8 ms·

If this is interesting I highly recommend "The Hungry Brain". Some other thoughts: Obesity is not a disease of over-eating, it is a disease of managing hunger

by csours 4y ago

If this is interesting I highly recommend "The Hungry Brain". Some other thoughts: Obesity is not a disease of over-eating, it is a disease of managing hunger. "Losing weight" is a terrible goal. "Changing Body Composition" is a much better goal. Specifically change the proportion of fat to muscle. ---- If your immediate answer is "Those are the same thing but with different words!!!" then here are some questions to get you thinking: * Can you measure someone else's hunger and compare it to your own? * What parts of hunger come from perceptions and what parts come from psychological conditioning? * Can you survive being hungry? Can you survive starvation? How does your body know the difference? * How does food energy relate to hunger? For CICO a Calorie is always a Calorie; is that also true for hunger? * How do you measure progress towards a goal and how does it feel when you can't perceive progress? * Excess body weight can put stress on your joints, but doesn't generally have any other negative effects. Excess body fat has many negative effects. A scale is cheap and consistent. Body fat monitors and measurement isn't always cheap or consistent (or accurate).

JamesBarney 4y ago
Second this, Stephan Guyenet is a brilliant guy.
sph 4y ago
> Obesity is not a disease of over-eating, it is a disease of managing hunger. Indeed it is, and the solution to managing hunger (i.e. returning your whole insulin and leptin system to a more optimal baseline) is NOT going for a 90% carbohydrate diet. That's exactly why we have a bloody obesity epidemic. It's a fun thought experiment, but reading the comments in here people actually think this is genius and sustainable.
- nostrebored 4y ago
  CGMs should disillusion people of this pretty quickly. I really wish more people would try them for a month just to see how they respond to certain foods.
  - ericb 4y ago
    CGM ?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - csours 4y ago
      Continuous Glucose Monitor. Related topic: Glycogen storage in the liver and muscles and glycogen depletion
  - jrvarela56 4y ago
    I did and would recommend. It shows you the impact of foods in your blood glucose and made it easier to convince myself and change my behavior. Some lessons I got from using it for 2 months (these are personal, some should apply to most people): - Plantains cause a BIG glucose spike (I thought they didnt; in my case even more than pasta or rice) - Walking ~10min after a meal removes the glucose spike of even pretty large meals - Intense exercise before (duh) removes the glucose spike of any meal, even with big desert/ice cream - Eating veggies (or taking fiber pills) before a meal removes the glucose spike of most meals Some of these things I had read about online, but seeing the impact live on my own blood glucose made the lessons stick.
    - dubswithus 4y ago
      Correct me if I'm wrong but I feel that your comment is trying to connect a "big glucose spike" with the cause of diabetes. They are not connected. Millions of people are eating apples, grapes, plantains, strawberries, raspberries, etc every year without issue. To tell people to avoid these healthy foods is not backed by the science. And so what if it raises your levels temporarily? Running raises my heart rate and blood pressure. Does that mean I'm about to die?
      - pcorsaro 4y ago
        That's not what this person is saying. "Big glucose spike(s)" actually are the cause of diabetes. The more regular spikes a person has, the more resistant to insulin they become, which is where type 2 diabetes starts. The point of the comments I believe was just to say that certain foods cause different responses in different people. If plantains cause a large spike in a person, I would say that person should probably not eat them every day all the time.
- PuppyTailWags 4y ago
  By this logic, the obesity epidemic should've happened in the 17th century when the potato was introduced to the rest of the world and became the staple crop of poor farmers everywhere.
  - sph 4y ago
    They did not eat a potato only diet, however poor they were. I actually have relatives in a third world country that however poor they were they'd have a diet of mostly starches but including decent protein, even if it's just fish, literal bugs, small rodents and other subpar meat. They'd laugh you out the village if you'd tell them they can live on yams and tapioca alone. Staple doesn't mean one food diet.
- TrisMcC 4y ago
  Do you really believe that the obesity epidemic was caused by people eating 90% carbohydrate diets? The "high carb meals" at McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut... are all also (and more per calorie) high in fat. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to your mixed-green salad? That has turned into a high fat salad. Most people cannot avoid cheese or nuts on salad, either. Eating the potato diet with sour cream/butter/cheese: High fat.
