What do you think is the reason for our high rate of obesity?

Bottle_of_Smoke

After getting into a bit of a fight about sugar on a recent thread which spiralled off topic I'm interested in what people think are the causes of obesity, and what could be done to reduce the trend.

The last list I looked at we were the second worst in the EU at 23.5% of the population being obese. UK the worst at 25%. Places like Netherlands only around 16% (and even they see that as a problem)

Now we're still not as bad as the Yanks where over 30% are obese but I think we're heading that direction to be honest.

I think the causes are very diverse and multi-factorial but a few come to mind.

Education - I think people are over-reliant on carbs, particularly bread, pasta and potatoes. Its like people think its not a real meal without a hefty portion of one of them being on your plate. Cheers food pyramid.

Genetics - I think this is a big factor but a lot of nutritionists don't like admitting it because some infer that genetics makes it acceptable to be overweight. I would rather we accept genetics is a factor and hammer home the message that if you are genetically prone to being overweight/obese then the onus is on you personally to eat less or exercise more.

Eating disorders - By this I mean comfort eating mostly. Could also include people eating out of boredom/stress rather than hunger

Lack of exercise - More people in non-manual labour jobs than in the past. More kids playing playstation instead of football on the streets. Perhaps the GAA is a reason we're slightly less obese than the UK as people will send their kids to play that out of cultural reasons on top if wanting their kids to get exercise. By doing that more of those kids will end up playing sports/going to gym in later life. Also cycling is much more common in continental Europe whereas everyone seems to have a car/gets a lift in Ireland

Big/standardised portions - In schools/canteens etc everyone is given the same amount of food. Yet I'm 5'7 and some of my mates were 6'2, most around the 5'10-6' region. Makes no sense we all have the same calorific intake.

RobAMerc

we Irish have a very unhealthy attitude towards food. generally its to fill a hole, with very little understanding of nutrition. thats why in a lot of houses people still think a huge plate of spuds with bread and some nuggets or something is a healthy meal as it fills you up!

HardyEustace

Quality of food - people eat a lot of highly processed food, which is very "calorie dense".

It also costs a lot of eat healthily if you're not very smart about what you eat (e.g. I often buy chicken thighs - much cheaper then chicken breast, fantastic flavour however people wouldn't buy them as 1. you've to skin them, 2. people don't eat "brown meat" 3. they wouldn't know how to cook them).

People don't exercise
- due to "sue happy" parents, a lot of schools have had to curtail their exercise regime.
- people have to commute long distances which really gobbles up time and energy for outside pursuits.
- it's very expensive to join a gym or go for a swim. Ideally I'd love to see some decent swimming pools where you could go for a swim for one or two euros.
- it's not viewed as a "way of life" as a lot of people
- safety - no decent cycle paths

Portion size is out of control

Too much processed food in people's diet.

El_Dangeroso

I've always maintained that obesity is a disorder of fat-accumulation. If you look at how the cell regulates energy storage you see a tightly controlled process of hormonal feedback loops. Getting fat is no accident.

We eat more because we are more hungry. The (healthy) body regulates body temperature, blood pressure and blood glucose perfectly, and appetite is no exception to this rule. So whatever causes obesity has to disrupt proper appetite signalling.

If you look at cultures that eat their traditional diet, they can have an abundance of food but they don't get fat they multiply! The same can be seen in the animal kingdom, a glut of food in any environment leads to an increase in populations, not obesity.

Equally if you look at cultures that eat an incredibly nutrient poor yet calorie adequate diet they most will be obese by middle age despite the fact that their jobs involve daily intense manual labour. Farm workers in Mexico are a good example of this.

Re: Genetics, yes and no, there is a definite 'fat gene' but that in and of itself is not enough to explain the dramatic rise in obesity over the last 30 years, evolution doesn't happen that fast. I do think there might be a strong epigenetic component though. We can make mice obese in three generations by feeding them lots of omega 6 for example. The mother's diet while pregnant also seems to be a potent factor, hyperglycaemia during pregnancy has a lifelong impact on the risk of obesity and diabetes for the child.

So definitely *something* was introduced into the food chain in the last century or so that contributed to this dis-regulation of appetite signalling in some of us.

My own personal belief (and no I don't have the cast-iron RCT to prove this:)) is a combination of the following:

- Lack of micronutrients and minerals, mainly fat-soluble vitamins and magnesium and possible others. Ironically the introduction of whole-grain cereals have made this worse as the phytic acid in the fibre binds the minerals in the diet (this was noted by the chief dietician for rationing in WWII, they in turn had to fortify the brown flour with calcium)

- Replacement of traditional fats and oils with industrially produced seed oils such as sunflower, corn, soybean, safflower. Probably the biggest change in our diet of the last century.

- Increase in refined sugar consumption. Correlates with obesity pretty well, even if you don't agree it's a big issue when moderated, the problem is a lot, not all obese people are sugar addicts and as such find it difficult to moderate their intake. When we measure their brain waves you see the same dopamine reward response as an alcoholic gets from a drink.

- The last point I'm on shaky ground because it's almost total speculation, but epidemiological evidence backs me up at least. In the 1970's a new breed of wheat that was of a semi-dwarf, high-yield variety. It grew twice as fast and had much more gluten which was fantastic for profits but not for nutrition.

