Is the Obesity Epidemic fact or fiction?

PucaMama

djan wrote: »

Something along those lines yes, to tax all unhealthy foods is stupid. Why should I pay extra for a eg. Mars bar just because somebody else is fat.

and why should i pay more for clothes just because someone else says they are big?

foxyboxer

Uriah Bald Waterfall wrote: »

Absolute bull there is any amount of information out there of how healthy it is to start the day with grains, you couldn't be eating anything better than a bowl of porridge, weetabix or multigrain muesli etc in the morning. Gives you loads of energy and fills you up.

If you do enough digging you will find a way to call anything unhealthy. Fruit sure that's full of sugar, Eggs full of fat, Dairy products: "Oh we were not designed to eat dairy" etc etc etc etc. Mostly nonsense taken out of context or ignoring large benefits which well outweigh any negatives.

There's an old saying that goes "If God* didn't make it, then don't eat it"

It's a good thought process to have when eating food.

* Nature.

Shryke

dark crystal wrote: »

Go back 20 years and all these allergies and intolerances seemed far less prevelant.

Not claiming to be a nutritional expert at all, but I don't remember people being so intolerant to food years ago. Perhaps we're living in an age where more preservatives are used than before, I don't know. I just think it's sad to see so many people deny themselves basic foodstuffs like bread, cheese, milk and grains nowadays when there seemed little harm (and indeed great benefit) in eating them before.

Well you can't say that people were really on the ball about this kind of stuff either. There are plenty of people who suffer from these conditions and there always has been. There is estimated to be a very large amount of people with an undiagnosed intolerance to gluten. The effects can vary from subtle to extreme. The amount of people who refuse to believe that a common food like bread can have such negative effects doesn't help. I don't like to cry conspiracy but the grain industry and food industry in general has and does get away with murder.

Sea Filly

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

Isn't porridge good for you in lots of ways? I eat it most mornings and I'm in good nick

The above-linked article says this in the conclusion:

Cereal grains obviously can be included in moderate amounts in the diets
of most people without any noticeable, deleterious health effects, and herein
lies their strength. When combined with a variety of both animal- and plantbased
foods, they provide a cheap and plentiful caloric source, capable of
sustaining and promoting human life. The ecologic, energetic efficiency
wrought by the widespread cultivation and domestication of cereal grains
allowed for the dramatic expansion of worldwide human populations, which
in turn, ultimately led to humanity’s enormous cultural and technological
accomplishments. The downside of cereal grain consumption is their ability
to disrupt health and well being in virtually all people when consumed in
excessive quantity. This information has only been empirically known since
the discovery of vitamins, minerals and certain antinutrients in the early part
of this century.

So yeah, your brekkie porridge is fine.

--Kaiser--

Uriah Bald Waterfall wrote: »

Absolute bull there is any amount of information out there of how healthy it is to start the day with grains, you couldn't be eating anything better than a bowl of porridge, weetabix or multigrain muesli etc in the morning. Gives you loads of energy and fills you up.

If you do enough digging you will find a way to call anything unhealthy. Fruit sure that's full of sugar, Eggs full of fat, Dairy products: "Oh we were not designed to eat dairy" etc etc etc etc. Mostly nonsense taken out of context or ignoring large benefits which well outweigh any negatives.

Christ, what idocy, especially the bit in bold. Obviously you didn't even glance at the paper I posted (it would require a modicum of intellect to peruse, something which you perhaps not posses) so I'll summarise some of the points:

Grains do not provide nutrients (either macro or micro) in the correct ratio to provide a staple of ones diet
They are low in essential fatty acids
They contain phytates which inhibit nutrient absorption (especially minerals and vitamin D)
They contain protease inhibitors which inhibit protein assimilation
The contain alpha-amalase inhibitors which inhibit carbohydrate assimilation
The contain lectins which are gut irritants (amongst other things)
Then there's the gluten issue, the possibilty that grain proteins enter the blood stream intact and mimic opiates annd other neurological chemicals.......

Wibbs

Shryke wrote: »

Plenty of people have gluten intolerance without knowing it. Others have IBS or are lactose intolerant. Some people are allergic to the hormones put into chicken. It's not clean cut.