  - devoutsalsa 4y ago
    I'm overweight because I eat too much. Eat caloric surplus, gain weight. That part isn't complicated. Why I eat too much is another question...
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
      It's funny too, because I have perfectly logged data showing that the weeks I eat fewer than about 1800 calories reliably, (because I have an incredibly sedentary lifestyle) reliably and predictably lower my weight. I've literally got a science experiment in my own body that shows reducing calories in, without reducing the actual design of my meals, reduces my body mass. I'm willing to accept that there are some minor irregularities and difficulties that make "Calories in == Calories out" not 100% accurate, but I'm betting the effect size is closer to +-10%, and therefore easily discarded for approximations, even though they are scientifically significant and could create a more accurate model.
      - bumby 4y ago
        I agree that the CICO is a model that works, but it is at least somewhat complicated by the fact that CO is a function of CI. I.e., what you eat takes different amounts of energy to metabolize so it also contributes to what you burn. If I eat 1800 kcal of protein I may have higher CO than if I ate 1800 kcal of simple carbohydrates. There's already a lot of uncertainty when most people measure their calories (very few people actually weigh their food) and this just adds another layer of uncertainty. I have a feeling those all combine to make it inaccurate enough in practice for some people to claim the CICO model doesn't work.
- mpalczewski 4y ago
  > Indeed it is, and the solution to managing hunger (i.e. returning your whole insulin and leptin system to a more optimal baseline) is NOT going for a 90% carbohydrate diet. Leptin system returns to a more optimal baseline with weight loss. Insulin returns to a more optimal baseline by increasing insulin sensitivity. Exercise does this most effectively, loosing weight also does this. Low carb diets don't do this directly, only through weight loss. Managing hunger is managing your dopamine response. Eating nothing but one food, will make you very bored of your food. You won't be looking for food as entertainment, stress relief, or a cure for boredom(dopamine). You will only eat for true hunger(lack of dopamine can feel similar).
  - bumby 4y ago
    >Exercise does this most effectively Curious, does it depend on the type of exercise and, if so, do we know what mechanisms cause some types to have a disproportionate impact?
    - leksak 4y ago
      I believe that the more glycolytic the type of exercise is the greater the impact. Thus, higher intensity exercise is preferable if the goal is to improve insulin sensitivity which I reckon is a transient improvement and that a lot of it is thanks to GLUT4-translocation within the muscles in response to the exercise. This translocation means that less insulin needs to be secreted to deal with carbohydrates after training. https://scholar.google.se/scholar_url?url=https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yutaka-Nakaya/publication/13711184_Bradykinin_directly_GLUT4_translocation_via_an_insulin-independent_pathway/links/56a6f61808ae0fd8b3fc777f/Bradykinin-directly-GLUT4-translocation-via-an-insulin-independent-pathway.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CfKBYoG8GpuVy9YP69K4iAE&scisig=AAGBfm3SAFuGanI_PZvtcao8Ul7k5Y9H0w&oi=scholarr https://scholar.google.se/scholar_url?url=https://www.resear...
  - imtringued 4y ago
    Sorry but your comment is complete nonsense. Insulin reacts faster than weight loss. In fact it is so fast, every time you wake up, your insulin resistance recovers a little bit every morning after you sleep. It is entirely possible to be obese without insulin resistance and to be skinny with insulin resistance. It is completely orthogonal to weight but insulin resistance makes it much easier to gain even more weight.
- seadan83 4y ago
  My unsupported personal belief is that the human body processes different carbohydrates in very different ways. Carbs that come from starch are not equivalent to carbs from cane sugar, and yet again not equivalent to honey, and again not equivalent to high fructose corn sryup, and again different from breads & pasta. Ratio of fiber to carbohydrate and how that carbohydrate is processed by the body is also important as well. Hence, french fries are not good, they have added sugar, the skin is removed, and they have a lot of added fats from the fried oils. That strikes me as a world of difference compared to a whole baked potato consumed with a sauteed broccolli with a side salad (plenty of fiber). Unrelated, and unsolicited 2 cents, IMO it's all about eating as many fibrous and leafy greens as possible. At that point, a moderate side of lean meat, potato, carb, practially whatever - does not matter so long as the fibrous and leafy greens are the majority source of calories.
