Obesity rate by country vs time

[asdf]

This is interesting.



"Since 1980, obesity prevalence among US adults has soared from 14% to 42%. The commonly accepted explanation is pervasive overeating: ever-increasing energy intake as the population gains weight, year after year. However, evidence does not support this hypothesis. National data on energy intake and energy availability show increases between 1961 and 2000, during modern industrialization of food; but a plateau or declines thereafter—even as obesity continued rising—and while physical activity modestly increased. Thus, Americans appear to be eating relatively less since 2000, for ever-increasing body sizes, as time has progressed. Although both energy intake and energy availability are measured with error, such errors would have to be new since 2000 and systematically increasing over time for these 2 separate, independent measures."

"Growing evidence suggests complex, interrelated biological interactions between food processing (including acellular nutrients, depleted prebiotics, additives), gut microbial composition and function, host metabolic expenditure, and intergenerational transmission of risk (including epigenetics, noncoding RNAs, microbial species). In this paradigm, whereas increasing energy intake may have contributed to rising obesity in earlier years, today pervasive adiposity and its physiologic adaptations have created a biological milieu which interacts with industrialized foods to promote escalating obesity, even with stable energy intake—a self-sustaining, difficult-to-reverse cycle."

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9170462/

[Philbert]

This is interesting.



"Since 1980, obesity prevalence among US adults has soared from 14% to 42%. The commonly accepted explanation is pervasive overeating: ever-increasing energy intake as the population gains weight, year after year. However, evidence does not support this hypothesis. National data on energy intake and energy availability show increases between 1961 and 2000, during modern industrialization of food; but a plateau or declines thereafter—even as obesity continued rising—and while physical activity modestly increased. Thus, Americans appear to be eating relatively less since 2000, for ever-increasing body sizes, as time has progressed. Although both energy intake and energy availability are measured with error, such errors would have to be new since 2000 and systematically increasing over time for these 2 separate, independent measures."

"Growing evidence suggests complex, interrelated biological interactions between food processing (including acellular nutrients, depleted prebiotics, additives), gut microbial composition and function, host metabolic expenditure, and intergenerational transmission of risk (including epigenetics, noncoding RNAs, microbial species). In this paradigm, whereas increasing energy intake may have contributed to rising obesity in earlier years, today pervasive adiposity and its physiologic adaptations have created a biological milieu which interacts with industrialized foods to promote escalating obesity, even with stable energy intake—a self-sustaining, difficult-to-reverse cycle."

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9170462/

If we were overeating in 1999, flat intake starting in 1999 will result in rising obesity. Obesity is the integral of excess calories over time. This does not eliminate the potential for confounding from all the other factors listed, but they are smaller contributors. As I recall from another article somewhere, US per capita calorie intake rose about 350 per day from 1960 to 2000. So the first generation of lifetime overeaters at the current dose has just reached adulthood. The last generation who experienced eucaloric childhood are now octogenarians.

[Philbert]

IMO the main factor is that food used to cost a significantly higher percentage of average income in the past (and correspondingly, housing and other expenses were a lower portion of income). Food has gotten cheaper over time, maybe thanks to mass farming techniques and better technology, maybe thanks to agricultural subsidies that keep the price of food low

Perhaps if food was as cheap and plentiful in the past as it is today, there would have been high rates of obesity too. I think most of humanity evolved in eras where food was scarce, and to eat as much as you can, when its available. Because your next meal might not be happening for a while

Obviously plentiful food is good because hunger and starvation is bad, but the flip side of the coin is an obesity problem

I'll also say that I don't judge obese people anymore. I remember hearing on the news about a study that found virtually nobody is able to lose weight and keep it off over the long term. Losing weight is hard already, but the percentage of people that lost weight and then regained it was in the high nineties IIRC. At some point you can't fight your DNA over years and decades. So, I guess count me in the "defeatist" bucket. But maybe the GLP1/semaglitude medication can help

disclaimer: I'm not a researcher or particularly well informed on this topic. Open to criticism if anyone wants to challenge this

