5 ms·

Interesting. Over the years, this is the third or fourth version of this same story that I've read. Read one on low carbs. Read one on low fat. Now this one.

Interesting. Over the years, this is the third or fourth version of this same story that I've read. Read one on low carbs. Read one on low fat. Now this one. The assumption here, as it was in the others, is that we now know what works and what doesn't. And that forces beyond our control conspire to keep us fat. In this version, the thesis is that some form of certification system for marketing to children can cure the obesity epidemic. Beats me. But I'll bet twenty bucks that a decade or two from now we'll be reading the same type of article, only with different kinds of suggested cures. I'm of the opinion that there is nothing wrong, or rather that the population is acting entirely naturally and appropriately given their adaptation to specific evolutionary conditions, which have changed drastically in the last 100 years. I doubt controlling marketing material will have a long-lasting effect, but anything is worth a shot. It is a very serious problem. Looking at the recent past, I'd be just a bit more humble about it.

dschobel 13y ago
"I'm of the opinion that there is nothing wrong, or rather that the population is acting entirely naturally and appropriately given their adaptation to specific evolutionary conditions, which have changed drastically in the last 100 years. I doubt controlling marketing material will have a long-lasting effect, but anything is worth a shot. It is a very serious problem." Which is it then, 'nothing wrong' or 'serious problem'?
- DanielBMarkham 13y ago
  Nothing structurally or behaviorally unusual. There has been no new change in the species or some external factor that has caused the obesity epidemic. It's all based on changing external conditions, mostly food availability. So there's no "disease" to cure, and no mastermind manipulation of the population by forces using [insert latest ideas here]. If anything, this leads me to believe that we'll need to take evolution into our own hands to fix this. Various measures like this could be a useful stopgap. Like I said, beats me. Happy to confess ignorance here (as opposed to seemingly most every other commenter who speaks on this topic) If pressed, however, also happy to provide more speculation. As an obese person, I can definitely add that the disease metaphor, like the "moral blemish" metaphor before it, in my opinion does more damage than good. People come up with these ideas, then start wrapping them in the conspiracy theory of the month garb. Enough with the evil corporations, corrupt governments, sick people, lazy no-goods. These highly emotionally-charged models of analysis are not helping the public conversation. For the entire history of the species nobody has had to worry about obesity until very recently. It follows that social structures and the physiology of humans are not the changing variable. The only obvious changing variable is food availability. So yes, obesity is a public health hazard, but it's not one based on some fault with people or social structures. It's simply the result of changing environmental conditions for which the species is ill-prepared.
  - doctorpangloss 13y ago
    >The only obvious changing variable is food availability. So yes, obesity is a public health hazard, but it's not one based on some fault with people or social structures. Okay, but it's people growing and selling all that food. Social structures subsidize most of our foods. Sure, food availability is the "only variable," but it's a variable highly caused & correlated to people and social structures. >physiology of humans are not the changing variable Of course the physiology of humans are a changing variable. African Americans did not exist as a physiological idea 400 years ago, but today they represent a medical population that's much differently susceptible to disease, especially obesity, than Africans living in America or white Americans. >no "disease" to cure Similar language was used by the tobacco industry to argue against the link between tobacco marketing, tobacco use and ultimately lung disease. [0] http://archive.tobacco.org/resources/history/strategieslb.html http://archive.tobacco.org/resources/history/strategieslb.ht...
  - enduser 13y ago
    > It's all based on changing external conditions, mostly food availability. Most people given access to unlimited lentils would not become obese. Food availability is NOT the only factor. A core message of the article is that the food industry has lobbied against restrictions on advertizing to children food with habit-forming non-nutritive calories. The food industry is built around cheap production of highly-processed ingredients that addictively fuel consumption and sabotage health.
  - 6d0debc071 13y ago
    If the only variable you're going to invoke is food availability, why isn't everyone - or near enough everyone - obese? Also: You'd expect, if food availability was the sole variable, for things like pasta to be the ones best correlated with obesity. (Well, no, actually you'd expect wheat flour at $0.07 to be, but you'd expect pasta to correlate better ) So, how comes Coca Cola is $0.46 per 200 calories while pasta is $0.21 per 200 calories, and yet it's the consumption of sweetened beverages that correlates so well with obesity? How comes so much of our energy comes from fast food, (a Jack in the Box burger is $0,57 per 200 calories) rather than wheat flour based products?
