TIL Libya is the fattest country in the world? (certainly to women at the least) I never would have thought... However, what's the source of that information? Wikipedia doesn't have Libya listed for stats on their map, and other sources tend to not have Libya either. Many sources seem to say the USA has the most fat people, but I guess it depends what breakpoints you use for the map colors (if using a map), or what the break-point is for what's considered to be overweight or obese (some countries may have different distributions of weight — different bell curves).
On June 22 2014 23:36 Zerste wrote: The amount of misinformation in this thread is staggering and only demonstrates a large component of the issue. People aren't informed about energy intake and output well enough to make educated choices.
I agree. I read virtually no comments, but I've heard all sorts of stuff in other places about this sort of thing, and many people seemingly have poor understanding of what makes a person overweight.
Sure, unhealthy food is unhealthy, but that's not what makes people overweight.
On June 22 2014 20:37 crappen wrote: And please stop with the braindead calorie is equal bullshit. It's way too simplified. A healthy meal leaves you way more satisfied then mcdonalds.
That is not the point though.
If you eat 2000 kcal of McDonalds versus 2000 kcal of 'healthy meals' you will have consumed the same amount of calories.
I see what you are saying, that people who ate those 2000kcal of McDonalds will probably snack during the day since they are not feeling satisfied, compared to the healthy food group who are feeling satisfied by the 2000kcal they already ate. This doesn't mean that you can call it "braindead calorie is equal bullshit" though, since if you follow the daily calorie intake that you had planned, eating 2000kcal McD or 2000kcal 'healthy meals' will make no difference in calories consumed.
Saying a calorie is a calorie, in that as a unit of energy it is exactly equal to another identical unit of energy, is an obscuring banality, even putting aside the methods used to measure and quantify calories in different foods.
But I am saying precisely that a person who is only allowed to eat a 2kcal diet of dry cereal will look different and be a different weight than the same person on a 2kcal meat and vegetable diet and the same person on a 2kcal big mac and fries diet. Energy utilization and partitioning within the body depends on the type, quantity, and timing of calories ingested, as well as upon the needs and state (rested, walking, just ran a marathon, just spent an hour lifting weights) of the body consuming those calories.
The only thing that the twinkie diet teaches us is that it's still possible to starve yourself eating just a twinkie everyday which should have been obvious.
You didn't even take a look at it... He ate 1800 kcal of twinkies. He also wasn't stupid, did take multivitamins and protein supplements. The end result seems to have been the expected weight loss just as with any normal 1800 kcal diet for his particular body and level of activity. The numbers in his blood work improved.
This thread is about people that have 20 kg too much weight or something. Losing so much weight will take years of work. The supposedly stupid counting of calories will absolutely work for the affected person. I feel this nutrition talk about minerals and vitamins and proteins or whatever is the obscuring banality.
Just because every calorie isn't equal doesn't mean that counting calories is stupid. Obviously you can lose weight by eating less. How much weight, what type of weight (fat, muscle), and for how long all depend on what those calories are though. I'm responding to the assertion that "all calories are created equal," which even in the narrow context of how much fat you store or lose is simply not true. But only an idiot would take my argument to mean that the quantity of food you eat doesn't matter.
I am going to insist that every calorie is equal. I think you are conflating calories and calorie sources to be the same thing. You might think that it's vapid semantics but i would agree with everything you've posted if instead of 'calories' you wrote 'source of calories'.
On June 23 2014 07:21 Xapti wrote: TIL Libya is the fattest country in the world? (certainly to women at the least) I never would have thought... However, what's the source of that information? Wikipedia doesn't have Libya listed for stats on their map, and other sources tend to not have Libya either. Many sources seem to say the USA has the most fat people, but I guess it depends what breakpoints you use for the map colors (if using a map), or what the break-point is for what's considered to be overweight or obese (some countries may have different distributions of weight — different bell curves).
On June 22 2014 23:36 Zerste wrote: The amount of misinformation in this thread is staggering and only demonstrates a large component of the issue. People aren't informed about energy intake and output well enough to make educated choices.
I agree. I read virtually no comments, but I've heard all sorts of stuff in other places about this sort of thing, and many people seemingly have poor understanding of what makes a person overweight.
Sure, unhealthy food is unhealthy, but that's not what makes people overweight.
There is also lack of exercise.
And lack of exercise is heavily attributed to our technology-filled society.
40 or even 30 years ago, kids were playing in the playground in all kind of sports while nowadays, you will find many of them playing on their parent's tablets and/or smartphones.
Then most them will become adults and copy those behaviors upon the next generation.
I looked what my BMI is. Apparently i'm overweight. At 6 feet tall, i should only weight at max around 173 pounds. I weigh about 180. I'm really shocked only 37% of men are are considered overweight or above. I'm just about as thin as you can get. I have a flat stomach and recently started doing ab workouts because i can see my oblique lines and thought it wouldn't take much to get a six pack. I run a few times a week and am going to start doing P90x, i went through the program last year.
