6 ms·

Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein – how Italian children became so overweight

55 points by porridgeraisin 3mo ago

drweevil 3mo ago
In 2004 I visited my family in Valencia, Spain. There was a local construction boom. There were family owned shops everywhere. Bakeries, fruit stands, etc. When I went back in 2014, it seems everything had changed. The shops were gone. The construction had slacked off. Instead there were now giant supermarkets and superstores. They were on the Euro now. My cousins blamed the EU for this. I'm assuming something similar happened in Italy, tho it is not mentioned in the article, which instead tends to blame the victims. When you replace the local food supply chain with prepared branded foods (Nutella, etc.), you get this. The EU has been great for European capitalists, but a detriment to the people in Europe. PS This was one of the major complaints of the long forgotten yellow-vests protests in France.
- mercurialuser 3mo ago
  I'm over 50. I played in the streets whole afternoons, full days during school vacations. They were dangerous years in Rome, terrorism, political violence, heroin everywhere. Despite we are now living in safer years, no kids are playing in the streets anymore. Also in the nearby park, they struggle to reach a 5 vs 5 football (soccer) match when we had plenty more for a 11 vs 11. A prominent psycologist just released an interview: why do italian parents love Sinner, the tennis player, praise his capabilities, his energy and willingness to train, but accept that their kids spend hours sitting on the couch playing games or browsing socials? I also agree with you about local, family owned shops: in my area there were 2 supermarkets and they were far away. Now there are at least 6 and one is less than 300mt from my house. The family shops are still operating and thriving, but some have changed, adding locally pre-cooked food to the old offer. So, less sport, more easily available junk food, more parents working late to keep supers open so more use of pre cooked food, more time spent on social media... a explosive mix
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 3mo ago
    Pre-cooked means NOTHING like what you find in north America. You can get plenty pre cooked food that are healthy (and flavorful). Of course you can also still ask for fries, but that's not common in Italy
  - ragall 3mo ago
    I vecchi hanno così tanto potere politico ora, al punto tale che stanno facendo chiudere i campi di calcetto degli oratori, lamentandosi del rumore. I bambini non hanno più dove andare all'aperto senza infastidire qualche adulto.
- tweetle_beetle 3mo ago
  The hypermarket concept was more or less invented in France in 1963. Clearly joining the EU allowed greater trade options which suit large scale market leaders, but their growth would have happened anyway. A lazy illustration, but there is not a single mention of the EU, the introduction of the Euro, or the single market on the extensive Wikipedia about the topic in the context of France, suggesting minimal impact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large-scale_retail_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large-scale_retail_in_France
- snowpid 3mo ago
  Nobody is forced to eat (Italian!) Nutella instead of local made alternatives. As such many Germans do that. I do look for regional food, though they are more expensive but also Aldi + Lidl are a bless.
- Danox 3mo ago
  Highly processed fake food with shelf extenders added to the mix…
fco356pal 3mo ago
Pasta and other carbohydrate-rich foods are nowhere near as bad as sugar for children. In the Nutella filled pastry, it is not the bread that’s the problem. Sugar (particularly in beverages) and lack of exercise are the main contribution of child obesity increase worldwide. Don’t blame the potato.
- cogman10 3mo ago
  > Pasta and other carbohydrate-rich foods are nowhere near as bad as sugar for children. Sugar is as bad as it is because it's almost instantly absorbed. Plenty of carbohydrates are the same. Fiber is what separates healthy carbs from unhealthy carbs, heck, even sugars. An apple is healthy even though it's loaded with sugar because it's also loaded with fiber. Apple juice is unhealthy because it's basically just the sugar. Were I to guess, what's changed in italy is what's changed in the US. Flour has become highly refined, removing all the fiber that used to be present. This gives flour nice properties in terms of baking and pasta making, but it also removes a vital part of pasta.
  - porridgeraisin 3mo ago
    > removing all the fiber Yes this. Also reduced vegetable intake. In many cases the fiber from vegetables can offset some refined carbs intake.
    - dlahoda 3mo ago
