22 ms·

The leading cause of death is cardiovascular disease. >90% of these cases can be attributed to an overweight population. It's not an easy problem to solve, but

• karimei 10y ago
  I agree this would be a very important Problem to solve. However I think that the root cause of this problem is that the food industry has the incentive to maximize profit. Since sugar ist cheap and tasty for a lot of people the obvious thing to do is to sell as much sugar as possible. Of course sugar is just an example here, the same logic could be applied to other products (cheap fat, fast food). IMO the general aproach to maximize money is broken as it incentiveses crminal behavior (banks, volkswagen come to mind immediately). This problem would be really interesting to solve, but I don't think that's doable by a single startup as it is a political or social problem.
• LoSboccacc 10y ago
  time to test the market for gravy flavored e-cigarettes!
  • socket0 10y ago
    Make mine deep-fried potato products, and I'm in. Although something nausiating to kill any appetite might be more productive.
• eggie 10y ago
  And yet control of the food supply is dominated by a tiny number of slow-moving, conservative companies who appear to spend most of their efforts engineering crops to behave like biological instantiations of intellectual property. Yield is the primary objective, not nutritional quality. Farmers integrated in this system have given up a huge amount of their autonomy and also influence over the breeds of crops and animals that they raise. Crop and livestock genetic diversity has plummeted, and we have removed the local experts from the breeding process. I am shocked by the amount of effort going into fixing health problems post-hoc relative to efforts aimed at improving the foods we eat. In fact, we seem to be going backwards. The intellectual vanguard is pushing organic + non-GMO produce, heirloom foodstuffs, artisan food practices, and other regressive (if high-quality) patterns that won't encourage nutritional improvement for the majority of people. We should be applying ourselves to improving food. It's completely overlooked because it's seen as a solved problem. I can completely understand why, but I think it's pretty clear, given the health problems in the west, that there is more to be done.
  • rojobuffalo 10y ago
    Just would like to point out that I'm working on this with the company I started: https://terra.farm https://terra.farm.
• DiabloD3 10y ago
  Calories in, calories out is not the golden rule, and this has been scientifically proven false. Also, hilarious adventure I went on once: I ate 4000 calories of bacon a day and nothing else for a month... ended up cutting it off a little early because I was losing weight too quickly. Your second and third points however are scientifically supported, but do not confuse this with "obesity is complicated." It is not how many calories you eat, it is where they come from. I used to weigh 340 pounds, I went strictly Paleo, did not increase caloric burn, did not decrease caloric intake in any meaningful way, hit 214 in a year, and then continued dropping; roughly 2000 calories a day and not a lot of exercise (was afraid of joint damage due to weighing so much).
  • BillinghamJ 10y ago
    That sounds more like a malnutrition issue no? If all you were eating is bacon and nothing else.
    • Cthulhu_ 10y ago
      A delicious kind of malnutrition though.
    • weavie 10y ago
      But does anecdotally disprove the pure calories in, calories out rule.
      • Sunset 10y ago
        It doesn't. If you maintain a fully rounded meal while also scaling calories in/out it holds. I can straight up eat sugar only too for a month and have the same weight loss results, also diabetes.
        • icebraining 10y ago
          That's the point, isn't it? If the roundness of the meal matters, it's not just calories in/out.
• Insalgo 10y ago
  I couldn’t agree more. Excess body fat is a problem throughout the world. Well, it significantly increases the risk of a number of chronic diseases, such as type-2 diabetes, insulin resistance, and hypertension. It is estimated that approximately 20% of people are overweight and that close to 300 million are obese. At https://www.aidlab.com https://www.aidlab.com we are aiming to spread awareness of the impact that body fat lead to our organism. That’s the clue of our efforts since we started to build personal assistant in 2014. Secondly, exercise can help promote weight loss, but it seems to work best when combined with a lower calorie eating plan. If people don’t curb their calories, however, they likely need to exercise for long periods of time or at a high intensity to lose weight.