oblique63 13y ago
I generally agree with you, but I don't think this: > the population is acting entirely naturally and appropriately given their adaptation to specific evolutionary conditions is the same as, or even necessarily implies, this: > there is nothing wrong I would say we're surviving rather sustainably right now, in the sense that we've adapted to our environment well enough where it isn't really a hindrance to our propagation as a species; but I highly doubt it's even close to being optimal. In the same sense that having long life expectancy doesn't necessarily imply having a good quality of life. The problem is that we're too quick to assume that we're already living in a 'future' where we know everything, and that things have been distilled to be so convenient, that it all had to be 'proven' or something by now, right? It plays out all the time: "Oh look, this conveniently packaged product has 0 carbs! Awesome, I can eat a ton of this now, cause I just heard of a study that said carbs are bad." Except that the product label is misleading because it only accounts for one tiny serving that was specifically chosen to fall below the "0 carb" requirement guidelines (which do have a bit of wiggle room), and that study was actually sponsored by the company who made that product you're now looking at. And this happens all over the place. It's unfortunate, but it does seem the whole setup we have going right now might be a bit too shaky to really say much conclusive about nutrition. Nutritionists aren't necessarily doctors; Doctors aren't necessarily scientists; and Scientists could always be swayed by the entities funding their research -- research which can go on to live safely in journals probably without many attempts at reproduction, so it's ok to fudge the numbers a tiny bit if you need things to work out a bit more. Despite what it sounds like, I'm actually not very cynical; I just think we need to gain a bit of perspective about where we are as a species right now. We'll figure it out eventually, but it is admittedly kinda tough to navigate the seas of nonsense out there right now.
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  > I generally agree with you, but I don't think this: >> the population is acting entirely naturally and appropriately given their adaptation to specific evolutionary conditions > is the same as, or even necessarily implies, this: >> there is nothing wrong I think by "nothing wrong" GP meant "people are behaving exactly to specification", not "people are behaving in a way that benefits them". Lots of adaptations are quite wrong for life in XXI century, but humans executing them are acting correctly, with respect to the way their hardware is wired.
magicalist 13y ago
Go read the article linked to in the post: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary... It doesn't take a conspiracy, or especially evil actors, or even the population acting unnaturally (WTF would that even mean?). All it takes is millions of local optimizations to get us into the state we're in now: optimize a marketing campaign for profitability, optimize a snack for deliciousness, optimize what you stock based on what sells and what takes the longest to spoil, optimize what you eat based on price and healthiness judged on limited and flawed information ("low in fat! just ignore the rest of the ingredients..."). Lots and lots of evidence out there for you on the malleability of the human appetite, from people changing the portions that they eat based on the size of the plate they have in front of them, to the absurd effectiveness of rearranging grocery stores to sell snack food, children's food, etc on top of what people would already buy. We are complicated creatures, and you only need a few percentage points from each of these things to justify doing them. And again, there is nothing evil in saying "I will make a packaged children's lunch that kids will actually love", and there's nothing wrong with a parent deciding to get that lunchable for their kid. We could try to demonize both parties there (good luck with that), or we could try to change the fitness landscape and figure out ways to at least better stack the odds in favor of healthier eating. Marketing at kids might not be the best lever, but it is one of the easiest, as it is extremely effective (again, see that article), children are already acknowledged as a protected class when it comes to some types of speech (definitely when regulated by the FCC, and narrowly-defined laws like COPA have been upheld by the supreme court, for better or worse), and there's precedent that the public will accept this (parents are already harried enough by requests for specific brands, and the cigarette ad bans in the 90s have shown that there could easily be support for this sort of thing).
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  > It doesn't take a conspiracy, or especially evil actors... All it takes is millions of local optimizations to get us into the state we're in now This is so true, not just in this situation, but in many others.
  - 13y ago
farinasa 13y ago
>Read one on low carbs. Read one on low fat. Now this one. I'm not convinced you did read the article. It actually mentions the previous health trends. This doesn't push any single health trend. So what exactly do you mean by: >Now this one. How does this article relate to the health fads over the years?