EDIT: according to different BMI calculation I'm at 24.4 just skating that line but not overweight.
On June 22 2014 20:37 crappen wrote: And please stop with the braindead calorie is equal bullshit. It's way too simplified. A healthy meal leaves you way more satisfied then mcdonalds.
That is not the point though.
If you eat 2000 kcal of McDonalds versus 2000 kcal of 'healthy meals' you will have consumed the same amount of calories.
I see what you are saying, that people who ate those 2000kcal of McDonalds will probably snack during the day since they are not feeling satisfied, compared to the healthy food group who are feeling satisfied by the 2000kcal they already ate. This doesn't mean that you can call it "braindead calorie is equal bullshit" though, since if you follow the daily calorie intake that you had planned, eating 2000kcal McD or 2000kcal 'healthy meals' will make no difference in calories consumed.
Saying a calorie is a calorie, in that as a unit of energy it is exactly equal to another identical unit of energy, is an obscuring banality, even putting aside the methods used to measure and quantify calories in different foods.
But I am saying precisely that a person who is only allowed to eat a 2kcal diet of dry cereal will look different and be a different weight than the same person on a 2kcal meat and vegetable diet and the same person on a 2kcal big mac and fries diet. Energy utilization and partitioning within the body depends on the type, quantity, and timing of calories ingested, as well as upon the needs and state (rested, walking, just ran a marathon, just spent an hour lifting weights) of the body consuming those calories.
The only thing that the twinkie diet teaches us is that it's still possible to starve yourself eating just a twinkie everyday which should have been obvious.
You didn't even take a look at it... He ate 1800 kcal of twinkies. He also wasn't stupid, did take multivitamins and protein supplements. The end result seems to have been the expected weight loss just as with any normal 1800 kcal diet for his particular body and level of activity. The numbers in his blood work improved.
This thread is about people that have 20 kg too much weight or something. Losing so much weight will take years of work. The supposedly stupid counting of calories will absolutely work for the affected person. I feel this nutrition talk about minerals and vitamins and proteins or whatever is the obscuring banality.
Just because every calorie isn't equal doesn't mean that counting calories is stupid. Obviously you can lose weight by eating less. How much weight, what type of weight (fat, muscle), and for how long all depend on what those calories are though. I'm responding to the assertion that "all calories are created equal," which even in the narrow context of how much fat you store or lose is simply not true. But only an idiot would take my argument to mean that the quantity of food you eat doesn't matter.
I am going to insist that every calorie is equal. I think you are conflating calories and calorie sources to be the same thing. You might think that it's vapid semantics but i would agree with everything you've posted if instead of 'calories' you wrote 'source of calories'.
That's fine but you are having a different conversation from everyone else here. I try to address people's arguments within the conceptual framework they are arguing from.
On June 23 2014 12:55 Amnesty wrote: I looked what my BMI is. Apparently i'm overweight. At 6 feet tall, i should only weight at max around 173 pounds. I weigh about 180. I'm really shocked only 37% of men are are considered overweight or above. I'm just about as thin as you can get. I have a flat stomach and recently started doing ab workouts because i can see my oblique lines and thought it wouldn't take much to get a six pack. I run a few times a week and am going to start doing P90x, i went through the program last year.
EDIT: according to different BMI calculation I'm at 24.4 just skating that line but not overweight.
To get a useful BMI you want to take your skeleton into account. The base weight there varies, which you then build a BMI on top of. It does matter, but not much more than 5 kg.
The other side is you can get outside BMI on muscles or on fats. If you are thin and overweight it is most likely a case of skeleton + lots of thin muscles.
It does not account for muscle mass, body fat % or any other factors associated with body mass.
Skinfold calipers are extremely inaccurate as well, but better than using BMI. People should base their body fat % on their general appearance. A lot more accurate than these stupid measures like BMI or skinfold thickness.
On June 23 2014 12:00 ShadeR wrote: I am going to insist that every calorie is equal. I think you are conflating calories and calorie sources to be the same thing. You might think that it's vapid semantics but i would agree with everything you've posted if instead of 'calories' you wrote 'source of calories'.
"Not all calories are created equal"
From my understanding (or confusion) the body is going to process foods differently. Calories gained from sugar is going to have a different result from broccoli or something. (My ex-mother-in-law made an awesome broccoli soup when I lived in Sicily- imagine what you would need to add in order to make that edible in the US lol).
When I hear about eating less to lose weight, all I can think about is going to Sicily and barely able to keep from exploding trying to just get through the first dinner course of pasta, and after a couple days or so (and my stomach expanding enough) eating something like three times as much in quantity, yet losing weight. Well, some- we weren't overweight, but was still quite obvious to all. Just doesn't make sense, and I've tried researching this stuff over the years lol.
