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If we take the position that the only way to eat a satisfactory meal is for it to mostly be indigestible stuff like cellulose, or water, why not put effort into developing ways to simulate foodstuffs with indigestible elements that aren't harmful to the body, and allow people to eat as much "ice cream" as they want?
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Dec 5, 2015 19:53
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Lots of food science is about trying to do that, but anything you eat has to come out somewhere. Things like the sugar alcohols and olestra lower calories at the expense of GI issues.
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Dec 5, 2015 20:28
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Series DD Funding posted:Lots of food science is about trying to do that, but anything you eat has to come out somewhere. Things like the sugar alcohols and olestra lower calories at the expense of GI issues. Okay, but I'm talking about dedicated public funding and advocacy, rather than leaving it up to the vagaries of the private sector.
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Dec 5, 2015 20:35
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ChairMaster posted:Yo check it out, all fat people drink soda all the time, and soda is more expensive than water in almost all of the US and Canada by virtue of water costing like nothing at all and everyone having free access to water in their own home. This isn't economic, it's just fat people being dumb as poo poo. Holy poo poo you are either an idiot who can barely read or just an rear end in a top hat intentionally misrepresenting my point. Maybe both? There are multiple factors which may apply to people and maybe none apply to all people at all times. Social eating and peer pressure are legitimate problems. Ignorance of the physiology and psychology of weight of a problem for both fat and fit people. Less satiating, more fattening food being frequently if not generally cheaper than more satiating, less fattening alternatives is a problem. Mounds of misinformation is a problem. Many people do, in fact, eat at restaurants almost daily, and for social and business reasons, for family treats, to celebrate something, it just to de-stress. Ignoring this or just calling them idiots doesn't address the problem. Advertising is a big problem. We are now bombarded at all points with food, food, food. Companies even spend millions to develop smells and smell delivery systems so you know when you are near a burger king or cinnabon or whatever. There are also many ads for losing weight, buy they ask come from competing commercial sources, and their contradictory nature muddies the water. I want to address these issues to address the problem. Food money, dieticians, and widespread informational availability are what I suggest. Lolling at someone trying to suss out and address the underlying reasons for our obesity problem is fine if your solution is "gently caress them, who cares, what problem?" If you recognize it as a problem, though, talking about what an individual can do to fix it with willpower, bootstraps, and boiled chicken breasts is a laughably bad approach to addressing it.
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Dec 5, 2015 21:02
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There's no such thing as solving problems on a large scale, individual willpower is the only way to stop being fat. I'm sure I would like to join you in this fantastical world where we can eliminate all poo poo foods and stop people from wasting their money on stupid poo poo and also stop corporations and developing nations from polluting the world to the point of uninhabitaility but here in the real world the only way to stop being fat is individual willpower.
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Dec 5, 2015 21:33
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ChairMaster posted:There's no such thing as solving problems on a large scale, individual willpower is the only way to stop being fat. I'm sure I would like to join you in this fantastical world where we can eliminate all poo poo foods and stop people from wasting their money on stupid poo poo and also stop corporations and developing nations from polluting the world to the point of uninhabitaility but here in the real world the only way to stop being fat is individual willpower. There's no such thing as a "poo poo food" beyond actual poo poo, or Soylent.
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Dec 5, 2015 22:02
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Effectronica posted:If we take the position that the only way to eat a satisfactory meal is for it to mostly be indigestible stuff like cellulose, or water, why not put effort into developing ways to simulate foodstuffs with indigestible elements that aren't harmful to the body, and allow people to eat as much "ice cream" as they want? We've tried, but A) it turns out evolution made your body really good at identifying and desiring calorie dense foods; your nose and tongue are tiny little chemical laboratories that try to sift fats, sugars, and starches from things that are poisonous or merely nutrient-poor. It's much, much harder to fool them than scientists first thought, which is why even the best diet soft drinks have an aftertaste. Also B) guess what happens if you eat an amount of undigestible fat and carbohydrates that is commensurate to the amount of fat and carbohydrates that you normally eat? Massive, pants-staining diarrhea. Remember Olestra? The potato chips with "side effects: may cause anal leakage" on the back? Turns out, everything that goes into your mouth has to either come out the other end or stay inside you. The less digestible it is, the more it comes out the other end, and the more like actual fats and oils it is, the less pleasant the results.
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Dec 5, 2015 23:34
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Trent posted:Holy poo poo you are either an idiot who can barely read or just an rear end in a top hat intentionally misrepresenting my point. Maybe both? To be fair to fishmech I don't think he's advocating the bootstraps approach, his thing is liposuction for everyone and refuting the idea that exercise is as equally important to weight loss on a societal scale because it isn't.
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Dec 5, 2015 23:35
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:We've tried, but Why are you talking about fats and carbohydrates? Why not go for polysaccharides like cellulose that act as roughage? I mean, let's go all the way on creating our fake foods, since we've determined that people need to have most of their diet be indigestible to feel satisfied.
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Dec 6, 2015 00:07
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Tell all people to eat their hats.
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Dec 6, 2015 00:14
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Honj Steak posted:Tell all people to eat their hats. Forums moderator Abe did that but it didn't seem to affect his weight one way or another. We probably need a more productive diet to pursue.