Food abundance is part of the issue, but an oversimplification. Like this: Each individual has a low, medium, or high propensity to obesity depending on genetics, early diet, emotional state, activity level, and choices and priorities. High propensity individuals will either be obese or living through a famine. Drugs and surgery are meant for these people. Medium propensity people can maintain a normal weight with some effort, with the amount of effort being proportional to how easy to eat, gorge -triggering, calorie dense, nutrient poor, and abundant their food is. For most people in this group, altering their food micro environment to make their food harder to eat, etc. should make maintaining a normal weight manageable. Personally, I have a medium-low propensity to obesity. I have unlimited food access, but with smart grocery shopping and essentially never eating at restaurants I maintain normal weight without much effort. My brother, who is more physically active than I am, has a higher propensity to obesity, so in addition to good food choices he has to put in some effort. Low propensity individuals will rarely be obese, even in an obesigenic environment, and are sometimes bewildered by the state of the other two groups.

[asdf]

If we were overeating in 1999, flat intake starting in 1999 will result in rising obesity.

Good point.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

This is interesting.



"Since 1980, obesity prevalence among US adults has soared from 14% to 42%. The commonly accepted explanation is pervasive overeating: ever-increasing energy intake as the population gains weight, year after year. However, evidence does not support this hypothesis. National data on energy intake and energy availability show increases between 1961 and 2000, during modern industrialization of food; but a plateau or declines thereafter—even as obesity continued rising—and while physical activity modestly increased. Thus, Americans appear to be eating relatively less since 2000, for ever-increasing body sizes, as time has progressed. Although both energy intake and energy availability are measured with error, such errors would have to be new since 2000 and systematically increasing over time for these 2 separate, independent measures."

"Growing evidence suggests complex, interrelated biological interactions between food processing (including acellular nutrients, depleted prebiotics, additives), gut microbial composition and function, host metabolic expenditure, and intergenerational transmission of risk (including epigenetics, noncoding RNAs, microbial species). In this paradigm, whereas increasing energy intake may have contributed to rising obesity in earlier years, today pervasive adiposity and its physiologic adaptations have created a biological milieu which interacts with industrialized foods to promote escalating obesity, even with stable energy intake—a self-sustaining, difficult-to-reverse cycle."

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9170462/

The problem with this paper is that the calorie counting is self-reported. It's pretty obvious that the figures are completely off: the mean reported caloric intake is 2200 kcal/day, in a country where the majority is overweight and 40% are obese. It's virtually impossible to be become obese with 2200 kcal per day unless you're literally 4 feet tall. I dare anyone to try.

I highly recommend the show "Secret Eaters" where they first ask people who are very overweight but "don't eat much" to track everything they eat, log it and report the total. All of them report around 2000 kcal/day. Then they follow them around with private investigators and invariably find that the actual calorie intake is closer to 4000 kcal/day. Without fail. Like this bloke who was having "Special K for breakfast", and then investigators found out that his breakfast was 2000 kcal, because the bowl was the size of a toilet bowl, and he added a pot of heavy cream. Another was having a "middle eastern salad" for lunch. turns out that "middle eastern salads" for that person implied adding 1000 kcal of tahin (ground sesame paste) to a bunch of tomatoes. yet another went to the pub for a few drinks. Turns out that "a few drinks" is 6 pints and a bunch of shit food, amounting to 2000 kcal total. You can't make this stuff up. One of the people in the show got so angry when they explained to her that the mountain of mayo she put in her plate was too calorie dense that she ghosted the producers when they wanted to shoot the next season.

The researchers from that paper argue that "well we know that the measurements are obviously completely wrong, but since we've been measuring since 20 years ago, the errors are probably all the same etc."I mean come on, this is not science. Just do things properly and measure caloric intake in a controlled environment. And to me the explanation for obesity is very obvious: too much calories, day in day out. The food environment is so terrible that eating way too many calories is almost automatic.

[alek]

This is interesting.



"Since 1980, obesity prevalence among US adults has soared from 14% to 42%. The commonly accepted explanation is pervasive overeating: ever-increasing energy intake as the population gains weight, year after year. However, evidence does not support this hypothesis. National data on energy intake and energy availability show increases between 1961 and 2000, during modern industrialization of food; but a plateau or declines thereafter—even as obesity continued rising—and while physical activity modestly increased. Thus, Americans appear to be eating relatively less since 2000, for ever-increasing body sizes, as time has progressed. Although both energy intake and energy availability are measured with error, such errors would have to be new since 2000 and systematically increasing over time for these 2 separate, independent measures."

