4 ms·

What causes obesity? A major new study is upending common wisdom

16 points by elsewhen 1y ago

zero_shift 1y ago
Summary (no gpt): - Why are people in the West fat when people in developing nations are thin? - Prevailing wisdom is that Westerners use fewer calories / have sedentary lifestyle - Study compared calorie expenditures across societies and found this was false - Cause is probably diet, maybe ultra processed foods, but not movement - Data covered 4213 men and women across 34 countries
- abracadaniel 1y ago
  The constrained total energy expenditure model is fascinating and counterintuitive. It seems the body adjusts its energy spending to keep it at steady state regardless of exercise. But, since exercise is still beneficial, it seems that too much energy spent on the “nice to have” processes are likely a source of the various diseases of sedentary life. It seems like the benefits of fasting are explained by this.
reverendsteveii 1y ago
People who exercise have known this for years. The accepted wisdom in the gym has always been that you can't out-train a bad diet, and we've known for a really long time that outside extremes like marathon runners and swimmers the amount of calories burned by exercise is minimal and given the average American diet's relatively high total calorie count may slow down the rate of weight gain but won't stop it or cause weight loss. Between that and the way the body will adapt over time to continuous strenuous physical activity to become more efficient frankly idk how it became "common wisdom" that obesity is caused by a lack of activity. I think it might be less to do with the facts and more to do with the personal, individualist orientation of our loci of control. To do something about processed, calorie-dense but nutrition-poor foods and the absolutely bizonkerwonks portions we serve people would require slow, difficult collective action that will be resisted by a lot of people who have a lot to gain from the current arrangement of things. Saying "you personally are the problem and you personally are the only one who can do anything about it" empowers the individual over the short term and for relatively modest goals but sacrifices our ability to achieve anything that requires cooperation.
- SirMaster 1y ago
  >the amount of calories burned by exercise is minimal What evidence is there for this? All the things that calculate approximate calories burned for various exercises tell me that it's not minimal. I burn about an average of an extra 500 calories a day doing exercise type activities. Playing pickleball, cycling, jogging, etc. Losing 1 pound is about 3500 calories, so 500 calories a day burned is about 1 pound a week which is not insignificant or minimal in my opinion at least. I kept my diet the same, and added about 500 cal average of exercise per day and have been seeing my weight dropping by a few pounds a month. Obviously diet is the biggest factor, but if you just eat less and sit around all day, you body will adapt to the lower calorie intake and slow your metabolism down too and you will have to eat so little that you will never feel full or satisfied (so you will probably not be able to keep that up for long) and you will feel like crap and have no energy if you don't combine with exercise, at least in my experience.
  - Kirby64 1y ago
    > What evidence is there for this? All the things that calculate approximate calories burned for various exercises tell me that it's not minimal. Minimal meaning that the amount of exercise you need to do to burn substantial amounts of calories is quite high. Your example of 500cal would be something like an hour of moderate intensity jogging, which would be a lot of exercise for someone to do every single day. Meanwhile, eating 500cal takes like... 5 minutes? Less? > Obviously diet is the biggest factor, but if you just eat less and sit around all day, you body will adapt to the lower calorie intake and slow your metabolism down too and you will have to eat so little that you will never feel full or satisfied (so you will probably not be able to keep that up for long) and you will feel like crap and have no energy if you don't combine with exercise, at least in my experience. Metabolic adaption is largely overblown. You definitely will burn less calories as you lose weight, but that would happen exercise or not. The only difference there is that exercise tends to build muscle, which would burn more calories and offset some of that loss. The fact of the matter is, if you end up losing substantial amounts of weight, you will need to eat fewer calories to maintain that same lower weight forever. In my experience, if you're losing weight then you are often going to feel not full. It's just a natural human reaction to caloric deficit. There's tricks to making it not be as impactful (e.g., eat more whole foods, less junk, etc) or medication to make it less of a problem (i.e., GLPs), but expecting to be able to lose weight and always feel full just by adding exercise is wishful thinking.