Faster growing means less time to pull nutrients out of the ground namely magnesium and copper. More gluten might be problematic too, we are experiencing a real rise in coeliac disease that cannot be totally attributed to better detection rates, something is causing it. The lectins may also be problematic, Staffn Lindeburg, a researcher on paleolithic nutrition believes that they interrupt proper appetite signalling. Which makes sense when you see the painstaking grinding, sifting, soaking and fermenting traditional cultures will complete before eating grains, they don't do it for fun, they do it to eliminate lectins and phytic acid.

My 2c!

RJC09

-low costs of processed food. i was in tesco recently and i could have bought 2 brand name frozen pizzas for the same price as a bag of apples.

-people dont know how to cook. its all well and good buying the low fat items, but people just dont know what to do with them.

-lack of exercise. walking and swimming are always a good option, but gym memberships are expensive and there arent many sports clubs to join unless you are into the gaa (where i live anyway)

-i think we are a massive nation of picky eaters. especially children. Because so many adults are picky they just allow their children to say they dont like something and so the cycle continues.

seamus

It's probably no coincidence that USA, UK & Ireland are high on the lists as by-and-large we share a lot of culture.

I think the primary issue is one of exercise more than anything. We've gotten ourselves into thinking that we need a car for everything and we need transport everywhere. Walking more than 15 minutes to get somewhere is too slow, and cycling is reserved for weirdos and madmen.
This trend has reversed with the onset of the recession, but when the economy picks back up again, we risk people going back to their cars because they can afford to not walk/cycle any more.

I think much of it starts in school. I remeber always loving PE all the way through school, despite being overweight and unfit in secondary school. But it was never more than half an hour, once a week. Totally inadequate and it doesn't foster any kind of routine or inspiration in terms of exercise.
I remember in 4th year the school gave us a go at "trying" various sports to see if we'd be any good/enjoy them, but a class of 30 guys with 40 minutes to give everyone a go isn't nearly enough time to decide whether you've enjoyed something or not.

More ideal would be to get kids in at 9am, two hours of classes, followed by 80 minutes of exercise - be that playing football or rugby or cycling or whatever, then hit the showers, have lunch and back to classes for the afternoon. 80 minutes a day is two classes per day, exercising. All schools could easily get 80 minutes extra three days per week in your average school day if the mandatory Irish and Religion classes were removed, and increase the length of the school day by a few minutes.

If there's a routine around the exercise, and kids have a base level of fitness, then they're going to go out and kick a ball about for an hour at the weekend. But if going up the stairs puts them out of breath, they're more likely to sit on their arses and watch TV.

Laziness begets laziness, and in my experience and from seeing others lose weight and gain fitness, it seems that the biggest barrier which puts people off from getting fit, is being unfit in the first place. The fitter you are, the more eager you are to push yourself. It's a positive feedback loop.
If we don't have fit children, we won't have fit adults, simple as.

There is also a portion size/frequency issue, which I think is important but not quite as important as the exercise. We tend to eat big portions - big meals fed from Irish mammies. I remember being an overweight young teenager and being described by Irish Mammies as a "big healthy boy". In pre-World War times, fatness was seen as a sign of health & vitality (you had the money to eat lots of food), so that attitude may be persisting somewhat in this country.
There's also the problem that when we sit down to have a chat, rather than just a cup of tea and a cookie, we sit down with two cups of tea, a sandwich and a handful of biscuits, even if we've just had our lunch.
That, or we go to the pub and drink 3 pints with a bag of crisps, a sandwich and a bag of nuts.

I don't think other europeans have this "grazing" culture, and though they do the whole cafe thing, it's just a cup of coffee or two without much/anything to eat.

BostonB

I think exercise while obviously important, for lots of reason, isn't important as diet when it comes to obesity. As someone said. You can't outrun your mouth. I know I've tried.

I agree with previous comments its about education, about calories, portion size and too much carbs.

They should start putting all this information in all restaurant, fast food, cafe menus. Like they did in New York. That would be a start, to raise awareness.

CaSCaDe711

Laziness. Too much bad food, and more laziness. Tax all those foods at a much higher rate, allow fruit and veg to be available at a much lower price, and ban all kids from purchasing the large bottles of coke, large bags of crisps, and large bars of chocolate. Some parents need to wake up too, the amount of crap a lot of kids eat nowadays is amazing. Games consoles and digital tvs in nearly every home, along with flyers for local takeaways coming through the door almost weekly. Getting more like America every day.

smiles302

I think it's mostly down to how people view food. I find it a very Irish thing to think of a "common man"'s dinner as meat, potatoes and a veg, maybe 2. On top of that there is the strange attitude that attempting to better yourself means you think you are better than everyone else.

If you have a glance at people's trolleys in supermarkets, it's the odd trolley here and there that contents 90% healthy food. The majority have sugary cereal, chocolate bars, frozen pizza, white bread etc. More often than not, trolleys will be 50:50 healthy food and junk food.

Personally I think it's that simple. A lot of people go through Dunnes or Tesco, without a list, aisle by aisle picking up whatever they think looks nice. Unless they are consciously on a diet.

Veg section --> Bread/Cake/biscuit section --> tiny little crappy fish section --> yoghurt/cheesecake section --> meat section, half of which is stuff like sausage rolls and ready made lasagne --> Juice section --> cereal section, with the little afterthought of a porridge section --> a wine section and a general alcohol section --> then the freezer section is convenience food and ice cream, with about two shelfs of frozen veg if you're lucky.

My house-mates had a sociology assignment last year, looking at random people's trolleys compared to what was actually for sale in the shops.

