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

zaphod2016

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zaphod2016
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Last night I got around to watching the film Fat Head which is a tongue-in-cheek response to the Morgan Spurlock documentary Super Size Me. For those who don't remember: in "Super Size Me" Spurlock ate nothing but McDonalds for 30 days, gained weight, experienced other health issues, blames fast food. "Fat Head" breaks down the numbers, and shows that in order to gain the amount of weight that he did, Spurlock not only ate McDonalds, he over-ate, consuming in excess of 4,000 calories per day. In other words, adding a few apple pies to that super sized big mac meal.

Because it is a rather low-budget affair, I bet most of you have never seen "Fat Head", so here is the trailer:



And you can watch the full film on Hulu or Netflix.


According to the film, back in the 90's the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) started throwing a fit because everyone was using animal fats high in cholesterol. French fries, chicken fingers, all that good stuff was just drenched in high-fat, high-cholesterol oils, and CSPI and other health watchdog groups alleged this was the reason we were all going to die of a heart attack.

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.

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?

I smell a rat... or maybe its a cheeseburger...
 
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zaphod2016 said:
According to the film, back in the 90's the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) started throwing a fit because everyone was using animal fats high in cholesterol. French fries, chicken fingers, all that good stuff was just drenched in high-fat, high-cholesterol oils, and CSPI and other health watchdog groups alleged this was the reason we were all going to die of a heart attack.

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.
Click to expand...


This is what happens when too many people are stupid enough to pay any attention to outfits such as The Center for junk Science of no Possible Interest.
 
Fat Head was much the funnier film. As a fairly frequent consumer of junk food, I want to believe the narrative, but when you want to believe something, that's precisely the time to be skeptical. Everybody I know who's tried a low-fat diet has struggled to lose weight, while everybody I know who's tried the low-carb diet has shed the pounds.
 
Ditto Brainster. Low carb sure helps with appetite suppression, and you can't lose weight if you eat too much.

So far was diet/cholesterol causing artery disease, here is a chain of thought:

We think statin drugs prevent clogged arteries. And aspirin too. Statins by lowering cholesterol levels, aspirin by preventing clot formation. So let's compare. If we give statins a disease prevention score of 100, aspirin would rank about 80. But if you take the two together, you get an aggregate of 120. Seems to me that aspirin does about 80% of the exact same thing as statins do WITHOUT lowering cholesterol. Therefor, the benfits of statin drugs may have nothing to do with fats.

And aspirin does it without causing muscle disease. Funny how the statin drug studies suffer from a 95% drop out rate over the typical five year span. Yet they claim only a 1% rate of muscle disease.

Plus, while the medicos suggest lowering saturated fats, many studies into each particular saturated fat shows it not to be a culprit. Like coconut oil, which is 100% saturated, yet is the major fat source in man pacific countries, that have no heart disease epidemic.
 
Get a favorite muffin; heat it up.
Cut in half.
Spread one half with butter, other with 'oleo'.
Taste.

Since Rule #4 states , "Nobody gets out alive', how do you wish to live?
 
Then there was the scientist recently who went on the junk food diet, eating twinkies and burgers, but judiciously watching his calories. He lost weight and his blood pressure and cholesterol went down to normal.

Of course, you don't actually want to be normal weight, but "overweight" (not obese) if you are looking to maximize your lifespan. "Average" or "ideal" weight was not the optimal weight to maximize lifespan.

The more I see of this over the decades the more convinced I am it's more related to how much you eat, not what you eat. Of course, greasy foods are more calorie-dense, so that makes it easier to overeat. Indeed, I recall a study I read from 30 years ago that fed a whipped concoction with varying amounts of sugar and fat in it to people, and the fatter you were, the more fat and less sugar you preferred. This made sense because fat is denser for calories than sugar. Fat people are fat because of the multiple heaping plates of spaghetti they eat at home and not because of cakes and pies.
 
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Has Mr. Supersize Me released the secret tapes full food logs of what he ate? That's another issue with people trying to analyze his effort or reproduce it.


I find it hard to believe he ate so much he barfed at one point, at least without assistance. My god, when a child and McDonald's had a regular burger 25¢ sale for some anniversary or other, we bought bags of them. They had a 25 burger bag limit, and we went back and got more.

I recall eating 10 burgers and then starting the 11th, and getting about halfway through and looking at it and being utterly shocked I could not finish a McDonald's hamburger. But I still didn't barf.
 
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There was a recent study done by Kaiser, 11,000 subjects? It showed that a BMI of anywhere between 17 to 34 was PERFECT. !7, 34, or 25, all BMIs had the same health/longevity.

Another study a couple years back compared different diets. High carb, low carb, or Zone. All worked as well, none killed anybody any more than the others.

So far as weight loss, the only proven method to lose great amounts and keep it off is gastric surgery. All the crap about diets and "lifestyle changes" just don't work in real world, real people.
 
Beerina said:
The more I see of this over the decades the more convinced I am it's more related to how much you eat, not what you eat.
Click to expand...

If you mean calories, then yes, in fact it has to be this way. It's a simple result of conservation of energy. This is by no means a new observation, and should not be controversial, although somehow it tends to be.
 
casebro said:
All the crap about diets and "lifestyle changes" just don't work in real world, real people.
Click to expand...

Um- I'm a real person. And, uh, I changed my lifestyle pretty radically.

I quit smoking, then I gave up Pepsi (which was harder for me to kick that the cigs funny enough). I'm not looking for applause, just to point out- yeah, people can change.

/casebro is really House
 
casebro said:
So far as weight loss, the only proven method to lose great amounts and keep it off is gastric surgery. All the crap about diets and "lifestyle changes" just don't work in real world, real people.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Maybe you guys ashould re-read the pertinent part here "So far as weight loss, the only proven method to lose great amounts and keep it off ..."

So Modified, you lost 20 pounds and put it back on? And did either you or Zaphod loose "great amounts"?

Personally, I am down 55# from my peak, of four years ago, via lifestyle changes. But in the mean time, I did regain 20, then lose 15. No sure thing there. It sounds like we are all proof of my pudding.
 
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Beerina said:
I recall eating 10 burgers and then starting the 11th, and getting about halfway through and looking at it and being utterly shocked I could not finish a McDonald's hamburger. But I still didn't barf.
Click to expand...

That just means you're a quitter. A winner would keep eating until he barfed. :boggled:
 
casebro said:
Maybe you guys ashould re-read the pertinent part here "So far as weight loss, the only proven method to lose great amounts and keep it off ..."

So Modified, you lost 20 pounds and put it back on? And did either you or Zaphod loose "great amounts"?
Click to expand...

Maybe you should re-read my post. Someone like me who can lose and gain weight with little effort is never going to be greatly overweight. Why would I want to be? People who get to be greatly overweight probably don't find losing weight to be easy in most cases, otherwise they would never have gained the weight in the first place.
 
Ziggurat said:
That just means you're a quitter. A winner would keep eating until he barfed. :boggled:
Click to expand...

I've done it a few times. It's a unique experience. Nausea comes on very quickly, you barf up just a little bit of food, then you feel fine.
 
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".
 
Modified said:
Maybe you should re-read my post. Someone like me who can lose and gain weight with little effort is never going to be greatly overweight. Why would I want to be? People who get to be greatly overweight probably don't find losing weight to be easy in most cases, otherwise they would never have gained the weight in the first place.
Click to expand...

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