      On huberman show one guest described mechanics. Fiber wraps and gelates fast carbs, and they reach later stages of processing were good bacteria lives and feeds on carbs. As I recall from others sources, these bacteria produce drugs too, like barbiturate. They make host happier long after meal.
  - Danox 3mo ago
    The real thing in relative moderation is better for you than the for profit chemicals and food additives/substitutes/extenders, cane sugar, honey are both better for you than high fructose corn syrup, and the same applies for all those flower/grain extenders and additives. Put in food mainly for profit.
bni 3mo ago
Article is good but with one puzzling flaw. They mention protein is one of the culprits, but nothing about why or how.
- bryanlarsen 3mo ago
  They don't say that. They say the 5P diet is unhealthy and the Mediterranean diet is healthy. But the Mediterranean diet contains the 5 P's too -- just in moderation and accompanied by lots of vegetables. So the 5 P's aren't necessarily unhealthy by themselves, but a diet that basically only has the 5P's is.
- clickety_clack 3mo ago
  Yes, something tells me there’s a lot of deli and processed meats involved.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 3mo ago
    Do remember that Italians cook all their meals, it's a cultural thing
    - clickety_clack 3mo ago
      Italy is also famous for deli meats. I’m going to hazard a guess that not every Italian is buying raw meat and then preparing traditional dishes from scratch with it using only the freshest of natural ingredients etc.
      - Fire-Dragon-DoL 3mo ago
        No of course, but a whole prosciutto package is very little (100g). There aren't enough calories in a single package to make you fat. Way easier to attribute the problem to pasta. Eating that lunch and dinner, if you make it using non-veggies a pasta dish can easily be more than 600 calories (and that also depends on how much is eaten). Prosciutto is often eaten with melon, or with figs, so yeah it's processed meat, but then it's eaten with fiber and healthy micronutrients. Mozzarella could be a problem too (center of Italy), eating a mozzarella with tomato and basil (caprese) is simple, yet the mozzarella is loaded with calories. Then again, most dishes in Italy use natural ingredients, but that doesn't spare you from getting fat. Take pasta with egg and guanciale (carbonara) is a ton of calories even if home made I wonder if biscotti is the real deal. In Italy, kids have breakfast with a cup of milk and X amount of biscuits, those are sugar, flour, egg, milk and something else to give flavor. Eat 4 of those and it's 200 calories. Eat 8 of those and it starts to get scary (400 calories) + 1 cup of milk = ~550 calories.
avree 3mo ago
Surely writing 374 lbs is easier than 26st 10lb.
- release-object 3mo ago
  The 2nd number immediately means something to me. While I have to consider the first. From my perspective it isn’t easier to comprehend. An unrelated point. I’ve noticed more people in the UK measuring their weight in KG. I think I may be in a dwindling minority of people who think in stones and pounds.
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
- julianlam 3mo ago
  What an Americentric point of view. Not everybody measures weight in pounds, and to the primary readership of the BBC, stones and kilograms mean much more than weighing pounds. Source: Canadian who understands neither kg or stones.
- pfannkuchen 3mo ago
  Isn’t stones/pounds just like feet/inches? Do you support dropping feet and only using inches? If not, why not?
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3mo ago
  I have no clue, give me kg thanks.
- tredre3 3mo ago
  And 1.125lbs is easier to write than 1 pound 2 ounces, yet Americans will look at you with a blank stare if you don't use ounces. When it comes to units, you can't please everybody. Especially if it's tangentially related to the old colonies.
  - anonym29 3mo ago
thefz 3mo ago
...In the South. It's a culture thing.
- Schiendelman 3mo ago
  Could it be explained by the local population density - basically the walkability for each resident?
  - thefz 3mo ago
    I really doubt it
    - Schiendelman 3mo ago
      What makes you doubt it?
BiraIgnacio 3mo ago
So the problem is not Pizza nor pasta nor potatoes nor bread nor protein but all the extra supper high calories, near zero nutrition things that go on top of them?
arprocter 3mo ago
https://archive.ph/Shj4X https://archive.ph/Shj4X
RetroTechie 3mo ago