On June 23 2014 14:53 AutoEngineer wrote: BMI is absolutely useless in the medical field.
Have you worked at the hospital? I have and we use it. Do you think we have the time to make extra calculations to determine exactly those sort of things when the only thing we need is an approximation?
On June 23 2014 03:29 404AlphaSquad wrote: The people in this thread make me laugh :
-everyone giving the food industry the blame instead of taking responsibility. -trying to make it look as if everyone wants to eat healthy but they cant because there is an evil mafia behind this ^^
face it, if you want to eat healthy you can. if you want to lose weight you can. You can do this without sacrificing anything in your life. You dont even need to exercise. But well its easier to say simply it is the unhealthy foods fault for which we paid for. Grow up people seriously :/
Have you ever been in a grocery store in the US? What healthy choice are you referring to? Is it the pathetic produce isle with items grown in nutrient-depleted soil, heat pasteurized oranges and wax sprayed fruit past their prime? Is it the corn-fed livestock and cattle, the uber-chickens grown to unnatural proportions laying white-shelled eggs with sickly colored yolk? Is it all the corn, corn , and byproducts of corn (even the actual brick and mortar of the store included)? Eating not-unhealthy isn't the same as eating healthy. That is what I'd call a "half truth".
And then we always end up at this conclusion:
On June 23 2014 03:39 zdfgucker wrote: Do whatever you want to, just don't make me pay for the consequences.
Right.. so.. here's what gets me. Why is obesity an epidemic? I don't know the excact defenition of an epidemic but I would think that an epidemic would be something related to disease or sickness of some sort. Correct me if im wrong because it would be great to have it explained, but how the hell is obesity an epidemic? <.<
On June 23 2014 21:50 Madlobster wrote: Right.. so.. here's what gets me. Why is obesity an epidemic? I don't know the excact defenition of an epidemic but I would think that an epidemic would be something related to disease or sickness of some sort. Correct me if im wrong because it would be great to have it explained, but how the hell is obesity an epidemic? <.<
If my memory serves, the first video I posted explains just that.
On June 23 2014 21:50 Madlobster wrote: Right.. so.. here's what gets me. Why is obesity an epidemic? I don't know the excact defenition of an epidemic but I would think that an epidemic would be something related to disease or sickness of some sort. Correct me if im wrong because it would be great to have it explained, but how the hell is obesity an epidemic? <.<
Obesity is as much an epidemic as it as a disease, a lifestyle, a cultural phenomenon or a moral issue.
If the society as a whole is affected by too many people being obese, then you can call it an epidemic for political reasons. Do whatever you want!
For some interesting reason, nobody ever calls smoking or drinking alcohol an epidemic, even though similar numbers of people are affected and the effects on society are similar.
On June 23 2014 21:50 Madlobster wrote: Right.. so.. here's what gets me. Why is obesity an epidemic? I don't know the excact defenition of an epidemic but I would think that an epidemic would be something related to disease or sickness of some sort. Correct me if im wrong because it would be great to have it explained, but how the hell is obesity an epidemic? <.<
Obesity is as much an epidemic as it as a disease, a lifestyle, a cultural phenomenon or a moral issue.
If the society as a whole is affected by too many people being obese, then you can call it an epidemic for political reasons. Do whatever you want!
For some interesting reason, nobody ever calls smoking or drinking alcohol an epidemic, even though similar numbers of people are affected and the effects on society are similar.
I would just think that calling Obesity an epidemic seems like a tabloid exaggeration to blow things out of preportions, "obesity problem" doesnt seem as dramatic as "obesity epidemic". It might just be me thats totaly ignorant, but my brain links the word epidemic with disease, illness and sickness. And the word Obesity to "eating more than you are supposed to", which doesn't seem like a virus you can catch...
Sure there are probably people suffering from bodily dysfunction and need proper medical help, but when talking about obesity or overweight in general, obesity doesn't strike me as a disease. I mean, if it is a disease it would be a disease everyone in the world probably knows the cure for, if you asked a 1000 different overweight people what they needed to do to lose weight, they probably would answer correctly. Everyone knows that to drop weight you would eat less and excersie more. So its a cure that everyone knows, and everyone has access to :S
Thank video, along with the other videos in the series, explain the problem very well. By understanding how the body works, it makes losing/gaining weight much easier and people can make their own decisions based on science. Lots of people WANT to lose weight, but they don't understand the cycle they're stuck in and the addiction their bodies have to sugar.
For the curious onces, the University of California team has the rest of their videos on youtube, I'll put them in spoilers. + Show Spoiler +
Weird thing is the average age is still rising worldwide.
With this obesitas spreading everywhere, you'd think that people would start dieing younger again. If our food was really that bad compared to 50 years ago wouldn't the average age of death go down? Or is it just because better medicine, safety at work and stuff like that.
EPT