Very much so and depends on the population you belong to. Different groups around the world adapted to different novel diets. Lactose intolerance is quite rare in Europe as we made use of cows milk as adults. On the other hand Lactose intolerance is near a given in India because they didn't. Many African populations are lactose intolerant, but some like the Massai aren't. Alcohol is another one, Europeans metabolise it about the best of all modern humans. Asians and especially folks like Native Americans and Australians are not so adapted. Gluten intolerance varies too. There are quite the number of these local adaptations that show up remarkably recently in our genetic history. They may also be lost quite quickly too. One theory out there that tries to explain why the Irish have more coeliacs compared to the European norm is that because we relied on the potato for a few centuries as a replacement "grain" the adaptation weakened. I wonder if folks of Arabic extraction have lost any of their ability to digest alcohol because of over a 1000 years of Islam stricture agin it?

As an aside, the above is why if I wasn't of Asian extraction I'd not touch soya products with someone else's bargepole. It's touted by loads as a healthy food, but it's a very novel food to Europeans. Asian populations have had over 2000 years to adapt to it, we've less than 20. Might be great for them, but really bad for us. That's above and beyond it's well dubious pseudo hormonal effects.

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

Well there's more bad things in grains that gluten. There's wheat germ agluteins, lectins, phytates.....the fact that our body has no defense for any of these would suggets that we are not adapated to grains. At best they displace healthier food in your diet

On average, unless your heritage is outside the European population, you're at least somewhat adapted to it. The genes show this. A number of them are to do with grain consumption. HOwever as you say it may well be a replacement that won't kill ya, but isn't exactly good for you either.

It might be down to how they're processed and consumed too. Recently they discovered to great surprise that Neandertals ate grains. They found the residue of cooked grains between their teeth. Since we don't know if they made bowls then probably like neolithic modern humans they made a kind of cooked biscuit. Of course they would only do this in season, and not every day for life and the grains were wild and mixed with nuts and berries. Like a Neandertal health bar minus the four tablespoons of sugar.

seamus

foxyboxer wrote: »

There's an old saying that goes "If God* didn't make it, then don't eat it"

It's a good thought process to have when eating food.

* Nature.

What falls down there is that very little if any of the things which go into your food are "unnatural".

Far more expensive to produce chemicals in a lab than grow them in a field. Practically all of the "unhealthy" additives in our foods started out growing or walking in a field somewhere. It's the process that comes after that of filtering and condensing that causes the problems.
Beware of things labelled "natural". It doesn't mean that the food is in any way healthier for you, just that none of the ingredients were produced in a lab. They may well still have been processed to within an inch of their lives.

"Unhealthy" is such a horribly subjective word anyway. It's meaningless. If you were to examine what "unhealthy" means, then you're looking at things which are detrimental to your health. So cyanide, or hydrogen peroxide. I think we'd agree that they're pretty unhealthy to consume.

Calling grains "unhealthy" is meaningless since grains aren't in isolation detrimental to one's health. You can eat them without suffering any ill-effects, therefore they are not unhealthy. Same goes for sugar and fat and salts and ten million other things the media likes to call "unhealthy". Categorising specific foods into "healthy" and "unhealthy" can be unhealthy in itself as it may lead confused individuals to eat nutritionally insufficient diets.

Sea Filly

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

Christ, what idocy, especially the bit in bold. Obviously you didn't even glance at the paper I posted (it would require a modicum of intellect to peruse, something which you perhaps not posses) so I'll summarise some of the points:

Your paper actually advocated eating moderate amounts of carbs, balancing the pros against the cons. Did you read it?

Also, what's with insulting people? If you're secure in your point of view, why do that?

foxyboxer

seamus wrote: »

What falls down there is that very little if any of the things which go into your food are "unnatural".

Far more expensive to produce chemicals in a lab than grow them in a field. Practically all of the "unhealthy" additives in our foods started out growing or walking in a field somewhere. It's the process that comes after that of filtering and condensing that causes the problems.
Beware of things labelled "natural". It doesn't mean that the food is in any way healthier for you, just that none of the ingredients were produced in a lab. They may well still have been processed to within an inch of their lives.

"Unhealthy" is such a horribly subjective word anyway. It's meaningless. If you were to examine what "unhealthy" means, then you're looking at things which are detrimental to your health. So cyanide, or hydrogen peroxide. I think we'd agree that they're pretty unhealthy to consume.

Calling grains "unhealthy" is meaningless since grains aren't in isolation detrimental to one's health. You can eat them without suffering any ill-effects, therefore they are not unhealthy. Same goes for sugar and fat and salts and ten million other things the media likes to call "unhealthy". Categorising specific foods into "healthy" and "unhealthy" can be unhealthy in itself as it may lead confused individuals to eat nutritionally insufficient diets.

http://deadhomersociety.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/margeonthelam3_thumb.png?w=512&h=384


Your body will function in spite of what you eat. Consistent consumption of a diet high in processed foods is detrimental in the long run. i.e. the old Western diseases.