• awjr 10y ago
  This has been solved and it's not so much a technology thing as a built environment thing. By 2030, the Netherlands will have an obesity rate of 8.5% DOWN from 10% http://www.ukhealthforum.org.uk/who-we-are/our-work/ukhf-whats-new/?entryid70=41042 http://www.ukhealthforum.org.uk/who-we-are/our-work/ukhf-wha... The problem is very much political with a move away from highways design focusing on strategic mobility, the movement of people and goods over long distances, to sustainable mobility, the movement of people over short distances (0-5 miles) and the provision of systematically safe infrastructure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aNtsWvNYKE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aNtsWvNYKE It's a really really hard political problem to solve as the impacts are measured in decades but the returns are huge. From a technology point of view, the solution is the bicycle.
  • awjr 10y ago
    Focusing on the bicycle, there is huge effort going into electric bicycles around battery and powertrain technology Ebikes enable people that would not cycle in 'hilly' cities to use bicycles as a way of getting around. The key problem however always comes down to the perception that the roads are too dangerous and this is a political in nature usually requiring the re-allocation of road space from parking.
    • carussell 10y ago
      The key problem is surely weather. Politics are surmountable, but climate is not. The experience of the Netherlands is not generalizable worldwide.
• anonnyj 10y ago
  Attitudes like Health at Every Size don't help matters.
• googletron 10y ago
  Gyroscope is doing stuff to combat this! Give it a look https://gyrosco.pe https://gyrosco.pe
  • vosper 10y ago
    This looks like an app for the quantified self crowd. It seems to just collect all the various body-tracking devices normal people don't use into one dashboard. How's it going to help with the obesity epidemic?
• icebraining 10y ago
  Can't say I'm an expert, but I don't think hobbies or other such activities can replace eating too much and/or shitty food. I mean, the typical stereotypes show the opposite: playing console with friends, going out to the movies or to a party, even programming (solitary or "hackathons"), often involve the consumption of loads of sugary soda and other crap. BBQs and similar social meals are often the same. Hobbies involving exercise may be an exception, but when you're already overweight, these often aren't so much "hobbies" as ordeals, and unlikely to function as any kind of reward. As someone in the market, it'd help quite a bit if there were healthier and tasty alternatives. Unfortunately, the current offers seem to be expensive and hard to get (if you have to order a whole box over the 'net, forget it).
  • infinite8s 10y ago
    The problem is tasty is a conditioning effect. The reason healthy food is not as tasty as junk food is that it has a lot less of the substances that used to be much rarer, like fats, salt, sugar. It makes sense that those are so tasty because they used to be rare. To be able to eat healthier requires weaning yourself off high salt/sugar foods to get reacclimitized to food that has those substances in proportions that we've evolved to handle.
    • icebraining 10y ago
      While I don't disagree, at least around here (I live in a Western European country) the problem is deeper: there simply aren't healthier alternatives easily available at reasonable prices. For example, most nuts you find at groceries are loaded with salt. Finding unsalted versions requires a trip to a megastore or specialised shop.
      • jpindar 10y ago
        It's the same with dried fruit. You can't find any that isn't soaked in sugar.
• Draiken 10y ago
  This "calories in, calories out" idea is dangerously wrong. I have problems with my weight and my wife is anorexic. We live day-to-day with the fight against obesity (for years) and that's hardly a rule, much less golden. The only constant I see on this whole food/nutrition industry is how little information is accurate. Millions of diets and nutrition "experts" saying whatever they hear works without testing anything. The classic "worked for me, must work for everyone". I agree the obesity problem is there to be solved, but don't oversimplify it to 3 bullet points. That's irresponsible to say the least.
  • cromulent 10y ago
    I'm surprised no-one (including OP) is talking about the gut microbiome and how the variations in that can affect the absorption of calories. Twins can have very different results with the same "calories in / calories out" due to differences in the microbiome. This seems like a ripe opportunity.