I've done it in my head nearly every time I go shopping since, it's quite shocking just how much crap is taking over the shelves in the supermarkets. Tesco's are getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Still with a crap selection of fish, the same size veg section as any other shop, the rest of it is nearly all convenience crap! Well except for the spices and stuff in tins section. Nom nom nom.

I think it's safe to assume shops continue to sell whatever sells. If shops are 50% junk food, are people buying 50% junk? If the general public's diet is 50% junk, purely from the likes of Dunnes, ignoring take-aways and trips to the pub. Why are we surprised we have an obesity problem?

I accept my hypothesis is quite a bit simplified. But the overall trend is there if you are bored wandering around Tesco.

Adelie

Yeah like smiles302 said the content of trolleys in Tesco is shocking. I usually end up queuing behind someone with a trolley full of convenience foods, most of them labelled with "healthy choice" or "light choice" or whatever. And most of the stuff would actually be healthy if it was prepared from scratch but god knows what the manufacturers put in to make it cheaper.

EileenG

It has to be diet.

I was in France recently, and there were three schools staying in the place we were. I swear, there was not one fat French kid in the whole lot. They ate the same meals we did (Breakfast was cereal, bread, cheese, jam, yogurt, leftover desserts from the night before. Lunch was salad, meat and veg, cheese, dessert. Dinner was soup, meat and veg, fruit/dessert) so they were not under-eating. But that's all they were eating. No chips or crisps or bars of chocolate or tubes of Pringles.

There were plenty of carbs in the food, but just about all of it was cooked from scratch, and most of it was made from local ingredients.

El_Dangeroso

EileenG wrote: »

It has to be diet.

I was in France recently, and there were three schools staying in the place we were. I swear, there was not one fat French kid in the whole lot. They ate the same meals we did (Breakfast was cereal, bread, cheese, jam, yogurt, leftover desserts from the night before. Lunch was salad, meat and veg, cheese, dessert. Dinner was soup, meat and veg, fruit/dessert) so they were not under-eating. But that's all they were eating. No chips or crisps or bars of chocolate or tubes of Pringles.

There were plenty of carbs in the food, but just about all of it was cooked from scratch, and most of it was made from local ingredients.

I think the cereals are a very new intro to the French diet though, most French people I know grew up skipping breakfast. But I totally know what you mean, their dedication to food quality is admirable. They fight for their good food and care passionately about it. They eat lots of offal too (compared to us) and butter and sit down and slowly enjoy and savour their food. Not shove half a wrap filled with processed ingredients while typing at their desks!

I remember reading on a thread in AH on obesity how the working nation was fed by Cuisine de France, oh the irony!

Lia_lia

About the France thing...

I lived in and attended school in France during my childhood. In primary school nobody brought packed lunches. For our break at 10 o clock we would have a cup of hot milk and some crackers (in Ireland I've noticed kids are given chocolate bars!) and then between 1pm and 2pm we'd all go to a big dining hall and have a proper 3 course meal! Something like: melon to start, fish and vegetables, and finally a yoghurt or something. And that would keep you full for the rest of the day. So at home instead of having a big dinner we'd usually have what would be considered lunch at dinner time.

It was also the law in our area that we had to be able to swim by a certain age. (coastal area) So we all went swimming in the local pool twice a week. Then once you reached a certain age (think it was about 7) we started sailing! So lots of exercise too.

whiteonion

First that we have grown up eating loads of carbs
Second, we have been fooled to believe that saturated fat is bad.

Instead we eat processed crap like margarine and non nutritional bread and pasta.

These days I almost exclusively eat meat and eggs, I've lost loads of weight.

huskerdu

Lots of good points raised above.

The one that has to be added is portion distortion.

An adult with a sedentary lifestyle needs 1600-2000 calories a day (depending on gender / height etc)

The standard size muffin these days is 500 calories. That is at least one quarter of your entire daily calorific needs, and yet its seen by many people as a snack, not a meal.

The size of portions in many restaurants ( especially fast food restaurants and pub grub carvery places) is enormous.

metamorphosis

Diet hands down. Yeah people are more sedentary in general but diet is by far at the top of that list.

People eat on the go, eat food in packages, eat far too much sugar, latte after latte on a daily basis, do little exercise (walking to the shop or to the bus stop seems to be the staple of a lot of peoples exercise these days). As we get bigger, our portions get bigger and we refuse to not let out plates be empty!

We simply live off nutrient lacking food and far too much of it.

EileenG

Very true. I find that the huge size of portions tends to keep me away from junk food. If you could buy a mini muffin with a coffee, I might be tempted. Not when I know it's a whole meal's worth of junk calories.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Lattes get a fierce amount of bad press but when I worked in a coffeeshop it was semi-skimmed milk(and skimmed was there if you preferred it)

Why is a shot of espresso and a cupful of hot semi-skimmed milk bad?

EileenG

It's not bad if you know it's basically milk with a bit of coffee, and allow the calories for it. But people tend to forget that milk has cals and drink them without counting.

metamorphosis

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Lattes get a fierce amount of bad press but when I worked in a coffeeshop it was semi-skimmed milk(and skimmed was there if you preferred it)

Why is a shot of espresso and a cupful of hot semi-skimmed milk bad?

didnt say they were bad, its just that people can easily go through 3,4,5 a day and don't even count it as part of their intake. say you have 3 lattes a day @ 500mls, your talking 200+ cals if you are using semi skimmed milk per latte. I can easily have 3 a day, thats easily 6-700 cals and id sometimes forget it as counting towards food intake.