"Growing evidence suggests complex, interrelated biological interactions between food processing (including acellular nutrients, depleted prebiotics, additives), gut microbial composition and function, host metabolic expenditure, and intergenerational transmission of risk (including epigenetics, noncoding RNAs, microbial species). In this paradigm, whereas increasing energy intake may have contributed to rising obesity in earlier years, today pervasive adiposity and its physiologic adaptations have created a biological milieu which interacts with industrialized foods to promote escalating obesity, even with stable energy intake—a self-sustaining, difficult-to-reverse cycle."

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9170462/

The problem with this paper is that the calorie counting is self-reported. It's pretty obvious that the figures are completely off: the mean reported caloric intake is 2200 kcal/day, in a country where the majority is overweight and 40% are obese. It's virtually impossible to be become obese with 2200 kcal per day unless you're literally 4 feet tall. I dare anyone to try.

I highly recommend the show "Secret Eaters" where they first ask people who are very overweight but "don't eat much" to track everything they eat, log it and report the total. All of them report around 2000 kcal/day. Then they follow them around with private investigators and invariably find that the actual calorie intake is closer to 4000 kcal/day. Without fail. Like this bloke who was having "Special K for breakfast", and then investigators found out that his breakfast was 2000 kcal, because the bowl was the size of a toilet bowl, and he added a pot of heavy cream. Another was having a "middle eastern salad" for lunch. turns out that "middle eastern salads" for that person implied adding 1000 kcal of tahin (ground sesame paste) to a bunch of tomatoes. yet another went to the pub for a few drinks. Turns out that "a few drinks" is 6 pints and a bunch of shit food, amounting to 2000 kcal total. You can't make this stuff up. One of the people in the show got so angry when they explained to her that the mountain of mayo she put in her plate was too calorie dense that she ghosted the producers when they wanted to shoot the next season.

The researchers from that paper argue that "well we know that the measurements are obviously completely wrong, but since we've been measuring since 20 years ago, the errors are probably all the same etc."I mean come on, this is not science. Just do things properly and measure caloric intake in a controlled environment. And to me the explanation for obesity is very obvious: too much calories, day in day out. The food environment is so terrible that eating way too many calories is almost automatic.

This. Those intake numbers are absolutely fabricated. If your average, run of the mill obese American ate an actual 2200 calories a day, they'd be losing weight, not gaining it. Obesity is no longer about knowledge; we know what it takes to not be obese. It's now about behavior. Will people behave in a way as to not become or remain obese? Sure there are outliers, but not all of them are. It's no different than most other aspects of existence like education, personal finance, personal health outside of weight, etc.

[quikky]

This is interesting.



"Since 1980, obesity prevalence among US adults has soared from 14% to 42%. The commonly accepted explanation is pervasive overeating: ever-increasing energy intake as the population gains weight, year after year. However, evidence does not support this hypothesis. National data on energy intake and energy availability show increases between 1961 and 2000, during modern industrialization of food; but a plateau or declines thereafter—even as obesity continued rising—and while physical activity modestly increased. Thus, Americans appear to be eating relatively less since 2000, for ever-increasing body sizes, as time has progressed. Although both energy intake and energy availability are measured with error, such errors would have to be new since 2000 and systematically increasing over time for these 2 separate, independent measures."

"Growing evidence suggests complex, interrelated biological interactions between food processing (including acellular nutrients, depleted prebiotics, additives), gut microbial composition and function, host metabolic expenditure, and intergenerational transmission of risk (including epigenetics, noncoding RNAs, microbial species). In this paradigm, whereas increasing energy intake may have contributed to rising obesity in earlier years, today pervasive adiposity and its physiologic adaptations have created a biological milieu which interacts with industrialized foods to promote escalating obesity, even with stable energy intake—a self-sustaining, difficult-to-reverse cycle."

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9170462/

The problem with this paper is that the calorie counting is self-reported. It's pretty obvious that the figures are completely off: the mean reported caloric intake is 2200 kcal/day, in a country where the majority is overweight and 40% are obese. It's virtually impossible to be become obese with 2200 kcal per day unless you're literally 4 feet tall. I dare anyone to try.

