"Fat Head" v. "Super Size Me": the great nutrition conspiracy

[casebro]

casebro:

Over 3 years, due to lifestyle changes, I've gone from 220 to 150. I haven't seen 155 for about 3 years. I don't know if I qualify for "large amounts" or "keep it off", but I do wonder what does qualify.

But I do contend I'm only some guy on the internet, so I'm not a "real world, real people".

I'd say 70 pounds is a large amount. Three years is borderline "kept it off". "The rest of your life" is a goal seldom met. Good luck.

 

[Modified]

So you have neither lost a large amount, nor kept it off. Why post as a response to me?

I'm only allowed to respond to posts if I directly disagree with them?

The point of my post was obvious. The first sentence was "I suspect that it works for lots of people, but those sorts of people are not the ones who tend to become greatly overweight in the first place."

 

[dakotajudo]

...

Fast forward 20 years, and the latest wisdom says that "transfats" are terrible for you. In fact, they are allegedly so bad, they have actually been outlawed in some places. But where do "transfats" come from? Partially hydrogenated oils. And where does partially hydrogenated oil come from? Corn, soy and other non-animal sources of fat.

In other words, groups like the CSPI ran around 20 years ago demanding we get rid of our perfectly healthy animal fat and replace it with these partially hydrogenated oil alternatives (i.e. margarine v. butter). And it turns out, these "fake fats" are waaaay worse for us.

Sounds too good to be true.
...

You seem to be a little confused here.

Animal fats are considered unhealthy because they tend to be high in saturated fats. Saturated fats, like tallow and lard, are solid at room temperature. They tend to come from animal sources; these types of fats are liquid at animal body temperatures.

Unsaturated fats - oils, more properly - are liquid a room temperature. They tend to be found in plant sources.

There are different types of unsaturated fats, depending on where the unsaturated double bond is found, and the configuration of the double bond. Fats with a single double bond are mono-unsaturated, more than one double bond are polyunsaturated. Double bonds can be in the the cis- or trans- configuration. A cis- bond "kinks" the fatty acid chain, a trans- bond is more straight.

Saturated fats, mostly from animal sources and some tropical plants, are not "perfectly healthy". They are, however, more difficult to remove from the diet, so the emphasis has been on trans-unsaturated fats.

Unlike cis-unsaturated fats, trans- fats are not commonly naturally occurring, so it is misleading to state the trans-fats "come from" plant oils. Trans fats are chemically synthesized from cis-fats. This is commonly done to extend the shelf life of oils - double bonds are susceptible to oxidation; poly-unsaturated fats become rancid after a time. This is why trans-fats have come to be extensively used in cooking and for margarines.

But don't be confused. Trans-fats are not particularly healthy, but that should not be taken to mean that saturated animal fats are any more healthy. Both raise LDL levels, but saturated fats are somewhat offset by also raising HDL. On the other hand, saturated fats count for a much higher percentage, and are more prevalent in whole foods; for this reason, the emphasis has been on removing trans-fats - cooking oils and the like.

But you should still watch your saturated fats.

 

[yy2bggggs]

So, I just finished with Fat Head last night, and overall I found it to be a good film.

There were some strange points raised, however. During the film, Naughton gives a fairly decent example of cum hoc ergo propter hoc. But then he implicates "experts", politicians, and radical vegetarian nutcases in scaring us away from saturated fats, leading to ED; and getting kids to drink skim milk, leading to ADD. This seems to be a convenient about-face.

The same about face shows up when he exposes the contributing factors of the population shift to the average weight gain. This sounds quite fair--one needs to carefully examine possible contributing factors in order to judge statistics. But later he dares to use the lack of heart disease and significant tooth decay in caveman populations as an argument that their diets were somehow more ideal. Isn't this the same fallacy? I mean, as I understand it, our cavemen ancestors could expect to live about half as long as we do... shouldn't the fact that they simply didn't live long enough to get heart disease and significant tooth decay be the prime suspect of a contributing factor?

Again, I don't think it was a bad film. It did seem to raise a few really good questions about Super Size Me. But it nevertheless seemed to have its own agendas slipping under the door.

