Number one solution to obesity problem

[sealchan]

Stop drinking soda pop all the time for a start.

I'm a Brit who lived for 2 years in Houston TX. I was appalled at the number of revoltingly obese people I saw and also at the ingrained habit so many of my colleagues had of drinking sweet fizzy drinks. They even used to do this at meal times (something considered by my French wife to be barbarous!)

The result? I am convinced many people in the US are conditioned to a high background level of sweetness in everything, very noticeable to an outsider like me. The bread was sweet. The wine was sweet. Every the bloody potato crisps were sweet. And the jam was so sweet as to be inedible. And then you would go to a gas station and see yet another fatty waddling back to her SUV with a 40oz drink of soda pop.

The Cola Cola culture, a pervasive part of the wholesome all-American life, has a lot to answer for, I am sure.

The high fructose corn syrup issue may be in large part responsible. I see other posters have mentioned this. This seems to be just surfacing, but is fairly widespread in industrially prepared food and drink and may make matters even worse.

So my suggestion would be cut out soda pop, especially for kids who are forming their lifetime habits, ban it from the dining table, and cook your own food.

Yes, back in the day when people were becoming aware of the problems of consuming too much fat the industry moved toward sweets as a substitute...and we've been addicted ever since.

Fed Up

The trick with soda is to allow yourself time to transition to a lower level of sweetness. Most carbonated waters have a good taste but they seem bland at first to the soda junkie. Give it time and abstain from soda and you can wean yourself off completely. Carbonated waters are cheaper and zero calorie and sweet enough!

 

[Sanzbir]

We can crucify Ronald to start with.

Not as cheap as cheap food. Dollar frozen pizzas, boxes of spaghetti, and other carb-heavy and/or highly processed options are about it when you are poor.

I feel like people who say things like that haven't ever had to budget or go food shopping.

Ingredients are plenty cheap and affordable even if you're poor as long as you're willing and able to cook 'em. No matter how cheap that frozen pizza or box of spaghetti is, I guarantee you that I can cook a pizza or spaghetti myself that's both better quality and that is cheaper to make.

It's not an issue of the price of healthy food, because if you actually shop, vegetables are cheap. I think it's far more likely that it's just that lower income people might more likely be less likely to be in two person relationships or more likely to hold multiple jobs, thus potentially making cooking their own food a strain on time, since with multiple jobs and no partner to split chores with, free time is drastically reduced.

 

[Sanzbir]

What is the number one solution in your opinion?

Education by school?

Everything they taught me turned out to be wrong, so I'm skeptical that the education industry is equipped for the task.

Cultural influece? Parent's responsibility?

Both of these are probably good ideas. Teach people to cook on a cultural level. Then they won't be so reliant on precooked and prepackaged stuff.

Health care?

If you're talking about doctor advice, they won't be heeded unless the culture is such that it is liable to accept that advice.

If you're talking about surgeries and the like, there are far cheaper ways to go about such a thing. CICO works great if nothing else.

Food industry?

Industry reflects the culture. If you try to change the industry without the culture, then all you do is cause that business to go out of business trying to sell healthy food to people who don't want it, and cause new businesses to emerge selling the things people actually want to replace the businesses you killed.

Change the culture, and the industry will change to accommodate, or will fail and be replaced.

 

[metis]

Sure...but self-discipline has to go hand in hand with will power.

I include "will power" as part of "self-discipline".

Currently, running on a treadmill for 30 minutes includes watching Star Trek.

Wimp!!!

I gave my treadmill to my son so I walk six days a week 2-3 miles in whatever weather there is outside as is common in Swedish tradition. After my walk, I sit outside even in below 0 temps as I keep a magazine out there, although more often than not I just enjoy the scenery (I call my landscaping "Mediterranean Zen"-- a cross between the two) and I sorta meditate.

 

[Twilight Hue]

What is the number one solution in your opinion?

Education by school? Cultural influece? Parent's responsibility? Health care? Food industry?

The number one solution is person him or herself. I have the opinion that if it bothers you enough, affirmative actions will naturally follow.

 

[Nous]

Antibiotics for colds is overkill and over prescribing medication imo. At face value it looks like his doctor(s) is abusing the system to make more money.

These days doctors knowingly prescribe antibiotics improperly, and surveys show they do so because they believe they will lose the patient if they don't prescribe some drug.

But I had dental surgery a few years ago, and beforehand the dentist prescribed an antibiotic prophylacticly. I told him I wouldn't take it, and it wouldn't have made him madder if I had slapped him. He lectured me about the horrors that would happen IF I got an infection. I didn't take it, and got no infection. What a quack.