Do a search on Dr Weston A. Price and his research. It's eye opening reading.

seamus

foxyboxer wrote: »

Your body will function in spite of what you eat. Consistent consumption of a diet high in processed foods is detrimental in the long run. i.e. the old Western diseases.

Key word there being "consistent".
Consistently consuming a diet high in alcohol is detrimental in the long run. But including alcohol in one's diet is not.

In fact, eating too much of any particular foodstuff (including water) can be detrimental in the long run.

Price's work, while quite groundbreaking for its time and contained some good pointers towards what we now know about nutrition, was also based on a number of flawed premises and had a number of wild and baseless theories, including the idea that more primitive people lived inherently healthier lives and that certain diseases like cancer were solely down to the western diet.

It has long since been superceded by modern research and is now unfortunately mainly used by fringe groups and conspiracy theorists as a reference for pop nutrition and fad diets.

Gummy Panda

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5kx9FrIhJU

--Kaiser--

Sea Filly wrote: »

Your paper actually advocated eating moderate amounts of carbs, balancing the pros against the cons. Did you read it?

Also, what's with insulting people? If you're secure in your point of view, why do that?

That's your interpretation of the it. I definitely couldn't have read that conclusion as an advocation of grain consumption. Obviously, people can live off grains, we've been doing it for years and it has been the reason we have expanded so much as a civilisation. But it is a 'double-edged sword' as these foods are detrimental to one's health in so many ways and have psyiological effects we are only now beginning to understand

Wibbs

Sea Filly wrote: »

The above-linked article says this in the conclusion:

The ecologic, energetic efficiency
wrought by the widespread cultivation and domestication of cereal grains
allowed for the dramatic expansion of worldwide human populations, which
in turn, ultimately led to humanity’s enormous cultural and technological
accomplishments

True, though this was less to do with the quality of the food and more about the quantity and ability to store it. In many cases archaeologist will tell you that you can spot a hunter gatherer compared to a farmer from the same population. The farmer is shorter, lower bone density, less robust with dodgy teeth and likely younger at death. But because there were more of them and specialisation could kick off we got modern civilisation out of the deal.

seamus wrote: »

Calling grains "unhealthy" is meaningless since grains aren't in isolation detrimental to one's health. You can eat them without suffering any ill-effects, therefore they are not unhealthy. Same goes for sugar and fat and salts and ten million other things the media likes to call "unhealthy". Categorising specific foods into "healthy" and "unhealthy" can be unhealthy in itself as it may lead confused individuals to eat nutritionally insufficient diets.

True again, though you'll find few scientists looking at this stuff who won't tell you that added sugar for example if removed from the diet entirely would have a bigger overall effect on health than most other things we consume including tobacco. So added sugar is in fact unhealthy*. Trans fats are unhealthy and implicated in all sorts of diseases and present in many foods.


The fact is - and it is scientifically valid and known for some time - if you want to live noticeably longer and be as healthy as possible for longer then a diet of a very low calorie intake with - and this is the important bit - with high nutrient foods is the way to go. The so called Cron diet. So far it's the only way known so far to extend longevity beyond an animals natural limits. Basically you can get the eqivalent of a 180 year old rat/mouse and the ongoing monkey trial is showing the same results a decade in compared to the controls. Significantly lower oxidative damage, stronger "young" immune systems, better hormone levels etc. Various longevity studies show it works on humans too. 40 year olds a year on such a diet come back with blood work and other age indicative tests of healthy people 10, even 20 years younger. It rejuvenates their bodies at a very low level. There was a Horizon programme on the telly this week about it, but sadly I missed it. I tried it myself once for six months. Defo saw improvements, but I will say it is not easy at all and that's bearing in mind that I've a very small appetite to start with. Intermittent fasting seems t have similar benefits. Like eating normally all week, with no food at the weekends kinda thing. Even if you eat crap during the week it still has an effect apparently.






*interestingly gerontologists have noted that among centenarians their lifestyles can vary quite a bit. Some are skinny, some are slightly overweight(though low defo outnumber normal or high appetites), some exercise, some lay around like sleepy babies, some even smoke like chimneys(officially the oldest person who every lived was a two packs of untipped Gauloises a day for over 70 years. Just a drag of one of them would have me hacking up a kidney), some are teetotalers, some near dipsos and so on. One thing that's almost a rule is that they all seem to have a genetic advantage in two areas; they have low cholesterol regardless of diet but, even moreso they have a very robust insulin/glucose response that doesn't diminish with age. If you're not so blessed genetically then limiting blood sugar levels as much as possible should mimic this.

the lack of education, and more importantly and dangerously the prevalence of mis-education about nutrition in Ireland and much of the "developed world" is a massive issue.

