Is Air Conditioning causing the modern obesity epidemic?

[The Great Zaganza]

It's an intriguing idea.
What I think by be important is the constant level of temperature modern conveniences provide: as a result, our bodies might have a hard time telling apart summer from winter, and therefore mess up cycles of shedding and accumulating insulation.

 

[MikeG]

......Apparently the fact we were wearing t-shirts and it was a horrifically cold 5C was cause to suspect us of mental instability......

Ah, you're a Geordie. I had wondered.

 

[baron]

Ah, you're a Geordie. I had wondered.

Geordies shiver unless they first imbibe a gallon of Newkie Brown, we were sober (although that didn't last).

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I've never really understood the basis of this viewpoint. I understand it's tongue in cheek but surely it's more manly to shrug off the cold, not the heat. When a friend and I visited Boston one November we were asked by a cop, whilst walking down a quiet (empty!) main street early one morning, if we were "OK there". Apparently the fact we were wearing t-shirts and it was a horrifically cold 5C was cause to suspect us of mental instability. Those yanks, I swear, such wimps

That's not quite cold enough for barefoot. Too muddy. But agreed, it certainly isn't anything to get worked up about unless there is rain and wind.

 

[Steve]

I've never really understood the basis of this viewpoint. I understand it's tongue in cheek but surely it's more manly to shrug off the cold, not the heat. When a friend and I visited Boston one November we were asked by a cop, whilst walking down a quiet (empty!) main street early one morning, if we were "OK there". Apparently the fact we were wearing t-shirts and it was a horrifically cold 5C was cause to suspect us of mental instability. Those yanks, I swear, such wimps

Sounds appropriate to me. What was the cop wearing?

 

[blutoski]

I apologize ahead of time, as I cannot provide a link (haven't found it so far) but I had heard a study on the radio where rats were fed a little too much food, and some were kept cool and others in warmer temperatures.

The thought was obviously the cooler ones would gain weight more slowly, having to burn off more calories to stay warm. Yet the opposite happened. The cold rats gained weight significantly faster than the warm ones.


Autopsying the rats, the cold rats had grown larger intestines (I don't recall if it was longer or wider or what, if they even said) and thus presumably absorbed significantly more energy from the food.



The point was there are studies showing animals will eat more in colder weather, but this showed the weight was packed on with the exact same amount of food eaten due to more intense digestion.


Now there are lots of countries surpassing the US as we speak in obesity, these are all hotter weather climates like Mexico and the Middle East, where more and more people are having the cash to buy air conditioning these past decades.



It couldn't be the only thing, with more sedentary lifestyles, cheaper high-calorie, ready-to-eat food, and so on. It just seemed quite interesting because if it is accurate and applies to humans, too, it could be the lion's share of that weight gain.

I rank the probability very low. Obesity rates increase in regions that don't use air conditioning in line with those that do. For example, here in Canada, where air conditioning is not really a thing, our rates match the USA very closely. If anything, for Canadians, the average temperature we're exposed to on a per minute basis is rising.


Here's my pet theory, though: I think an unexplored credible partial contributor to the growth in obesity, is the decline in smoking.

 

[lomiller]

There are probably more than one factor associated with high obesity rates. One that I find intriguing is that there seems to quite a few studies linking obesity and diseases that are often related to obesity with bottle feeding. Superficially it would certainly line up with the period where infants in the developed world started to be bottle fed as a norm, spreading as bottle feeding becomes more available.

These seems to be lots of fingers pointing different directions as the root cause, with different studies looking at formula, breast milk and even the mechanics of breast feeding as explain the higher obesity rates for bottle feeding. It could even be some third factor like social status causing both.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

The root cause is oil.

Seriously.

What Would Life Be Like Without Oil?

Whether it is the heavy machinery that farmers use today to sow, harvest and clean the crops, or the pesticides and fertilizers they use to make these crops healthier and high-yielding, everything is thanks to oil....

