Fat Logic

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Tsukasa, none of your links work. Looking at the code, it seems that all the double quotes have been converted to those dreaded "rounded" double quotes; maybe some browsers can make sense of that, but certainly not Chrome.

Hah, and too late to edit too. Oh well, people can still see them.

 

[marplots]

An attack on the myths I cherish is an attack on me. Please do not debunk the myths that support me doing what I wanted to do anyhow. It doesn't help me not do those things, it just makes me feel worse about doing them.

I have been psychologically trained by my culture, evolution, and mass marketing to eat like a cow fattening up for slaughter. I have as little say-so about this as that cow. I am helpless in the face of the constant onslaught of tasty things to shove in my gob. If this upsets you in any way, please ignore it.

This thread is making me hungry.

ETA: Besides, all those studies were done on populations. I am an unique individual, an outlier, a special case. None of that applies to me.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

You know what I think is a myth? That it's cheaper to live off unhealthy food than it is healthy food. Buying, for example, loose potatoes is cheaper than buying chips (fries, if you're American), and you don't have to cover them in grease and fat when you cook them. I think it's unquestionably true that going to McDonald's is more expensive than cooking for yourself.

It seems that research which looks at how expensive various foods are in comparison to how healthy they are tend to assess price per calorie (like this study, which found that healthy food is 3x as expensive as non-healthy food). But part of what classifies a foodstuff as more healthy is that it has a lower energy density than the less healthy foodstuff. This is especially true if what you're looking at is weight loss.

So, to go back to potatoes and chips.

Potatoes have 75 KCal per 100g
McCain Chunky Oven Chips* have 544 KCal per 100g, uncooked (more if cooked, with how much more depending on the method of cooking).

From the link above, you can see that in Sainsbury's 1kg of McCain Chunky Oven Chips costs £2.20. From the same supermarket, loose potatoes are £1.20/kg.

But those are randomly selected - what are the cheapest options? Okay, sticking with the same supermarket:

Own brand budget oven chips are 194kCal per 100g, and cost 72p per kg
Own brand budget salad potatoes are 79kCal per 100g and cost 70p per kg

The chips have more than twice the calories for roughly the same price. This means that they will be counted as more than twice as cheap by studies such as the one linked above, yet if you're trying to reduce your calorific intake, then the potatoes would be the better option, would they not?

If you want to go really cheap: Own brand tinned potatoes are 54kCal per 100g and cost 58p per kg

So, no, I don't believe that it's cheaper to eat unhealthily than it is to eat healthily. I think that the usual method of assessing the expense of food is unsuited for this purpose, as it necessarily means that foods which are lower in calories are deemed more expensive than those which are full of calories. It's front-loading the results into the testing method.

I think that eating healthily is as cheap as, if not more cheap than, eating unhealthily. I know from experience that it's entirely possible to have a wide, balanced, nutritious and downright delicious diet for not a great deal of money.

*Brand and supermarket chosen as the first in a google search for oven chips, and oven chips chosen as it obviates the need to take into account additional calories and cost of oil inherent in deep frying.

 

[casebro]

Without a linky it does not exist . I am skeptical of your summary because that seems way too large a "perfect" range for what is in actuality a curve. If this is the study you were referring to, it had about 11,000 participants. These ones are bigger than yours, therefore by your logic they are correct.

No, not a meta study. Kaiser used medical records of their members. I believe it was the first scientific study of weight/health. Here is my explanation- Things started with the Metropolitan Insurance company ht/wt tables of 1927. I looked at them in about 1980, and spotted a formula that lines up pretty good: Starting at 60" tall, women should weigh 100#, men 125#. Add 5# per inch. Waaay to pat to be actually scientific. Long after 1927, somebody came up with an alternative formula, the BMI. But I don't think they did any scientific data crunching, they just equivocated it to the ML table by saying 24= healthy, 34= obese.

On the other hand, I worked off 60 pounds in three months back in 2011. Diabetes and sleep apnea were gone. So I know what weight is good FOR ME. But the doctor and the BMI still said I was obese, by one pound. That is nuts. Meantime, I've gained it all back.

Weight gain/loss is about 50% water, so ten pounds per year is 32,000 calories, divide by 365 = 88 calories per day excess. My weight gain was not from gorging on 18,000 calories per day. 100 calories per day excess will make you fat.

Then, three months ago my knee went bad. 10 more pounds, what with nothing to do all day but sit where I can hear the refrigerator calling. Yesterday I was diagnosed with torn meniscus, I'm looking forward to working my pasty with ass away. But first an mri, then surgery at the hospital, damn HMO with probably take two more months. Meantime I'm going for some portion control.

How is that for "Fat Logic"?

 

[TragicMonkey]

Unfortunately I had been planning this post for a while and then someone made a stupid YouTube video.

Make your own YouTube video! Say all the stuff you said, but do it as a voiceover while filming a pug wearing a little top hat or a wiener dog running in circles. You'll get a million hits. I know what the public likes, and it's dogs being cute.

 

[Walter Ego]

The effort of scrolling through that train-length OP made me hungry so I ate some ice crème.

McCain Chunky Oven Chips* have 544 KCal per 100g, uncooked (more if cooked, with how much more depending on the method of cooking).

Sounds yummy. Got any on you?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

The effort of scrolling through that train-length OP made me hungry so I ate some ice crème.

Yeah, we really just needed a linky to a separate post that contained the wall-o-text....