    • rimantas 10y ago
      It just changes the multiplier, the rule stays the same.
      • cromulent 10y ago
        Depends how you measure "calories out". Are you measuring excreta or exercise or both?
  • arkh 10y ago
    > This "calories in, calories out" idea is dangerously wrong. You don't see a lot of overweight people in famine prone areas. Calories out - calories in = your weight curve. That's the easy part for losing weight. Sport does not burn a lot of calories. So it is better to cut on the intake. Which is the hard part: food can be a comfort drug which is easily available. Worse when your entourage is full of overweight people as crab mentality can set-in and they'll try to sabotage your weight loss.
• paulojreis 10y ago
  "1. Calories in, calories out is the golden rule." Yes, but I'd argue it's not a very helpful rule. As it has been said before, it's pretty much like saying that the golden rule to get rich is "money in vs. money out". Correct, but not very helpful.
  • aaronchall 10y ago
    How is it unhelpful to be told what you need to do? Are you saying you need more specifics? If you want to improve your financial position, either earn more money (get a side job, take a higher paying job with more responsibility), or spend less money (buy beans and rice in bulk, prepare your own meals, sell your luxury car to get rid of the payments and drive a paid-for beater, take public transit and read a book on your commute instead of driving a car). Similarly, to lose unhealthy weight, either reduce calories in (stop drinking sweet sodas and eating candy bars, order 500-800 calorie items from appetizer menus instead of 2000 calorie entrees) or increase calories out (exercise, take the stairs instead of the elevator, walk instead of ride, lift weights to improve resting calorie burning.) But it's hard to come up with specifics that apply to everyone, since everyone is different. That's why we just say the general rule, instead of assuming people have an expensive car to sell or go through a 2 liter of Coke a day.
    • paulojreis 10y ago
      Sure, you're right. I just meant that the real challenge is how to skew (and keep) the balance in the direction you want, in a sustainable, significant and achievable fashion.
    • Gargoyle 10y ago
      If you want the font on your webpage to be larger, change the pattern of magnetic data stored on your hard drive. This is what you need to do. Do you need more specifics?
      • jhall1468 10y ago
        That is the worst analogy I think I've ever heard. A better analogy is, if you want more hard drive space, stop installing stuff and/or delete more stuff than you install. This is not complicated. The calories are listed on everything you eat. Eat fewer of them until you start losing weight.
• prawn 10y ago
  I think the obesity issue exposes capitalism to some extent. Businesses stand to make money from gyms, from activewear, from diet books and pills and so all of these advertise heavily. No company stands to make loads of money if people eat less. No restaurant succeeds by advertising their medium meal or their one slider and fries or their soda without refills. Can't speak to your calories comments, but I do think that hobbies and distractions and habits and apps can help move people in the right direction.
• bambax 10y ago
  > 2. The vast majority of calories come from carbohydrates. Yes. Sugar is the enemy. It's ironic that so many substances are regulated or flat-out prohibited and not sugar or sodas. HFCS should be outlawed, and sodas regulated like alcohol (no sales to minors, bulk sales limited, etc.) Also, the obsession with fats and the whole industry of low-fat food needs to be dealt with, as, obviously, when the proportion of fat decreases, the proportions of the other components rise.
  • botexpert 10y ago
    I'm assuming the source is Robert Lustig?
  • metafunctor 10y ago
    Agreed; it seems that we are not, as a species, capable of withstanding the lure of sugary sweetness. The problem is compounded by our culture of instant gratification. The theory that the problem is sugar – and not fat – does line up pretty well with available evidence.
  • dpatru 10y ago
    Regarding sugar, read about the "white rice diet" used for many years at Duke University to cure diabetes. The diet consists of white rice, table sugar, and fruit. https://www.drmcdougall.com/2013/12/31/walter-kempner-md-founder-of-the-rice-diet/ https://www.drmcdougall.com/2013/12/31/walter-kempner-md-fou...
