The anti-fat conspiracy

SLUSK

For many years we have been bombarded with warnings about fat being bad for you and eating fat will make you fat/obese. Today we eat less fatty stuff(sugar free soft drinks, low fat margarine, etc) yet people as a whole are fatter now than 40 years ago.

Are there big corporate interests behind pushing us away from a more "natural" diet consisting of more animal proteins and fat?

Penn

As an overweight person, trying to lose weight, I say yes and no.

Obviously, the companies that make the products want you to keep buying it, so some stuff can become pretty addictive. During my final year of college, I went through a period of drinking about 7 or 8 bottles of Lucozade a day. Even when I wasn't thirsty. Fast food places would add more salt to the food, making you thirstier and buy more drinks. They'll add more fat to the meat to make it seem like you're getting more meat than you actually are. Even 'sugar-free' drinks or 'low-fat' items may still contain a lot of calories. Or on packaging, they'll word the nutritional information in such a way that it's still correct, but makes it seem healthier than it is.

But thats companies looking for a profit, and thats all they'll ever do. But the responsibilty is ultimately with the individual. If you take in more calories than you use, you will gain weight. The onus is on the consumer to check what is going into their bodies. I never used to, but now that I'm trying to lose weight, I have had to change almost my entire eating habits. Even some of the things I used to consider the 'healthy' part of my food intake wasn't all that great for me

indough

people dont eat less fatty stuff nowdays, and are also lazier than ever before in my experience

also we have a culture of drinking way too much and alcohol is extremely fattening

mcmoustache

It's just business. I suppose that makes it a corporate desire. Food is produced more cheaply these days and cheaper doesn't mean healthier. I'd second what indough said as well about people being lazier. 20 years ago, housewives worked and most jobs were manual. I'm not saying it was ideal but it sure burnt more calories! These days with washing machines, dishwashers, office jobs, cars, cable tv, the internet etc, we don't need to exert as much energy. Combine that with the shíte we eat (just wait till corn syrup becomes widespread here) and it's easy to see why we are becoming fatter. The food companies aren't trying to make us fat, they just want to spend less on producing it.

Actually, on thinking a bit more, there is a huge drive to target children. They have a lot of disposable income and no sense. An advertisers dream. In the same way as McDonalds, they may be trying to get them young to make the associate sweets with comfort and happiness. I have a certain love of refreshers and macaroons for precisely this reason. Companies have done far worse so I wouldn't put it past them.


Excellent post btw. As a conspiracy theory fan, I've been waiting ages to be able to reply without asking "Are you on crack?".

Torakx

yes a good topic indeed.
im quite thin but i put that down to being extremely poor haha.
i garuntee if anyone here wants to lose weight i can charge them 200 euro a month and i will phone them with detail of when i will eat and what and they WILL lose all the weight they want

but seriously i think there might be an agenda for the hmm was gonna say food companies but we dont have as much food than chemicals and additives.
i often find myself shaking my head visibly in tescos while i read the back of chicken packaging or pretty much anything thats packaged!
i refuse to eat any of that crap but when you have no money you must eat!
so i definetly think it is gettign way out of hand.pushing people to feel bad about there weight and then stuffing sugar and yeast down there throats.
the advertising is also shameful i dont watch tv anymore but i would guess the last year or 2 it has been intensive?

meglome

SLUSK wrote: »

For many years we have been bombarded with warnings about fat being bad for you and eating fat will make you fat/obese. Today we eat less fatty stuff(sugar free soft drinks, low fat margarine, etc) yet people as a whole are fatter now than 40 years ago.

I don't have the figures to hand to I guarantee you that we (as a society) are doing quite the opposite of being healthy.

Bottle_of_Smoke

I think its just to make money for "low-fat" products. They're scum the lot of them. Just replace the fat with sugar(which our bodies turn into fat)

As regards us getting fatter. I personally think its all down to less exercise/manual labour. The amount of people I go to college with who drive is insane. In the past they prob would have walked/cycled.

studiorat

SLUSK wrote: »

Today we eat less fatty stuff(sugar free soft drinks, low fat margarine, etc) yet people as a whole are fatter now than 40 years ago.

I must have missed that along the way. Where did you find that information out?

cable842

I heard about a video on google video. this scientist talking about the the salt and sugar contant in food we eat today. if I find it i'll post it up.

the floride deception is amazing check it out.

Bandit12

Nah it's not a conspiracy. People are just lazier now than any time in history. The car is the main culprit. Everyone drives to the supermarket and fills the car full of food they don't even need. Years back you would have to walk down the shop and carry maybe 3-4 bags of food back to your house at a max.

CerebralCortex

This looks like it actually has some content. Sugar is addictive and has terrible effects biochemically especially the fructose. Sugar is also also easy to store and produce. Make saturated fat evil remove it from food and add sugar to make it palatable again a viola, sugar industry making money out of addicted kids, who now eat cereal instead of bacon and eggs.

ScumLord

It's not really a conspiracy, they did have a fad for selling low fat but it's been proved to be a load of nonsense, fat isn't really that bad for you, in moderation, you need a certain percentage of it in your food.

The real issue is sugar, that stuff is bad and it's in everything in high amounts, it's actually impressive how much sugar they manage to squeeze into things these days.

We don't really talk about all the bulking agents they put into food, sugar is likely only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to quality food.

However, I think even if healthy food or "quality food" was common we'd probably still eat too much of it and gravitate towards the higher calorie foods. This is just another example of humans being controlled by our animal behaviours. Every living creature on the planet has a predisposition for high calorie foods, our domestic animals were so desperate to get access to our foods that they became domesticated.