Without chemical oil-based pesticides and fertilizers, farmers would have to resort to organic farming practices, which would not only make the price of the foods rise tremendously, but also push us to adapt to the different types of meals, depending on the seasons.

 

[Beerina]

Well why not just claim it's freedom-based capitalism, driving prices for food so low that government must continue price supports. Or perhaps democracy, because there is thus political impetus to provide those price supports rather than let farms go out of business so they can find the natural level of supply vs. demand?


As with obesity itself, it's a good problem to have given much of human history has oriented around lack of cheap calories per person, or any sufficient calories at all.

Anyway, it should be easy enough to determine if fat people have extra intestinization abilities in the same manner as rats, as there is no shortage of dead humans each year.

 

[CORed]

I stepped out of an air conditioned car once into the unfettered heat of the Nevada desert. Not to put to fine a point on it, **** that! I got back in pretty sharpish and made a beeline for the nearest AC unit.

You can bloody keep Africa.

When the temperature goes past 110 (Fahrenheit) it really doesn't matter so much that it's a dry heat.

 

[jeffreyw]

Epidemic? Since when is obesity an infectious disease? How does one get infected with obesity? Cheeseburgers are running into people's mouths? Good lord.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Epidemic? Since when is obesity an infectious disease? How does one get infected with obesity? Cheeseburgers are running into people's mouths? Good lord.

Actually, obesity does follow epidemic patterns: if you are surrounded by fat people it's much more likely that you gain weight, too. Reverse holds, too.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Well why not just claim it's freedom-based capitalism, driving prices for food so low that government must continue price supports.

We had 'freedom-based capitalism' in the 1920's. Why wasn't obesity a problem back then?

Or perhaps democracy, because there is thus political impetus to provide those price supports rather than let farms go out of business so they can find the natural level of supply vs. demand?

Not exactly, but you may be on to something...

Milking taxpayers

American farm subsidies are egregiously expensive, harvesting $20 billion a year from taxpayers’ pockets. Most of the money goes to big, rich farmers producing staple commodities such as corn and soyabeans in states such as Iowa...

Commodities such as corn (which in America is used to produce everything from biofuel to syrup) and soya have become less valuable of late thanks to soaring supply and weak demand.

Just the 1% looking after themselves as usual.

But are these subsidies making a big contribution to obesity?

It’s Time to Rethink America’s Corn System

Although U.S. corn is a highly productive crop, with typical yields between 140 and 160 bushels per acre, the resulting delivery of food by the corn system is far lower. Today’s corn crop is mainly used for biofuels (roughly 40 percent of U.S. corn is used for ethanol) and as animal feed (roughly 36 percent of U.S. corn, plus distillers grains left over from ethanol production, is fed to cattle, pigs and chickens). Much of the rest is exported. Only a tiny fraction of the national corn crop is directly used for food for Americans

Rich farmers are being paid by the government to make more... oil!

 

[blutoski]

Actually, obesity does follow epidemic patterns: if you are surrounded by fat people it's much more likely that you gain weight, too. Reverse holds, too.

Facebook has published some interesting data on this very thesis. There's a strong correlation, but there's reasonable debate about causality versus common cause explanations.

In any case, I'm fine with calling it an epidemic, even if it's not contagious. Epidemics are not limited to contagious illnesses. Culturally propagated medical conditions fall within the scope of epidemiology. eg: elevated cancer pockets, eventually linked to a sudden fashion for uranium glassware.

 

[Minoosh]

When the temperature goes past 110 (Fahrenheit) it really doesn't matter so much that it's a dry heat.

At a certain level it doesn't even register as heat - some qualitatively different new kind of weather.

According to ACE Fit:

In hot weather, it takes more cardiovascular effort to COOL the body, which occurs by pumping blood to the skin to promote sweating. Therefore, exercising in warm weather would actually use more energy than exercising at a temperature near freezing.

I attribute a lot of obesity to simple convenience. We used to have to do dozens of little chores throughout the day. Ten calories saved a day will add a pound of year.