Nobody yet mentioned young-learnt habits: school cafeterias & snack machines. When I was young, in lunch breaks you'd head over to the school's cafeteria. And what they had there? "Gevulde koek", stroopwafel, snack-sized bags of crisps, various (sweetened) dairy products, and iirc bananas & apples too. No veggies or fibre-rich food in sight. So of course kids would go for the sugar-laden & salty snacks. For drinks, there were vending machines. My favorite was hot chocolate. Again: high in sugar (no "more or less sugar" option). Sometimes there were longer breaks due to a teacher falling ill or whatever. Then we'd head over to a supermarket nearby, and buy similar junkfood. Of course we'd bring sandwiches from home. But not everyone, and not always. Some kids would throw their sandwiches in a trash can, and proceed to buy the junkfood mentioned above. That school was 6 years of us kids' lives. Plenty of time to pick up unhealthy habits & bring those into adulthood. Wouldn't surprise me at all if most schools worldwide are still like that. Healthy diet choices for pupils is far from #1 priority for school management given all the other things they have to deal with. The fix would be to make healthier options the easy pick, and remove all junkfood offerings from schools' cafeterias. But good luck doing that nationwide under the watchful eye of junkfood multi-nationals.
- like_any_other 3mo ago
  In primary school (in Europe), we had a cafeteria, that served decent, regular meals, with one modest dessert. There were no vending machines, no child carried cash, only coupons for the cafeteria, tied to your name, entitling you to exactly one meal per day. There was also a smaller brunch at 10. Why give children the option to make the wrong choice? If they were wise and disciplined, they wouldn't be children.
- Danox 3mo ago
  In America, the school cafeteria used to prepare the meals for the kids those days are largely gone. Everything is prepackaged and processed. Who knew all the cooked meals were going the way of the dodo.
teolemon 3mo ago
And meanwhile, the Italian food lobbies are blocking Nutri-Score adoption at the EU level
- thi2 3mo ago
  I'm not sure nutri score is helpfull, most people don't understand how it even works and whats actually being compared for the rating.
- diath 3mo ago
  Nutriscore is a meme because it only refers to products in the same product category. Some Nestle's ultra processed sugary cereal has scores of A-B, it does not mean it's healthy, it just means it's less bad than other sugary cereal slop. It's very misleading.
  - dlahoda 3mo ago
    Yeah, in America they have processed level score thing alike and use it in schools.
0xcde4c3db 3mo ago
We've been doing variations of "educate the general public about healthy dietary choices" for roughly as long as the obesity epidemic has been around. Shouldn't it have worked by now, if it were going to? As purportedly modern, scientific, data-driven societies, why do we keep engaging in this impotent self-flagellation?
- paulddraper 3mo ago
  Just imagine how bad it would be if we hadn't.
dlahoda 3mo ago
This explains how sugars and fast carbs can be healthy https://youtu.be/n28W4AmvMDE?si=xEx29eVFgDEy2ktW https://youtu.be/n28W4AmvMDE?si=xEx29eVFgDEy2ktW Tldr; highly processed food looses vitamins(micro nutrient starvation) and starch/fiber are needed to slow absorption until it gets to bacteria producing drugs(barbiturate and precursors to neuromediators including), and give signals over vagus nerve to head. May be summary of few books from me too. Do not recall. Add on top chewing fibery food takes time, feeling full starts earlier of being full, and saliva ferments help to digest either.
NoPicklez 3mo ago
> He also worries restrictive diets could carry psychological risks for adolescents, whose relationship with food is still developing. As opposed to a relationship with food that causes overconsumption? Adolescents still form a relationship with food from a young age, hence why we're talking about young overweight people. I'd rather teach them about nutrition and potentially how to eat the same amount of food but that has much less calories. If their current diet reflects an overconsumption of calories then they may need to learn how to restrict through eating better foods. Because without a level of restriction of overall calorie intake they will continue to gain weight. Sometimes I feel we're reluctant to have a conversation around consuming less food when it comes to losing weight. In order to lose weight you need have some level of hunger and that's okay, we don't need to go and reach for something.
NoPicklez 3mo ago
I like how the article points out that it's the small bits of overconsumption (e.g. Nutella) each day that amount to obesity. Add in less physical activity and eating less fibrous foods like vegetables and you're multiplying that issue further. Overtime is a recipe for obesity. When it comes to losing weight its important to remember, its easy to gain fat, its a task to maintain fat and its hard to lose fat. Therefore a little calorie deficit requiring a little hunger and restraint is how you reverse it.

