Everything you know about obesity is wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So now the malice crowd has resorted to claiming that their shaming prevents obesity. 3/4 of Americans are overweight, and 40% are obese.

Seems unbelievable to me. Although perhaps the shame keeps me from reaching the obese category. I always diet when I creep up and return to a lower number (overweight category). Or maybe it’s genetics because my mother does the same thing. We both lose weight easily when we track, just not enough and we can’t maintain.

That's not genetic. You don't have a genetic disease, you have learned behaviors that you picked up directly from your mother and you copy her disordered eating. That is your normal. As it is for many, many people.

Obesity is, in fact, a genetic disease, what are you talking about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t have credit card debt and I have lots of emergency savings, although I’m not high income. But I don’t go into um the finance forum to trash people struggling with debt or low income.

This is because I’m not a jerk.

It would be lovely if those who don’t struggle with eating to refrain from unhelpful “advice” regarding the success rate of diets.

There is a difference between helpful, well-meaning advice and "trashing." I don't go on there to tell everyone, "You suckers will never be rich! Why bother with hand-wringing over where to invest your measly $100k? It doesn't matter, you'll always lose in the end because you innately don't have what it takes to make it rich. And by the way, the rest of you people giving actual helpful advice should be quiet and not make the poor feel bad about being poor."

But have you given us any helpful advice beyond “eat real foods, not junk, in moderation”? Do you think that’s helpful advice? If so, why?

I need a solution to bring fried and burnt out that will make me feel as good as a big ass cookie. That would be helpful advice.

It is helpful for some, because it works for some! Look at this diet forum - all kinds of people asking for diet advice to lose weight. Plenty of people responding with ideas and what worked for them - different kinds of foods, eating windows, types of exercises. What is wrong with that?

I don't know what solution will work for you, but eating cookies is your choice.

Well that’s just it. Like the entire point of the article, there isn’t a solution! Because it’s a systemic problem. My “solution” is to periodically lose 10-15 pounds and then attempt to maintain but inevitably regain. I mean, I guess it’s a solution that I’ve been able to remain in the overweight category thus far.

It’s a problem of food engineered to be irresistible and people required to do too much.

When you decide that you're not going to eat the cookies, you'll find a significant change. I had to do this recently as I was 170lbs and feeling it. Now I am 149 lbs and can run up the stairs two at a time like I did decades ago, AND I'm in my 50's with a long term disease. There are no excuses. It's mental will, really that's all it is - making the decision to change how you eat and doing it.

I haven’t eaten a cookie in more years than I can count. Same for candy bars and ice cream. I’m sorry you used to eat junk, but if you really believe in CICO, you know junk is not necessary to become or remain obese.

I have never been obese.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So now the malice crowd has resorted to claiming that their shaming prevents obesity. 3/4 of Americans are overweight, and 40% are obese.

Seems unbelievable to me. Although perhaps the shame keeps me from reaching the obese category. I always diet when I creep up and return to a lower number (overweight category). Or maybe it’s genetics because my mother does the same thing. We both lose weight easily when we track, just not enough and we can’t maintain.

That's not genetic. You don't have a genetic disease, you have learned behaviors that you picked up directly from your mother and you copy her disordered eating. That is your normal. As it is for many, many people.

Obesity is, in fact, a genetic disease, what are you talking about?

According to this article, it is only a "disorder" in less than 5% of the population

https://www.cdc.gov/genomics/resources/diseases/obesity/obesedit.htm

So no, obesity is not in fact a genetic disease.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As with many complex phenomena, it's obviously a combination of systemic failures and individual choices. We can't really control things like subsidies to the junk food industrial complex, but we do have some control over our individual choices. That is the point. When you go to a Super Walmart and spend your money on soda, that's a choice.

If only it was all about junk food and soda. I’d be a size 2.

No one is recommending becoming a size 2, but if you're obese, there's no way that you got that way eating only healthy, unprocessed/low processed foods. It would be virtually impossible to become obese if you ate only fruits, vegetables, and low fat meats. You might still be large framed, but not obese.

Wrong, wrong, and incredibly wrong.

C’mon. Go visit any chain restaurant in middle America and notice what people are eating. Extremely large portions of unhealthy food. It’s pretty easy to figure out why almost everyone in the restaurant is overweight. There are some exceptions but the vast majority of overweight and obese people are simply eating too much food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We do have personal choices. Have ya'll ever looked at the shopping carts in the grocery section of Walmart. There are not a lot of shoppers selecting apples from the apple bin of the produce department. Most shoppers are loading their carts with 2 liter sodas, chips, and processed foods. As a shopper you have to walk through the produce section with your cart to check out.