People gulping down "diet drinks", gorging on "low fat cheesecakes", eating 4x standard portion sizes of rice/potatoes with meals etc. The most worrying part is that the information is readily available, the lifestyle change thoroughly manageable, and the differences in life easily visible within short periods of time, and still people are thoroughly brainwashed by poor ideals and beliefs that are simply backwards.

For the person who remarked that people simply don't do enough, consider this.

If I have an excellent, balanced diet, yet eat two potatoes more a day than I probably should, or a Mars Bar, or a Danish pastry, or a large Latte (all approx 250/300kcal ), that's a weekly surplus of approximately 1800kcals, or approximately the energy required for an average person to run half a marathon.
Which is easier for the average person to do, ignore the cravings for sweet ****e, or run 13miles?

We have information about calorie content on every food stuff we eat, we can spend 2 hours one time reading through "how to eat" in places such as Nutritional forums etc and have 85% of the ideals that would create a diet that would be absolutely perfect for our needs, yet instead we see the continued (perhaps enforced) ignorances showing time and time again.

People need to take responsibility for their own health. The basics of eating properly is neither hard to understand, nor hard to make time for, nor needs to be expensive. Yet people choose to ignore that and grow on.

Scanlas The 2nd

Phoenix Park wrote: »

Wander round your local Dunnes/ Tesco/ Wherever. Most families are pushing round a trolley of diabetes. Fluffy white bread, cheap biscuits and fizzy drinks. No wonder kids are so fat, they'll eat what they are given if you start them early enough. Using sugar as a reward is another disaster. Can you imagine the rate of diabetes in Ireland in another 30/40 years time, it will be enormous, all the shhit we eat here. Pensions crisis+ Diabetes Crisis ....

Fruit and veg is expensive though. It goes off quickly too, bars of chocolate and cans of coke last forever (well, almost!). Its tough for families to eat healthily, but that doesn't mean zero effort can be made. The number of primary school boys walking around that are so fat they could do with wearing a bra is unreal :eek:

Its bizarre that its completely normal for every newsagent you walk in to to have so many bars of chocolate and fizzy drinks at the counter...maybe a Fat Tax is needed? Junk food is just so accessible, it almost standard for people to buy a bar and a bottle of coke with their newspaper at this stage.

Money isn't the issue, that's a convenient excuse, the problem is laziness and lack of will power. Any family on a tight budget can heat healthily. Liver costs about 60 cent to feed one person, it's one of the healthiest foods you can eat to name just one example.

Sea Filly

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

But it is a 'double-edged sword' as these foods are detrimental to one's health in so many ways and have psyiological effects we are only now beginning to understand

If consumed excessively. The article talks a lot about deficiencies. These are so rare on this island nowadays that I recall a girl getting scurvy in NI no more than 10 years ago was massive news.

Sea Filly

Wibbs wrote: »

The fact is - and it is scientifically valid and known for some time - if you want to live noticeably longer and be as healthy as possible for longer then a diet of a very low calorie intake with - and this is the important bit - with high nutrient foods is the way to go. The so called Cron diet.

The very low cal thing is far from proven. Which is why research is still ongoing. A search for the Cron diet on PubMed threw up 0 results.

EDIT: Sorry, a handful of papers. Not many though! More work to be done, I'm afraid.

Pumpkinseeds

*Looks at bingo wings and holds head in shame*:(

MistyCheese

This thread has inspired me to check my own BMI.

24.6, phew, just about made it into the "healthy" category. But I don't know my exact height so I may not quite be 8 foot 4...

bb1234567

I'd believe it, there are so many overweight 40's and over its incredible. There are so many its just taken for granted, adults middle aged or older are nearly always overweight,very overweight or obese..so few are in shape, especially women but men arent much better. Altough i think that there are a lot of overweight adults I dont think there are very many fat children,teens, young adults like 20-25. Id say theres definitely no more than 3-5% obesity rate in 20 y/o's and younger. Then I'd say another maybe 10% are just overweight. Then once they get into the 30's and older thats when things go wrong..

boarddotie

If you are interested, please watch this recent 4 part HBO series to see the effects the epidemic is having on the US. They are not just fighting a war in Iraq etc, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pEkCbqN4uo

Ireland may not be there yet but the obesity rates are increaing more rapidly than they did in the US over the last 30 years. Type II diabetes is the key indiactor- it goes hand in hand with obesity but, unlike obesity, has a sound way to diagnose it and track it in both adults and children.