In 2004 I visited my family in Valencia, Spain. There was a local construction boom. There were family owned shops everywhere. Bakeries, fruit stands, etc. When I went back in 2014, it seems everything had changed. The shops were gone. The construction had slacked off. Instead there were now giant supermarkets and superstores. They were on the Euro now. My cousins blamed the EU for this. I'm assuming something similar happened in Italy, tho it is not mentioned in the article, which instead tends to blame the victims. When you replace the local food supply chain with prepared branded foods (Nutella, etc.), you get this. The EU has been great for European capitalists, but a detriment to the people in Europe. PS This was one of the major complaints of the long forgotten yellow-vests protests in France.

mercurialuser 3mo ago
I'm over 50. I played in the streets whole afternoons, full days during school vacations. They were dangerous years in Rome, terrorism, political violence, heroin everywhere. Despite we are now living in safer years, no kids are playing in the streets anymore. Also in the nearby park, they struggle to reach a 5 vs 5 football (soccer) match when we had plenty more for a 11 vs 11. A prominent psycologist just released an interview: why do italian parents love Sinner, the tennis player, praise his capabilities, his energy and willingness to train, but accept that their kids spend hours sitting on the couch playing games or browsing socials? I also agree with you about local, family owned shops: in my area there were 2 supermarkets and they were far away. Now there are at least 6 and one is less than 300mt from my house. The family shops are still operating and thriving, but some have changed, adding locally pre-cooked food to the old offer. So, less sport, more easily available junk food, more parents working late to keep supers open so more use of pre cooked food, more time spent on social media... a explosive mix
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3mo ago
  Pre-cooked means NOTHING like what you find in north America. You can get plenty pre cooked food that are healthy (and flavorful). Of course you can also still ask for fries, but that's not common in Italy
- ragall 3mo ago
  I vecchi hanno così tanto potere politico ora, al punto tale che stanno facendo chiudere i campi di calcetto degli oratori, lamentandosi del rumore. I bambini non hanno più dove andare all'aperto senza infastidire qualche adulto.
tweetle_beetle 3mo ago
The hypermarket concept was more or less invented in France in 1963. Clearly joining the EU allowed greater trade options which suit large scale market leaders, but their growth would have happened anyway. A lazy illustration, but there is not a single mention of the EU, the introduction of the Euro, or the single market on the extensive Wikipedia about the topic in the context of France, suggesting minimal impact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large-scale_retail_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large-scale_retail_in_France
snowpid 3mo ago
Nobody is forced to eat (Italian!) Nutella instead of local made alternatives. As such many Germans do that. I do look for regional food, though they are more expensive but also Aldi + Lidl are a bless.
Danox 3mo ago
Highly processed fake food with shelf extenders added to the mix…

fco356pal 3mo ago

Pasta and other carbohydrate-rich foods are nowhere near as bad as sugar for children. In the Nutella filled pastry, it is not the bread that’s the problem. Sugar (particularly in beverages) and lack of exercise are the main contribution of child obesity increase worldwide. Don’t blame the potato.

cogman10 3mo ago
> Pasta and other carbohydrate-rich foods are nowhere near as bad as sugar for children. Sugar is as bad as it is because it's almost instantly absorbed. Plenty of carbohydrates are the same. Fiber is what separates healthy carbs from unhealthy carbs, heck, even sugars. An apple is healthy even though it's loaded with sugar because it's also loaded with fiber. Apple juice is unhealthy because it's basically just the sugar. Were I to guess, what's changed in italy is what's changed in the US. Flour has become highly refined, removing all the fiber that used to be present. This gives flour nice properties in terms of baking and pasta making, but it also removes a vital part of pasta.
- porridgeraisin 3mo ago
  > removing all the fiber Yes this. Also reduced vegetable intake. In many cases the fiber from vegetables can offset some refined carbs intake.
  - dlahoda 3mo ago
    On huberman show one guest described mechanics. Fiber wraps and gelates fast carbs, and they reach later stages of processing were good bacteria lives and feeds on carbs. As I recall from others sources, these bacteria produce drugs too, like barbiturate. They make host happier long after meal.
- Danox 3mo ago
  The real thing in relative moderation is better for you than the for profit chemicals and food additives/substitutes/extenders, cane sugar, honey are both better for you than high fructose corn syrup, and the same applies for all those flower/grain extenders and additives. Put in food mainly for profit.