Bottle_of_Smoke

metamorphosis wrote: »

didnt say they were bad, its just that people can easily go through 3,4,5 a day and don't even count it as part of their intake. say you have 3 lattes a day @ 500mls, your talking 200+ cals if you are using semi skimmed milk per latte. I can easily have 3 a day, thats easily 6-700 cals and id sometimes forget it as counting towards food intake.

that would surely be highly unusual though. having three lattes that big. i know starbucks are huge but in spars and coffee takeaways they're usually 200-300ml. though take your point that people forget to count them in their calorie intake

--Kaiser--

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

My own personal belief (and no I don't have the cast-iron RCT to prove this:)) is a combination of the following:

- Lack of micronutrients and minerals, mainly fat-soluble vitamins and magnesium and possible others. Ironically the introduction of whole-grain cereals have made this worse as the phytic acid in the fibre binds the minerals in the diet (this was noted by the chief dietician for rationing in WWII, they in turn had to fortify the brown flour with calcium)

- Replacement of traditional fats and oils with industrially produced seed oils such as sunflower, corn, soybean, safflower. Probably the biggest change in our diet of the last century.

- Increase in refined sugar consumption. Correlates with obesity pretty well, even if you don't agree it's a big issue when moderated, the problem is a lot, not all obese people are sugar addicts and as such find it difficult to moderate their intake. When we measure their brain waves you see the same dopamine reward response as an alcoholic gets from a drink.

- The last point I'm on shaky ground because it's almost total speculation, but epidemiological evidence backs me up at least. In the 1970's a new breed of wheat that was of a semi-dwarf, high-yield variety. It grew twice as fast and had much more gluten which was fantastic for profits but not for nutrition.

This to be honest. Saying 'Genetics' is a factor in more than a tiny precent of obese people is a huge cop-out in my opinion.

Even exercise isn't as big a factor as most people think. I know people who do physical labour for up to 10 hours a day, people who train for marathons and people who go do 2 hour gym sessions 4 days a week. And none of them manage to lose weight. Is it lack of exercise? No, it's the fact that 60% of their diet is refined sugar and carbohydrates with not enough protein and healthy fats. The fact that the media portrays eating this type of diet as healthy doesn't help matters.

I would put poor diet as about 75% cause of obesity, lack of exercise at 25%.

Bottle_of_Smoke

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

This to be honest. Saying 'Genetics' is a factor in more than a tiny precent of obese people is a huge cop-out in my opinion.

What do you mean by cop out there? The people who say ''I'm fat but its genetics so not my fault...'' or just saying it is a factor?

--Kaiser--

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

What do you mean by cop out there? The people who say ''I'm fat but its genetics so not my fault...'' or just saying it is a factor?

The first one. I'm sure genetics can play a part, some people have slower metabolisms, glandular disorders etc...but for most people, losing weight is an achievable goal

Bottle_of_Smoke

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

The first one. I'm sure genetics can play a part, some people have slower metabolisms, glandular disorders etc...but for most people, losing weight is an achievable goal

Oh yeah absolutely. That's my biggest gripe with the medias reference to it - always this kind of ''they're not lazy its genetics'' as if genetics are somehow this all powerful force that cannot be countered by eating less and exercising more. So although it doesn't justify those people being overweight it just could well be a contributory factor to them being so.

El_Dangeroso

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

This to be honest. Saying 'Genetics' is a factor in more than a tiny precent of obese people is a huge cop-out in my opinion.

I don't see it as a cop out, more of a biological fact, we can quibble over prevalence, but given the exact same environment, some people are born with the tendency to store energy rather than burn it and others the tendency to burn over storing, they'll be the type of people that after a big dose of calories will feel like going for a run as opposed to snoozing in front of the television. Or, to be more accurate, some people are born with genes that contribute towards obesity that are expressed when you have given environmental stimulii. Those genes can be present but not expressed if the environment does not trigger it.

There is the story of the identical twins separated at birth, that were brought up in two completely different socio-economic conditions and forty years later weighed the exact same give or take 1-2lb. We don't see the same effect with fraternal twins:

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

The first one. I'm sure genetics can play a part, some people have slower metabolisms, glandular disorders etc...but for most people, losing weight is an achievable goal

I agree, because most people who want to lose weight are overweight not obese (yet). Once scales crosses over into obesity, you can no longer apply the same metabolism rules as you can to someone who needs to lose 10lb. The game has changed.

If you are obese you have a less than 2% chance of losing and maintaining your weight for 5 years. Oh, and they count 'success' as losing 10% body weight, when often they need to lose 30-50% even to get into the 'overweight' category (though losing even 10% has a meaningful impact on health). When you factor in that, the success rate for attaining a normal BMI for longer than 5 years becomes so vanishingly small that the US government keeps a special registry of people who actually manage it and that cohort is so small that they cannot derive meaningful conclusions on how to extrapolate the findings to other people.

I know it's not the most encouraging scenario but those are the facts, we are no where near close to coming up with a long solution for obesity and anyone who says they have the answer is mistaken. I used to be one of the mistaken.

The best solution is to not become obese in the first place. Depressing but true.

smiles302

Why is it so difficult to lose weight once you are obese? =/

It's no longer as simple as eating less?

El_Dangeroso

smiles302 wrote: »

Why is it so difficult to lose weight once you are obese? =/

It's no longer as simple as eating less?

An obese person's metabolism (I'm reluctant to categorise every person with a BMI of 30 with substantial bodyfat as obese. I think it's more about the visceral fat b/w organs than overall weight) works differently than a normal or even overweight person. We can observe this at a cellular level.