I highly recommend the show "Secret Eaters" where they first ask people who are very overweight but "don't eat much" to track everything they eat, log it and report the total. All of them report around 2000 kcal/day. Then they follow them around with private investigators and invariably find that the actual calorie intake is closer to 4000 kcal/day. Without fail. Like this bloke who was having "Special K for breakfast", and then investigators found out that his breakfast was 2000 kcal, because the bowl was the size of a toilet bowl, and he added a pot of heavy cream. Another was having a "middle eastern salad" for lunch. turns out that "middle eastern salads" for that person implied adding 1000 kcal of tahin (ground sesame paste) to a bunch of tomatoes. yet another went to the pub for a few drinks. Turns out that "a few drinks" is 6 pints and a bunch of shit food, amounting to 2000 kcal total. You can't make this stuff up. One of the people in the show got so angry when they explained to her that the mountain of mayo she put in her plate was too calorie dense that she ghosted the producers when they wanted to shoot the next season.

The researchers from that paper argue that "well we know that the measurements are obviously completely wrong, but since we've been measuring since 20 years ago, the errors are probably all the same etc."I mean come on, this is not science. Just do things properly and measure caloric intake in a controlled environment. And to me the explanation for obesity is very obvious: too much calories, day in day out. The food environment is so terrible that eating way too many calories is almost automatic.

This. Those intake numbers are absolutely fabricated. If your average, run of the mill obese American ate an actual 2200 calories a day, they'd be losing weight, not gaining it. Obesity is no longer about knowledge; we know what it takes to not be obese. It's now about behavior. Will people behave in a way as to not become or remain obese? Sure there are outliers, but not all of them are. It's no different than most other aspects of existence like education, personal finance, personal health outside of weight, etc.

Yeah, it's like these studies do more harm than good. You have people eating 4k+ calories a day, and yet claiming they eat 2k. Now "science" backs up their false claims, which in turn can cause more resistance to the need for behavior and/or food environment change. Uh sure, no one is overeating, we just have too much seed oil, or aspartame, or something.

[asdf]

The problem with this paper is that the calorie counting is self-reported. It's pretty obvious that the figures are completely off: the mean reported caloric intake is 2200 kcal/day, in a country where the majority is overweight and 40% are obese. It's virtually impossible to be become obese with 2200 kcal per day unless you're literally 4 feet tall. I dare anyone to try.

Those intake numbers are absolutely fabricated. If your average, run of the mill obese American ate an actual 2200 calories a day, they'd be losing weight, not gaining it.

You have people eating 4k+ calories a day, and yet claiming they eat 2k. Now "science" backs up their false claims, which in turn can cause more resistance to the need for behavior and/or food environment change.

The paper acknowledges that people underreport calories, and the authors do not assume that the reported mean is accurate.

"It is known that 24-h diet recalls underreport calorie intake by 8%–30%, compared to estimated energy expenditure using doubly labeled water; and that underreporting can be larger in adults with overweight or obesity (4). Thus, it is plausible that total energy intake in the NHANES is underreported, especially in people with higher weights.

"However, such underreporting should not suppress the detection of increasing trends over time, especially across a large national sample, because even if individuals with obesity underreport their intake, their overall mean weight has continued to increase over time. Thus, unless the magnitude of this underreporting has also systematically increased over time, their (underreported) energy intake should still have increased."

"In addition, a completely separate, independent measure of energy availability, from FAO food balance sheets, shows consistent findings. And, as I will discuss further, earlier trends in both energy intake and energy availability do show prior increases before 2000, indicating these methods can detect population trends. Together, the data do not support a hypothesis of changing energy intakes or changing reporting biases over time. Thus, although systematically increasing bias in both reported energy intake and national energy availability since 2000 is theoretically possible, this must be considered an explanation of exclusion. Before accepting this as truth, new empiric research is needed to test and confirm such a hypothesis; and alternative hypotheses must be considered as well."

Anyway, I found the paper interesting. It's interesting that people are not reporting that they're eating more, even as they get fatter. It's interesting that the FAO food balance sheets do not show an increase in per capita available calories. And it's interesting that there are novel hypotheses of how a population might become more obese without consuming more calories.