  - goodpoint 4y ago
    > personal belief is that the human body processes different carbohydrates in very different ways This is nutritional science 101. Slow-digesting carbohydrates like big-flake oats are really good. Fast-digesting things like sugars, processed foods, fast food and meat products are bad as they create spikes in the glycemic index.
    - autoexec 4y ago
      > Slow-digesting carbohydrates like big-flake oats are really good. if only they tasted that way!
      - rootusrootus 4y ago
        With enough brown sugar and butter they sure do. But I suppose that defeats the point...
    - seadan83 4y ago
      I agree. I do wonder and was speaking a bit to other factors that I do not know but suspect, notably: - Do a high glycemic index food have a higher propensity to be stored on the body vs actually used? - Is the caloric absorption rate of high fructose corn sryup higher than say honey? Speaking to this, the body makes different choices on whether a food passes through you, is absorbed and used, or whether it is stored. It makes different choices in where and how to store that energy, all in all which makes me think that not all carbohydrates (or calories, or foods) are equal when actually consumed. That is not even getting started with on gut fauna and the effects of different foods on the microbial environments in our guts.
Pakdef 4y ago
> "Losing weight" is a terrible goal. "Changing Body Composition" is a much better goal. Specifically change the proportion of fat to muscle. 400lb of muscles or fat is probably not healthy either way...
- csours 4y ago
  I don't think this is a good faith comment. It is very difficult and rare to add that much muscle.
  - Pakdef 4y ago
    I just don't know how much muscles steroid junkies can add, but either way it's not healthy... but yeah you are probably right that it isn't that much. Also, that parent comment was saying that you should trade fat for muscles, so my comment still stands.
    - zeroxfe 4y ago
      > Also, that parent comment was saying that you should trade fat for muscles, so my comment still stands. Great -- you win by technicality! For the vast majority of people, the parent made a very reasonable statement, so comments like this are not helpful.
      - Pakdef 4y ago
        > so comments like this are not helpful. Maybe you think my comment was not helpful, but his comment was ignoring many variables. Eat less if you are fat and do cardio no matter what.
stakkur 4y ago
No, obesity is a metabolic problem. And barring personal medical issues, diets of starch and sugar are the cause. [EDIT], Folks, obesity is a result of metabolic disease. Obesity is an epidemic, and the science is abundant on this. This isn't a grammatic nuance, it's the essence of the global obesity epidemic that results from diet and eating habits. It's literally the foundation of the growing understanding amongst medical professionals of why low-carb diets and fasting work dramatically on this.
- csours 4y ago
  I feel it would be accurate to say that obesity is also a metabolic problem. The difficulty with disentangling "what is obesity" is that the body is full of feedback and feed-forward mechanisms. You can look at any part of the machinery and say "here is the problem". There are a significant number of systems that deal with adiposity, hunger, and energy management and allocation. Once we find something to blame for a problem we often stop looking. Processed carbs are not compatible with a sedentary lifestyle, that is true. But our ancestors ate carbs for generations. Many modern cultures eat carbs and don't have a big problem with obesity.
- edanm 4y ago
  > It's literally the foundation of the growing understanding amongst medical professionals of why low-carb diets and fasting work dramatically on this. Do you have a good source to support the idea that there is a "growing understanding" that "low-card diets and fasting work"? I'm fairly well-read on this subject (though a complete layman), but my general understanding of today's scientific consensus is that there is nothing, or almost nothing special about low-card diets or fasting. Most of the people who are purporting that these diets are somehow better (for various meanings of better) are stating heteredox views. They might still be right! (Though I doubt it.) But I'm specifically pushing back on the narrative that this is a growing consensus.
fauigerzigerk 4y ago