16 points by elsewhen 1y ago

Summary (no gpt): - Why are people in the West fat when people in developing nations are thin? - Prevailing wisdom is that Westerners use fewer calories / have sedentary lifestyle - Study compared calorie expenditures across societies and found this was false - Cause is probably diet, maybe ultra processed foods, but not movement - Data covered 4213 men and women across 34 countries

abracadaniel 1y ago
The constrained total energy expenditure model is fascinating and counterintuitive. It seems the body adjusts its energy spending to keep it at steady state regardless of exercise. But, since exercise is still beneficial, it seems that too much energy spent on the “nice to have” processes are likely a source of the various diseases of sedentary life. It seems like the benefits of fasting are explained by this.

reverendsteveii 1y ago

People who exercise have known this for years. The accepted wisdom in the gym has always been that you can't out-train a bad diet, and we've known for a really long time that outside extremes like marathon runners and swimmers the amount of calories burned by exercise is minimal and given the average American diet's relatively high total calorie count may slow down the rate of weight gain but won't stop it or cause weight loss. Between that and the way the body will adapt over time to continuous strenuous physical activity to become more efficient frankly idk how it became "common wisdom" that obesity is caused by a lack of activity. I think it might be less to do with the facts and more to do with the personal, individualist orientation of our loci of control. To do something about processed, calorie-dense but nutrition-poor foods and the absolutely bizonkerwonks portions we serve people would require slow, difficult collective action that will be resisted by a lot of people who have a lot to gain from the current arrangement of things. Saying "you personally are the problem and you personally are the only one who can do anything about it" empowers the individual over the short term and for relatively modest goals but sacrifices our ability to achieve anything that requires cooperation.

SirMaster 1y ago
>the amount of calories burned by exercise is minimal What evidence is there for this? All the things that calculate approximate calories burned for various exercises tell me that it's not minimal. I burn about an average of an extra 500 calories a day doing exercise type activities. Playing pickleball, cycling, jogging, etc. Losing 1 pound is about 3500 calories, so 500 calories a day burned is about 1 pound a week which is not insignificant or minimal in my opinion at least. I kept my diet the same, and added about 500 cal average of exercise per day and have been seeing my weight dropping by a few pounds a month. Obviously diet is the biggest factor, but if you just eat less and sit around all day, you body will adapt to the lower calorie intake and slow your metabolism down too and you will have to eat so little that you will never feel full or satisfied (so you will probably not be able to keep that up for long) and you will feel like crap and have no energy if you don't combine with exercise, at least in my experience.
- Kirby64 1y ago
  > What evidence is there for this? All the things that calculate approximate calories burned for various exercises tell me that it's not minimal. Minimal meaning that the amount of exercise you need to do to burn substantial amounts of calories is quite high. Your example of 500cal would be something like an hour of moderate intensity jogging, which would be a lot of exercise for someone to do every single day. Meanwhile, eating 500cal takes like... 5 minutes? Less? > Obviously diet is the biggest factor, but if you just eat less and sit around all day, you body will adapt to the lower calorie intake and slow your metabolism down too and you will have to eat so little that you will never feel full or satisfied (so you will probably not be able to keep that up for long) and you will feel like crap and have no energy if you don't combine with exercise, at least in my experience. Metabolic adaption is largely overblown. You definitely will burn less calories as you lose weight, but that would happen exercise or not. The only difference there is that exercise tends to build muscle, which would burn more calories and offset some of that loss. The fact of the matter is, if you end up losing substantial amounts of weight, you will need to eat fewer calories to maintain that same lower weight forever. In my experience, if you're losing weight then you are often going to feel not full. It's just a natural human reaction to caloric deficit. There's tricks to making it not be as impactful (e.g., eat more whole foods, less junk, etc) or medication to make it less of a problem (i.e., GLPs), but expecting to be able to lose weight and always feel full just by adding exercise is wishful thinking.