 

[Nous]

Delete carbs from diet, you don't even need to eat them technically. (You body actually regulates sugars better by consuming fats.) Most of the problem in the USA comes from the FDA food pyramid that has tons of things on it you never have to eat. Eliminating grains and sugar would easily let you shed 100 pounds, I did, lol. I know militant diets aren't enjoyable, even for me, but the workaround is when you want that 100% whole grain bread sandwich double up on the meat, skip the sides like fries and chips. Worthless and nutrition-less high-carb food is generally the culprit. Additional protein or healthy fats will slow down the glucose spike -- that blood sugar spike is why you are fat, basically. I still have anything I want, but anything that's in the carb-only zone is a few pieces of candy or less than a handful of the chips taken with a relatively massive meat sandwich. (Peanut butter, if that sweet tooth acts up.) Certain fruits like grapes are solid sugar (why they work great for wine), you shouldn't eat them - do eat the ones with lots of natural fiber. (Apples, oranges, peaches, anything that is requiring a good chew.)

Stuff that doesn't work: working out (you can never burn enough calories for it to matter, though does improve cardio), portion limiting (except for the specific carb items, if you don't eat substantial amounts of food you feel terrible), and so on. I actually eat way more than I did in the past, the only thing that changed for me is what is on the plate.All of my numbers, confirmed by blood test, are better as well. (average blood glucose, cholesterol, nutrients, etc...)

You can live on an all-meat diet as well, but it's pretty boring though the Alaskan natives do not have any problem with it.

OMG!!

Evolution of the human feeding behavior

The human species is not adapted to the consumption of large amounts of animal (i.e., protein-rich) feeding sources to meet their energy needs because serious renal and hepatic problems can occur from high neoglucogenesis. Proteins are formed by amino acids that have, as their basic structure, the chemical elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, with some exceptions, such as the insect chitin. To liberate energy, the organism uses carbohydrates and lipids. If they lack these substances, then they use amino acids. To utilize amino acids as an energy source, the organism must remove nitrogen through a process known as deamination. Thus, an amino acid molecule without nitrogen atoms can be metabolized or transformed into glucose and metabolize. In the human species, this metabolic process, known as neoglucogenesis, occurs in the liver, and the excess nitrogen must be excreted. This causes a work overload, which can seriously affect the liver and kidneys (Sackheim & Lehman, 2001).​

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/pne/4/1/131.html

In Milton’s 1999 paper, after noting the variety of ways that humans are biologically distinguished from carnivores, she discusses some of the known detrimental effects of high-protein diets on non-carnivores. Ultimately she points out that “adult humans apparently cannot catabolize sufficient protein to meet more than 50% of the daily energetic requirements.”

Reply to L Cordain et al | The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition | Oxford Academic

 

[RabbiO]

Famine.

Actually I think that may be the second most effective, slightly behind #1 - death.

 

[Anthem]

Teach people to cook on a cultural level. Then they won't be so reliant on precooked and prepackaged stuff.

But are those really the reason behind obesity?

 

[sealchan]

I've spent at least an hour in the gym most days for the last 40 years or so, but what's easy for me isn't easy for others. It is my opinion that if schools and businesses 'required' an hour of physical activity daily grades and productivity would soar. The problem is that a lot of people either can't or won't participate in such a program, so what can you do? As you say it's a systemic issue, but I think fixing it would be painful. Same can be said of parenting. I'd love for my kids to be more active than they are, I'd also love for my kids to make better grades than they do... but for the most part kids are their own people and parents can't (or shouldn't) dictate friends, marriages, careers, grades, or fitness. And what holds true for kids holds true for people too unless the Nazis are in power with ambitions of sculpturing a super-race. Price of freedom? Thoughts?

The best answer to this dilemma that I have heard is that you must raise your children to think for themselves, acknowledge the consequences of their actions without modelling criticism and blame and give them opportunities to make those decisions and live with them without coming to their rescue. That way you get to let reality in on your terms until such time as your children are exposed to the reality outside of the home more than they are not.

 

[Sanzbir]

But are those really the reason behind obesity?

Nope. It's not the reason for obesity at all.

The reason is that the humans evolved for thousands of years doing manual labor each day. We've developed a hunger for a certain amount of calories with the assumption that they'd be used each day. It's in our biology. Technology has made it so not everyone is involved in manual labor, and no one is to the extent they used to be, but evolution can not keep pace with our rapid technological advancement.

So no solution, apart from things like bioengineering which requires tech we don't have, or alternately rejecting modern technology and becoming Amish, will actually address the root reason. For now we can only mitigate the symptoms.

Calorie tracking apps, cooking your own food, carb restriction, intermittent fasting, all are good at mitigating the symptoms of our technological innovations clashing with our evolution.

But you're not going to find a solution that addresses the root cause of our biology without either finding a way to alter our biology or, alternately, joining the Amish.

 

[sealchan]

I include "will power" as part of "self-discipline".

Wimp!!!