bni 3mo ago

Article is good but with one puzzling flaw. They mention protein is one of the culprits, but nothing about why or how.

bryanlarsen 3mo ago
They don't say that. They say the 5P diet is unhealthy and the Mediterranean diet is healthy. But the Mediterranean diet contains the 5 P's too -- just in moderation and accompanied by lots of vegetables. So the 5 P's aren't necessarily unhealthy by themselves, but a diet that basically only has the 5P's is.
clickety_clack 3mo ago
Yes, something tells me there’s a lot of deli and processed meats involved.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3mo ago
  Do remember that Italians cook all their meals, it's a cultural thing
  - clickety_clack 3mo ago
    Italy is also famous for deli meats. I’m going to hazard a guess that not every Italian is buying raw meat and then preparing traditional dishes from scratch with it using only the freshest of natural ingredients etc.
    - Fire-Dragon-DoL 3mo ago
      No of course, but a whole prosciutto package is very little (100g). There aren't enough calories in a single package to make you fat. Way easier to attribute the problem to pasta. Eating that lunch and dinner, if you make it using non-veggies a pasta dish can easily be more than 600 calories (and that also depends on how much is eaten). Prosciutto is often eaten with melon, or with figs, so yeah it's processed meat, but then it's eaten with fiber and healthy micronutrients. Mozzarella could be a problem too (center of Italy), eating a mozzarella with tomato and basil (caprese) is simple, yet the mozzarella is loaded with calories. Then again, most dishes in Italy use natural ingredients, but that doesn't spare you from getting fat. Take pasta with egg and guanciale (carbonara) is a ton of calories even if home made I wonder if biscotti is the real deal. In Italy, kids have breakfast with a cup of milk and X amount of biscuits, those are sugar, flour, egg, milk and something else to give flavor. Eat 4 of those and it's 200 calories. Eat 8 of those and it starts to get scary (400 calories) + 1 cup of milk = ~550 calories.

avree 3mo ago

Surely writing 374 lbs is easier than 26st 10lb.

release-object 3mo ago
The 2nd number immediately means something to me. While I have to consider the first. From my perspective it isn’t easier to comprehend. An unrelated point. I’ve noticed more people in the UK measuring their weight in KG. I think I may be in a dwindling minority of people who think in stones and pounds.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
julianlam 3mo ago
What an Americentric point of view. Not everybody measures weight in pounds, and to the primary readership of the BBC, stones and kilograms mean much more than weighing pounds. Source: Canadian who understands neither kg or stones.
pfannkuchen 3mo ago
Isn’t stones/pounds just like feet/inches? Do you support dropping feet and only using inches? If not, why not?
Fire-Dragon-DoL 3mo ago
I have no clue, give me kg thanks.
tredre3 3mo ago
And 1.125lbs is easier to write than 1 pound 2 ounces, yet Americans will look at you with a blank stare if you don't use ounces. When it comes to units, you can't please everybody. Especially if it's tangentially related to the old colonies.
- anonym29 3mo ago

thefz 3mo ago

...In the South. It's a culture thing.

Schiendelman 3mo ago
Could it be explained by the local population density - basically the walkability for each resident?
- thefz 3mo ago
  I really doubt it
  - Schiendelman 3mo ago
    What makes you doubt it?