So I'm not sold on the McDonalds diet just yet. (Yeah, I know, he wasn't specifically pushing that--but, he did strongly suggest it wasn't all that bad).

ETA: Ah, interesting. On his web site is a shirt for sale which has the text: "Wheat is murder. Go Paleo".

 

[Beerina]

I suspect that it works for lots of people, but those sorts of people are not the ones who tend to become greatly overweight in the first place. I have no problem gaining and losing 20 pounds or so in a few months; I've done it twice, intentionally, in the last two years. I have no problem radically changing my diet or the amount of exercise I get. I can't really identify with people who find those things difficult or impossible, but I'll take their word for it.

When I was living in Europe I came back for a 2 week Christmas break. I went out for lunches and dinners with buddies, and ate so much I put on 20 pounds by the time I got back. I even impressed myself.

 

[casebro]

There was an 'epidemic of heart disease" in the 1950s. I do wonder if it wasn't caused by the new stuff, vegetable shortening. Made from hydrogenated vegetable oil, I wonder how much trans fats it had? Seems to me it wasn't until the 90s that we started hearing about how bad the trans fats are, so bad that hydrogenated veggie oil is worse for you than lard.

And so far as saturated fats, every producer has studies that show that THEIR saturated fat does not cause heart disease. So I wonder if the saturated fat link was actually to trans fats?

And did you know that the best source of mono-unsaturated fats, that's the good kind, is LARD? 40% mono.

I really think that "meat is bad" is a bad meme.

 

[Beerina]

That just means you're a quitter. A winner would keep eating until he barfed.

Puh-leeze. If you barf, it doesn't count. Any big food eater knows that! Now I've hurt myself a number of times, lying with stomach aches, and 4x have induced a pancreas attack from too much cholesterol throbbing through my body. Feels like I ate so much I damaged my stomach against some spine protrusion, but that's not what it is.

I have since gotten things under control and am down 50 pounds, closing in on my goal weight.

 

[dakotajudo]

There was an 'epidemic of heart disease" in the 1950s.

Was there really a epidemic in the 1950s, or was this when the epidemiology of heart disease first being studied?

And so far as saturated fats, every producer has studies that show that THEIR saturated fat does not cause heart disease. So I wonder if the saturated fat link was actually to trans fats?

Which producers would this be? The beef council recognizes that saturated fats are a dietary concern and are pushing for consumption of leaner beef. Perhaps you're thinking that stearic acid is less likely to be linked to heart disease, compared to, say, palmitic acid.

And did you know that the best source of mono-unsaturated fats, that's the good kind, is LARD? 40% mono.

Yes, lard is about 40-50% mono-unsaturated, and since this is not hydrogenated, these will be cis-, not trans-unsaturated. However, lard is 40% saturated fats, while vegetable oils will be around 10% saturated; the rest is poly-unsaturated fat.

I wouldn't call mono-unsaturated fat the good kind; poly-unsaturated fat is "good fat". Two poly-unsaturated fats, alpha-linolenic acid and linoleic acid, are essential fatty acids; they are not synthesized by humans and are required for synthesis of different classes of signal molecules, among others.

 

[thaiboxerken]

I didn't care for the strawman argument "liberals think poor people are stupid" that was made in the movie.

 

[†= Crap!]

I thought 'Super Size Me' was a load of horsepucky when it came out and 'Fat Head' did bring up many legitimate criticisms of it. But 'Fat Head' contained plenty of its own BS. So I deem both documentaries representing the two extremes ends of an ideology over reality based debate.

 

[Travis]

So, in Super Size Me, why did he have to up size his meal if asked? That never made any sense to me. You get asked if you want extras all the time in places of commercial service in case you want that extra treat. I get asked if I want dessert pretty much every time I'm in a restaurant but I hardly ever indulge. But for those few times I do I appreciate the question.

 

[excaza]

So you say this:

All the crap about diets and "lifestyle changes" just don't work in real world, real people.

