6 ms·

> A given person, in 2006, eating the same amount of calories, taking in the same quantities of macronutrients like protein and fat, and exercising the same amo

by xiaoma 11y ago

> A given person, in 2006, eating the same amount of calories, taking in the same quantities of macronutrients like protein and fat, and exercising the same amount as a person of the same age did in 1988 would have a BMI that was about 2.3 points higher. I think the recent obsession with macronutrients is a big part of the problem. I'm not sure if the macronutrient ratio I eat has changed much from when I was growing up with my grandmother's cooking, with the exception of three failed experiments with low carb diets and a couple of other small experiments. The thing is that in the 80s, as a kid, I was more likely to be eating traditional American staples, like corn flakes or oatmeal and a banana for breakfast, and a typical meal would include meat, potatoes and a green vegetable. I drank some soda, but also about a quart of milk a day. Now I tend to eat out 9 times a week instead of 2 and I eat a lot more processed food unless I make a concerted effort not to. I avoid soda for the most part, but on the whole there's a lot more stuff in my diet that my great-grandparents wouldn't have recognized as food. I don't remember the last time I drank milk. Surely eating home baked bread or a piece of fruit isn't the same as eating a snack bar, eating meat isn't the same as drinking muscle milk, and fatty fish doesn't equate to pork rinds, etc. Macronutrient ratios just don't tell the whole story or even most of it.

com2kid 11y ago
I agree, the macros look sort of the same, but the source of those calories is much different. Just the types of cooking oil we use has changed a lot. Look at what goes into cookies now. It used to be butter, now I've seen recipes with canola oil. (if anyone tells you to use canola oil in your baked goods, ignore them and use butter!) There is evidence that gut bacteria is passed down from generation to generation, we could very well be seeing a delayed effect from public policy and health decisions made around the time the previous generation was growing up. oops. I am sort of on the fence about processed foods. A lot of canned food was eaten previously, fresh vegetables were not available year round, but a lot of the canning was done at home in glass jars. I am not one to be paranoid, but now all our canned food comes in coated aluminum cans. We have a few decades of aluminum cans being coated on the inside with BPA. It is know known that BPA can have harmful effects that take a long time to manifest. The point is, there are a lot of potential culprits, and it is going to take a long time to figure out what state unbridled capitalism has left public health in.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  > There is evidence that gut bacteria is passed down from generation to generation, we could very well be seeing a delayed effect from public policy and health decisions made around the time the previous generation was growing up. oops. This is something that doesn't get mentioned enough. Your gut bacteria play a large role in your health, and we're going so far as to do fecal transplants to resolve GI tract disorders. I wonder if anyone has done genome sequencing of gut bacteria to determine if its one of the primary causes of America's obesity problems. "One woman suffering recurrent C. difficile infection was recently successfully treated with this procedure, but interestingly, she also rapidly went from normal weight to becoming obese after receiving the transplant. While the weight gain could be due to a variety of factors, the donor was also overweight, and the recipient had never struggled with her weight before. Researchers are therefore speculating whether something in the transplant could have played a role in her weight gain, and have described the intriguing case in Open Forum Infectious Diseases." http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/woman-becomes-obese-after-fecal-transplant-overweight-donor http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/woman-becomes-... http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7228/full/nature07540.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7228/full/nature0... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1176910/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1176910/
  - peteretep 11y ago
    > one of the primary causes of America's obesity > problems. As any European who's spent time in the US can tell you, a dramatically simpler explanation is that portion sizes are enormous and many foods are "low fat" which mean they're loaded with sugar.
    - MichaelGG 11y ago
      Stuff's ridiculously loaded with sugar. I stopped eating sugar for a few months on a whim. It's rather difficult to do so. Everything just pointlessly has loads of it. Even trying to use no-calorie sweeteners is difficult as some places like to tout how natural they are. I went back to eating sugar but I can no longer stomach a lot of foods I would happily have eaten before. Everything is so sweet.
djhn 11y ago
The most obvious explanation isn't mentioned. More exercise leads to more muscle, which leads to a higher BMI. I cannot access the full text, but this isn't acknowledged in either the Atlantic piece or the abstract. There is no talk about more adipose tissue, less fat-free mass or higher bodyfat. We cannot distinguish between good weight gain and bad weight gain based on BMI changes alone.

by xiaoma 11y ago

com2kid 11y ago

I agree, the macros look sort of the same, but the source of those calories is much different. Just the types of cooking oil we use has changed a lot. Look at what goes into cookies now. It used to be butter, now I've seen recipes with canola oil. (if anyone tells you to use canola oil in your baked goods, ignore them and use butter!) There is evidence that gut bacteria is passed down from generation to generation, we could very well be seeing a delayed effect from public policy and health decisions made around the time the previous generation was growing up. oops. I am sort of on the fence about processed foods. A lot of canned food was eaten previously, fresh vegetables were not available year round, but a lot of the canning was done at home in glass jars. I am not one to be paranoid, but now all our canned food comes in coated aluminum cans. We have a few decades of aluminum cans being coated on the inside with BPA. It is know known that BPA can have harmful effects that take a long time to manifest. The point is, there are a lot of potential culprits, and it is going to take a long time to figure out what state unbridled capitalism has left public health in.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
> There is evidence that gut bacteria is passed down from generation to generation, we could very well be seeing a delayed effect from public policy and health decisions made around the time the previous generation was growing up. oops. This is something that doesn't get mentioned enough. Your gut bacteria play a large role in your health, and we're going so far as to do fecal transplants to resolve GI tract disorders. I wonder if anyone has done genome sequencing of gut bacteria to determine if its one of the primary causes of America's obesity problems. "One woman suffering recurrent C. difficile infection was recently successfully treated with this procedure, but interestingly, she also rapidly went from normal weight to becoming obese after receiving the transplant. While the weight gain could be due to a variety of factors, the donor was also overweight, and the recipient had never struggled with her weight before. Researchers are therefore speculating whether something in the transplant could have played a role in her weight gain, and have described the intriguing case in Open Forum Infectious Diseases." http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/woman-becomes-obese-after-fecal-transplant-overweight-donor http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/woman-becomes-... http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7228/full/nature07540.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7228/full/nature0... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1176910/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1176910/
- peteretep 11y ago
  > one of the primary causes of America's obesity > problems. As any European who's spent time in the US can tell you, a dramatically simpler explanation is that portion sizes are enormous and many foods are "low fat" which mean they're loaded with sugar.
  - MichaelGG 11y ago
    Stuff's ridiculously loaded with sugar. I stopped eating sugar for a few months on a whim. It's rather difficult to do so. Everything just pointlessly has loads of it. Even trying to use no-calorie sweeteners is difficult as some places like to tout how natural they are. I went back to eating sugar but I can no longer stomach a lot of foods I would happily have eaten before. Everything is so sweet.

djhn 11y ago

The most obvious explanation isn't mentioned. More exercise leads to more muscle, which leads to a higher BMI. I cannot access the full text, but this isn't acknowledged in either the Atlantic piece or the abstract. There is no talk about more adipose tissue, less fat-free mass or higher bodyfat. We cannot distinguish between good weight gain and bad weight gain based on BMI changes alone.