5 ms·

Realistically, if you eat smaller servings and walk more, it's easier to have a healthy weight. The last time I went to Japan with an American friend, she comm

by jfim 2y ago

Realistically, if you eat smaller servings and walk more, it's easier to have a healthy weight. The last time I went to Japan with an American friend, she commented that the portion sizes in Japan were so small. Combined with all the walking from using trains (we'd easily get more than 10k steps per day), we both lost weight during that trip.

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
> Realistically, if you eat smaller servings and walk more, it's easier to have a healthy weight. Yeah, many years ago as a student I spent a summer in Manhattan. The diet probably couldn't have been more different than Japan, but the combination of walking a ton compared to the suburbs where I grew up, and the fact that as a poor student in a very expensive city my portions were smaller out of necessity (e.g. my snacks were usually fresh fruit sold outside of a store/bodega) I got much healthier.
voisin 2y ago
> Combined with all the walking from using trains This is a stark contrast to North America where there are generally no trains to walk to catch, but rather simply a few steps from your door to your car. My point being that the design of our society right down to the topography of our physical spaces is not set up to encourage walking. We can’t even agree that obesity is a problem, instead choosing to talk about beauty in all shapes and sizes and other woke nonsense (to be clear: I consider myself a liberal) that masks true objective facts about health. If we could agree on a goal, perhaps we could then have real conversations about how to get there. But instead we are so fractured and our governments so inept and conflicted that we subsidize the food that makes us sickest.
- jfim 2y ago
  > My point being that the design of our society right down to the topography of our physical spaces is not set up to encourage walking. There are places where it's downright hostile, with areas with no sidewalks or crossings. > But instead we are so fractured and our governments so inept and conflicted that we subsidize the food that makes us sickest. There's actually a somewhat sane rationale for the agricultural subsidies. For the longest time in human history, famine was always looming, and the best policy to avoid it was to store excess calories in case of a bad harvest year. Whether or not that still applies in the US can be debated though.
  - coffeebeqn 2y ago
    Yep first time visiting a small Missouri town the cops came to talk to me because I was walking on the side of the road to get to the store
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
    it would make more sense if we subsidized all foods like that, but right now we subsidize a few crops like that. the food subsidy probably makes sense but not to the degree and bluntness of american policy. one of the instigations of nationwide school lunch was actually to provide a baseline level of demand for farmers and make cycles less severe.
narag 2y ago
Walking less is not the cause of the obesity, more like the other way around: if you don't need to walk, you can afford to overeat until you're obese. Also the pleasure of walking and exercising must be replaced with something else. But exercise has very little effect on weight compared to diet. It's a known fact, even for the fans of counting calories. Just see the tables of inputs and outputs. Eating less and avoiding sugar and processed food is mostly enough, if not to be slim, at least to keep you reasonable healthy.
- 0xcde4c3db 2y ago
  > But exercise has very little effect on weight compared to diet. It's a known fact, even for the fans of counting calories. Just see the tables of inputs and outputs. Also, some studies suggest that up to some threshold, exercise reallocates those calories from autonomic functions rather than actually adding to total expenditure [1]. It's been further speculated based on this that some of the health benefit of exercise might simply be a result of taking energy away from anxiety/stress responses. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22848382/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22848382/
- faeriechangling 2y ago
  >But exercise has very little effect on weight compared to diet. It's a known fact, even for the fans of counting calories. It reduces the weight of all the fat you're carrying around. Even if exercise doesn't make you lighter it still makes you leaner.
  - oarfish 2y ago
    I don't get it. The exercise doesn't help lose tissue. the caloric deficit does, and as parent said, that is way easier to achieve through reduced intake.
    - faeriechangling 2y ago
      People often find exercise easier to modify than diet, or even for exercise to make following a healthy diet easier. The process of building muscle can create a caloric deficit.
dnfsod 2y ago
When I lived in Japan everyone who would come visit me would look at restaurant menus and ask “why are the small and large beers the same price? Who would ever buy the small?” Locals would say matter of factly “you only order the large when you want more.” Also many restaurants offer Tabehoudai and Nomihoudai, “all you can eat and drink” respectively. All the servers would come to see when the Americans would order nomihoudai and request a pitcher of beer. “Okay, one pitcher for the table.” We’d always get a laugh when we’d say, “Actually, one pitcher for each of us.”
- arresin 2y ago
  > “all you can eat and drink” respectively. It would interesting to see the effect of that here in Australia. Imagine the Homer Simpson at the seafood buffet episode but an entire country.
  - dnfsod 2y ago
    It really shines a light on the excess of American culture. Japan does have a “drink to excess” culture too, but it largely seems to be more with intent. (Also, in my travels I have found harder alcohols, 35%+, and shots culture are mostly a US characteristic.) If I’d eat out with only my Japanese friends and we’d get a tabehoudai/nomihoudai we would only consume until sated, usually only ordering about the same amount as a normal menu item, but take advantage of the “all you can” to try new foods and drinks we were unsure if we’d like. With my fellow American friends we would certainly abuse the privilege by drinking and eating beyond excess without necessarily even setting out to do so.

