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> that these so-called common sense ideas are so deeply held in our society that few have really questioned them Yes, these issues have been studied and questi

> that these so-called common sense ideas are so deeply held in our society that few have really questioned them Yes, these issues have been studied and questioned. In traditional hunter-gatherer societies (people whose diet and lifestyle matches what humans evolved for), obesity is almost unheard of, as are diabetes and other metabolic diseases. But when these same hunter-gatherers adopt a modern lifestyle and diet, their rates of these diseases go way up. From this evidence, we can conclude that obesity is not a purely natural phenomenon, but caused in part by modern lifestyles.

TaylorAlexander 3y ago
> these issues have been studied and questioned Do you actually have studies you can link to that can show this? With a quick search I see a study [1] that both acknowledges that data on hunter-gatherers is light and also finds that total energy expenditure (which I assume is what you mean by the "lifestyle" part of "lifestyle and diet") is roughly the same between this hunter-gatherer society and western cultures: "Like other complex, continuous traits (e.g., stature), environment can clearly influence TEE, as is evident in the elevated energy expenditures of traditional farmers (Table 1). Nonetheless, TEE is remarkably similar across a broad, global sample of populations that span a range of economies, climates, and lifestyles (Fig. 1, ,2).2). Not only is TEE statistically indistinguishable between Westerners and Hadza foragers, but the range of TEE within Western, foraging, and farming populations largely overlap, both at the individual and population levels (Table 1, Fig. 1, ,2).2). We hypothesize that TEE may be a relatively stable, constrained physiological trait for the human species, more a product of our common genetic inheritance than our diverse lifestyles." [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3405064/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3405064/
- tfigueroa 3y ago
  I’d have to do some digging, but these observations are largely moot. The “differences in lifestyle” meme is accurate but incredibly imprecise; hunter-gatherer societies are vastly different than say present-day America, so there’s little practical information to glean from studying these differences. Unless, of course, we want to change to those lifestyles wholesale.
- Georgelemental 3y ago
  That hunter-gatherer tend to have very low rates of obesity and metabolic disorders is well documeted, for example https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/obr.12785 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/obr.12785 . It's also well documented that obesity rates have skyrocketed in recent decades (for example https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-adults-defined-as-obese?tab=chart&facet=none&country=USA~Lower-middle-income~Upper-middle-income~High-income~Low-income https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-adults-defined-a... ). From this evidence, we can conclude that obesity isn't a purely natural phenomenon, it's cause by modern lifestyles. But what part of said lifestyles? We need to look for a culprit(s) that: a) hunter-gathers are insulated from, and b) has greatly increased in just the past few decades, following the trend in rising obesity rates. As you note, there seems to be big change in energy expenditure between hunter-gatherers and us, so that can be ruled out. That would seem to leave us diet changes and environmental contaminants. Sugar is commonly cited as a cause of obesity, but recent increases in obesity rates have been much higher than those in sugar consumption (https://onlinestatbook.com/2/case_studies/sugar.html https://onlinestatbook.com/2/case_studies/sugar.html ). Also, there are hunter-gatherers who eat lots of honey (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0040503 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjourn...) and they are not obese. So what could it be? I don't claim to know the answer, but there are two possibilities that seem plausible to me, that satisfy conditions (a) and (b) above: - Environmental contaminants: http://achemicalhunger.com/ http://achemicalhunger.com/ - Vegetable oils: https://www.jeffnobbs.com/posts/what-causes-chronic-disease https://www.jeffnobbs.com/posts/what-causes-chronic-disease
  - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
    I appreciate the detailed reply. I feel as though your comment here only serves to underscore my original point. We can speak at the population level about fatness overall, but we still do not have any definitive answers for why we see rates increasing or what fat individuals could do to lose weight. Aubrey Gordon has extensively studied diet and weight loss trends that suggest fat people can become skinny people, and has done an incredible job documenting the ways in which these schemes fail to achieve results for most people. If what fat people really want is to be healthy and feel good about themselves, focusing on weight loss may be entirely the wrong objective. If you are eating a healthy diet and getting moderate exercise, you can be healthy even if you are not losing weight. Conversely, people who are naturally skinny can eat a horrible diet and be very unhealthy without being chastised as "unhealthy" by the casual observer. The focus on fatness and weight loss leaves people who struggle to lose weight feeling horrible about themselves, and helps perpetuate anti-fatness in our society which only serves to make fat people's lives even worse. It can simultaneously be true that we are getting fatter as a population and also that common weight loss beliefs are incorrect. Aubrey Gordon's work is crucial in helping us understand how our society mistreats fat people and how common misconceptions about health, weight loss, and what it means to be fat perpetuate harm against fat people.

