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Fat Logic

Skeptical Greg said:
I think we have covered them all, including how to stop smoking, and how to deal with alcoholism and drug abuse...
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Please don't call it drug abuse. I'm using them exactly for the purpose intended - to get high. I have an ailment, and I need the drugs to treat it. It's called, "not being high," and drugs are the cure.
 
cornsail said:
Do you know of any studies on this by chance? I've tried to search for confirmation of these types of claims in the past, but was unsuccessful (possibly because I'm not adept enough at searching the health literature). It's not that I think they're wrong, I would just be very interested to learn more about the specifics of these relationships and get some sort of confirmation. In particular the relationships between volume and fiber, and satiety/appetite.
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"Satiety" is the magic word. Try Googling: food volume and satiety studies, or: fiber and satiety studies. If you accept that blood sugar spikes increase hunger (which is quite clear) and that the time food spends in the stomach affects satiety (which is quite clear), that will give you more "indirect" studies relating to satiety. Those things are easier to measure and can be measured more accurately.

There was a recent study that was all over the news showing that eating the same foods in a different order greatly affects the blood sugar curve. Once your stomach is full of protein, fat, and fiber, you can eat sugary foods and it won't spike your blood sugar nearly as much as if you'd eaten the sugary stuff first. I'm not sure if satiety was part of the study though, and I couldn't find it with a quick Google.
 
thaiboxerken said:
Nonsense. Here's why. A person can control the calories they ingest, directly. Getting wealthy involves many factors out of control of most people.
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Other people have done it. I accuse you of financial laziness and not possessing six-pack abs!
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
You left out the entire biological drive that regulates appetite, as usual per the crowd that hasn't looked at the scientific evidence.

Also, there is a wealth of evidence documenting a weight conservation reflex that when a person cuts calories, the body's metabolism slows. In addition, there are a number of mechanisms involved in storage of calories as fat.
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This is a more intelligible response than "biological", yet it was addressed with science in the OP.

Which is why I asked the Buddha to summarize his data dump. It wasn't clear what the point was.
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If I didn't want you to read the data I would.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Other people have done it. I accuse you of financial laziness and not possessing six-pack abs!
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One, I have had because it was/is in my direct control. The other, not so much.

Your analogy fails. It would be better to compare obesity with addiction.
 
ThunderChunky said:
Pretty much all animals will over eat if given the chance. It's the same with people. Virtually anyone can lose weight by cutting calories, it's just a very hard thing to do for some people.
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That's not true. My male dog didn't overeat until he was neutered. I used to leave dry food out all the time, now I can't. The female remains the same weight regardless of the food supply.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Telling fat people they can lose weight by eating less is like telling poor people they can become rich by making more money. True, but unhelpful.

Please don't reply snarkily to this post unless you are a self-made billionaire in perfect physical shape. Because those things are easy to do.
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Good analogy.
 
thaiboxerken said:
Nonsense. Here's why. A person can control the calories they ingest, directly. Getting wealthy involves many factors out of control of most people.
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Can you hold your breath? Can you hold it for an hour?

The evidence is clear that not everyone can simply control what they eat. It's more complicated than that. It's what leads to people losing 5 pounds and gaining 10, the body reacts to calorie constriction with a very strong drive to eat.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Can you hold your breath? Can you hold it for an hour?

The evidence is clear that not everyone can simply control what they eat. It's more complicated than that. It's what leads to people losing 5 pounds and gaining 10, the body reacts to calorie constriction with a very strong drive to eat.
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That's why I compare it to addiction.
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
This is a more intelligible response than "biological", yet it was addressed with science in the OP.



If I didn't want you to read the data I would.
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tl,dr You didn't clearly make your point, you just dumped.

Weight control research is all over the map. The best I've seen is a registry where people who have successfully lost weight and kept it off more than a year describe what they did.