dschobel 13y ago

"I'm of the opinion that there is nothing wrong, or rather that the population is acting entirely naturally and appropriately given their adaptation to specific evolutionary conditions, which have changed drastically in the last 100 years. I doubt controlling marketing material will have a long-lasting effect, but anything is worth a shot. It is a very serious problem." Which is it then, 'nothing wrong' or 'serious problem'?

DanielBMarkham 13y ago
Nothing structurally or behaviorally unusual. There has been no new change in the species or some external factor that has caused the obesity epidemic. It's all based on changing external conditions, mostly food availability. So there's no "disease" to cure, and no mastermind manipulation of the population by forces using [insert latest ideas here]. If anything, this leads me to believe that we'll need to take evolution into our own hands to fix this. Various measures like this could be a useful stopgap. Like I said, beats me. Happy to confess ignorance here (as opposed to seemingly most every other commenter who speaks on this topic) If pressed, however, also happy to provide more speculation. As an obese person, I can definitely add that the disease metaphor, like the "moral blemish" metaphor before it, in my opinion does more damage than good. People come up with these ideas, then start wrapping them in the conspiracy theory of the month garb. Enough with the evil corporations, corrupt governments, sick people, lazy no-goods. These highly emotionally-charged models of analysis are not helping the public conversation. For the entire history of the species nobody has had to worry about obesity until very recently. It follows that social structures and the physiology of humans are not the changing variable. The only obvious changing variable is food availability. So yes, obesity is a public health hazard, but it's not one based on some fault with people or social structures. It's simply the result of changing environmental conditions for which the species is ill-prepared.
- doctorpangloss 13y ago
  >The only obvious changing variable is food availability. So yes, obesity is a public health hazard, but it's not one based on some fault with people or social structures. Okay, but it's people growing and selling all that food. Social structures subsidize most of our foods. Sure, food availability is the "only variable," but it's a variable highly caused & correlated to people and social structures. >physiology of humans are not the changing variable Of course the physiology of humans are a changing variable. African Americans did not exist as a physiological idea 400 years ago, but today they represent a medical population that's much differently susceptible to disease, especially obesity, than Africans living in America or white Americans. >no "disease" to cure Similar language was used by the tobacco industry to argue against the link between tobacco marketing, tobacco use and ultimately lung disease. [0] http://archive.tobacco.org/resources/history/strategieslb.html http://archive.tobacco.org/resources/history/strategieslb.ht...
- enduser 13y ago
  > It's all based on changing external conditions, mostly food availability. Most people given access to unlimited lentils would not become obese. Food availability is NOT the only factor. A core message of the article is that the food industry has lobbied against restrictions on advertizing to children food with habit-forming non-nutritive calories. The food industry is built around cheap production of highly-processed ingredients that addictively fuel consumption and sabotage health.
- 6d0debc071 13y ago
  If the only variable you're going to invoke is food availability, why isn't everyone - or near enough everyone - obese? Also: You'd expect, if food availability was the sole variable, for things like pasta to be the ones best correlated with obesity. (Well, no, actually you'd expect wheat flour at $0.07 to be, but you'd expect pasta to correlate better ) So, how comes Coca Cola is $0.46 per 200 calories while pasta is $0.21 per 200 calories, and yet it's the consumption of sweetened beverages that correlates so well with obesity? How comes so much of our energy comes from fast food, (a Jack in the Box burger is $0,57 per 200 calories) rather than wheat flour based products?