BiraIgnacio 3mo ago

So the problem is not Pizza nor pasta nor potatoes nor bread nor protein but all the extra supper high calories, near zero nutrition things that go on top of them?

arprocter 3mo ago

https://archive.ph/Shj4X https://archive.ph/Shj4X

RetroTechie 3mo ago

Nobody yet mentioned young-learnt habits: school cafeterias & snack machines. When I was young, in lunch breaks you'd head over to the school's cafeteria. And what they had there? "Gevulde koek", stroopwafel, snack-sized bags of crisps, various (sweetened) dairy products, and iirc bananas & apples too. No veggies or fibre-rich food in sight. So of course kids would go for the sugar-laden & salty snacks. For drinks, there were vending machines. My favorite was hot chocolate. Again: high in sugar (no "more or less sugar" option). Sometimes there were longer breaks due to a teacher falling ill or whatever. Then we'd head over to a supermarket nearby, and buy similar junkfood. Of course we'd bring sandwiches from home. But not everyone, and not always. Some kids would throw their sandwiches in a trash can, and proceed to buy the junkfood mentioned above. That school was 6 years of us kids' lives. Plenty of time to pick up unhealthy habits & bring those into adulthood. Wouldn't surprise me at all if most schools worldwide are still like that. Healthy diet choices for pupils is far from #1 priority for school management given all the other things they have to deal with. The fix would be to make healthier options the easy pick, and remove all junkfood offerings from schools' cafeterias. But good luck doing that nationwide under the watchful eye of junkfood multi-nationals.

like_any_other 3mo ago
In primary school (in Europe), we had a cafeteria, that served decent, regular meals, with one modest dessert. There were no vending machines, no child carried cash, only coupons for the cafeteria, tied to your name, entitling you to exactly one meal per day. There was also a smaller brunch at 10. Why give children the option to make the wrong choice? If they were wise and disciplined, they wouldn't be children.
Danox 3mo ago
In America, the school cafeteria used to prepare the meals for the kids those days are largely gone. Everything is prepackaged and processed. Who knew all the cooked meals were going the way of the dodo.

teolemon 3mo ago

And meanwhile, the Italian food lobbies are blocking Nutri-Score adoption at the EU level

thi2 3mo ago
I'm not sure nutri score is helpfull, most people don't understand how it even works and whats actually being compared for the rating.
diath 3mo ago
Nutriscore is a meme because it only refers to products in the same product category. Some Nestle's ultra processed sugary cereal has scores of A-B, it does not mean it's healthy, it just means it's less bad than other sugary cereal slop. It's very misleading.
- dlahoda 3mo ago
  Yeah, in America they have processed level score thing alike and use it in schools.

0xcde4c3db 3mo ago

We've been doing variations of "educate the general public about healthy dietary choices" for roughly as long as the obesity epidemic has been around. Shouldn't it have worked by now, if it were going to? As purportedly modern, scientific, data-driven societies, why do we keep engaging in this impotent self-flagellation?

paulddraper 3mo ago
Just imagine how bad it would be if we hadn't.

dlahoda 3mo ago

This explains how sugars and fast carbs can be healthy https://youtu.be/n28W4AmvMDE?si=xEx29eVFgDEy2ktW https://youtu.be/n28W4AmvMDE?si=xEx29eVFgDEy2ktW Tldr; highly processed food looses vitamins(micro nutrient starvation) and starch/fiber are needed to slow absorption until it gets to bacteria producing drugs(barbiturate and precursors to neuromediators including), and give signals over vagus nerve to head. May be summary of few books from me too. Do not recall. Add on top chewing fibery food takes time, feeling full starts earlier of being full, and saliva ferments help to digest either.

NoPicklez 3mo ago

> He also worries restrictive diets could carry psychological risks for adolescents, whose relationship with food is still developing. As opposed to a relationship with food that causes overconsumption? Adolescents still form a relationship with food from a young age, hence why we're talking about young overweight people. I'd rather teach them about nutrition and potentially how to eat the same amount of food but that has much less calories. If their current diet reflects an overconsumption of calories then they may need to learn how to restrict through eating better foods. Because without a level of restriction of overall calorie intake they will continue to gain weight. Sometimes I feel we're reluctant to have a conversation around consuming less food when it comes to losing weight. In order to lose weight you need have some level of hunger and that's okay, we don't need to go and reach for something.

NoPicklez 3mo ago

I like how the article points out that it's the small bits of overconsumption (e.g. Nutella) each day that amount to obesity. Add in less physical activity and eating less fibrous foods like vegetables and you're multiplying that issue further. Overtime is a recipe for obesity. When it comes to losing weight its important to remember, its easy to gain fat, its a task to maintain fat and its hard to lose fat. Therefore a little calorie deficit requiring a little hunger and restraint is how you reverse it.