 

[rustypouch]

BMI is a horrible index to use and is very inaccurate for determining a person's fat to lean body mass ratio. For example, BMI standards suggest that I'm morbidly obese at 5'2" and 215 lbs. I can accept that I'm overweight, but the BMI doesn't take into account my muscle and bone mass, which is significantly greater than most people.

One outlier does not invalidate a system. BMI is generally pretty good. It is flawed, but not in the way you suggest. If anything, it underestimates obesity, especially when compared to body fat percentage.

http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2015/04/30/30-of-people-with-a-healthy-bmi-are-actually-obese/

In this cross-sectional study the authors assessed the BMI, body fat percentage, and cardiometabolic risk factors of 6123 (924 lean, 1637 overweight and 3562 obese classified according to BMI) Caucasian subjects (69% females) between the ages of 18 and 80 years.

What did they find?

First, 29% of subjects classified as normal weight and 80% of individuals classified as overweight according to BMI had a body fat percentage within the obese range.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Since the lean participants account for about 15%, 29% normal is not a very good number...

It could be worse depending on how many overweight were counted as normal..

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Sounds yummy. Got any on you?

When quoting you edited out the link to the website where you can buy them. Go back to the post, follow the link, and buy some if you want.

 

[marplots]

I just ate 4oz of brie. The package tells me this is 4 x 125 calories. So that's 500 calories. I also had four slices of french bread (toasted and buttered) with it. Two slices I put minced garlic on and two I put honey on. Maybe 800 calories all together?

It was very tasty. Now it's all gone. But life is an adventure and I don't know what I will eat next.

 

[The Atheist]

You know what I think is a myth? That it's cheaper to live off unhealthy food than it is healthy food.

Used to be every time I heard that myth my blood boiled, because it tells those people who spend their money on the processed vomit served by fast food joints that they're doing the right thing.

I proved beyond doubt that it's much cheaper to live on homemade food than ready-made food and sent the results and recipe books to every charity that deals with "helping people in poverty".

In a gigantic lack of surprise, not one of them thought the idea was worth trying. There was no cost attached as everything was being provided for free.

That's when I gave up.

Go eat MacDonalds and Burger King and throw in a side order of KFC.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Used to be every time I heard that myth my blood boiled,.......

I think it depends on how much you think your time is worth.

 

[Modified]

I think it depends on how much you think your time is worth.

I saw some documentary about America's sugar/starch problem a few days ago, and one mother whose son was trying to lose weight said "... but sometimes I just buy chips, because it's cheaper". Chips are not cheap, even at Sam's or Costco. For the cost of a bag of chips, she could have bought five pounds of bananas. Not that bananas are an ideal food, but compared to chips...

It takes no time to prepare a banana, ten minutes or less to boil a dozen eggs, make a sandwich, make a cucumber salad, no time to prepare a handful of pistachios. People think nuts are expensive, but $1 worth and you're full. A roasted chicken is $5 at Sam's Club, I guess something like $6 at Walmart - cheaper than the same sized raw chicken.

 

[thaiboxerken]

yea but to have chips you prepare yourself takes a bit of time

 

[Modified]

yea but to have chips you prepare yourself takes a bit of time

No doubt, replicating junk food and fast food in your own kitchen would be time consuming. The point is, there are cheaper and much healthier alternatives that don't take significantly more time to prepare. If you're arguing that cost or time prevent you from having a healthy diet, it's either an excuse or due to a lack of knowledge. Now if you're on the road a lot or something, it does become tougher.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Youza, Tsukasa Buddha, could you sum that OP post up?

Obesity is biological, the evidence supports that conclusion. And people annoy me who claim it's no more than will power. That doesn't mean it's not something that can be addressed.

 

[Axiom_Blade]

Obesity is biological, the evidence supports that conclusion.

Meaning...what? Obesity is inherited? It's triggered?

And people annoy me who claim it's no more than will power.

This is obviously not true. Look at how much money the diet industry makes. I'd be willing to bet that most fat people would rather not be fat. The will is there, but the uphill battle involved is too much for most people.

 

[Cain]

Used to be every time I heard that myth my blood boiled, because it tells those people who spend their money on the processed vomit served by fast food joints that they're doing the right thing.

I proved beyond doubt that it's much cheaper to live on homemade food than ready-made food and sent the results and recipe books to every charity that deals with "helping people in poverty".

In a gigantic lack of surprise, not one of them thought the idea was worth trying. There was no cost attached as everything was being provided for free.

That's when I gave up.

Go eat MacDonalds and Burger King and throw in a side order of KFC.

I've heard some make the argument the indigent may not have an oven or microwave. Weirdly, they've never mentioned a refrigerator. I think the documentary Food Inc. profiles an immigrant family, and let's them get away with promoting the idea that McDonalds is more cost-effective than a supermarket.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I think it depends on how much you think your time is worth.

Well, I was specifically comparing preparing unhealthy food at home with preparing healthy food at home. Yes, it's quicker to go to the drive-through than to cook even a stir-fry at home. It's probably just as quick to go to the salad bar at Sainsbury's, though, and it'll be cheaper.

But, whatever, convenience and time are two different arguments that I wasn't providing a counter-argument to. I was explaining what methodology is used to assess the relative expense of various foods, outlining why I think that it's an invalid method of assessment when it comes to issues around weight loss, and illustrating my reasoning with a couple of examples. The time involved is a different argument all together, and if you wish to make the argument that eating an unhealthy diet is necessarily less time consuming than eating a healthy diet, then you will have to actually make that argument, rather than just asserting it as if it were an established empirical fact.