eat waaaay more and of the wrong things than they need to.

Hey I'm a freak. I've never eaten a pizza, hamburger, pasta or Chinese food, so I'm hardly a good example.....

Zamboni

Wibbs wrote: »

IMHO by far the biggest flaw of all these purported reasons for climbing obesity rates and one that's inescapable is this; Where were the viruses, the "natural" bodyweight, the genes, the medical conditions etc a few generations ago?

Lets take the US(as they have the most obvious obesity issue, though we're hard on their heels in the rest of the developed world), now look at a photo of a group of Americans from the 1950's, then look at a group from 2009. Big diff. Same with our own grandparents or even parents generation. A mate of mine and myself were watching the Beatles famous playing on the roof gig on the goggle box a while back and he noticed something about the crowd scenes in the street. Not one single fat person. Not even a chunky person. OK it wasn't long before that Britain was still under rationing, but look at an Irish street scene of the same time and you won't see too many fat people either and that's the 60's. Where were the medical/genetic reasons then? Only 30 odd years ago.

So true. A point I constantly make with folk.
Great post btw, I wouldn't have the patience to type that long unless it was under duress
Look at the Aboriginal population of Australia. The people that now eat Western diets are riddles with diabetes and weight problems.

telemachus

I think alot comes down to what you become accustomed to, if you eat and live the same way for years on end of course it's going to be uncomfortable and strange significantly changing this, it doesn't neccesarily mean that your body is hard-coded to be this way, it's simply become accustomed to the way you use it.

I would have been very like wibbs in that I ate sparsely, infrequently and at unfixed times, and had a sedentery life, i'd almost never eat breakfast and prefer the extra half hours sleep, and could happily go a day eating almost nothing. I was just under 70 kilos or so at 6"2 and eventually decided i'd had enough of being scrawny so took up lifting weights regularily, with which I had very little progress until I completely revamped my diet. It did feel very strange at first, and of course if i'd from the get go doubled everything like the study mentioned i'd probably have given up but it's a case of building up.

For a couple of months it genuinely was an effort to force myself to eat very regularily (i found more frequent small meals easier to handle than giant feasts 3 times a day) but generally as you ramp up the food you do see noticable progress with the weights and before you know it you become accustomed to it and there's no element of forcing yourself at all. I'm by no means one of the heavily muscled people wibbs mentioned but i've gone from 70 to about 87 kilos now after a long time believing that I was simply naturally not inclined to eat much, or be anything but scrawny. I think it's very easy to simply mistake the way your body has reacted to the lifestyle you live with this being it's natural "mode". I'm sure some people are simply predisposed to a certain weight/shape, but i'd guess it's significantly less than they believe.

DARKIZE

That Horizon program was fascinating, if a little obvious in some of their conclusions. I think there is definitely some difference in people's metabolisms and genetic make-up which impacts their ability to burn energy and shift weight. I'm a cyclist and would clock up some pretty serious mileage, and I'm pretty slim too despite eating anything within reaching distance, but I know some other riders in my club who would do the same rides as me, but would still be carrying a fair amount of excess weight (that skin-tight lycra doesn't hide much). Anyway......people get too obsessed about the whole fat thing - we all need some fats in our diet, especially in this country. Just don't make it 6 pints and 3 doners with extra garlic mayo.

BossArky

Anyone see Gok Wan: Too Fat Too Young last night?

There were some massive kids on it. There was a 15 year old guy who was ~190kg and thought his only option was surgery. When he looks back on himself in a few years I hope he dosen't regret the lack of effort he put in to loose the weight naturally. At 15 I'm sure this seems like an impossible task when you have been massive all your life... but if he cannot loose the weight now, what chance will he have in later life?

The program went on to check Gok Wan for an obesity gene (he was massive in his youth). The results showed that he did not have the gene... and merely ate himself to his massive bulk.

He then went off on a tangent trying to find others things to blame his youthful weight on.

That is when I start hopping up and down screaming just accept it, you ate loads, didn't exercise and got fat! and went to bed in a huff.

delllat

I saw a great program but most may have missd it becoz it was on during the day

it was the maury show and it was about people over feeding their children

some fed them so much sugars and fats they had breathing difficulties and heart problems

one woman had a 90lb baby and another had a 120lb toddler

its a crazy program but overfeeding is resposible for a lot in my opiinion

davmol

That reminds me of a programme I saw before were a mother had lost a child so she overfed her remaining child.
The kid was virtually immobile and was teased at school and was generally depressed.It was obvious it was the mothers fault as she wanted to keep the kid close fearing that if she let him go out into the world hed die too.This i thought was tantamount to child abuse as she,by her own selfishness, caused him to have a horrible life were he was anti social and clearly very unhappy.I blame parents for their kids eating habits.Rarely do you see a documentary were there is a large kid without large parents.