And then this:

Personally, I am down 55# from my peak, of four years ago, via lifestyle changes.

Um...

So far as weight loss, the only proven method to lose great amounts and keep it off is gastric surgery.

All gastric bypass does is force portion control. This can (technically) be done by anyone without surgery, but for some it is not mentally possible unless they hire someone to control their diet for them.

 

[Fishstick]

So you say this:

And then this:

Um...


All gastric bypass does is force portion control. This can (technically) be done by anyone without surgery, but for some it is not mentally possible unless they hire someone to control their diet for them.

Also a gastric bypass does not automatically make you lose weight AND keep it off without lifestyle and diet changes.

 

[casebro]

My point is that nothing works for keeping large amounts of weight off permanently except surgery.

No hypocrisy on my behalf, I don't expect my weight to stay off either. People do backslide in their lifestyles. You will too. But in the mean time, life is better for the slim. Though not necessarily longer.

 

[excaza]

My point is that nothing works for keeping large amounts of weight off permanently except surgery.

And my point is that this conclusion is incorrect.

No hypocrisy on my behalf, I don't expect my weight to stay off either. People do backslide in their lifestyles. You will too..

You're using your personal experience to justify your conclusion. Why? People don't necessarily backslide in their lifestyle, and if they don't, then they will keep off large amounts of weight without needing surgery. If you eat the same portions of the same foods with the same activity level as you would if you got gastric bypass, you would have the same results. Gastric bypass just makes it easier, mentally and physically, for the person to do so for an extended period of time. Your conclusion that surgery is the only permanent method does not follow. There's nothing guaranteeing those who get gastric bypass will keep weight off permanently either, it's just harder to gain back.

 

[Number Six]

So, in Super Size Me, why did he have to up size his meal if asked? That never made any sense to me. You get asked if you want extras all the time in places of commercial service in case you want that extra treat. I get asked if I want dessert pretty much every time I'm in a restaurant but I hardly ever indulge. But for those few times I do I appreciate the question.

That made me call BS too. By having a policy of always saying "Yes" when asked if he wanted to supersize Spurlock effectively had a policy of eating more food than he wanted. He was purposely stuffing himself, which isn't even a remotely fair assessment of McDonald's or any other restaurant.

Also, why is someone verbally asking you "Do you want X?" any different than than giving them a menu with every item on it? Giving someone a menu is implicitly asking them "Do you want X?" with X being every single item the restaurant sells.

 

[Vega Nova]

"Super Size Me" is very suspect. It was also very effective in scaring the crap out of me when it came out. I haven't seen "Fat Head", but the creator is a big Low-Carb advocate (I think he does a paleo style diet).

I myself live a Low carb lifestyle (right now its specifically a ketogenic diet) and advocate it pretty strongly, especially if you have above-normal insulin resistance. Its done wonders for me. Blood sugar is very good, HDL is great (LDL higher than what's recommended, but this is meaningless since the standard test doesn't actually test your LDL levels and only one type of LDL - VLDL - increases CVD risk). Triglycerides very good. It does a great job a satiety. Also I enjoy the taste of fatty foods above all else so my adherence is near perfect. After many years of fearing animal fat, there is a certain satisfaction in eating an entire pack of bacon with some cheese and eggs for dinner and knowing that its good for me.

As far as the thread title, I wouldn't call any of this a conspiracy. It seems that a possible explanation to all this (regarding the current paradigm in US nutrition -- the vilification of Saturated fatty-acid and the promotion of a mostly carb based diet) is confusion between correlation and causation between cholesterol markers, saturated fats, and CVD. It has become the prevailing model and while research does exist that calls this model into question, the theory stands firm -- with exceptions. There are so called "paradoxes". Off top of my head: the Inuit paradox, the Masai paradox, Mediterranean paradox, and the french paradox to name a few. These cultures have a diet higher in fat than the US diet and also have lower occurrences of CVD. The inuit and Masai in particular have a majority of their calories from saturated fat and CVD is virtually non-existant in these populations. The model suggests that these people should have a very high risk of CVD based on their diets and so there should be some other factor(s) that makes CVD almost nonexistent in the population. This is always a possibility and we cannot discount this; however what may be the more obvious line of reasoning is a re-evaluation of the current model.

