Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong

As a formerly 300+ pound dude, I found this pretty interesting.

 

Great read

 

Fascinating read. I think one of the big missteps is trying to convince people that it's 100% the food you eat. I know people who eat only junk food but due to high metabolism, they are smaller than me. It's also hard for some people to go to a gym or stick to a gym routine. I've been going for a few years and I'm still bored to my limits each time I go.

 

This article highlights some really interesting problems regarding weight and perceptions of weight. One of the most interesting points to me is that there's a lack of community among overweight individuals that other minority groups have. It's interesting that fat people are just as judgmental fat people as anyone else. It's really a shame.

I'm not sure what the ultimate solution is, but I definitely agree that "fat shaming" doesn't help anyone especially when the biological reaction to such negative attention is to try to make yourself feel better which results in a vicious cycle of overeating. I'm someone who's never been overweight (though I've been pudgy at times—my heaviest as a male at 5'10" is 172 lbs, and I'm generally ~160 lbs.), but I struggle with binge eating especially when I'm stressed or upset. If my wife and I get in a fight, I'm likely to grab a family-sized bag of chips at 2 am and eat the entire thing. Or I'll make up an excuse to go to the store and eat a theater box of milk duds while walking around, throwing away the evidence before returning home. I tend to yo-yo between days where I eat a healthy 1500-2000 calories and days where I binge and eat 3500-4500 calories, typically the result of some kind of stressful or upsetting event earlier in the day. I literally refer to those days as giving myself a "food hug", and sometimes, I think the tradeoff is worth it. Other times, I end up resenting myself when I wake up the next day feeling bloated, and the scale reminds me that I did something I shouldn't have.

I think understanding and accepting the biological aspects of being overweight is extremely important too. People have generally accepted that most other minority statuses are biologically-driven—female, LGBTQ, African-American, Hispanic, etc. I think the biggest progression of acceptance of homosexuality is the growing understanding that people don't choose to be gay. So why is it that we are hesitant to believe being overweight isn't a choice either?

I think being overweight is much more biologically-oriented than people give credit for. As I mentioned above, I've never been overweight despite going through periods of my life where I ate almost exclusively bad fast food and had no exercise at all. Most-recently, a couple years ago, my wife was on bed rest at a hospital for the last two months of her pregnancy with our twin boys. My schedule consisted of going to work and coming straight home or working from the hospital, and I ate Taco Bell at least daily, sometimes twice a day. And by eating Taco Bell, I mean that I ate a box meal that consisted of 1200-1800 calories per meal. Many days, I literally didn't leave the hospital. When I wasn't eating Taco Bell, I was eating Pizza Hut or some other fast food restaurant within a two mile radius of the hospital. (In case anyone is curious, my wife's meals were all provided by the hospital, and she ate much better than I did.) My parents and in-laws were very nice in bringing us food, but it certainly wasn't good for me. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I did not exercise a single time during that two month period, and I hadn't been particularly active prior to that either (quitting tennis, my sole source of exercise, when my wife got pregnant). Yet again, I peaked at 172 lbs, putting on 7 lbs in the first few weeks then plateauing there, despite my actions looking like I was trying to put on weight.

One of my closest friends, on the other hand, is the same height as me, and he's never weighed less than 180 lbs in the 15 years that I've known him. He's more active than I am (participates in recreational sports leagues and rows in his free time). He and I compare what we eat, and we eat very similarly, yet his weight generally hovers around 200 lbs. He's actually better than me in that he's not a snacker. I struggle to eat a portion of a bag of chips no matter what the size. There is absolutely no justification outside of biology for him weighing 30-40 lbs more than me while he's more active and eats roughly the same food.

I also find that I can lose weight pretty quickly with just a little discipline. If I limit myself to 1200-1500 calories per day, I can easily lose 3-4 lbs a week until I hit ~150 lbs. And although my metabolism fluctuated during my 20's (I went from 155 to 170 lbs in my mid-20s but then was able to drop back down to 152 lbs after minding what I ate), it's since stabilized, and I'd argue it's pretty close to as strong as it's ever been at 33 years old and with limited exercise (aka ping pong at the office once a week and going walking with the kids for 30 minutes once or twice a week).