If anything obese people lose tonnes of weight quickly when they go on a diet (ever seen the biggest loser?) but the problem is that once the weight loss is done, they are left with cells that still function like an obese cell, the cell is depleted of fat, and when a cell is depleted of fat it releases hormones that upregulate appetite (very simply speaking) so an obese person will always have an appetite of person much larger, even if they lost all the weight.

Fighting your appetite for the rest of your life is a battle that you are unlikely to win.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Poster this on the sugar thread in politics.


I think a possible (if radical) way of reducing overweight/obesity would be to offer a % tax refund(or bonus if on the dole/student/low earner) for people who can squat/deadlift their own weight for 8 reps. Free/reduced health insurance too

If you are a healthy bodyweight this can easily be achieved after a few weeks of resistance training. The amount being lifted could be tweaked for women and people over 55. Studies could be done first to determine what would be a good/fair weight to use.

If it worked and people took part to save money there could be savings made on drug costs for type 2 diabetics/heart problem related drugs. Plus a lot of freed up hospital beds/frontline medical staff. Though I accept that long term it may not be cost effective because people would end up living longer. Though it may also allow people to retire later too.

State gyms would have to be set up for people who can't afford it of course. Though these places could double as testing centres. You'd register and then be told - ''at some point in the coming year you will have to come in and lift the weight with perfect form under supervision of a fitness instructor''

Sapsorrow

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Poster this on the sugar thread in politics.

Could you post a link to the thread pls, sounds interesting!

Bottle_of_Smoke

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056148368&highlight=sugar

Amtmann

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

If anything obese people lose tonnes of weight quickly when they go on a diet (ever seen the biggest loser?) but the problem is that once the weight loss is done, they are left with cells that still function like an obese cell, the cell is depleted of fat, and when a cell is depleted of fat it releases hormones that upregulate appetite (very simply speaking) so an obese person will always have an appetite of person much larger, even if they lost all the weight.

Interesting. Are you referring to obese people who lose their weight very quickly? What about obese people who lose weight at a sustainable pace and accompany their weight loss with lots of cardio (whereas before they might have been sedentary), and maintain that cardio and a healthy caloric intake after they have reached their desired weight? Would not their cells then have readjusted and now function normally?

El_Dangeroso

Tremelo wrote: »

Interesting. Are you referring to obese people who lose their weight very quickly? What about obese people who lose weight at a sustainable pace and accompany their weight loss with lots of cardio (whereas before they might have been sedentary), and maintain that cardio and a healthy caloric intake after they have reached their desired weight? Would not their cells then have readjusted and now function normally?

AFAIK there's little to no difference, in fact people who lose weight faster may actually have an easier time maintaining, counterintuitive I know.

El_Dangeroso

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Poster this on the sugar thread in politics.


I think a possible (if radical) way of reducing overweight/obesity would be to offer a % tax refund(or bonus if on the dole/student/low earner) for people who can squat/deadlift their own weight for 8 reps. Free/reduced health insurance too

If you are a healthy bodyweight this can easily be achieved after a few weeks of resistance training. The amount being lifted could be tweaked for women and people over 55. Studies could be done first to determine what would be a good/fair weight to use.

If it worked and people took part to save money there could be savings made on drug costs for type 2 diabetics/heart problem related drugs. Plus a lot of freed up hospital beds/frontline medical staff. Though I accept that long term it may not be cost effective because people would end up living longer. Though it may also allow people to retire later too.

State gyms would have to be set up for people who can't afford it of course. Though these places could double as testing centres. You'd register and then be told - ''at some point in the coming year you will have to come in and lift the weight with perfect form under supervision of a fitness instructor''

That plan is rife with issues tbh, will the government pay for all the physio that are going to need from injuries? Even highly trained athletes and well-seasoned lifters get injured when practicing good form, lawsuits a gogo!

Never mind being a bureaucratic nightmare to administrate, something our government has not proved itself on.:)

My solution? Tax the shit out of junk food. Treat it like cigarettes. In the 1950's everyone smoked, it was acceptable to, in fact you were a pariah if you didn't. Fast-forward 50 years and now more people are non-smokers, you'll always get a few smokers but the trend is definitely on the way down. How did we achieve this?

Taxation
Ban advertising (Especially to children)
Keep the product behind the counter so it must be requested. No POS advertising, even in the shops.

If we keep relying on the willpower of the people we'll be as fat as the US in 40 years or so.

I'm libertarian at heart so the idea of introducing nanny legislation like this galls me. But drastic measures need to be taken to protect the public from hyper-palatable addictive nutritionally defunct food.

El_Dangeroso

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056148368&highlight=sugar

Good Jaysus, that thread is messy, glad I didn't spot it :pac:

Inspector Coptoor

Some people would be more genetically predisposed to putting on weight than others. There is lots of talk about proof of a 'fat gene' but at a very basic level, the reason for the upsurge in obesity is the handy lifestyles people have now, not only compared to the 1950s but to early man aswell.
Think about it, early man had to hunt food, fetch water, gather firewood all the while expending calories.
50 years ago, while people didn't have to hunt for food or fetch water, most still had to carry fuel into the house, walk to the corner shop a lot as fridges weren't that common and carry out chores in a much more work intensive manner.
People used to call around to each others houses a lot more and sometimes that could have been a couple of miles away.

21st century man/woman does very few of any of these activities. he/she lives in a world of convenience. Light, heat, water, communication, entertainment, food, all at the flick of a switch and drop of a hat.