>Obesity is not a disease of over-eating, it is a disease of managing hunger. If that is so, why is obesity so much worse in some countries than in others? Are Italians really so much better at managing hunger than Americans? It seems far more plausible to me that the differences in obesity between countries are caused by simple cultural habits than by some complex psychological task called managing hunger, which seems less likely to be cultural.
- csours 4y ago
  > It seems far more plausible to me that the differences in obesity between countries are caused by simple cultural habits than by some complex psychological task called managing hunger, which seems less likely to be cultural. I don't see a clear point here. Culture has a HUGE impact on psychology. Also, managing hunger is Psychological AND Physiological.
  - fauigerzigerk 4y ago
    >Culture has a HUGE impact on psychology. I would agree with that in general, but hunger seems like such an incredibly old issue to deal with from evolutionary perspective. Managing hunger is something "we" have been doing for millions of years and it has always been at the very center of our survival as a species. The idea that a cultural group could lose its ability to deal with such a key psychological and biological necessity in a short period of time just seems far less likely to me than a change in habits brought about by far more recent industrial and socioeconomic circumstances. Take that from yet another pseudonymous internet autodidact ;-)
    - csours 4y ago
      > The idea that a cultural group could lose its ability to deal with such a key psychological and biological necessity in a short period of time just seems far less likely to me than a change in habits brought about by industrial and socio-economic circumstances. But those industrial and socio-economic circumstances also had a huge impact on culture! It's super complicated! I am not strongly anti-capitalist, but consider the impact of capitalism on food: Take low cost ingredients. Put them together in an appealing way. Sell the product at a relatively low price (higher than the ingredients, but not much). Advertise the product widely in such a way to condition people to desire your product. I am describing junk food of course. Walk into a convenience store or look at the checkout lines of a grocery store. Look at all the food you are conditioned to desire. edit: I am not blaming capitalism as the single cause of obesity. There is much more to it than that.
TameAntelope 4y ago
> Excess body weight can put stress on your joints, but doesn't generally have any other negative effects. That seems to contradict the Harvard School of Public Health's article[0] that says: > The results showed that participants with BMI of 22.5-<25 kg/m2 (considered a healthy weight range) had the lowest mortality risk during the time they were followed. The risk of mortality increased significantly throughout the overweight range: a BMI of 25-<27.5 kg/m2 was associated with a 7% higher risk of mortality; a BMI of 27.5-<30 kg/m2 was associated with a 20% higher risk; a BMI of 30.0-<35.0 kg/m2 was associated with a 45% higher risk; a BMI of 35.0-<40.0 kg/m2 was associated with a 94% higher risk; and a BMI of 40.0-<60.0 kg/m2 was associated with a nearly three-fold risk. Every 5 units higher BMI above 25 kg/m2 was associated with about 31% higher risk of premature death. Participants who were underweight also had a higher mortality risk. These findings don't seem to discriminate on the source of the BMI, only on its existence. [0] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/overweight-obesity-mortality-risk/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/overweight-...
- csours 4y ago
  If they didn't control for the ratio of lean body mass to fat, then it doesn't actually contradict my point. If the findings don't discriminate on the source of the BMI, then you just don't know. It's not evidence. > "They looked at participants’ body mass index (BMI)—an indicator of body fat calculated by dividing a person’s weight in kilograms by their height in meters squared (kg/m2)." BMI is the WORST indicator of body fat precisely because it does not account for muscle mass. BMI is only suitable for population level studies, it is not suitable for individual health decisions. Put another way - if I go to the gym religiously, I could gain a few pounds but also lose a few percent of body fat. What will my medical tests show in general? Will my clothes fit better? Will I be able to climb stairs more easily? BMI shows none of that.
  - BoorishBears 4y ago
    > BMI is the WORST indicator of body fat precisely because it does not account for muscle mass. BMI is only suitable for population level studies, it is not suitable for individual health decisions. It works for the people who need it most. Sure you might just be some 5% body-fat tren cycling bodybuilder with an "obese" BMI... but in reality for most people the higher up you go, the more urgent of an indicator it is that someone should lose weight for their health.