Ahh but you’ve unwittingly pointed out how the American food system is broken!

Let’s talk apples, since you brought them up. It seems, from my brief European experiences and reading (I lack personal experience elsewhere in the world), that European food systems still tend toward seasonal eating as well as local eating. Apples, as summer to fall (and into winter depending on the storability of various varieties) should just now be starting to come back into the stores. But they’re not, they’ve been there all year. From Chile. From elsewhere overseas.

And is there a lot of nutrition in those traveled and stored apples? Not so much. Is there a lot of flavor? Is there a lot of choice? Depending on what store you go to. But why has America lost most of its local producers of apples with the varieties that we used to grow? It’s corporate food choices made with corporate needs in mind. You won’t find a lot of Esopus Spitzenbergs or Limbertwigs or Pearmains.

Our food is corporate. The flavors are banal and one dimensional and quite frankly, even our fruits and vegetables are no longer as healthy as they were even a few years ago and are far less nutritious than they were a hundred years ago. You were trying to take a swipe at those fatties making poor choices but you instead managed to point out one of the major failings of our food system.

Oh for the love. So you are saying all the people in Costco filling their cart with a pallet of croissants, boxes of taquitos and mini frozen quiche, frozen “uncrustable” sandwiches, etc. are passing up the apples bc they aren’t grown locally? BS. The excuses for why people eat crap is astounding

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So now the malice crowd has resorted to claiming that their shaming prevents obesity. 3/4 of Americans are overweight, and 40% are obese.

Seems unbelievable to me. Although perhaps the shame keeps me from reaching the obese category. I always diet when I creep up and return to a lower number (overweight category). Or maybe it’s genetics because my mother does the same thing. We both lose weight easily when we track, just not enough and we can’t maintain.

That's not genetic. You don't have a genetic disease, you have learned behaviors that you picked up directly from your mother and you copy her disordered eating. That is your normal. As it is for many, many people.

Obesity is, in fact, a genetic disease, what are you talking about?

According to this article, it is only a "disorder" in less than 5% of the population

https://www.cdc.gov/genomics/resources/diseases/obesity/obesedit.htm

So no, obesity is not in fact a genetic disease.

This was posted earlier and largely ignored, but I think worth revising. There are inherited genetic mutations that pre-dispose individuals to obesity; mostly having to do with regulation of food intake. However, these genetic mutations do not mean you will be become obese and the risk for developing obesity can be overcome with diet and lifestyle

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-causes/genes-and-obesity/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nope you can offer the best possible locally grown, organic apple that was grown in an orchard playing classical musical and someone who lacks impulse control is going to get the chips and dip or doughnuts. The best ever apple can cost a fraction of the chips and it will still be passed by. Sugar, fat and carbs is extremely satisfying to people. It’s more than just taste, it gives them a chemical boost and satisfies cravings.

I think the person constantly pushing that people are only fat because of the food supply is uninformed. If you are already a normal eater and buy apples then subsidizing them and making them more flavorful is a win for you. It won’t do zip for fat people. But hey the normal sized apple lover can feel superior that she’s helping fat people by getting herself cheaper, tastier apples.

I disagree. Just keeping with the apple example for simplicity, it is no longer common to be able to find or purchase the best possible locally grown organic apples and even if we were, our soil is depleted. An apple today is less nutritious than it was before and global warming plus our atrocious farming practices are driving this.

Plus - and you know this, despite your impulse control in thinking - the best ever apple doesn’t cost a fraction of what chips cost because chips are subsidized. Non food is subsidized. Where was your food grown? I’ve spent the last few weeks traveling in my home midwestern state. It’s still, land-wise, a rural-ish state. Do you know what’s grown here? Corn and soy, corn and soy. Across endless acres, non-food food as far as the eye can see. Crop dusted and treated and unable to grow without massive irrigation that drains our aquifers and kills the Mississippi River basin and contributes to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

You want to blame people for being fat,, obviously. It clearly answers a need you have. But obesity is so much more than people’s poor choices as it’s clearly involved with agricultural practices, policies, access to medical care, exposure to chemicals and poisons, it’s part of the story of human driven global warming and yes personal choices, but it’s obviously not just that. And if you were a thoughtful, reflective person you might think about the fact that you enjoy shaming people for what is beyond just their choices and their personal failings and issues are visible in a way that your personal failings are not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t have credit card debt and I have lots of emergency savings, although I’m not high income. But I don’t go into um the finance forum to trash people struggling with debt or low income.

