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My girlfriend is from Thailand and a few months ago I went to visit her parents and home town. She's from central Thailand. One thing that stuck me was the lack
by pan69 15y ago
My girlfriend is from Thailand and a few months ago I went to visit her parents and home town. She's from central Thailand. One thing that stuck me was the lack of "fat" people walking around. Everyone is skinny and healthy looking, especially older people. When I pointed this out to my girlfriend she said that only the youngest generation of under 10 year old are somewhat fat. This coincides with the first fast food chains and supermarkets opened in her home town about 10 years ago. It's obviously the "western diet" that's doing all this. Chuck full of fat and sugar.
- streptomycin 15y agoThe whole "eating fat makes you fat" thing has been pretty thoroughly discredited.
- pan69 15y agoThe point I was trying to convey is that the "western diet" is causing obesity. Not whether it's the fat, the sugar or something else that's causing it.
- jrockway 15y agoWhy do you think it's the specific components of the food and not the behavior the sellers of that food encourage? Here's my theory. It takes 15 minutes for your body to realize it's full. Fast food chains encourage you to eat a lot of calories in a short period of time; it's what they advertise and it's the kind of product they deliver. This means that if you eat fast food, you are going to eat many more calories than you "want" before you realize you're satiated. If you take a McDonald's meal and turn it into a regular-sized meal with respect to calories, it's unlikely that you are going to get fat. Similarly, if you eat 2000 calories of spinach in one sitting times three meals a day every day, you're going to get fat. The problem is that the body doesn't want to eat 2000 calories of spinach in one sitting, but it does want to eat 2000 calories of cheeseburger and soda in one sitting. In other words, McDonalds makes money because they can sell people more calories than they need. This, in turn, makes their customers gain weight. (There are some details here, about how much easier it is to digest fat and carbohydrates than protein. But even if you eat a lot of protein, you'll still gain weight. Hell, that's what people who intentionally want to gain weight eat, they just eat a lot of it.)
- rdouble 15y agoIt would be impossible to eat 2000 calories of spinach even in one sitting. that would be close to 50 pounds of spinach.
- dredmorbius 15y agoWhile I agree, it's the combination (plus salt) that's been identified as particularly nefarious. See The End of Overeating by David Kessler, former FDA commissioner.
- pan69 15y agoYou might find this video interesting as well. Sugar: The Bitter Truth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
- dredmorbius 15y agoI know it well, good one. Thanks for posting.
- veidr 15y agoTrue, but the whole "eating the modern American industrial processed garbage diet makes you fat" thing is pretty much obvious.
- dredmorbius 15y agoThere is a school of thought which has it that it's not the diet, but speaking English, which is the cause of all ills of modern living: http://www.citehr.com/10746-speaking-english-apparently-what-kills-you.html http://www.citehr.com/10746-speaking-english-apparently-what... (For the irony/humor deprived, this is ironic humor.)