We are not meant to be sedentary, it doesn't suit us as a race. Human evolution has pretty much come to a screeching halt.
Bad genes are being passed on all the time as there is no such thing as survival of the fittest any more due to to the development of society and the "all men are created equal" train of thought which I don't want to go into.

Essentially. Humans are predisposed to put on weight in the form of adipose stores in the same way people save money for 'a rainy day', ie, when it's needed. The problem in the 21st century is there isn't ever going to be a rainy day for some obese/oversight people.

People can claim genetics have a role in this all they want but there's only so much nature involved. Nurture has a huge role to play and if our genetics loads the gun of obesity, then our environment pulls the trigger resulting in so many obese phenotypes when we look around us.

One question people need to ask themselves is this:
Do we eat to live or live to eat?

Amtmann

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

AFAIK there's little to no difference, in fact people who lose weight faster may actually have an easier time maintaining, counterintuitive I know.

This doesn't really sound believable to me to be honest. In a lifetime of say 75 years, if you become obese for 1 of those years (say in your 26th), that one year short circuits your metabolism for the rest of your life?

El_Dangeroso

Tremelo wrote: »

This doesn't really sound believable to me to be honest. In a lifetime of say 75 years, if you become obese for 1 of those years (say in your 26th), that one year short circuits your metabolism for the rest of your life?

Going from normal BMI to clinically obese within one year doesn't sound believable to me. Is there an example of a person like this?

Amtmann

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Going from normal BMI to clinically obese within one year doesn't sound believable to me. Is there an example of a person like this?

I'm sure there are, but this would be very uncommon.

I'm referring mainly to people who go from normal BMI to overweight to obese within, say, two years BUT who are then only obese for one year in total, before returning to a healthy BMI.

So:

Healthy BMI --- overweight BMI --- obese BMI --- overweight BMI ---healthy BMI,

all within 3 years, with a healthy BMI maintained thereafter. You did say in your previous post that the notion of permanently damaged metabolism occurs to people only once they had become obese (at least that's how I read what you wrote); but surely, over the course of a 75-year lifetime, a 3-year fluctuation (during which the example is only obese for 1 year) will not permanently damage one's metabolism?

Isn't the body more adaptive than that?

pecker1992

im shocked at the amount of people that are downing carbs...they should be the staple of ones diet......yeah its true if you over indulge its going to make you put on weight.....but i can damn sure guarantee over indulging in high fat foods is 100 times worse..eat a balanced diet..carbs veg meats dairy and stay away from high fat processed foods such as pizzas, sausages, steak & kidney pies and worst of all chipper food and chinese....just cook good food like chicken and fish plenty of good carbs ( brown rice,brown pasta,brown bread, weetabix/all bran) and thats all there is to not being obese..forget this nonsense of low carbing etc

El_Duderino 09

Hi guys

Speaking form personal experience I am a fairly normal guy, kind of an endo-mesomorph. I could be butchering the terms but I put on weight fairly easily when I eat too much and build muscle fairly easily when I exercise.

I have spent about 2 years trying to figure out what foods suit me and what doesn't. Not too scientifically but trial and error. I think the traditional 3 meals a day model doesn't suit me. 4 or 5 smaller meals where I don't allow myself to get really hungry in between seems to be the way for me. I cook almost everything i eat, and don't eat after the last meal of the day usually around 5.30-7. Spuds just seem to make me more hungry funny enough.

In short for me its eat little and often. I imagine what suits will change over time as the body ages.

Irish attitude to food is really poor. The other day cooked i Cooked a meal including rice with a cinnamon stick and kidney beans cooked in veg stock and served it to someone who said 'I hate them yolks' referring to the kidney beans 'I haven't tried them but I hate them'. Grrr

Irish mantra for cooking 'stick it in the pot and boil, keep boiling until meat is crumbly and veg are soggy. cover in bisto and serve'

El_Dangeroso

Tremelo wrote: »

I'm sure there are, but this would be very uncommon.

I'm referring mainly to people who go from normal BMI to overweight to obese within, say, two years BUT who are then only obese for one year in total, before returning to a healthy BMI.

So:

Healthy BMI --- overweight BMI --- obese BMI --- overweight BMI ---healthy BMI,

all within 3 years, with a healthy BMI maintained thereafter. You did say in your previous post that the notion of permanently damaged metabolism occurs to people only once they had become obese (at least that's how I read what you wrote); but surely, over the course of a 75-year lifetime, a 3-year fluctuation (during which the example is only obese for 1 year) will not permanently damage one's metabolism?

Isn't the body more adaptive than that?

I don't know about your particular example, it would be an interesting experiment though, any volunteers?:pac:

In any case, I do think if you reach a state of clinical obesity with high levels of visceral fat you have the odds stacked against you of ever maintaining a healthy weight again for the long term. I'm not saying some people don't achieve it, but I am saying some people will have the appetite of a fat person for the rest of their lives. Even on interventions like low carb diets that cause medium term appetite suppression -or equally increasing protein- this effect wears off over time. Depressing thought, but there's no point ignoring reality.

rubadub

metamorphosis wrote: »

say you have 3 lattes a day @ 500mls, your talking 200+ cals if you are using semi skimmed milk per latte. I can easily have 3 a day, thats easily 6-700 cals and id sometimes forget it as counting towards food intake.

Those are big lattes, I would have up to 4 cappucinos a day, I make them myself and put about 100ml in each one, remember the frothing can double the volume of the original milk (a latte will not be doubled though). Its the biscuits & muffins that are the bigger danger for most, just like "beer bellies" which are made in the chipper after the pub.