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  • CuriouslyC 10y ago
    Sugar is not the enemy, sugars are just a highly efficient mechanism for providing easily assimilated biochemical energy. The problem is over-consumption of refined sugars. This is a problem because the results of sugar metabolism (particularly fructose) are highly reactive (which is why they are so easy to metabolize), and can mess up your biochemistry by reacting with proteins and other macromolecules. The phytochemicals in plant sugar sources seem to reduce the biochemical side reactions of sugar metabolism which is probably why the plants synthesize many of them in the first place. Refined sugars tend to spike the concentration of sugar in your body, leading to more possibility for reactions. Secondly, without the phytochemical stabilizers, the incidence of side-reactions is greater. The body is a complex system, we need to stop trying to analyze it as if it were linear and reducible.
• hmate9 10y ago
  To everyone saying "calories in vs calories out" is not the golden rule: it simply is. Your body obeys the laws of physics. If you consume less energy than you use then your body will be forced to use up its stored energy.
  • jonwinstanley 10y ago
    Totally disagree with that being the golden rule, firstly not all calories are the same. Plus calories from protein, carbs and fat are all treated differently by your body and that is further affected by your activity levels and stress.
    • TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
      It's not just not the golden rule, it's actively misleading. "Fats make you fat" is a flat-out lie. The effects of carbs - especially carbs with plenty of refined sugar - are the developed world's number one health care expense. They don't just cause obesity and diabetes, they also create inflammation which leads to heart conditions, strokes, and other life-changing disorders. Unfortunately the food labelling industry has been promoting falsehoods for most of its existence. Labelling carbs more clearly, licensing sodas and diet sodas to limit access, and starting health programs to educate the population about carb abuse would do more to improve public health than anything else.
  • tnmrnis 10y ago
    "Calories in vs calories out" is not wrong. It's just a small part of a much bigger picture. If you go into a caloric deficit your body will give a hormonal response. This response determines if your body will start using your fat reserves, your muscles or will just shut down. This hormonal response is dependent not only on how much you eat, but also on what you eat. Eating a diet low in carbs enables your body to use up stored fat more easily and will leave you less hungry then a low fat diet. This makes it MUCH easier to stick to your diet.
• TuringNYC 10y ago
  I realize this is a US-centric view, but since so many startups are US based, i'll present it anyway... Health and medicine startups are really difficult. Not impossible, but the forces are all stacked against you. I hope and pray some startups can succeed, but the system in the US is set up to perpetuate the broken healthcare system. Sometimes, I feel efficiency and health are almost not a goal. I realize this is vague, but I've learned this lesson the hard way. I'm on year-3 of a health startup full-time. We actually moved overseas to trail the product in a single-payer nation. The single-payer system offers incentives generally aligned across all parties. In the US, many incentives are antagonistic, making it difficult to sell products. Please the insurer and you piss off the hospital. Please the hospital and you piss off the doctor. Lower costs and you piss off the hospital and doctor. Ect, etc. It is easy to make products, but difficult to find buyers even when there is obvious value. Perhaps this will change with ACOs. Most successful startups in healthcare I've seen operate on the periphery or actually mold to ease the broken system itself (e.g., Castlight Health)
  • scottmf 10y ago
    What country did you move to?
    • TuringNYC 10y ago
      We moved [temporarily] to Qatar. We tried to sell our solutions in the US for a year w/o any success. We have spent the past two years in Qatar and have achieved far more traction and government-level engagement. The market here is small, but large enough to prove out concepts. The obvious angle would be to prove efficacy and then try again to sell in the US (both my co-founder and I were both and raised in the US so we'd love to move back.) Another angle might be to try and sell in the UK or other single payer systems that are closer to home.