Another interesting anecdote about my biology is that my father is 5'9" and weighs 260 lbs, and my mother is a healthy weight (5'4" 130 lbs). My father's been big his whole life while my mother was only overweight at one point during hers, and she lost a significant amount of weight once she quit drinking and started exercising. So I could have gone one way or the other, and I got lucky. But I realize that there was about a 50/50 chance that I could have been struggling with my weight my entire life. And that being said, I still obsess over what I eat and what I weigh. Welcome to America.

 

This was an interesting read but honestly, I think a lot of it comes down to most people do not exercise, our diet is terrible, and theres a mental health epidemic in this country.

A lot of people who are overweight have issues with their self image and instead of dealing with that, they blame it on slow metabolism or other biological issues. I was overweight from ages 10 to 16. Like really overweight. At 14, I was 240 and wore a size 40 waist pants. Trust me, I was convinced that I couldn’t lose weight and that I had a slow metabolism. In reality, I ate like shit and didn’t exercise.i tried weight watchers and other extreme diets but nothing took. Not because I had a biological issue but it was because I had extremely low self esteem and didn’t think I could lose weight so I sabotaged myself. People at weight watchers or friends would assume that I have some issue but in reality I was sneaking food
People in general (myself included) are hypocrites and we like to think we're better people than they are. After observing people, especially since I've entered the workforce, I don't believe people if they say they are doing one thing but their results show something else.

I’ve even dealt with having an eating disorder going from one extreme to another and going down to 150 lbs even though I’m 6ft tall. I basically got addicted to losing weight after being overweight for so long. This is an obvious reflection of my mindset at that time. Its taken me almost 10 years to get a solid workout routine and learn to eat properly and I finally feel like I've made it out and shred the mindset that had me trapped.

I'd say I'm pretty observant especially since I've always compared myself to other people and most Americans just aren’t disciplined. I see how terrible my peers and work colleagues eat. Also, none of them exercise. They all talk about how they don't eat bad but I can guarantee they eat bad at home or in secret. As someone who was overweight then had an eating disorder, I used to sneak treats and eat them in the bathroom, in my bed, or walk to a gas station and eat my treats on the way home. On the other end, if I ate something bad a lot of times I'd do excessive cardio or just throw it up. As mentioned in the article, this type of shame and hiding messes with your whole life and it is a terrible place to be. It feels hopeless but learning to love yourself is the answer. At least for me, taking care of myself by exercising and eating better helped me do that instead of just willing myself to and hoping society will start being nicer to me.

With all that said, I think these types of articles can do more harm then good. Lots of people, myself included, look for any reason to keep doing what they're doing. If I would've read this article when I was overweight, it would've just given me more reason to not change anything. My life has improved dramatically ever since I lost weight and learned how to keep it off in a healthy manner. Losing weight, especially since I never thought I could, gave me so much confidence that I would never take that time of my life back and I think you're robbing people of that when telling them that most people are obese because of something out of their control. I've graduated college, dating many attractive women including my present girlfriend, and have a well paying corporate job. This might not sound like much but I come from poor parents who were raised in the Philadelphia projects and had a father in prison on top of being severely overweight. The mindset that I learned in this environment was the problem.

All in all, I do not mean to sound harsh but I'm glad I didn't see this article while I was overweight. My life most likely would be completely different. I think we need to be nicer to each other and teach our children how to love themselves but idk if this is the way to do it

 

This was a really interesting read. It shocked me when I found out that most medical professionals don't get that many nutrition classes throughout their entire time at school. It's such an important factor of overall health and it's so much more than the basic facts you get in the intro classes. I was a dietetics major and I think the great part about our program was we not only learned about the impact of food on the body, but we'd have large portions of our classes dedicated to understanding why people are not eating healthy foods.

I grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood and never even considered that people lived in areas without grocery stores. Food deserts are a serious issue; we can't just tell people to eat healthy foods when they might live in an area without access to them. It makes me so angry that there's an area in the suburbs where there are now 9 different grocery stores within 1-2 miles of each other, but in the city there are only a handful of them and they're still in nicer areas for the most part.

Obesity can't just be fixed by one quick thing. It's a much deeper issue than that. I'm not saying I have the slightest idea on how to fix it, I just hope people read this and understand it isn't just "fat people don't want to stop eating McDonalds."