by jfim 2y ago

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago

> Realistically, if you eat smaller servings and walk more, it's easier to have a healthy weight. Yeah, many years ago as a student I spent a summer in Manhattan. The diet probably couldn't have been more different than Japan, but the combination of walking a ton compared to the suburbs where I grew up, and the fact that as a poor student in a very expensive city my portions were smaller out of necessity (e.g. my snacks were usually fresh fruit sold outside of a store/bodega) I got much healthier.

voisin 2y ago

> Combined with all the walking from using trains This is a stark contrast to North America where there are generally no trains to walk to catch, but rather simply a few steps from your door to your car. My point being that the design of our society right down to the topography of our physical spaces is not set up to encourage walking. We can’t even agree that obesity is a problem, instead choosing to talk about beauty in all shapes and sizes and other woke nonsense (to be clear: I consider myself a liberal) that masks true objective facts about health. If we could agree on a goal, perhaps we could then have real conversations about how to get there. But instead we are so fractured and our governments so inept and conflicted that we subsidize the food that makes us sickest.

jfim 2y ago
> My point being that the design of our society right down to the topography of our physical spaces is not set up to encourage walking. There are places where it's downright hostile, with areas with no sidewalks or crossings. > But instead we are so fractured and our governments so inept and conflicted that we subsidize the food that makes us sickest. There's actually a somewhat sane rationale for the agricultural subsidies. For the longest time in human history, famine was always looming, and the best policy to avoid it was to store excess calories in case of a bad harvest year. Whether or not that still applies in the US can be debated though.
- coffeebeqn 2y ago
  Yep first time visiting a small Missouri town the cops came to talk to me because I was walking on the side of the road to get to the store
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  it would make more sense if we subsidized all foods like that, but right now we subsidize a few crops like that. the food subsidy probably makes sense but not to the degree and bluntness of american policy. one of the instigations of nationwide school lunch was actually to provide a baseline level of demand for farmers and make cycles less severe.

narag 2y ago

Walking less is not the cause of the obesity, more like the other way around: if you don't need to walk, you can afford to overeat until you're obese. Also the pleasure of walking and exercising must be replaced with something else. But exercise has very little effect on weight compared to diet. It's a known fact, even for the fans of counting calories. Just see the tables of inputs and outputs. Eating less and avoiding sugar and processed food is mostly enough, if not to be slim, at least to keep you reasonable healthy.

0xcde4c3db 2y ago
> But exercise has very little effect on weight compared to diet. It's a known fact, even for the fans of counting calories. Just see the tables of inputs and outputs. Also, some studies suggest that up to some threshold, exercise reallocates those calories from autonomic functions rather than actually adding to total expenditure [1]. It's been further speculated based on this that some of the health benefit of exercise might simply be a result of taking energy away from anxiety/stress responses. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22848382/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22848382/
faeriechangling 2y ago
>But exercise has very little effect on weight compared to diet. It's a known fact, even for the fans of counting calories. It reduces the weight of all the fat you're carrying around. Even if exercise doesn't make you lighter it still makes you leaner.
- oarfish 2y ago
  I don't get it. The exercise doesn't help lose tissue. the caloric deficit does, and as parent said, that is way easier to achieve through reduced intake.
  - faeriechangling 2y ago
    People often find exercise easier to modify than diet, or even for exercise to make following a healthy diet easier. The process of building muscle can create a caloric deficit.

dnfsod 2y ago

When I lived in Japan everyone who would come visit me would look at restaurant menus and ask “why are the small and large beers the same price? Who would ever buy the small?” Locals would say matter of factly “you only order the large when you want more.” Also many restaurants offer Tabehoudai and Nomihoudai, “all you can eat and drink” respectively. All the servers would come to see when the Americans would order nomihoudai and request a pitcher of beer. “Okay, one pitcher for the table.” We’d always get a laugh when we’d say, “Actually, one pitcher for each of us.”

arresin 2y ago
> “all you can eat and drink” respectively. It would interesting to see the effect of that here in Australia. Imagine the Homer Simpson at the seafood buffet episode but an entire country.
- dnfsod 2y ago
  It really shines a light on the excess of American culture. Japan does have a “drink to excess” culture too, but it largely seems to be more with intent. (Also, in my travels I have found harder alcohols, 35%+, and shots culture are mostly a US characteristic.) If I’d eat out with only my Japanese friends and we’d get a tabehoudai/nomihoudai we would only consume until sated, usually only ordering about the same amount as a normal menu item, but take advantage of the “all you can” to try new foods and drinks we were unsure if we’d like. With my fellow American friends we would certainly abuse the privilege by drinking and eating beyond excess without necessarily even setting out to do so.