• AJ007 10y ago
  I saw one other comment mentioning healthcare, so I'll both to share my opinion as of 2017. The next (or after the next) Microsoft-Google-Apple-Facebook size tech company will be a healthcare company. There is no reason access to healthcare can't be as streamlined and cheap as calling an Uber. In addition to diagnosis AI should be able to strip out nearly all of the administrative & clerical layer. Self driving vehicles + drones can reduce the need for large complex hospitals. All of this could not just be a convenience, but mandatory in a post-antibiotic world. Because of regulatory issues, while this may be an American company, it would be available for Americans for quite some time.
  • nextos 10y ago
    Where do you think regulations are more favorable and at the same time there's a big high income market?
• AznHisoka 10y ago
  "Lots of calorie counting apps, activity trackers, motivational reminder apps, etc." but how is this an untapped opportunity when there are already tons of products and companies trying to solve it? short of building an app that evaporates body fat? some of these apps do work. i know a lot of people who had success counting calories with MyFitnessPal. but you cant force everybody to count calories. you cant force people to count their steps. so i just dont understand what opportunity you see here.
• TulliusCicero 10y ago
  Another thing that would help solve this is more regular exercise, and this is indeed a solvable issue, but probably not by the private sector; the government could prioritize support for modes that are healthier (walking, biking, even transit since that usually involves walking too) than driving. The Netherlands would be a leading example here, their rates of walking and biking for transportation are very high. Yes people can exercise as its own thing too, but realistically it's way easier to get most people consistently exercising if it's something they're doing as a part of their regular daily activities.
• whyileft 10y ago
  Oh god. You just turned a thread about startup opportunities into one about diet fad wackos. You even got the ball rolling with your silly carbohydrates comment. Ugh
  • dang 10y ago
    Yes, it went seriously off-topic (and we've marked it as such, which sends it to the bottom of the page). But you made the thread even worse by posting this. Your interest in high-quality discussion and startup opportunities are quite positive motivations. Please express them in a way that makes HN better, or at least doesn't harm it. One thing people can do in a case like this is email us at hn@ycombinator.com to let us know that the top subthread has veered off-topic. We intervene when we see that but we need your help to see everything.
• dpatru 10y ago
  I recently found Dr John McDougal on YouTube who has the solution to obesity based on history, current societies, and science. There seem to be two rules: 1) Base your diet around starchy vegetables (potato, wheat, oats, rice, corn, etc). 2) avoid fats, especially refined fats, and protein. 3) salt and sugar are not health foods, but are allowed to help you stick with rules 1 and 2. People, and societies, that eat like this are thin and healthy.
  • chrishacken 10y ago
    I would love to see some research on #2. As someone who works out daily; the point at which I was in the best shape of my life was when I was consuming large amounts of fats. Peanut butter, olive oil, etc. I also find it really really hard to believe that protein would cause obesity; I've heard the exact opposite.
    • bpicolo 10y ago
      Yeah that sounds totally adverse to conventional wisdom, which is part of the problem. There's somebody out there trying to sell literally every diet.
    • dpatru 10y ago
      https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2007nl/aug/oils.htm https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2007nl/aug/oils.htm
  • garrettdc 10y ago
    * so long as they are biologically adapted to such a diet. People have been posting similar studies of Indian and Asian countries, basing their recommendations for everyone off that subset of the population, and then completely discount that of traditional European, African, and American diets.
• pdimitar 10y ago
  The technology to help with obesity is hilariously bad. I'm not obese in the meaning that I am very unhealthy. I am mostly okay but I can definitely lose 15kg and feel much better (done it before). But when I tried using some tech, what happened? Yes, sure, scour an app full of thousands of meals to say what exactly I am eating every time? Sure! (Especially having in mind it's not at all tuned to Bulgarian cuisine.) It's comical and it's so bad. Motivational reminder apps? Gosh, I want to smash the head of the people who thought this was a good idea. I guess they work for many others, definitely not for me and a whole large group of humans though. It's annoying and corny and nothing else. If I can put a bracelet on my wrist and it can track my pulse, sleep and maybe scan my veins for the chemicals coursing through my body, and if I get a smartphone app that can photograph my food and do precise automatic calorie counting, then I am in. (Also if the bracelet can detect my workouts.) Before that, forget it. It turns something that you should feel good about, into a series of awful menial chores. The current state of affairs is, as I mentioned in the start, straight out hilarious. The tech is primitive.