 

[Beerina]

Asian diets are high in carbs like rice and low in meat, especially red meat, and they don't have problems either.

These things suggest "it's the calories, stupid", again, as do European eating (reasonable) amounts of fatty meats and creamy sauces.


The theory seems to have powerful explanatory and predictive value, whereas all the others fail in one way or the other.

 

[Vega Nova]

What sort of asian? Look at the hindu vegetarians for example. Obesity is an issue for them. In Indonesia, livestock is a huge part of their diet. Mongolia and some Himalayan populations are heavily dependent on herding and hunting. China is rife with the starving impoverished. Among those that do well enough to avoid starvation and acute malnutrition, rice is present (not in the large quantities some may think), but also a large variety of vegetable and some meat.

Saying "its the calories!" isn't very helpful. Its a perilous oversimplification. The body is not a closed system. Accurately accounting for total energy in and out is impractical because of all the metabolic processes in play. Its highly individualized. Put on the same diet, some gain very easily, while others have no trouble keeping off weight. I put on weight absurdly easy when carbs reach a certain threshold in my diet. before I started low carb I was eating whole sources of grain and wheat. For me it was brown rice, potatoes, unprocessed oats, whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, the occasional banana or apple. I was counting calories and all that. Accounting for fluctuations, there was no weight loss and on the occasion calorie increase, I gained. I cut out all grain, wheat and most fruit and replaced it with animal fat rich sources. This brought me weight loss success. I don't even eat less calories now if you add it up.

Calories being equal, a high carb diet puts you at a higher risk for diabetes, CVD, and obesity. Obesity because insulin is the hormone that causes fat storage in adipose tissue (very easily in some individuals, regardless of caloric surplus or deficit). CVD because the big risk marker, sdLDL, increases on high carb diets (decreases on high-fat, low carb).

To wrap this post up, let it be clear that people can see healthful success on various diets. Excess carbohydrates (its very easy to hit excess) increase various risk factors. This is disproportional to the effects of excess protein or animal fat, which do not carry these elevated risks.

 

[Cuddles]

That made me call BS too. By having a policy of always saying "Yes" when asked if he wanted to supersize Spurlock effectively had a policy of eating more food than he wanted. He was purposely stuffing himself, which isn't even a remotely fair assessment of McDonald's or any other restaurant.

Not just that. He ate at McDonalds for every single meal, three times a day, had to eat every single thing on the menu over the course of the month, could not eat anything not sold in McDonalds, and had to always finish everything he bought. In theory he was supposed to be replicating what an average McDonalds user would eat, but obviously that's simply not the case. Hell, he even says in the film how often people eat there, and that doesn't come anywhere near. Although amusingly enough, according to Wiki he actually did more exercise than he was supposed to.

So yeah, very much BS. He deliberately set things up so it would have essentially no relation to how people actual eat an McDonalds, and then blames it all on McDonalds instead of himself.

Also, why is someone verbally asking you "Do you want X?" any different than than giving them a menu with every item on it? Giving someone a menu is implicitly asking them "Do you want X?" with X being every single item the restaurant sells.

People are impulsive. If you just let them know something is available, they may not take it. If you shove it in their face, they're far more likely to. See things like perfume counters as you enter a shop, item displays at checkouts, and so on. Actively prompting people to supersize is likely to result in significantly more sales than simply having it on the menu.

So tell me the truth, skeptics- which is going to kill me first? Fats or carbs? Should I eat animals and toss my carbs, or should I stop eating animals and embrace the soy?

None of the above. Barring certain conditions such as allergies, there's really no reason to avoid any food entirely. Just eat a sensible, balanced diet and get some exercise, and there's plenty of room for whatever kind of fat you want. Of course, if you're trying to lose weight or whatever you may find that harder, but ultimately it always boils down to diet and lifestyle as a whole, it's never just a matter of finding the one ingredient that is the cause of all your problems.