TaylorAlexander 3y ago

> these issues have been studied and questioned Do you actually have studies you can link to that can show this? With a quick search I see a study [1] that both acknowledges that data on hunter-gatherers is light and also finds that total energy expenditure (which I assume is what you mean by the "lifestyle" part of "lifestyle and diet") is roughly the same between this hunter-gatherer society and western cultures: "Like other complex, continuous traits (e.g., stature), environment can clearly influence TEE, as is evident in the elevated energy expenditures of traditional farmers (Table 1). Nonetheless, TEE is remarkably similar across a broad, global sample of populations that span a range of economies, climates, and lifestyles (Fig. 1, ,2).2). Not only is TEE statistically indistinguishable between Westerners and Hadza foragers, but the range of TEE within Western, foraging, and farming populations largely overlap, both at the individual and population levels (Table 1, Fig. 1, ,2).2). We hypothesize that TEE may be a relatively stable, constrained physiological trait for the human species, more a product of our common genetic inheritance than our diverse lifestyles." [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3405064/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3405064/

tfigueroa 3y ago
I’d have to do some digging, but these observations are largely moot. The “differences in lifestyle” meme is accurate but incredibly imprecise; hunter-gatherer societies are vastly different than say present-day America, so there’s little practical information to glean from studying these differences. Unless, of course, we want to change to those lifestyles wholesale.
Georgelemental 3y ago
That hunter-gatherer tend to have very low rates of obesity and metabolic disorders is well documeted, for example https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/obr.12785 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/obr.12785 . It's also well documented that obesity rates have skyrocketed in recent decades (for example https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-adults-defined-as-obese?tab=chart&facet=none&country=USA~Lower-middle-income~Upper-middle-income~High-income~Low-income https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-adults-defined-a... ). From this evidence, we can conclude that obesity isn't a purely natural phenomenon, it's cause by modern lifestyles. But what part of said lifestyles? We need to look for a culprit(s) that: a) hunter-gathers are insulated from, and b) has greatly increased in just the past few decades, following the trend in rising obesity rates. As you note, there seems to be big change in energy expenditure between hunter-gatherers and us, so that can be ruled out. That would seem to leave us diet changes and environmental contaminants. Sugar is commonly cited as a cause of obesity, but recent increases in obesity rates have been much higher than those in sugar consumption (https://onlinestatbook.com/2/case_studies/sugar.html https://onlinestatbook.com/2/case_studies/sugar.html ). Also, there are hunter-gatherers who eat lots of honey (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0040503 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjourn...) and they are not obese. So what could it be? I don't claim to know the answer, but there are two possibilities that seem plausible to me, that satisfy conditions (a) and (b) above: - Environmental contaminants: http://achemicalhunger.com/ http://achemicalhunger.com/ - Vegetable oils: https://www.jeffnobbs.com/posts/what-causes-chronic-disease https://www.jeffnobbs.com/posts/what-causes-chronic-disease
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  I appreciate the detailed reply. I feel as though your comment here only serves to underscore my original point. We can speak at the population level about fatness overall, but we still do not have any definitive answers for why we see rates increasing or what fat individuals could do to lose weight. Aubrey Gordon has extensively studied diet and weight loss trends that suggest fat people can become skinny people, and has done an incredible job documenting the ways in which these schemes fail to achieve results for most people. If what fat people really want is to be healthy and feel good about themselves, focusing on weight loss may be entirely the wrong objective. If you are eating a healthy diet and getting moderate exercise, you can be healthy even if you are not losing weight. Conversely, people who are naturally skinny can eat a horrible diet and be very unhealthy without being chastised as "unhealthy" by the casual observer. The focus on fatness and weight loss leaves people who struggle to lose weight feeling horrible about themselves, and helps perpetuate anti-fatness in our society which only serves to make fat people's lives even worse. It can simultaneously be true that we are getting fatter as a population and also that common weight loss beliefs are incorrect. Aubrey Gordon's work is crucial in helping us understand how our society mistreats fat people and how common misconceptions about health, weight loss, and what it means to be fat perpetuate harm against fat people.