• rpazyaquian 10y ago
  There's no point in making technology for something we don't even have the science down for. Unless, that technology can be used to improve the science...hm. That might be the best thing to do right now, for startups - how can you build technology such that it improves the science behind obesity research?
• hexhex 10y ago
  I don't think that's a problem that is solvable with technology. It's a social problem. Less social inequality and better education, taxes on unhealthy food, less working hours. That would be necessary to tackle the problem. Obesity is just a symptom. I love the SV mindset: Let's not get to the reasons of something, let's just build an app and everything will be good.
  • ccvannorman 10y ago
    My gears are turning.. an app that tells you the viability of solving a given problem using an app. It would be powered by AWS array on the back end using google's latest AI, TensorFlow, and it would also be community driven like Yelp. We'd make our profits by taking advantage of platform network advantage to connect cofounders, investors, and customers for the startups who use us and move forwards.
    • traviswingo 10y ago
      Guys, I'm not sure downvoting this was the appropriate response. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this sarcasm?
      • jdietrich 10y ago
        Poe's law in action.
    • CaptainSwing 10y ago
      10/10 would back this
      • RileyJames 10y ago
        Put this on indiegogo now, it fails, you win
    • doingmyting 10y ago
      This would be rubbish. Where is the VR/AR?
• gerbilly 10y ago
  Good luck solving overeating with a smartphone. For some people eating is even more addictive than Facebook or Candy Crush.
• Xunxi 10y ago
  I read this obesity ascription to carbs a lot and it beats me. I am from an African country where carbohydrate dominant meals are the staple. It is not uncommon to see a families eat 3 square carb laden meals yet obesity is extremely low! So my question is why isnt obesity prevalent in this part of the world?
  • tim333 10y ago
    It's complicated - humans can thrive on a very wide variety of diets. However snacking on sugary stuff seems quite a big thing in the USA and probably not in most of Africa.
  • jcfrei 10y ago
    The nutritional value of staples in the developed world is probably a lot higher (percentage of digestible carbohydrates per serving).
  • dpc59 10y ago
    They're more complicated carbs with a lot of fiber, they're not eating cookies full of refined sugar.
  • perch56 10y ago
    The problem for the obesity in developed countries is sugar. I recently read this article that sums up much better than I could explain: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin?CMP=fb_gu https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-co...
• jklinger410 10y ago
  I'm the Director of Online Marketing for KingFit Preventive Health & Wellness and I would be remiss if I didn't at least drop a line in on this thread. We're currently developing a mobile app + clinician dashboard combo working towards a preventive health solution. Our main focus is diabetes right now but cardiovascular disease, prediabetes, and type 2 diabetes are all in our sights here early on. Many of the apps functions revolve around simple dietary and exercise solutions to combat these illnesses. We also plan on using IBM's Watson to improve suggestions for the patient and the doctor. We're still early, but check us out at https://kingfit.org https://kingfit.org
  • rvdm 10y ago
    Curious, do you have a solution to automating food intake logging? Props for using Shopify!
    • jklinger410 10y ago
      First we're trying to master the food suggestion part of that equation. We want to encourage people to eat the healthiest thing they have available. This means our tool doesn't try and punish you if you aren't shopping perfectly. By using an "SOS" button, we are going to work with what our users have access to and make suggestions for certain plates at restaurants near the user. There are some emerging IOT products (like smart cups) that we plan on interfacing with that may aid in this process. In short my answer is not yet. But interfacing with IOT health tracking products is a huge part of our platform.