In our "physical education" class we had no education at all about the physicality of human beings, most of my mates have no idea about nutrition, calories, metabolism etc, even the more sporty ones. I would have the same complaints about the mathematics curriculum, most of my mates would not have a clue about how to calculate mortgages, interest, currency in a different country or very simple maths like scaling up a recipe.

In work I get people commenting on me eating almost a full small chicken, yet their calorie intake in the same sitting could be twice mine! I have seen others convinced they were "dieting" and eating healthily, but eating almost 1000kcal in a sitting, convinced it is a light lunch. One guy only eats "one sandwich", which consist of over 1/2 a vienna roll and rake of sausages.

Bottle_of_Smoke

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

That plan is rife with issues tbh, will the government pay for all the physio that are going to need from injuries? Even highly trained athletes and well-seasoned lifters get injured when practicing good form, lawsuits a gogo!

Potentially a problem. Can you sue a gym if you injure yourself? Outside of law suits the savings made on obesity related problems would easily pay for physios for the low earners and unemployed anyway

Never mind being a bureaucratic nightmare to administrate, something our government has not proved itself on.:)

True - but not impossible. Could start with state gyms for low earners and unemployed - that's a good idea in itself. Then build toward a system of testing.

My solution? Tax the shit out of junk food. Treat it like cigarettes. In the 1950's everyone smoked, it was acceptable to, in fact you were a pariah if you didn't. Fast-forward 50 years and now more people are non-smokers, you'll always get a few smokers but the trend is definitely on the way down. How did we achieve this?

Ban advertising (Especially to children)
Keep the product behind the counter so it must be requested. No POS advertising, even in the shops.

If we keep relying on the willpower of the people we'll be as fat as the US in 40 years or so.

I'm libertarian at heart so the idea of introducing nanny legislation like this galls me. But drastic measures need to be taken to protect the public from hyper-palatable addictive nutritionally defunct food.

I think these suggestions are good too but I'm not sure how you'd go about legally defining junk food. I'm genuinely all ears though if you have an outline about how to go about that.

I think a major stumbling block to any solution is the pharmaceuticals though. They are so powerful and stand to lose so much if obesity was to be reduced.

Bottle_of_Smoke

pecker1992 wrote: »

im shocked at the amount of people that are downing carbs...they should be the staple of ones diet......yeah its true if you over indulge its going to make you put on weight.....but i can damn sure guarantee over indulging in high fat foods is 100 times worse..eat a balanced diet..carbs veg meats dairy and stay away from high fat processed foods such as pizzas, sausages, steak & kidney pies and worst of all chipper food and chinese....just cook good food like chicken and fish plenty of good carbs ( brown rice,brown pasta,brown bread, weetabix/all bran) and thats all there is to not being obese..forget this nonsense of low carbing etc

That's fine but they are not the carbs people eat. ie white bread/pasta/potatoes/white rice/pizza/chips

People should also have smaller helpings of carbs. Particularly if they need to lose weight. I'm the opposite - trying to gain muscle so I'm eating loads of carbs.

--Kaiser--

pecker1992 wrote: »

im shocked at the amount of people that are downing carbs...they should be the staple of ones diet......yeah its true if you over indulge its going to make you put on weight.....but i can damn sure guarantee over indulging in high fat foods is 100 times worse..eat a balanced diet..carbs veg meats dairy and stay away from high fat processed foods such as pizzas, sausages, steak & kidney pies and worst of all chipper food and chinese....just cook good food like chicken and fish plenty of good carbs ( brown rice,brown pasta,brown bread, weetabix/all bran) and thats all there is to not being obese..forget this nonsense of low carbing etc

LOL. Carbs are the only one of the 3 macro-nutrients (fat, protein, carbs) which are completely non-essential, yet they should be the staple of the diet?

It's very hard to over indulge in high fat foods as fat makes you feel more full. That means actual high fat foods (not like pizza/chips/chinese which is actual high carb food).

The good carbs you list are all made from grains, which are chock-full of of anti-nutrients (phytates, lectins, protease inhibitors) before we even get on to gluten. Maybe you should do some homework and come back.

El_Dangeroso

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Potentially a problem. Can you sue a gym if you injure yourself? Outside of law suits the savings made on obesity related problems would easily pay for physios for the low earners and unemployed anyway

If it was a government mandated program, there would be lawsuits I'd wager.

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

I think these suggestions are good too but I'm not sure how you'd go about legally defining junk food. I'm genuinely all ears though if you have an outline about how to go about that.

I think a major stumbling block to any solution is the pharmaceuticals though. They are so powerful and stand to lose so much if obesity was to be reduced.

That is an issue, lots of gray areas, for example is Subway junkfood? I would say yes, but I do take your point, I do think there's low hanging fruit that could be targeted first, softdrinks, chips, burgers, pretty much anything deep fried. I think everyone would agree on them being not very nutritious.

I used to be a big believer in 'big pharma is out to get us' but not really, they'll just try and make money by coming up with drugs they think will sell. What you really have to be wary of is big agriculture. They really have a lot to lose and have a huge level of influence on government dietary policy. 10 serving of complex carbs a day on the food pyramid is no accident. They benefit from massive subsidies on grain crops. Did you ever see Food inc.?

metamorphosis

Guess im just greedy when i have a latte - i always go for the big

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Did you ever see Food inc.?