by csours 4y ago

JamesBarney 4y ago

Second this, Stephan Guyenet is a brilliant guy.

sph 4y ago

> Obesity is not a disease of over-eating, it is a disease of managing hunger. Indeed it is, and the solution to managing hunger (i.e. returning your whole insulin and leptin system to a more optimal baseline) is NOT going for a 90% carbohydrate diet. That's exactly why we have a bloody obesity epidemic. It's a fun thought experiment, but reading the comments in here people actually think this is genius and sustainable.

nostrebored 4y ago
CGMs should disillusion people of this pretty quickly. I really wish more people would try them for a month just to see how they respond to certain foods.
- ericb 4y ago
  CGM ?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - csours 4y ago
    Continuous Glucose Monitor. Related topic: Glycogen storage in the liver and muscles and glycogen depletion
- jrvarela56 4y ago
  I did and would recommend. It shows you the impact of foods in your blood glucose and made it easier to convince myself and change my behavior. Some lessons I got from using it for 2 months (these are personal, some should apply to most people): - Plantains cause a BIG glucose spike (I thought they didnt; in my case even more than pasta or rice) - Walking ~10min after a meal removes the glucose spike of even pretty large meals - Intense exercise before (duh) removes the glucose spike of any meal, even with big desert/ice cream - Eating veggies (or taking fiber pills) before a meal removes the glucose spike of most meals Some of these things I had read about online, but seeing the impact live on my own blood glucose made the lessons stick.
  - dubswithus 4y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong but I feel that your comment is trying to connect a "big glucose spike" with the cause of diabetes. They are not connected. Millions of people are eating apples, grapes, plantains, strawberries, raspberries, etc every year without issue. To tell people to avoid these healthy foods is not backed by the science. And so what if it raises your levels temporarily? Running raises my heart rate and blood pressure. Does that mean I'm about to die?
    - pcorsaro 4y ago
      That's not what this person is saying. "Big glucose spike(s)" actually are the cause of diabetes. The more regular spikes a person has, the more resistant to insulin they become, which is where type 2 diabetes starts. The point of the comments I believe was just to say that certain foods cause different responses in different people. If plantains cause a large spike in a person, I would say that person should probably not eat them every day all the time.
PuppyTailWags 4y ago
By this logic, the obesity epidemic should've happened in the 17th century when the potato was introduced to the rest of the world and became the staple crop of poor farmers everywhere.
- sph 4y ago
  They did not eat a potato only diet, however poor they were. I actually have relatives in a third world country that however poor they were they'd have a diet of mostly starches but including decent protein, even if it's just fish, literal bugs, small rodents and other subpar meat. They'd laugh you out the village if you'd tell them they can live on yams and tapioca alone. Staple doesn't mean one food diet.
TrisMcC 4y ago
Do you really believe that the obesity epidemic was caused by people eating 90% carbohydrate diets? The "high carb meals" at McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut... are all also (and more per calorie) high in fat. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to your mixed-green salad? That has turned into a high fat salad. Most people cannot avoid cheese or nuts on salad, either. Eating the potato diet with sour cream/butter/cheese: High fat.
- devoutsalsa 4y ago
  I'm overweight because I eat too much. Eat caloric surplus, gain weight. That part isn't complicated. Why I eat too much is another question...
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    It's funny too, because I have perfectly logged data showing that the weeks I eat fewer than about 1800 calories reliably, (because I have an incredibly sedentary lifestyle) reliably and predictably lower my weight. I've literally got a science experiment in my own body that shows reducing calories in, without reducing the actual design of my meals, reduces my body mass. I'm willing to accept that there are some minor irregularities and difficulties that make "Calories in == Calories out" not 100% accurate, but I'm betting the effect size is closer to +-10%, and therefore easily discarded for approximations, even though they are scientifically significant and could create a more accurate model.
    - bumby 4y ago
      I agree that the CICO is a model that works, but it is at least somewhat complicated by the fact that CO is a function of CI. I.e., what you eat takes different amounts of energy to metabolize so it also contributes to what you burn. If I eat 1800 kcal of protein I may have higher CO than if I ate 1800 kcal of simple carbohydrates. There's already a lot of uncertainty when most people measure their calories (very few people actually weigh their food) and this just adds another layer of uncertainty. I have a feeling those all combine to make it inaccurate enough in practice for some people to claim the CICO model doesn't work.