The vast majority of people who try to lose weight don't succeed and many of them end up heavier than when they started.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
The vast majority of people who try to lose weight don't succeed and many of them end up heavier than when they started.
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But if they lost the freedom to eat when they wanted to, that would likely change. IOW, it's their failing to continue with the habits that leads to failure.
 
thaiboxerken said:
But if they lost the freedom to eat when they wanted to, that would likely change. IOW, it's their failing to continue with the habits that leads to failure.
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That's like saying it's your failure to get rich that's the problem. It doesn't tell you Jack about why or how one fails to continue.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
You left out the entire biological drive that regulates appetite, as usual per the crowd that hasn't looked at the scientific evidence.
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Of course I left it out because it has no relevance to why people gain weight.

You're talking about why they eat too much, which is a different subject.

Your comment about scientific evidence is pretty funny. Please show me scientific evidence that shows it's possible to gain weight unless surplus calories are consumed.

Skeptic Ginger said:
Also, there is a wealth of evidence documenting a weight conservation reflex that when a person cuts calories, the body's metabolism slows. In addition, there are a number of mechanisms involved in storage of calories as fat.
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Any other blindingly obvious comments you'd like to add?

marplots said:
These two quotes are not at odds.
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That's the point - I get sick to death of people confusing the two issues.

Why people want to eat too much is the problem for people who eat too much. I see lots of people whining that fat-shaming is bad, that it isn't their fault, that it's their genes, their metabolism....

Yet, they eat too much.

The end.

We can either figure a way out of it or face a lowering of age expectancies and an exponential increase in the cost of healthcare as a result. These things didn't exist just a generation ago, so if genes haven't undergone a massive change in the past 40 years, then people's attitudes have.

And I thought Wall-E had a stupid premise. Boy, was I wrong.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
No mother ..... Who knows what all the underlying causes are?

The point is, the evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion, it's not willpower. That is just crap.
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Well, sure. I assumed that when you said "it's biological" you had something more in mind than "evolution has made us efficient at storing calories". I wonder if anybody could become fat, given the right circumstances?

"Too much for most people"? So what, you think they're all weak willed? Like what, 60-70% of the population aren't up to your standards?

F U.
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Ehh, only inasmuch as most of humanity is "weak-willed". I admire people who are able to quit an addiction like smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol, or losing weight. That doesn't mean that I think that I could do that, even on a really, really good day. I certainly don't fault people who can't do those things.

Try holding your breath. OMG, you can can hold it for a while, such will power. Why can't you hold it longer? What's wrong with your willpower?

Drop the judgmental confirmation bias and look at the actual evidence.
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I have no idea what you're talking about here. What "judgmental confirmation bias"? I think you misunderstood me. I'm agreeing with you. I don't think it's just a matter of willpower. Or perhaps it is, but willpower isn't something you can just switch on and off. If you have any of that "actual evidence" you'd like to share, I'd love to see it, though.

This is a problem which is manifold. First, we have a society with a strong belief that people can pull themselves up by their bootstraps out of practically any circumstance...and, if they don't, then it's their own fault. This is handy, because it absolves us of any responsibility or guilt over not helping them.

Second, I don't think we have very good methods to lose weight. Again, evolution has worked very well at making us able to store calories, so that even if we need to get rid of them in a hurry, it's a grueling, tortuous process.

Thirdly, any laws proposed that might help make society less fat are very unpopular. Tax on snack foods? No! Why should I have to pay extra because other people eat too much? Much of society has a magical belief in "free will", which is at odds with our knowledge of the universe that tells us that everything is deterministic. This is true even of many people who consider themselves skeptics and shun most other superstitions, like ghosts or astrology. Therefore, any laws that attempt to mold behavior are frowned upon, because we're all supposed to be able to mold our own behaviors.

So, what we have is a problem that doesn't get solved because A) it's hard to solve, B) there is resistance to solving it, and C) it's not really anybody's responsibility to solve it, anyway.
 
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Same old tired BS from people who haven't read much at all in the field of obesity: People are fat because they are weak willed.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Same old tired BS from people who haven't read much at all in the field of obesity: People are fat because they are weak willed.
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That's exactly the opposite of what I said.

What should I be reading, by the way? Do you have references? I'm genuinely interested.
 
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