There may not be an epidemic in your particular groups of friends or in your workplace but if you are a minority, are poorly educated, have poor access to health care or all of the above, the epidemic is most certainly alive and spreading (just like a virus).

aligator_am

I'd say it's true, I'm at least 2 stone over weight, and a lot of people I work with would be similar, was on the bus in Dublin recently and noticed that everyone I saw was over weight bar the Eastern European girls (they were good looking, wearing stonewash jeans and weren't lardoes).

It's pure laziness on my part, will always find an excuse not to use the dumbbells or bullworker, and far too many excuses to have a pint, a very bad combo.

Millicent

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

Money isn't the issue, that's a convenient excuse, the problem is laziness and lack of will power. Any family on a tight budget can heat healthily. Liver costs about 60 cent to feed one person, it's one of the healthiest foods you can eat to name just one example.

Not necessarily the healthiest -- it can constitute your entire RDA for cholesterol.

Super-Rush

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

Christ, what idocy, especially the bit in bold. Obviously you didn't even glance at the paper I posted (it would require a modicum of intellect to peruse, something which you perhaps not posses) so I'll summarise some of the points:

Grains do not provide nutrients (either macro or micro) in the correct ratio to provide a staple of ones diet
They are low in essential fatty acids
They contain phytates which inhibit nutrient absorption (especially minerals and vitamin D)
They contain protease inhibitors which inhibit protein assimilation
The contain alpha-amalase inhibitors which inhibit carbohydrate assimilation
The contain lectins which are gut irritants (amongst other things)
Then there's the gluten issue, the possibilty that grain proteins enter the blood stream intact and mimic opiates annd other neurological chemicals.......

Quit being a dick.

allibastor

its a fat fact. it is a huge drain on the health system and will be.

hauling fat asses like that

Sea Filly

Millicent wrote: »

Not necessarily the healthiest -- it can constitute your entire RDA for cholesterol.

As liver is something I'd just eat the odd time for an iron hit I wouldn't worry about that at all.

Scanlas The 2nd

Millicent wrote: »

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

Money isn't the issue, that's a convenient excuse, the problem is laziness and lack of will power. Any family on a tight budget can heat healthily. Liver costs about 60 cent to feed one person, it's one of the healthiest foods you can eat to name just one example.

Not necessarily the healthiest -- it can constitute your entire RDA for cholesterol.

If you eat it every day it could have negative effects, but once or twice a week is extremely beneficial, it's packed full of vitamins and minerals, much more densely than fruit and veg.

It baffles me that people think it is expensive to eat healthily, fruit and veg is cheap, go to a butcher and buy your meat.

Wibbs

Sea Filly wrote: »

The very low cal thing is far from proven.

Calorie restriction promoting longevity in animal models has been known for many decades. Human trials are ongoing and are showing similar benefits. I found the horizon programme on the subject from earlier in the week. Have an oul watch SF. Well worth it.

For a start these people aren't a bunch of hippies engulfed in sage smoke, eating tofu, while getting soya mile enemas, they're actual honest to god scientists. The diffs between one CR subject the same age as the presenter are marked. The CR bloke has faster reactions, significantly better balance and a host of "young" traits. He also has practically speaking a near zero risk of heart disease and stroke. They also mention the group of folks in South America with a very rare genetic condition who deserve a whole programme IMH. It causes among other things dwarfism, but they stand alone in one very unusual way. They pretty much never get cancer. Yep. They can eat crap, get sunburnt, smoke like chimneys but never succumb to a disease that will claim at least one in three(if not more) of the people reading this forum. It seems it's down to a growth hormone called IGF. Their bodies don't produce it or produce it in tiny amounts. Fasting, the CR diet and alternate day fasting lowers this to a significant degree(eating protein pumps it up so watch out Atkins diet folks).

So in the heel of the reel, eating less/intermittent fasting will make you healthier. Do it right and it'll make you significantly healthier than similar aged peers and will likely enable you to live longer and in better health.

Millicent

Millicent wrote: »

Not necessarily the healthiest -- it can constitute your entire RDA for cholesterol.

dietary cholesterol and body cholesterol are very different things.

I eat a high fat diet, I have low body-fat.

I eat high cholesterol (lot of eggs), I have low cholesterol.

This is another one of the "food myths" that people manage to echo as a fact. Again to do with the mis-education of people on nutrition and diet from an early age.

--Kaiser--

Millicent wrote: »

Not necessarily the healthiest -- it can constitute your entire RDA for cholesterol.

Dietary cholesterol has not been shown to significantly impact serum cholesterol levels