Even if you go to the best restaurant in town they're going to serve you high calorie foods that are generally bad for you. As much as companies are taking advantage we have to accept some responsibility and show some awareness about our drives for high calorie foods.

It's easier said than done though.

Airyfairy12

Everything is full of sugar no which isnt helping but the difference between now and 40 years ago is food is more readily available, people eat out more, snack more and eat bigger portions. Every single over weight person I know blames their size on having a slow metabolism and weight just sticks to them, in reality they eat more in one day than an average sized person would eat in a week.

by8auj6csd3ioq

our domestic animals were so desperate to get access to our foods that they became domesticated.

is there evidence of this?

ScumLord

Ada Cuddly Rum wrote: »

is there evidence of this?

Yes, its a fairly well established theory now. Cats and dogs certainly self domesticated, there's an article on it here, they would probably have a different domestication process to animals like cattle or sheep, but it was one particular cattle breed that got domesticated in turkey as far as I can remember so it had some sort of prediposition to living with humans that other cattle didn't.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/03/130302-dog-domestic-evolution-science-wolf-wolves-human/

The process of taming wild animals was studied by a Russian guy.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/domesticated-foxes-genetically-fascinating-terrible-pets/

764dak

Ada Cuddly Rum wrote: »

is there evidence of this?

ScumLord wrote: »

Yes, its a fairly well established theory now. Cats and dogs certainly self domesticated, there's an article on it here, they would probably have a different domestication process to animals like cattle or sheep, but it was one particular cattle breed that got domesticated in turkey as far as I can remember so it had some sort of prediposition to living with humans that other cattle didn't.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/03/130302-dog-domestic-evolution-science-wolf-wolves-human/

The process of taming wild animals was studied by a Russian guy.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/domesticated-foxes-genetically-fascinating-terrible-pets/

House mice also evolved to live near humans. They fail to compete with other mice, rodents, and small animals but thrive where humans live.

http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/humans-house-mice-habitats/

Emme

People are working longer hours and eating more convenience foods which are full of sugar. Even "healthy" meals contain more fat and sugar than a meal you would cook for yourself from scratch. Up until the 70s and early 80s one partner usually stayed at home and looked after the children. They also cooked family meals from scratch. This was cheaper and healthier. Look at pictures of people in the 70s and 80s and you will see how much thinner they were on average. Children walked to school in those days. People left work on time and didn't stay sat at their desks eating crap, pumping out cortisol from stress and storing sugar fuelled fat around their middles.

764dak

Portion sizes have increased.
http://www.yourweightmatters.org/portion-sizes-changed-time/

freemenfitness

First off I will start this with the fact that too much of anything in your diet is not good for you. However, we have been misinformed on what exactly is bad for you.

It is a pretty well-documented process. The article I have attached below is a long one but details what exactly happened. During the 70s there were 2 competing theories 1 was that fat was bad which was funded by the American Sugar board for the Harvard medical school. The other was a study in England that sugar was bad. This was a result of a lot of terrible science on the anti fat side but this became the prevailing theory.

As a result in the 80s, the US released the first ever dietary guidelines and this was what the rest of the world went on to adopt. This took the fat out of food and pushed a more carbohydrate based diet. Without getting too technical fat is what fills you up simple example how many eggs could you eat vs how many bowls of cereal could you eat?

Taking the fat out of food also removes flavour so it had to be replaced with something which was sugar. If people are wondering from the late 70s onward when these dietary recommendations were released the rate of obesity rapidly climbed. We are actually at a point now where dietary related illness has surpassed other disease in many third world nations. See here

In more recent times the WHO (world health organisation) release a study stating that sugar acts as a neuro toxin which was retracted a few months after as they were threatened to have much of their funding withdrawn if they did not. See here

It is not really a conspiracy as such the food industry is extremely powerful and they are pushing their own agenda and will continue to do so until people decide they want it to change.

The article below is very long and details much of the background and history to this.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin

rubadub

indough wrote: »

also we have a culture of drinking way too much and alcohol is extremely fattening

I know that is an old post but I would love to see any study or reference to back up the claim of it being extremely fattening, and fattening relative to what? calories from fat, compared to calories from sugar? in what sense?

For heavy drinkers they have even less effect.

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/04/health/why-the-body-may-waste-the-calories-from-alcohol.html

Dr. Charles S. Lieber, a New York physician who has been plumbing the depths of alcohol's many mysteries since 1957, has come up with a biochemical mechanism that he says largely accounts for the remarkable wastage of alcohol calories in heavy drinkers. Dr. Lieber published his findings in the current issue of The Journal of the American Society for Clinical Nutrition under the title, "Perspectives: Do Alcohol Calories Count?"

The answer, he said, is yes and no: yes, for a moderate social drinker who has a cocktail before dinner or an occasional glass of wine or a beer. For these people, alcohol calories can indeed add up. Body Learns to Waste Calories

But chronic heavy drinking can prime certain metabolic processes and, in effect, train the body to waste the seven calories a gram that alcohol ordinarily provides.

For example, weight gain was negligible in alcoholics who were given 2,000 calories of alcohol daily on top of the 2,500 calories from foods they consumed to maintain their weight. But when the same number of additional calories were fed as chocolate, a steady weight gain resulted.

Thus, the energy waste associated with a heavy intake of alcohol cannot be attributed to a reduction in the intake of other foods. More likely, it results from interference with the body's ability to derive energy from other foods.