• webmaven 10y ago
  > Calories in, calories out is the golden rule. Lot's of folks have rebutted with the various ways this is an oversimplification, I won't recap them here. I will however add another overlooked factor that most folks don't know about: Our gut bacteria is responsible for a lot of pre-processing, and their efficiency varies a lot depending on the mix of strains you happen to have. So, identical twins, with identical lifestyles and diets, can still have very different experiences with weight gain and loss. Fortunately, this is actually something that (once the mechanisms are better understood) can be fixed quite simply with a fecal transplant.
• maj0rhn 10y ago
  It is untrue that >90% of cardiovascular deaths are attributable to overweight. In fact, if you look at the Framingham model for predicting heart attacks, obesity is not a feature (other than its indirect effects on blood pressure and diabetes). The main cause of cardiovascular disease is hypertension, which is 100% treatable at very low cost and with very high safety. I haven't checked the numbers lately, but it's not too far off to note that only 50% of hypertension is diagnosed and only 50% of patients take their medications. So, the lapse is not in medical science -- we know what to do -- but in healthcare delivery.
• swsieber 10y ago
  I would like to see some over the counter take home device that lets you figure out what spikes your blood sugar, and then creates a diet tailored to. I'd be okay with some finger pricking device. Yes, decreasing caloric intake can cause weight gain - I want to know what the most effective ones to cut are, and replace them with less potently delivered ones.
• rvdm 10y ago
  So something like a GitHub timeline for exercise and healthy eating?
  • techdragon 10y ago
    I have that. It's called a FitBit.
    • rvdm 10y ago
      The fact that you manually have to log your food intake seems like a hurdle though. It's an important part of the puzzle and it takes a lot of discipline to log every single thing you eat. But automating food intake logging sounds difficult…
• sireat 10y ago
  The problem is that eating well and in reasonable amounts does not offer much. It is like that old joke about taking cold shower every morning for 100 years. You know that cheesecake is not very good for you, but what is the alternative? You eat that celery stalk but where does it get you? The best case scenario - raw food eating Jack Lalanne dead at 96. His death heavily shook my belief in healthy eating. Worst case scenario his brother Norman Lalanne and everyones favorite Jeanne Clement neither of which were much for exercise and Jeanne indulged in smokes and chocolate. Sure those are anecdotes but we do not have any healthy 150 year olds. Obesity kills, but non-obesity kills just slightly slower. Slower I define as 10-70 years slower. We need meaningful progress with other aspects of aging (telomere shortenings, cancers etc) before we can tackle obesity.
  • scriptkiddy 10y ago
    Regardless of how long your life is, I would argue that an obese person's life is probably lower quality than a healthy persons life. I'll take quality of quantity myself.
• rgrieselhuber 10y ago
  The hormonal system, speaking as a non-expert of course, seems to have much greater impact than is generally recognized. For men, increasing testosterone has a huge impact on muscle mass, ability to burn fat, etc.
• adamqureshi 10y ago
  The problem is NOT that SIMPLE. We go out with friends drink beer / eat pizza, who does not like pizza! we grow up with this stuff. Not so easy to just give up carbs, it's everywhere. Takes a LOT of mental effort , actually you may need to stop hanging with friends who eat to many carbs! lol Gary Taubes wrote this, can't find the source. Far from being an inert dumping ground for excess calories, fat tissue operates as a reserve energy supply for the body. Its calories are called upon when glucose is running low – that is, between meals, or during fasts and famines. Fat takes instruction from insulin, the hormone responsible for regulating blood sugar. Refined carbohydrates break down at speed into glucose in the blood, prompting the pancreas to produce insulin. When insulin levels rise, fat tissue gets a signal to suck energy out of the blood, and to stop releasing it. So when insulin stays high for unnaturally long, a person gains weight, gets hungrier, and feels fatigued. Then we blame them for it. But, as Gary Taubes puts it, obese people are not fat because they are overeating and sedentary – they are overeating and sedentary because they are fat, or getting fatter.
• adamsea 10y ago
  Replace the people with robots, then they will not need to eat.