This is because I’m not a jerk.

It would be lovely if those who don’t struggle with eating to refrain from unhelpful “advice” regarding the success rate of diets.

There is a difference between helpful, well-meaning advice and "trashing." I don't go on there to tell everyone, "You suckers will never be rich! Why bother with hand-wringing over where to invest your measly $100k? It doesn't matter, you'll always lose in the end because you innately don't have what it takes to make it rich. And by the way, the rest of you people giving actual helpful advice should be quiet and not make the poor feel bad about being poor."

But have you given us any helpful advice beyond “eat real foods, not junk, in moderation”? Do you think that’s helpful advice? If so, why?

I need a solution to bring fried and burnt out that will make me feel as good as a big ass cookie. That would be helpful advice.

It is helpful for some, because it works for some! Look at this diet forum - all kinds of people asking for diet advice to lose weight. Plenty of people responding with ideas and what worked for them - different kinds of foods, eating windows, types of exercises. What is wrong with that?

I don't know what solution will work for you, but eating cookies is your choice.

Well that’s just it. Like the entire point of the article, there isn’t a solution! Because it’s a systemic problem. My “solution” is to periodically lose 10-15 pounds and then attempt to maintain but inevitably regain. I mean, I guess it’s a solution that I’ve been able to remain in the overweight category thus far.

It’s a problem of food engineered to be irresistible and people required to do too much.

When you decide that you're not going to eat the cookies, you'll find a significant change. I had to do this recently as I was 170lbs and feeling it. Now I am 149 lbs and can run up the stairs two at a time like I did decades ago, AND I'm in my 50's with a long term disease. There are no excuses. It's mental will, really that's all it is - making the decision to change how you eat and doing it.

I haven’t eaten a cookie in more years than I can count. Same for candy bars and ice cream. I’m sorry you used to eat junk, but if you really believe in CICO, you know junk is not necessary to become or remain obese.

I have never been obese.

And I have, without eating junk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So now the malice crowd has resorted to claiming that their shaming prevents obesity. 3/4 of Americans are overweight, and 40% are obese.

Seems unbelievable to me. Although perhaps the shame keeps me from reaching the obese category. I always diet when I creep up and return to a lower number (overweight category). Or maybe it’s genetics because my mother does the same thing. We both lose weight easily when we track, just not enough and we can’t maintain.

That's not genetic. You don't have a genetic disease, you have learned behaviors that you picked up directly from your mother and you copy her disordered eating. That is your normal. As it is for many, many people.

Obesity is, in fact, a genetic disease, what are you talking about?

According to this article, it is only a "disorder" in less than 5% of the population

https://www.cdc.gov/genomics/resources/diseases/obesity/obesedit.htm

So no, obesity is not in fact a genetic disease.

This was posted earlier and largely ignored, but I think worth revising. There are inherited genetic mutations that pre-dispose individuals to obesity; mostly having to do with regulation of food intake. However, these genetic mutations do not mean you will be become obese and the risk for developing obesity can be overcome with diet and lifestyle

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-causes/genes-and-obesity/

The bolded is a circular conclusion that only serves to point out that people who are not obese do not maintain an obese weight through diet and exercise. It doesn't prove that anyone with the gene can avoid obesity because some people with the gene avoid obesity. The same is true for many other genetic markers--for example, not everyone with BCRA markers will get breast cancer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As with many complex phenomena, it's obviously a combination of systemic failures and individual choices. We can't really control things like subsidies to the junk food industrial complex, but we do have some control over our individual choices. That is the point. When you go to a Super Walmart and spend your money on soda, that's a choice.

If only it was all about junk food and soda. I’d be a size 2.

No one is recommending becoming a size 2, but if you're obese, there's no way that you got that way eating only healthy, unprocessed/low processed foods. It would be virtually impossible to become obese if you ate only fruits, vegetables, and low fat meats. You might still be large framed, but not obese.

Wrong, wrong, and incredibly wrong.

C’mon. Go visit any chain restaurant in middle America and notice what people are eating. Extremely large portions of unhealthy food. It’s pretty easy to figure out why almost everyone in the restaurant is overweight. There are some exceptions but the vast majority of overweight and obese people are simply eating too much food.

Okay, some obese people become and remain obese eating junk. And some thin people remain thin while eating junk. Overall low income Americans don't eat well, at any BMI. But it's not hard to become and remain obese eating clean foods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As with many complex phenomena, it's obviously a combination of systemic failures and individual choices. We can't really control things like subsidies to the junk food industrial complex, but we do have some control over our individual choices. That is the point. When you go to a Super Walmart and spend your money on soda, that's a choice.