Great watch, highly recommend it for anyone to see. I am also not a fan of agriculture, but it's run by money, so the cycle will continue on a large scale basis.


Mod note: While I love this forum for great debate and how we like to back our facts up by science, there are sometimes replies by a poster with quite a 'smart arse' vibe to it. Less of it please. It's not a place to show and tell your smart arsery (yes, i'm aware this is not a word) please. / Mod note

seamus

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

In any case, I do think if you reach a state of clinical obesity with high levels of visceral fat you have the odds stacked against you of ever maintaining a healthy weight again for the long term. I'm not saying some people don't achieve it, but I am saying some people will have the appetite of a fat person for the rest of their lives.

I don't think the problem is so much appetite (i.e. feeling hungry). The stomach is a flexible bag, so given enough time eating smaller portions, the stomach will contract and consequently feel full quicker. Likewise, an extended period eating large portions will cause your stomach to stretch and allow you to eat larger meals without feeling as full.

This is the how those obese people you see on TV eat the equivalent of 3 enormous meals which would cause the rest of us to puke and how my wife complains of being "stuffed" when she's eaten about half the food I would eat before I feel stuffed.

The problem is primarily that people who are obese have developed an addiction to food. There's a reason why we overeat, and it's not because we're hungry. If we only ate because we physically felt hungry, obesity probably wouldn't be half the problem. It's an addiction, a habit. Constant grazing on food is the equivalent of a smoker popping out for a cigarette every 30 minutes. It's partially because it provides pleasing chemicals and sensations and partially because it's a habit.
People like "Motivation" claim that there's an underlying mental illness which causes overeating, but I disagree for the majority of people. Like smoking, eating causes pleasant sensations and chemical releases in the brain, and we can get addicted to these.

The reason why it's so hard for an habitual overeater to stay within normal boundaries is because they can't quit cold turkey. A smoker can give up, stop altogether. But if you asked all smokers to stop smoking except that they must have 3 cigarettes per day, you'll find that the quitting rates would be abysmal. It requires constant self-checking, constant vigilance because the habit can form again gradually over time. You don't find yourself suddenly overeating again. It's an extra bun here, a piece of chocolate there, a side order with your dinner every now and again, before it becomes constant extra bits here and there and a side order with every meal.

I would be suspect of the statement that the number of clinically obese people who lose the weight for more than 5 years is negligible. My suspicion is that very few of the people who manage this, actually report it. If someone has been officially admitted to a hospital or program, then they have a serious problem.

Interestingly, I would expect the success rates in official programs to be abysmal. Studies have shown that the rate of relapse for alcoholics in official programs like AA is extremely high. Rates of relapse for alcoholics who quit without a support group are far lower, which suggests that someone can only beat their addiction if they're doing it off their own bat. You can't be coerced into doing it, you have to do it yourself.

So I would see no reason why the same wouldn't apply to obesity. Those who need hospitalisation or to be "forced" into weight-control programs, aren't taking control themselves. Those who do it without the coercion aren't going to report their success.

I was clinically obese at my heaviest, BMI 34. I've not been at 25 or under (yet), but I've been closer to 25 than 30 for the last six years and I know for a fact that even if I live to be 200, I won't be going down that path again.

Timothy Bryce

I could be way off the mark here but I think our drinking culture has an awful lot to do with the obesity pandemic. Take for example the following scenario which I’m sure is fairly common in this country….Friday night on the sauce could very well look like this….

8 Pints in the pub – c. 2000 calories
Dinner in the pub – c. 1000 calories
2-3 Jaegerbombs in coppers – c. 800 calories
Garlic cheese chips on the way home – c. 700 calories (maybe more?)

c. 5500 over the course of an evening….and I think I’m being fairly conservative here!

Maybe the next day you go for a McD’s to sort out the hangover - add another 1500 calories. I believe that if you’re indulging in a heavy night on the booze once per week, you have the potential to be hitting 10,000 calories over the course of 24 hours from your first drink. Obvious knock-on effects of not being able to exercise for a day or two due to hangover….

Even if you’re calorie neutral for the remainder of the week you’ll obviously start piling on the pounds. Personally I think this has a lot to do with why obesity is a big problem in Ireland. I’ve changed my drinking habits drastically over the last 2 months (limiting myself to 5 pints, healthy meal before I go out, no drunk food) and have lost just under a stone.

I believe that this is not the sole cause of the problem and that portion sizes / proliferation of processed foods etc. all play a part too.

Just my 2c.

metamorphosis

rubadub wrote: »

In our "physical education" class we had no education at all about the physicality of human beings, most of my mates have no idea about nutrition, calories, metabolism etc, even the more sporty ones. I would have the same complaints about the mathematics curriculum, most of my mates would not have a clue about how to calculate mortgages, interest, currency in a different country or very simple maths like scaling up a recipe.

.

This is another great point I think. My P.E experience in school was so horrific that if it were raining on the way to school, I would drop my gear in a puddle so I could tell the teacher that it got wet so I could sit it out!

It was a scenario of throw a ball at kids, no education regarding anything at all.

At the moment, I am up with Fas kids talking to them about nutrition and anatomy and physiology. I knew that they would know nothing about anatomy but I was really shocked at how little they knew about nutririon. Some of them never heard of a calorie and these are 16, 17 and 18 year olds. Some thought things like red bull couldn't make you fat.

I still think diet is the biggest of all culprit but it's like a jigsaw puzzle for the remainder of why we are so obese. Diet imho takes up most of the prices and then the last few pieces constitute other reasons ie lack of education, inactivity etc etc