[alek]

The paper acknowledges that people underreport calories, and the authors do not assume that the reported mean is accurate.

"It is known that 24-h diet recalls underreport calorie intake by 8%–30%, compared to estimated energy expenditure using doubly labeled water; and that underreporting can be larger in adults with overweight or obesity (4). Thus, it is plausible that total energy intake in the NHANES is underreported, especially in people with higher weights.

"However, such underreporting should not suppress the detection of increasing trends over time, especially across a large national sample, because even if individuals with obesity underreport their intake, their overall mean weight has continued to increase over time. Thus, unless the magnitude of this underreporting has also systematically increased over time, their (underreported) energy intake should still have increased."

"In addition, a completely separate, independent measure of energy availability, from FAO food balance sheets, shows consistent findings. And, as I will discuss further, earlier trends in both energy intake and energy availability do show prior increases before 2000, indicating these methods can detect population trends. Together, the data do not support a hypothesis of changing energy intakes or changing reporting biases over time. Thus, although systematically increasing bias in both reported energy intake and national energy availability since 2000 is theoretically possible, this must be considered an explanation of exclusion. Before accepting this as truth, new empiric research is needed to test and confirm such a hypothesis; and alternative hypotheses must be considered as well."

Anyway, I found the paper interesting. It's interesting that people are not reporting that they're eating more, even as they get fatter. It's interesting that the FAO food balance sheets do not show an increase in per capita available calories. And it's interesting that there are novel hypotheses of how a population might become more obese without consuming more calories.

Hey, another thing to consider that may get glossed over in these discussions is that the obese are not just always getting heavier everyday, i.e., they usually aren’t gaining a quarter pound or whatever increment everyday all year. From what I understand, their weight is usually pretty stable for mot of the year; however, most of the weight they gain is during the months October, November, and December.

I don’t have the paper for that—Layne Norton mentioned and cited it in one of his videos. It’s the holidays, I have only my phone, and I’m traveling, so I may not be able to produce it immediately. But I’ll keep my eye out for it.

So, it may be the case that when these studies are being done, people are actually eating around their maintenance calories, but because they eat more around that time of year, their weight continues to climb year over year.

I did not read your cited paper; can you say what alternative hypothesis they offer for an increase in obesity despite the maintenance of intake?

Also, reading my initial post again, I can see how it would be snarky to you; it was not my intention to be uncivil to you. My apologies.

Eta: With a little googling, I found this narrative review. I don’t know if it’s the same paper Layne cited, but the general vibe is the same.

Effect of the Holiday Season on Weight Gain: A Narrative Review

[Philbert]

"However, such underreporting should not suppress the detection of increasing trends over time, especially across a large national sample, because even if individuals with obesity underreport their intake, their overall mean weight has continued to increase over time. Thus, unless the magnitude of this underreporting has also systematically increased over time, their (underreported) energy intake should still have increased."

My default assumption is that underreporting of calories would increase over time, as people have more knowledge of the problem, become more obese, and are more embarrassed/in denial about the behavioral drivers of obesity. Regardless of that, any physical process with a positive magnitude and flat derivative will have a rising integral. If calorie excess in 1999 is the magnitude, rate of change is the derivative, mean obesity is the integral, we expect mean obesity to rise despite flat calorie intake until everyone who was born before 1999 is dead.

[alek]

Regardless of that, any physical process with a positive magnitude and flat derivative will have a rising integral. If calorie excess in 1999 is the magnitude, rate of change is the derivative, mean obesity is the integral, we expect mean obesity to rise despite flat calorie intake until everyone who was born before 1999 is dead.

I don’t know you well enough to make a homoerotic joke about talking math and turning me on, but if I did, I would.

[KyleSchuant]

If we were overeating in 1999, flat intake starting in 1999 will result in rising obesity. Obesity is the integral of excess calories over time.

Exactly so.

In addition, the surveys rely - as the article describes - self-reported dietary intake. Likewise physical activity surveys.

Anyone who's worked with others in the gym knows that skinny guys eat heaps, honest, and fat guys eat hardly anything, really. And everyone is super active! Once you whack a step counter on them and get them to weigh and measure their food, things become clearer.