Cravez

delllat wrote: »

it was the maury show and it was about people over feeding their children

some fed them so much sugars and fats they had breathing difficulties and heart problems

one woman had a 90lb baby and another had a 120lb toddler

its a crazy program but overfeeding is resposible for a lot in my opiinion

I remember seeing that on the Maury show, the parents even padlocked the Refrigerator and the toddler got so worked up not being able to get food as he saw fit that he ripped off the padlock! :eek:

delllat

Michael Cravez wrote: »

I remember seeing that on the Maury show, the parents even padlocked the Refrigerator and the toddler got so worked up not being able to get food as he saw fit that he ripped off the padlock! :eek:

thats the program indeed

another part showed this little stocky kid

he was about 3 but weighed a few stone easily and he went in the store and his kum said u cant have anything and he went over and toook a coke fromm the fridege and a big bag of m and ms(american sized bag-def not irish) and he started going crazy when she tried to take them off him

the mother started crying and just paid for the items and left the shop

she tried to say to the camera crew there was "nothing she could do"

hilarious

cowzerp

neddas wrote: »

So an obese person will eat constantly as they cannot access their stored fat and their body is literally starving causing a drastic increase in appetite. Most obese people are seriously lacking in nutrients as they cannot access their stored energy. .

If there eating lots there energy will be coming from there food and fat wont be used as its not needed, thats why they cant access there stored fat.

The reason why these people are starving is not because they cant access there fat storage!
there not starving in a calorie sense but in a nutrient sense and thats because most fat people choose poor nutritional food with high calories and little nutrition.

Wibbs

If an obese person doesn't have health issues underlying the weight(and personally I reckon many of those issues may be from the weight, not the cause of it), then maybe they need a reset of their huger feedback loop. What about like the obese guy who didn't eat for a year, in that programme.

Under medical supervision and monitoring starve them of food, but keep up the fluids and vitamins etc for a period of time depending on their size, and/or enough to get over the hump of their body going into starvation mode and reducing their metabolic rate. Say a week or two, or even longer in the case of very obese people. Slowly reintroduce low calorie, but nutrient dense, low GI foods after that fast. A persons stomach will shrink or expand depending on the amount ingested, so the smaller stomach will trigger the sated hunger response more effectively. They would also feel actual hunger as opposed to sugar hunger or thirst, maybe for the first time in their lives. Given the incredulity at my earlier suggestion of going without eating for 3 days I suspect most people haven't felt real hunger, never mind obese people. Their insulin sensitivity would also be reset after a time too I would reckon. This may serve to understand their own bodies hunger responses, again for maybe the first time in their lives. Concurrently, have counselors and other shrinks helping them to deal and understand whatever emotional attachment they have to food.

Would that work I wonder? They say something becomes a habit after about 30 days, if they get the support and their feedback loop is reset I could see that working. I remember reading research on rats, where obese rats were fasted and then introduced to a low calorie high nutrient diet and their insulin sensitivity went back to normal or better than normal very rapidly. They also lost weight and their CV system recovered too. Can't see why it wouldn't work in the human model.

Then again it wouldn't be in a pill, it would require sacrifice and that's a dirty word in some quarters.

amacachi

Wibbs wrote: »

it would require sacrifice and that's a dirty word in some quarters.

That's the biggest thing.

El_Dangeroso

cowzerp wrote: »

If there eating lots there energy will be coming from there food and fat wont be used as its not needed, thats why they cant access there stored fat.

The reason why these people are starving is not because they cant access there fat storage!
there not starving in a calorie sense but in a nutrient sense and thats because most fat people choose poor nutritional food with high calories and little nutrition.

When anyone eats a meal, some of the energy is used at the time and most is stored for later.

An hour later, after a person has eaten and all the excess energy has been tucked away for future use, insulin in a normal person falls and this triggers a rise in glucogen, which triggers the release of the temporarily stored energy and a person with normal weight regulartory function won't feel hungry for another few hours as they consume the stored fat.

This is if your metabolic functions are working as they were designed to.

In the case of a person with obesity, they are hypererinsulemic, which means they have constant high circulation blood insulin. The insulin never falls and insulin supresses glucogen, which means an hour after eating an obese person is physically starving for energy which triggers hunger.

The only way to break this vicious cycle is to reduce circulating insulin do one of two things.

1. Go on a semi-starvation diet.
2. Cut the cause of the insulin spikes, namely carbohydrate.

But even if you successfully reduce to a non-obese state, your body is so leptin (the energy balance regulating hormone) resistant that you'll probably have an urge to eat more than you need to for the rest of your life, that's why it takes far more work to keep off large amounts of weight loss, and why a truly obese person will never be really skinny unless they are willing to put up with calorie levels that would make a famine look decadent. Sad but true.