I gave my treadmill to my son so I walk six days a week 2-3 miles in whatever weather there is outside as is common in Swedish tradition. After my walk, I sit outside even in below 0 temps as I keep a magazine out there, although more often than not I just enjoy the scenery (I call my landscaping "Mediterranean Zen"-- a cross between the two) and I sorta meditate.

I love to walk but I choose what gets my aerobic activity up in the shortest possible time...so many things to do and experience including play!

I used to go for long walks down quiet country roads while reading a book. I've become quite adept at walking and reading.

 

[exchemist]

Soda isn't enough to make you fat but for some people it increasea appetite.

What makes you say that? One medium size coke portion at McDonald's has more than 10% of your recommended TOTAL daily calorie intake.

If you get through 2 of these a day you are probably taking in 20% more calories than your body needs, every single day, because nobody eats less as a result of a fizzy drink they have had. As you say it can be the contrary - you eat even more!

 

[Mindmaster]

But too much meat is bad for your bowels and increases risk for stomach cancer for one.

Most cancer is genetic, secondly you don't have to consume fiber at all. Personally, I find it easier to keep carbs from spiking if I do, but there is no requirement for it other than what the people bribing the FDA needing you to buy that garbage.

If you have no disposition to a particular cancer your chances of getting it outside of radiological/toxin events is nothing. The top three foods that are bad for you are high-fructose corn syrup, sugar, and grains. Grains trigger auto-immune responses in all humans, though some who gluten sensitive have it worse. They cause inflammation for all people, regardless of that sensitivity, and also spike blood sugar which makes you fat. (When your glucose levels rise dramatically your body basically has to flood your body with insulin to quickly store it. Essentially, your body comes under attack by it.) If you must eat them as whole grains or no grains -- minimal quantities.

And, no soda pop or fruit juice ever. They're both equivalent nutrition. They're solid fiber-less carbs.

 

[exchemist]

Nope. It's not the reason for obesity at all.

The reason is that the humans evolved for thousands of years doing manual labor each day. We've developed a hunger for a certain amount of calories with the assumption that they'd be used each day. It's in our biology. Technology has made it so not everyone is involved in manual labor, and no one is to the extent they used to be, but evolution can not keep pace with our rapid technological advancement.

So no solution, apart from things like bioengineering which requires tech we don't have, or alternately rejecting modern technology and becoming Amish, will actually address the root reason. For now we can only mitigate the symptoms.

Calorie tracking apps, cooking your own food, carb restriction, intermittent fasting, all are good at mitigating the symptoms of our technological innovations clashing with our evolution.

But you're not going to find a solution that addresses the root cause of our biology without either finding a way to alter our biology or, alternately, joining the Amish.

This is nonsense. If you go to France or the Netherlands - or Japan - you simply do not find the levels of obesity that you do in the USA. And it is not because they are all manual labourers.

A huge amount is to do with culture: when you have meals, whether you cook them or buy them ready-made, whether you eat between meals, whether you drink calorific drinks between meals, restaurant portion sizes........

Although I will admit that the use of the car in preference to walking + public transport or cycling is also a difference between the USA and Europe.

 

[Father Heathen]

Well, so it is possible to make Nazis look like they're doing good, lol.

This is/was actually an art piece in an exhibit: What if Satan and Hitler Opened a McDonald's in Hell?

 

[Father Heathen]

But surely we can affect it as a society. We made ourselves fat - we can take it back.

We can encourage and support others I suppose, but ultimately as individuals only we can make decisions for ourselves.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

What is the number one solution in your opinion?

Education by school? Cultural influece? Parent's responsibility? Health care? Food industry?

1. Move more, eat less. (Me)
2. Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. (Michael Pollan)

 

[Shad]

These days doctors knowingly prescribe antibiotics improperly, and surveys show they do so because they believe they will lose the patient if they don't prescribe some drug.

Is this an America reference or outside of national boundaries?

But I had dental surgery a few years ago, and beforehand the dentist prescribed an antibiotic prophylacticly. I told him I wouldn't take it, and it wouldn't have made him madder if I had slapped him. He lectured me about the horrors that would happen IF I got an infection. I didn't take it, and got no infection. What a quack.

I had a similar experience when my wisdom teeth were removed. I was prescribed a lot of pain killers as bone from the jaw was removed. I wouldn't take anything heavy as many forms cause me to blackout. The blackouts are brutal, unexpected and dangerous to the point I would have to take leave from work just to take one pill. Too risky. It didn't stop him from trying to get convince me to get the prescription filled "in case". Sad part is what pain there was minimal and easy to ignore.

 

[Shad]

Antibiotics for colds isnt just overkill. It's useless. Colds are viruses which antibacterials do absolutely nothing for.

What ever happened to chicken soup, a hot shower and a nap? This has always burned a cold out of me in less than a day.