My default assumption is that underreporting of calories would increase over time, as people have more knowledge of the problem, become more obese, and are more embarrassed/in denial about the behavioral drivers of obesity.

Definitely.

The more underweight someone is, the more they claim to eat. The more overweight they are, the less they claim to eat. Shame affects self-reporting, as does warped perceptions of food quantity and quality.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

My default assumption is that underreporting of calories would increase over time, as people have more knowledge of the problem, become more obese, and are more embarrassed/in denial about the behavioral drivers of obesity.

To me this is the main explanation.

I think that most people have an idea in their head about what is a socially acceptable caloric intake and essentially report something around that amount plus or minus some small deviations depending on what they ate that day. Eating a lot tends to be stigmatized, especially if you are overweight. Now people still do it, because most of the decisions that people make around food are probably subconscious, due to habits, narratives around food, hormones and a bunch of complicated things. But it's rather rare to hear a "normie" brag about how they ate twice the recommended amount of calories today (sure if you're a strongman competitor or a competitive eater or following a particular kind of structured resistance training program built around affine functions you'll brag about it, good for you).

Back to my previous post on the "Secret Eaters" show, this also explains why they all report around this figure of 2000-2500 kcal, it's a figure that typically comes out when you do 10 minutes of googling about caloric intake for the average human, and so people report what they think they "should" be eating to be perceived as socially acceptable people.

As far as "flat intake creating an increase in obesity rate" on the other hand, I'm not sure I believe in that, because TDEE is not static when you gain a lot of weight. I'm not talking about your typical small bulk/cut cycle done by people who lift weights, where you would go up/down 10 lbs, obviously the variation in TDEE will not be huge. I'm taking about what happens when you up 50 to 100 lbs (or more if you're ambitious) . A flat intake eventually lead to your weight stagnating. I think that anyone who has attempted to gain a lot of weight can attest to that: the amount of food you need for sustained weight increase increases with time too.

Being obese and not losing weight is very very hard work, due to the sheer amount of calories you need to put down. The only thing that makes this herculean task possible is cheap, super available, ultra-processed food. If you look back at people who wanted to get very big without processed food like Paul Anderson, he eventually had to drink honey as a beverage. Imagine having a pint of honey as a drink.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

If we were overeating in 1999, flat intake starting in 1999 will result in rising obesity. Obesity is the integral of excess calories over time.

Exactly so.

In addition, the surveys rely - as the article describes - self-reported dietary intake. Likewise physical activity surveys.

Anyone who's worked with others in the gym knows that skinny guys eat heaps, honest, and fat guys eat hardly anything, really. And everyone is super active! Once you whack a step counter on them and get them to weigh and measure their food, things become clearer.

My default assumption is that underreporting of calories would increase over time, as people have more knowledge of the problem, become more obese, and are more embarrassed/in denial about the behavioral drivers of obesity.

Definitely.

The more underweight someone is, the more they claim to eat. The more overweight they are, the less they claim to eat. Shame affects self-reporting, as does warped perceptions of food quantity and quality.

For a fun illustration of this, browse r/gainit, where some posters are underweight but claim to eat like a strongman competitor. Some drink olive oil shakes.

[alek]

Here I go, talking more shit again.

I just finished reading this article, Why is the American Diet So Deadly?, and I come away amazed at the how the author can contort themselves into thinking that energy balance is not the cause of weight gain and obesity.

They go on and on about these alternative theories, particularly about how processed a food is, that could explain the obesity epidemic, yet, in several of the studies they write about, people eating lots of calorie-dense, ultra processed food tend to eat more calories, and they gain weight. No fucking way! Really?! Who'd have thought that by eating more calories, you gain more weight. Gee, only everyone espousing energy balance as the cause of weight gain and obesity.

In at least one study they write about, where nearly everyone is eating an ultra processed diet, it's the ones eating more calories that gain weight while the ones that don't eat extra calories don't gain weight. Well, duh.

A couple of times, the author gets really close to an actualization of reality:

People know that Doritos are not so good for them, but more than a billion bags are sold in the U.S. each year.