 

THIS. So much. I am now at a healthy weight for my height and it's largely because I am exercising 6 days a week and actually tracking the calories (and where those calories come from). When I was overweight, I would constantly judge thinner people and say things to myself like "ah I wish I had their metabolism" or "they're so lucky". In reality, the problem was that I wasn't eating as healthily as I credited myself for. I wasn't exercising consistently. And that I would read things that confirmed my biases.

One of the biggest problems with our society is that we want things without understanding the sacrifices that go into achieving them. We attribute it to luck or good fortune. We think things like "oh I wish I had time to go to the gym like you do". No one has time to do to the gym and to exercise. You have to make time for those things. I currently wake up at 5am, workout for an hour, work from 8-5:30, go to class for my masters 2 nights a week from 6-9 and then usually will try to do a quick swim before I go to bed. To have people attribute my weight loss to a "fast metabolism" is almost offensive to all of the hard work I've done over the last year. If I can make time to do these things, I'm guessing there are others who could as well. Articles like this further the misconception that it is impossible for overweight people to be healthier.

I also found the statistics mentioned in the article to be a little misleading. They quoted that 25% of people at a healthy weight are actually metabolically unhealthy while 35% (to 75% which I feel like is bad data) of overweight people are metabolically unhealthy. The logical conclusion here is that being overweight IS in fact bad for your health, unlike the conclusion drawn in the article that "ehhh statistics don't apply to individuals." Well, yes, they don't apply to individuals, but if you're a healthy weight, there's a much better chance that you're going to be healthy than if you are overweight.

With respect to the doctors, maybe the solution is to increase the amount of General Practitioners who have a dietitian background. People can't expect to see their GP and have that person craft a meal and exercise plan for them. It would be like me walking into the GPs office as a cigarette smoker and expecting the GP to have a full understanding of the treatment for lung cancer. Their advise is obviously going to be at a high level (you should quit smoking and/or here's the lung cancer specialist's number) the same way it's at a high level for obesity (you should exercise and eat better).

 

I read somewhere and have felt it personally, but am interested in someone who actually studied dietetics answers: Do fast food companies like McDonald's put something addictive (other than sugar) in their food to make you addicted to it (either physically or psychologically?).

It's also crazy how many products have unnecessary sugar in them. After doing Whole 30 a few times, it really opened my eyes to how shitty the food we eat really is.

 

Or have insurance companies actually cover appointments with dietitians.

 

I don’t know about them adding a certain thing to their products just because I haven’t read into their foods specifically, but their baseline flavors of sugar, salt, and fat are all flavors that in general are preferable to the tastebuds already. If all you’re eating is those things, you really won’t want to stop because they all taste good and make you feel satisfied. Americans definitely eat too much sugar. There isn’t a set daily limit or anything, but in general we eat waaay too much. That’s why they’re changing the nutrition label on products to include total grams of added sugars. I work for a company that makes frozen desserts (it is hard working somewhere making products that you know aren’t healthy, but I’d never make this kind of money working in a hospital and I’m more or less here for the experience) and adding sugar to products is a cheap way to increase the flavor. Now that we have to list added sugars, I don’t know how that will affect our formulas. Obviously frozen desserts aren’t ever super healthy, but we are now looking into making a low carb or reduced sugar item.

 

To your first point, I'd just say that it's glaring how much more sugar and salt is included in food in North America versus places like Europe. Having moved to Europe for grad school and then returned afterwards it's obvious from even the taste, but reading the nutritional content tells the story. Part of that is the types of food eaten, but it's equally true for simple things like granola.

Add to that the lifestyle/cultural aspect in that most North Americans are driven to/from school, drive to the store, drive to the park, drive to the gym, etc. and all of these things add up to cultural and lifestyle norms that are taken for granted but when combined with genetics, mental health, etc. result in frighteningly high rates of obesity.

 

Obesity is a complicated epidemic that will never have an easy, catch-all solution. People need education, nutrition, exercise, a healthy mental environment, and probably more things that I can't think and not necessarily in that order.

This article brings up some great points but I agree with the other folks here saying it's misleading and not giving enough credit to regular exercise.

It's a systemic problem with our society that will probably take generations to resolve, if we ever can.

 

Can someone give me the TLDR?

I'm just curious if it's something like A.) that being obese isn't unhealthy or B.) being obese has more of a genetic component than most people realize... (not curious enough to actually read the article though, obviously)

 

Sugar can be addicting and it releases dopamine just like drugs do. I still have to put berries and bananas in my oatmeal in order to satisfy my sugar craving even though I rarely eat "sugar" snacks. I'll have a doughnut every 3 weeks or so and that's it.

