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"That is well known and undisputed." Unfortunately, loads of people in this very thread are disputing it. This submission is based upon the bizarre hope that t

"That is well known and undisputed." Unfortunately, loads of people in this very thread are disputing it. This submission is based upon the bizarre hope that there's a mysterious external influence that's actually causing people to gain weight, and not the merely coincidental simultaneous rise in caloric intake. The psychological element is complex and profoundly difficult. That is without question.

inglor_cz 5y ago
I am not sure whether we can reduce this to psychological elements. After all, laboratory rats and wild animals that eat our food leftovers grow fatter too, not just us humans. Arguably, rat or raccoon psychology is rather different from ours. I believe that the problem is not that different from the problem of alcoholism. Everyone lives in a society soaked with alcohol, some people do not feel an urge to drink at all, some people manage to keep their consumption in healthy limits for 50 years, some end up as hopeless wretches in 10 years.
tsimionescu 5y ago
It's very possible that there is an external influence that's causing people to feel the need to eat more and gain more weight from what they're eating - this is precisely my point, and the point of the article. The fact that you can force yourself to eat less than you feel the need to and lose weight in the process does not prove, as you seem to think, that weight gain is simply explained by people being weak willed and eating burgers instead of salad. You still have to ask why this change actually occurred, since it seems that it has occurred in the general US population about 50 years ago and most of the world has been following suit.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  Where did they say it had to do with being "weak willed"? That's your projection.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    That is the implication, if you look through all the comments: people all feel the same, but some know that they shouldn't eat so much while others make excuses, for "complex psychological causes".
PeterisP 5y ago
The whole point of the article is that the rise on caloric intake isn't merely coincidental and simultaneous, but there's some mysterious external influence that causes people in comparable conditions to eat more calories. People in cushy office jobs eating as much calories as they want in 1900 are much less obese than similar people in 2000. How come? It's not that the 1900s office workers put in more effort or attention to limit their calorie consumption and burn more calories, it's entirely the other way around. People in another culture eating a very sweet-heavy diet (and eating as much of it as they want) apparently consume much less calories than similar people in USA. How come? The psychological element apparently wasn't as difficult some decades ago - people in 1960s who had as much food as they wanted, and the same kinds of tempting calorie-rich snacks available, were much less obese not because they were better at overcoming some psychological difficulties, but because apparently much fewer of them had such difficulties to overcome. How come? It would be valid to reduce weight gain to "How to eat as much calories as you should instead of as much calories as you intuitively want" if and only if wanting to eat much more calories than you should is some innate, natural thing. The article points out that the spread of this tendency is a novel thing, it used to be rare, and perhaps it can be made rare again, so it's worth investigating the cause of that unhealthy appetite miscalibration instead of having people fight through the symptom (which they're failing at, because it's hard). If someone's organism was working properly, they should not need to pay attention to CICO as the body will balance both "CI" and "CO" to get a decent non-obese result - the experience of earlier times and other cultures shows that the human body almost always (96% of non-obesity) does that naturally. If now the same mechanism is failing for 40% of the population instead of 4%, that is not caused by a change in ignoring CICO, people were ignoring CICO hundred years ago as well.

inglor_cz 5y ago

I am not sure whether we can reduce this to psychological elements. After all, laboratory rats and wild animals that eat our food leftovers grow fatter too, not just us humans. Arguably, rat or raccoon psychology is rather different from ours. I believe that the problem is not that different from the problem of alcoholism. Everyone lives in a society soaked with alcohol, some people do not feel an urge to drink at all, some people manage to keep their consumption in healthy limits for 50 years, some end up as hopeless wretches in 10 years.

tsimionescu 5y ago

It's very possible that there is an external influence that's causing people to feel the need to eat more and gain more weight from what they're eating - this is precisely my point, and the point of the article. The fact that you can force yourself to eat less than you feel the need to and lose weight in the process does not prove, as you seem to think, that weight gain is simply explained by people being weak willed and eating burgers instead of salad. You still have to ask why this change actually occurred, since it seems that it has occurred in the general US population about 50 years ago and most of the world has been following suit.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
Where did they say it had to do with being "weak willed"? That's your projection.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  That is the implication, if you look through all the comments: people all feel the same, but some know that they shouldn't eat so much while others make excuses, for "complex psychological causes".

PeterisP 5y ago

The whole point of the article is that the rise on caloric intake isn't merely coincidental and simultaneous, but there's some mysterious external influence that causes people in comparable conditions to eat more calories. People in cushy office jobs eating as much calories as they want in 1900 are much less obese than similar people in 2000. How come? It's not that the 1900s office workers put in more effort or attention to limit their calorie consumption and burn more calories, it's entirely the other way around. People in another culture eating a very sweet-heavy diet (and eating as much of it as they want) apparently consume much less calories than similar people in USA. How come? The psychological element apparently wasn't as difficult some decades ago - people in 1960s who had as much food as they wanted, and the same kinds of tempting calorie-rich snacks available, were much less obese not because they were better at overcoming some psychological difficulties, but because apparently much fewer of them had such difficulties to overcome. How come? It would be valid to reduce weight gain to "How to eat as much calories as you should instead of as much calories as you intuitively want" if and only if wanting to eat much more calories than you should is some innate, natural thing. The article points out that the spread of this tendency is a novel thing, it used to be rare, and perhaps it can be made rare again, so it's worth investigating the cause of that unhealthy appetite miscalibration instead of having people fight through the symptom (which they're failing at, because it's hard). If someone's organism was working properly, they should not need to pay attention to CICO as the body will balance both "CI" and "CO" to get a decent non-obese result - the experience of earlier times and other cultures shows that the human body almost always (96% of non-obesity) does that naturally. If now the same mechanism is failing for 40% of the population instead of 4%, that is not caused by a change in ignoring CICO, people were ignoring CICO hundred years ago as well.