mpalczewski 4y ago
> Indeed it is, and the solution to managing hunger (i.e. returning your whole insulin and leptin system to a more optimal baseline) is NOT going for a 90% carbohydrate diet. Leptin system returns to a more optimal baseline with weight loss. Insulin returns to a more optimal baseline by increasing insulin sensitivity. Exercise does this most effectively, loosing weight also does this. Low carb diets don't do this directly, only through weight loss. Managing hunger is managing your dopamine response. Eating nothing but one food, will make you very bored of your food. You won't be looking for food as entertainment, stress relief, or a cure for boredom(dopamine). You will only eat for true hunger(lack of dopamine can feel similar).
- bumby 4y ago
  >Exercise does this most effectively Curious, does it depend on the type of exercise and, if so, do we know what mechanisms cause some types to have a disproportionate impact?
  - leksak 4y ago
    I believe that the more glycolytic the type of exercise is the greater the impact. Thus, higher intensity exercise is preferable if the goal is to improve insulin sensitivity which I reckon is a transient improvement and that a lot of it is thanks to GLUT4-translocation within the muscles in response to the exercise. This translocation means that less insulin needs to be secreted to deal with carbohydrates after training. https://scholar.google.se/scholar_url?url=https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yutaka-Nakaya/publication/13711184_Bradykinin_directly_GLUT4_translocation_via_an_insulin-independent_pathway/links/56a6f61808ae0fd8b3fc777f/Bradykinin-directly-GLUT4-translocation-via-an-insulin-independent-pathway.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CfKBYoG8GpuVy9YP69K4iAE&scisig=AAGBfm3SAFuGanI_PZvtcao8Ul7k5Y9H0w&oi=scholarr https://scholar.google.se/scholar_url?url=https://www.resear...
- imtringued 4y ago
  Sorry but your comment is complete nonsense. Insulin reacts faster than weight loss. In fact it is so fast, every time you wake up, your insulin resistance recovers a little bit every morning after you sleep. It is entirely possible to be obese without insulin resistance and to be skinny with insulin resistance. It is completely orthogonal to weight but insulin resistance makes it much easier to gain even more weight.
seadan83 4y ago
My unsupported personal belief is that the human body processes different carbohydrates in very different ways. Carbs that come from starch are not equivalent to carbs from cane sugar, and yet again not equivalent to honey, and again not equivalent to high fructose corn sryup, and again different from breads & pasta. Ratio of fiber to carbohydrate and how that carbohydrate is processed by the body is also important as well. Hence, french fries are not good, they have added sugar, the skin is removed, and they have a lot of added fats from the fried oils. That strikes me as a world of difference compared to a whole baked potato consumed with a sauteed broccolli with a side salad (plenty of fiber). Unrelated, and unsolicited 2 cents, IMO it's all about eating as many fibrous and leafy greens as possible. At that point, a moderate side of lean meat, potato, carb, practially whatever - does not matter so long as the fibrous and leafy greens are the majority source of calories.
- goodpoint 4y ago
  > personal belief is that the human body processes different carbohydrates in very different ways This is nutritional science 101. Slow-digesting carbohydrates like big-flake oats are really good. Fast-digesting things like sugars, processed foods, fast food and meat products are bad as they create spikes in the glycemic index.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    > Slow-digesting carbohydrates like big-flake oats are really good. if only they tasted that way!
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      With enough brown sugar and butter they sure do. But I suppose that defeats the point...
  - seadan83 4y ago
    I agree. I do wonder and was speaking a bit to other factors that I do not know but suspect, notably: - Do a high glycemic index food have a higher propensity to be stored on the body vs actually used? - Is the caloric absorption rate of high fructose corn sryup higher than say honey? Speaking to this, the body makes different choices on whether a food passes through you, is absorbed and used, or whether it is stored. It makes different choices in where and how to store that energy, all in all which makes me think that not all carbohydrates (or calories, or foods) are equal when actually consumed. That is not even getting started with on gut fauna and the effects of different foods on the microbial environments in our guts.