What happens to your brain when you give up sugar - CNN

 

For anyone who's interested, there's a great book called "Bigger, Leaner, Stronger". It's for body building but the first half of the book is all about diet and it's mind blowing.

Not having access to a dietician or claiming that you can't stop eating food bc food companies add sugar to their food is just an excuse.

Food companies spend so much money on making their food addictive and then put out literature making you think that you can't stop eating it. None of these weightloss companies (nutrisystem, south beach diet, etc) help either because they convince people that they can't lose weight without one of these programs. It's all crap. Most of the time the food ins't even better for you, it's just a smaller serving. These companies do not care about you.

Even this article could've been funded by a food company. Honestly, I just don't believe anything that I read anymore that claims that I can't stop a certain behavior because of A, B, or C. Whether, its working out, eating healthy, finance, life coaching. These are all vultures that feed on the general publics insecurity and ignorance. Stick to the parameter of the grocery store (meat, seafood, vegetables etc), go for a walk everyday, take the stairs, and quit drinking/drugs. You'll be fine

 

100%. When I'm being disciplined, I track all of my food in myfitnesspal. For those who are going to say "what about those of us who don't have a smartphone" you can just track it on a piece of paper. You can do a basic google search to figure out roughly how many calories a piece of food is and you can use a calculator online to figure out roughly how many calories you burn daily based on your height, weight, and activity level. Most people aren't doing any of this so any attempt to lose or gain weight is a guessing game. 99% of people don't even know how many calories they need to maintain their weight so how do they know if they should be losing or gaining weight.

As an example, if your maintenance caloric intake is 1500 calories a day because they sit around all day and you currently eat 2000 calories a day and cut back to 1700, you are still going to gain weight despite your change in diet

When I've brought this up to people, they say it's too much work.

 

I think some people missed the entire point of this article.

 

thank you.

 

Haha it's 2018...the response to "what about those of us who don't have a smartphone" should be "join the real world and get a smartphone."

At work, we recently implemented multi-factor authentication that requires people to approve the login from an app on their phone. We talked about using less secure (SMS or phone call) methods and ruled it out. We determined that if someone made a big deal out of it, we could buy them a $30 Android phone, connect it to WiFi, and call it good.

 

HA! I had the same thought reading through the comments.

 

Not everyone has the means to get a smartphone, nor the desire to. It shouldn't be a requirement to participate in the world, especially considering the amount of harm they can potentially cause.

As for two-factor authentication, they tried to do that at my office and I refuse to use my personal phone for work purposes, for a variety of reasons. I raised a stink about it and got them to rewrite the policy to provide options that don't require use of a personal phone.

 

The thing is, it can seem like a lot of work if you have zero idea what you’re doing or why you’re doing it. Not everyone understands how to count calories and even if they look up how much is in a food, they might not understand how to properly measure a serving size. The level of ease depends on your access to the proper resources it takes to lead a healthier lifestyle.

 

Not particularly surprising that a factually dubious (and insanely long-winded) article that's mostly anecdotes that place nearly all the blame of being overweight on external factors is met with users posting well thought-out personal stories that contradict it's intent, only to have the same couple "you guys don't know what you're talking about" or "you missed the point" responses.

I mean christ, someone said "if we've accepted that being being gay is not a choice, why do we think that being overweight is?". That is absolutely not how this works.

 

That any article that follows

"Since 1959, research has shown that 95 to 98 percent of attempts to lose weight fail and that two-thirds of dieters gain back more than they lost. The reasons are biological and irreversible. As early as 1969, research showed that losing just 3 percent of your body weight resulted in a 17 percent slowdown in your metabolism—a body-wide starvation response that blasts you with hunger hormones and drops your internal temperature until you rise back to your highest weight. "

with

"The second big lesson the medical establishment has learned and rejected over and over again is that weight and health are not perfect synonyms. Yes, nearly every population-level study finds that fat people have worse cardiovascular health than thin people. But individuals are not averages: Studies have found that anywhere from one-third to three-quarters of people classified as obese are metabolically healthy."

should not be taken seriously?

"Here are a bunch of statistics that prove our point. Now here's one that contradicts it, but at this moment statistics don't apply. Also, studies have found that somewhere between 0% and 100% of overweight people are healthy.