...I try to cook healthy dinners for my three kids. But I often acquiesce to their demands for pizza, saving myself not only time but negotiations over every broccoli floret (eat four if you’re four, two if you’re two, and so on). With fries, I have to negotiate with them to stop. In the moment, these concessions feel inescapable and inconsequential. Afterward, while sitting up in bed with reflux, I worry about the example I’m setting and resolve, again, to do better.

I get that not everyone has the same ability to choose what food they consume, but I'd say that most Americans can choose what food they put into their mouth. And they can choose how much of that food goes into their mouth.

[/rant]

[Philbert]

Here I go, talking more shit again.

I just finished reading this article, Why is the American Diet So Deadly?, and I come away amazed at the how the author can contort themselves into thinking that energy balance is not the cause of weight gain and obesity.

They go on and on about these alternative theories, particularly about how processed a food is, that could explain the obesity epidemic, yet, in several of the studies they write about, people eating lots of calorie-dense, ultra processed food tend to eat more calories, and they gain weight. No fucking way! Really?! Who'd have thought that by eating more calories, you gain more weight. Gee, only everyone espousing energy balance as the cause of weight gain and obesity.

In at least one study they write about, where nearly everyone is eating an ultra processed diet, it's the ones eating more calories that gain weight while the ones that don't eat extra calories don't gain weight. Well, duh.

A couple of times, the author gets really close to an actualization of reality:

People know that Doritos are not so good for them, but more than a billion bags are sold in the U.S. each year.

...I try to cook healthy dinners for my three kids. But I often acquiesce to their demands for pizza, saving myself not only time but negotiations over every broccoli floret (eat four if you’re four, two if you’re two, and so on). With fries, I have to negotiate with them to stop. In the moment, these concessions feel inescapable and inconsequential. Afterward, while sitting up in bed with reflux, I worry about the example I’m setting and resolve, again, to do better.

I get that not everyone has the same ability to choose what food they consume, but I'd say that most Americans can choose what food they put into their mouth. And they can choose how much of that food goes into their mouth.

[/rant]

My take is that choosing what food one puts in the house is easier/more effective than choosing what goes into the mouth. One can arrange life so that grocery shopping is not done when hungry, and is a reasoned exercise of the will. Eating, in general, should not be done when NOT hungry, especially if one is obese. If choosing between an exercise of will against hunger three+ times per day, or an exercise of will against advertising 3 times per month, I am betting on the will three times per month, and on hunger three times per day.
Re: your commentary on the article, it's like modern wellness journalists and perpetual motion conspiracy enthusiasts failed the same basic science classes.

[mgil]

Absolutely controlling what’s in the house and available to eat is primary for good diet.

There’s also a need for people to work through what is actually hunger and what is some other psychological need, like boredom. A lot of people put shit in their mouth because they are bored and eating makes their brain happy. Serotonin can be a dirty motherfucker of a chemical.

[alek]

My take is that choosing what food one puts in the house is easier/more effective than choosing what goes into the mouth. One can arrange life so that grocery shopping is not done when hungry, and is a reasoned exercise of the will. Eating, in general, should not be done when NOT hungry, especially if one is obese. If choosing between an exercise of will against hunger three+ times per day, or an exercise of will against advertising 3 times per month, I am betting on the will three times per month, and on hunger three times per day.

Oh 100%! It's a completely different story if you fill your house with the good stuff--nutrient dense foods, fruits and veggies, lean proteins, whole grains, etc.--rather than the "bad" stuff--nutrient deficient, highly palatable, sugary, salty, fatty foods. If you have "good" stuff to eat much more often than the "bad" stuff, then I think it's a much easier task.

Re: your commentary on the article, it's like modern wellness journalists and perpetual motion conspiracy enthusiasts failed the same basic science classes.

I think it's the stuff like the article that irritate me the most. People already have a hard enough time managing their health; throwing in your bogus bullshit just makes it more confusing, and hard, for people to focus on what matters.

Absolutely controlling what’s in the house and available to eat is primary for good diet.

There’s also a need for people to work through what is actually hunger and what is some other psychological need, like boredom. A lot of people put shit in their mouth because they are bored and eating makes their brain happy. Serotonin can be a dirty motherfucker of a chemical.

This, too. I totally subscribe to the bio-psycho-social paradigm of eating. If people need therapy to help them get through whatever issues that are triggering them to eat more than they should, then it's paramount for them to get that help.