Pakdef 4y ago

> "Losing weight" is a terrible goal. "Changing Body Composition" is a much better goal. Specifically change the proportion of fat to muscle. 400lb of muscles or fat is probably not healthy either way...

csours 4y ago
I don't think this is a good faith comment. It is very difficult and rare to add that much muscle.
- Pakdef 4y ago
  I just don't know how much muscles steroid junkies can add, but either way it's not healthy... but yeah you are probably right that it isn't that much. Also, that parent comment was saying that you should trade fat for muscles, so my comment still stands.
  - zeroxfe 4y ago
    > Also, that parent comment was saying that you should trade fat for muscles, so my comment still stands. Great -- you win by technicality! For the vast majority of people, the parent made a very reasonable statement, so comments like this are not helpful.
    - Pakdef 4y ago
      > so comments like this are not helpful. Maybe you think my comment was not helpful, but his comment was ignoring many variables. Eat less if you are fat and do cardio no matter what.

stakkur 4y ago

No, obesity is a metabolic problem. And barring personal medical issues, diets of starch and sugar are the cause. [EDIT], Folks, obesity is a result of metabolic disease. Obesity is an epidemic, and the science is abundant on this. This isn't a grammatic nuance, it's the essence of the global obesity epidemic that results from diet and eating habits. It's literally the foundation of the growing understanding amongst medical professionals of why low-carb diets and fasting work dramatically on this.

csours 4y ago
I feel it would be accurate to say that obesity is also a metabolic problem. The difficulty with disentangling "what is obesity" is that the body is full of feedback and feed-forward mechanisms. You can look at any part of the machinery and say "here is the problem". There are a significant number of systems that deal with adiposity, hunger, and energy management and allocation. Once we find something to blame for a problem we often stop looking. Processed carbs are not compatible with a sedentary lifestyle, that is true. But our ancestors ate carbs for generations. Many modern cultures eat carbs and don't have a big problem with obesity.
edanm 4y ago
> It's literally the foundation of the growing understanding amongst medical professionals of why low-carb diets and fasting work dramatically on this. Do you have a good source to support the idea that there is a "growing understanding" that "low-card diets and fasting work"? I'm fairly well-read on this subject (though a complete layman), but my general understanding of today's scientific consensus is that there is nothing, or almost nothing special about low-card diets or fasting. Most of the people who are purporting that these diets are somehow better (for various meanings of better) are stating heteredox views. They might still be right! (Though I doubt it.) But I'm specifically pushing back on the narrative that this is a growing consensus.

fauigerzigerk 4y ago

>Obesity is not a disease of over-eating, it is a disease of managing hunger. If that is so, why is obesity so much worse in some countries than in others? Are Italians really so much better at managing hunger than Americans? It seems far more plausible to me that the differences in obesity between countries are caused by simple cultural habits than by some complex psychological task called managing hunger, which seems less likely to be cultural.

