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> Perhaps the government should simply pay people to keep their BMI under 25. The problem is we are doing the opposite: We pay people (subsidize) their unhealt
by itake 4y ago
> Perhaps the government should simply pay people to keep their BMI under 25.
The problem is we are doing the opposite: We pay people (subsidize) their unhealthy food (corn, sugar, and beef).
We should just make healthy food cheaper.
- josephcsible 4y agoBut it's not the kinds of food you eat that make you fat. It's how much food you eat. Remember the Twinkie diet?
- hgomersall 4y agoThere's more to being healthy than being not fat.
- josephcsible 4y agoSure, but this article is about obesity in particular.
- dionidium 4y agoIs there? Because the evidence for weight loss to improve health is consistent, abundant, and overwhelming. And the evidence for all the other stuff seems to reside mostly in the realm of unverified "common sense."
- swatcoder 4y agoWhat you eat and how much you eat don’t seem to be strictly independent from each other, especially when applied over long periods.
- mjthrowaway1 4y agoWeight is a proxy for all sorts of related diet issues. You can lose weight on a Twinkie diet and not be metabolically healthy at the same time. A healthy diet requires more than just the appropriate caloric intake. Although that’s a great starting point.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y agometabolically, puh, what's that even mean?
- mjthrowaway1 4y ago“Clinically speaking, metabolic health is defined by optimal levels of five markers: blood sugar, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, blood pressure, and waist circumference—without using medication.“ Things like a high sugar Twinkie diet will expose you to diabetes risk independent of calorie intake.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y agoI was being sarcastic — but genuinely thank you.
- josephcsible 4y agoI'm not saying people should actually follow the Twinkie diet because they want to lose weight, just that a handful of people have done it as an example to prove it's only CICO that matters. Besides, anyone with the discipline to follow the Twinkie diet could easily follow a healthier diet too.
- nosianu 4y agoYou don't eat only for energy, you also eat for nutrients - and they are a lot more varied and complex than the standard list of protein, carbs, fat, vitamins. To use an extreme example so that it's easier to relate to: You can eat only sugar and nothing else and far exceed your energy requirements, but you will still have lots of appetite despite already having eaten too much in just energy. Food composition matters - and optimizing for energy (counting calories) is a losing battle. Of course, this also requires that people have had experience with various foods. Kids grown on mostly just fast food, pizza and coke probably won't be able to develop healthy habits no matter what. Yes it is technically possible to force a body to remain slim by counting calories. It also is either very cruel or, if you manage it on your own, requires an absurd amount of discipline to constantly battle your desires. Yes some people have a huge appetite for the obviously wrong kinds of foods, like more pizza and more ice cream and no water please because it "does not have taste" but coke or some other industry-made drink. When the body was "mis-trained" it can't magically desire the right stuff that it never learned about. The environment matters too, it's probably a lot easier to not eat terribly in Japan than in some US mid-west town.
- josephcsible 4y agoI know eating healthy food for non-caloric nutrients is important. But don't most people already eat at least some healthy food? Couldn't most obese people get back to a healthy weight just by cutting out junk food, without adding any more healthy food to replace it?
- binbashthefash 4y agoThey're usually poor and the junk food is subsidized. The us has underground cheese bunkers to keep the dairy industry running, you won't be seeing a nutritionally complete tempeh salad on the dollar menu.
- dionidium 4y agoIs there literally any straightforward evidence that diet composition affects mortality?
- itake 4y agoThese subsidized 'unhealthy' foods are highly calorie dense. While in-theory, you can eat less, you will not feel full like you would with low calorie dense food. For example, an Apple weights 200g and is 110 calories. Whereas a double cheeseburger at McDonald's is 173 grams but 450 calories.
- thallium205 4y agoWe also outlaw health plans providing discounts to those who lead healthy lifestyles.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoWe also have car centric city planning, which is going to take untold amounts of time and capital to shift away from. https://www.flickr.com/photos/carltonreid/4646637491 https://www.flickr.com/photos/carltonreid/4646637491
- tomjen3 4y agoGood thing then that exercise (while healthy in other ways) burns relatively few calories.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- phpisthebest 4y agoWe have had a car culture for far longer than we have had an obesity problem Cars are not the reason this nation is getting fatter
- 0xcde4c3db 4y agoRight. The argument for why they're bad is straightforward, but the rankings don't line up. [1] [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_r...
- wyre 4y agoMiles driven per capita would be a better comparison. Americans drive more than any other country. https://www.thecarcrashdetective.com/americans-drive-more-dying/ https://www.thecarcrashdetective.com/americans-drive-more-dy...
- skookum 4y agoThe people farming the healthy food are not a big enough voting bloc for this to happen.
- damnesian 4y ago