If only it was all about junk food and soda. I’d be a size 2.

No one is recommending becoming a size 2, but if you're obese, there's no way that you got that way eating only healthy, unprocessed/low processed foods. It would be virtually impossible to become obese if you ate only fruits, vegetables, and low fat meats. You might still be large framed, but not obese.

Wrong, wrong, and incredibly wrong.

C’mon. Go visit any chain restaurant in middle America and notice what people are eating. Extremely large portions of unhealthy food. It’s pretty easy to figure out why almost everyone in the restaurant is overweight. There are some exceptions but the vast majority of overweight and obese people are simply eating too much food.

Okay, some obese people become and remain obese eating junk. And some thin people remain thin while eating junk. Overall low income Americans don't eat well, at any BMI. But it's not hard to become and remain obese eating clean foods.

Most obese people don’t become obese by eating only heathy foods. We all know this..

Even so... if you don’t have the ability to well regulate your food intake, the use a scale. If you notice your weight climbing, you need less food, perhaps less and different foods. If you are prone to overeating and regulating, weigh yourself more frequently. This is basic self care. It is a lot easier to fix a 5-10 lb gain. I cannot fathom how people can let themselves gain 50+ lbs and not do anything about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As with many complex phenomena, it's obviously a combination of systemic failures and individual choices. We can't really control things like subsidies to the junk food industrial complex, but we do have some control over our individual choices. That is the point. When you go to a Super Walmart and spend your money on soda, that's a choice.

If only it was all about junk food and soda. I’d be a size 2.

No one is recommending becoming a size 2, but if you're obese, there's no way that you got that way eating only healthy, unprocessed/low processed foods. It would be virtually impossible to become obese if you ate only fruits, vegetables, and low fat meats. You might still be large framed, but not obese.

Wrong, wrong, and incredibly wrong.

C’mon. Go visit any chain restaurant in middle America and notice what people are eating. Extremely large portions of unhealthy food. It’s pretty easy to figure out why almost everyone in the restaurant is overweight. There are some exceptions but the vast majority of overweight and obese people are simply eating too much food.

Okay, some obese people become and remain obese eating junk. And some thin people remain thin while eating junk. Overall low income Americans don't eat well, at any BMI. But it's not hard to become and remain obese eating clean foods.

Most obese people don’t become obese by eating only heathy foods. We all know this..

Even so... if you don’t have the ability to well regulate your food intake, the use a scale. If you notice your weight climbing, you need less food, perhaps less and different foods. If you are prone to overeating and regulating, weigh yourself more frequently. This is basic self care. It is a lot easier to fix a 5-10 lb gain. I cannot fathom how people can let themselves gain 50+ lbs and not do anything about it.

Most people don't eat only healthy foods, period. We all also know that the difference between maintaining an obese weight and maintaining a healthy weight is not major--100 to 200 calories for women, generally. But we all also like to pretend the difference is facefulls of pizza and tacos because then we get to judge and blame them for having a different hormonal balance than thinner people.

But yes, you have explained, thoroughly and repeatedly, that you cannot empathize with fat people in any way. Understood.

[Anonymous]

Just wait til a lot of folks get on board with taking Wegovy and the like meds. What will all these shamers do with their moral superiority? Oh I know, it will be what was posted upthread, they'll be shamed for taking medication to help control their weight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just wait til a lot of folks get on board with taking Wegovy and the like meds. What will all these shamers do with their moral superiority? Oh I know, it will be what was posted upthread, they'll be shamed for taking medication to help control their weight.

Medication may be necessary for a small portion of people that truly cannot control food intake. But considering that 70% of people are overweight, I’m not buying that all those people have a disorder affecting their ability to control hunger and food intake- which is what the medicine is for

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So now the malice crowd has resorted to claiming that their shaming prevents obesity. 3/4 of Americans are overweight, and 40% are obese.

Seems unbelievable to me. Although perhaps the shame keeps me from reaching the obese category. I always diet when I creep up and return to a lower number (overweight category). Or maybe it’s genetics because my mother does the same thing. We both lose weight easily when we track, just not enough and we can’t maintain.

That's not genetic. You don't have a genetic disease, you have learned behaviors that you picked up directly from your mother and you copy her disordered eating. That is your normal. As it is for many, many people.

Obesity is, in fact, a genetic disease, what are you talking about?

NP.

Amazing how this genetic predisposition only seems to affect Americans, overwhelmingly.