csours 4y ago
> It seems far more plausible to me that the differences in obesity between countries are caused by simple cultural habits than by some complex psychological task called managing hunger, which seems less likely to be cultural. I don't see a clear point here. Culture has a HUGE impact on psychology. Also, managing hunger is Psychological AND Physiological.
- fauigerzigerk 4y ago
  >Culture has a HUGE impact on psychology. I would agree with that in general, but hunger seems like such an incredibly old issue to deal with from evolutionary perspective. Managing hunger is something "we" have been doing for millions of years and it has always been at the very center of our survival as a species. The idea that a cultural group could lose its ability to deal with such a key psychological and biological necessity in a short period of time just seems far less likely to me than a change in habits brought about by far more recent industrial and socioeconomic circumstances. Take that from yet another pseudonymous internet autodidact ;-)
  - csours 4y ago
    > The idea that a cultural group could lose its ability to deal with such a key psychological and biological necessity in a short period of time just seems far less likely to me than a change in habits brought about by industrial and socio-economic circumstances. But those industrial and socio-economic circumstances also had a huge impact on culture! It's super complicated! I am not strongly anti-capitalist, but consider the impact of capitalism on food: Take low cost ingredients. Put them together in an appealing way. Sell the product at a relatively low price (higher than the ingredients, but not much). Advertise the product widely in such a way to condition people to desire your product. I am describing junk food of course. Walk into a convenience store or look at the checkout lines of a grocery store. Look at all the food you are conditioned to desire. edit: I am not blaming capitalism as the single cause of obesity. There is much more to it than that.

TameAntelope 4y ago

> Excess body weight can put stress on your joints, but doesn't generally have any other negative effects. That seems to contradict the Harvard School of Public Health's article[0] that says: > The results showed that participants with BMI of 22.5-<25 kg/m2 (considered a healthy weight range) had the lowest mortality risk during the time they were followed. The risk of mortality increased significantly throughout the overweight range: a BMI of 25-<27.5 kg/m2 was associated with a 7% higher risk of mortality; a BMI of 27.5-<30 kg/m2 was associated with a 20% higher risk; a BMI of 30.0-<35.0 kg/m2 was associated with a 45% higher risk; a BMI of 35.0-<40.0 kg/m2 was associated with a 94% higher risk; and a BMI of 40.0-<60.0 kg/m2 was associated with a nearly three-fold risk. Every 5 units higher BMI above 25 kg/m2 was associated with about 31% higher risk of premature death. Participants who were underweight also had a higher mortality risk. These findings don't seem to discriminate on the source of the BMI, only on its existence. [0] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/overweight-obesity-mortality-risk/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/overweight-...

csours 4y ago
If they didn't control for the ratio of lean body mass to fat, then it doesn't actually contradict my point. If the findings don't discriminate on the source of the BMI, then you just don't know. It's not evidence. > "They looked at participants’ body mass index (BMI)—an indicator of body fat calculated by dividing a person’s weight in kilograms by their height in meters squared (kg/m2)." BMI is the WORST indicator of body fat precisely because it does not account for muscle mass. BMI is only suitable for population level studies, it is not suitable for individual health decisions. Put another way - if I go to the gym religiously, I could gain a few pounds but also lose a few percent of body fat. What will my medical tests show in general? Will my clothes fit better? Will I be able to climb stairs more easily? BMI shows none of that.
- BoorishBears 4y ago
  > BMI is the WORST indicator of body fat precisely because it does not account for muscle mass. BMI is only suitable for population level studies, it is not suitable for individual health decisions. It works for the people who need it most. Sure you might just be some 5% body-fat tren cycling bodybuilder with an "obese" BMI... but in reality for most people the higher up you go, the more urgent of an indicator it is that someone should lose weight for their health.