oblique63 13y ago

I generally agree with you, but I don't think this: > the population is acting entirely naturally and appropriately given their adaptation to specific evolutionary conditions is the same as, or even necessarily implies, this: > there is nothing wrong I would say we're surviving rather sustainably right now, in the sense that we've adapted to our environment well enough where it isn't really a hindrance to our propagation as a species; but I highly doubt it's even close to being optimal. In the same sense that having long life expectancy doesn't necessarily imply having a good quality of life. The problem is that we're too quick to assume that we're already living in a 'future' where we know everything, and that things have been distilled to be so convenient, that it all had to be 'proven' or something by now, right? It plays out all the time: "Oh look, this conveniently packaged product has 0 carbs! Awesome, I can eat a ton of this now, cause I just heard of a study that said carbs are bad." Except that the product label is misleading because it only accounts for one tiny serving that was specifically chosen to fall below the "0 carb" requirement guidelines (which do have a bit of wiggle room), and that study was actually sponsored by the company who made that product you're now looking at. And this happens all over the place. It's unfortunate, but it does seem the whole setup we have going right now might be a bit too shaky to really say much conclusive about nutrition. Nutritionists aren't necessarily doctors; Doctors aren't necessarily scientists; and Scientists could always be swayed by the entities funding their research -- research which can go on to live safely in journals probably without many attempts at reproduction, so it's ok to fudge the numbers a tiny bit if you need things to work out a bit more. Despite what it sounds like, I'm actually not very cynical; I just think we need to gain a bit of perspective about where we are as a species right now. We'll figure it out eventually, but it is admittedly kinda tough to navigate the seas of nonsense out there right now.

TeMPOraL 13y ago
> I generally agree with you, but I don't think this: >> the population is acting entirely naturally and appropriately given their adaptation to specific evolutionary conditions > is the same as, or even necessarily implies, this: >> there is nothing wrong I think by "nothing wrong" GP meant "people are behaving exactly to specification", not "people are behaving in a way that benefits them". Lots of adaptations are quite wrong for life in XXI century, but humans executing them are acting correctly, with respect to the way their hardware is wired.

magicalist 13y ago

Go read the article linked to in the post: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary... It doesn't take a conspiracy, or especially evil actors, or even the population acting unnaturally (WTF would that even mean?). All it takes is millions of local optimizations to get us into the state we're in now: optimize a marketing campaign for profitability, optimize a snack for deliciousness, optimize what you stock based on what sells and what takes the longest to spoil, optimize what you eat based on price and healthiness judged on limited and flawed information ("low in fat! just ignore the rest of the ingredients..."). Lots and lots of evidence out there for you on the malleability of the human appetite, from people changing the portions that they eat based on the size of the plate they have in front of them, to the absurd effectiveness of rearranging grocery stores to sell snack food, children's food, etc on top of what people would already buy. We are complicated creatures, and you only need a few percentage points from each of these things to justify doing them. And again, there is nothing evil in saying "I will make a packaged children's lunch that kids will actually love", and there's nothing wrong with a parent deciding to get that lunchable for their kid. We could try to demonize both parties there (good luck with that), or we could try to change the fitness landscape and figure out ways to at least better stack the odds in favor of healthier eating. Marketing at kids might not be the best lever, but it is one of the easiest, as it is extremely effective (again, see that article), children are already acknowledged as a protected class when it comes to some types of speech (definitely when regulated by the FCC, and narrowly-defined laws like COPA have been upheld by the supreme court, for better or worse), and there's precedent that the public will accept this (parents are already harried enough by requests for specific brands, and the cigarette ad bans in the 90s have shown that there could easily be support for this sort of thing).

steveklabnik 13y ago
> It doesn't take a conspiracy, or especially evil actors... All it takes is millions of local optimizations to get us into the state we're in now This is so true, not just in this situation, but in many others.
- 13y ago

farinasa 13y ago

>Read one on low carbs. Read one on low fat. Now this one. I'm not convinced you did read the article. It actually mentions the previous health trends. This doesn't push any single health trend. So what exactly do you mean by: >Now this one. How does this article relate to the health fads over the years?