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Dec 6, 2015 00:29
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Wow, I wish I'd found this thread sooner! Hi, I know a lot about/have spent far too much time keyed in on nutrition science and food policy debates-I've attended and/or presented at a few national-level conferences on this sort of subject. There's fun stuff to weigh in on all through this thread, but generally speaking, a list of topics and my responses(as discussion prompts) might be a good way to organize the discussion and make us spend less time calling each other idiots. 1. Nutrition research generally It sucks. It's methodologically difficult and there's unusual amounts of research corruption and misinterpretation of data. At the same time, it's not worthless, and the larger methodological survey datasets are generally good if used properly. One of the main big survey datasets that's reliable is NHANES- but it depends on the validity of the stats being used on it. Some criticisms of NHANES came out of University of Alabama Birmingham (a really well-regarded nutrition science center) recently, but having read that article and the involved correspondence I don't think it holds up. There can in fact be experimental interventions on diet and nutrition- they do happen- but they're really, really expensive to do right, and they sometimes have statistical power problems. Nutrition science is still at the point where methodologists are trying to get journals to require more than p values. Some general rules of thumb for research in this area: a) Animal model studies don't really demonstrate anything. They really, really don't without a human model study. They're just a good way to develop evidence to get to a human study. b) Funding from industry doesn't mean a study is necessarily worthless. The reality is that a lot of the bad actors in this area are people who are nominally opposed to "big food". A lot of the conflict in the field is because "big food" isn't really a thing- a lot of it is proxy wars between different industry groups. An indirect effect of this is that companies like Coca-Cola will both fund really good gold standard research and slimy garbage. I can speak to some of the actors in this area to some extent- feel free to ask me about specific cases and people. 2. Fructose/HFCS and its effects Sugar is, under most circumstances, sugar. Arguments (including, sadly, a fair amount of research) involving one kind of sugar being better than another is mostly the result of a decades-long conflict between two commercial entities, which I'll just call Big Corn and Big Cane. Cane Sugar tries to claim that HFCS is worse and that cane sugar is better because it's natural. This is not supported by scientific evidence. Big Corn says that it's the same as other sugars. For most material purposes, they appear to be right but are both a)equally slimy with their PR campaigns and b) are having a much harder time dealing with the fearmongering that Cane proxies have generated. 3. Food addiction/Sugar/fat as addictive/toxic substances Sugar/fat/etc aren't addictive in a meaningful way. Among nutrition researchers, Lustig et al are regarded with scorn and hate for overstating research and generally being untrustworthy scum. "Addiction" and related terms like "dependence"are hotly contested even among addiction specialist researchers- people advocating for the idea of food addiction are often coming from a clinical setting, and are partly or heavily motivated by the hope that increasing the scope of DSM diagnoses will free up funding for treatment or increase the scope of insurance coverage. What I can say pretty objectively is that although drug addiction research is also pretty bad at times, it's generally accepted that additional mechanical things are going on with, for example, alcohol or tobacco than with food or food components. "food addiction", like "porn addiction", or other object or behavior-oriented conditions don't have a substance involved that's directly acting on the human brain in the same way. Most argument beyond that point is speculation, partly fueled by the generally poor understanding of addiction mechanisms and conflicting policy/legal/scientific definitions. The only substance that is being debated in this setting is caffeine. I saw a bunch of researchers nearly get into a fistfight at a NIDA conference over this, because the ramifications of calling caffeine addictive could be significant. If caffeine is truly "addictive,"it has the advantage of having weaker withdrawal effects, the "addictive" pattern of late-stage use behavior appears much weaker to break, and there's probably less of a tendency to get sidetracked into other addictive substances. More research needs to be done on this. 4. Added sugar Sorry, fishmech is probably right. My take is that there's no health impact difference, production definition differences aren't material, and that labeling and other regs related to it aren't a good idea. Added sugar labeling regs are easily circumvented by at least some companies, and they're a distraction from the more basic calories issue. 5. Is a calorie a calorie? For the most part, yes. Substantive differences in how the body processes caloric intake are either a) not significant enough to base policy on, or b) involve individual difference cases that also don't justify policy interventions. Some people have genetic features that let them burn calories a lot more (metabolic differences, basically). There's some discussion of genetic medicine interventions based off of this, but those are a) scientifically iffy in some respects and b) expensive and a long ways off. 6. Education I think fishmech is wrong here. We don't have good large-scale evidence on nutritional education, but I think that better enforcement and education about nutrition, both in schools (hard to legislate directly) and nutrition labels (relatively easy to do, "relative" being the key word here) are something we ought to be doing anyways. People not understanding the situation and thus falling for fad diets/deceptive labeling etc certainly isn't helping things. There's a tremendous deficit of FDA enforcement of existing nutrition labeling, and I generally feel the regime ought to be much stricter, e.g. some sort of serving size mandate would be a big plus. There are a set of side issues here involving dietary supplements, nutrition labeling, FDA funding and some groups that are making it much harder to make effective change, but this is  enough already.7. Diet or exercise for weight loss? Both contribute. There's no reason not to encourage both, particularly since the exercise part has ancillary health benefits. Diet is more immediately amenable to things like direct, coercive regulation, which is a part of why it's emphasized in policy discussions. 8. Urban design and commuter systems/sedentary work Probably a contributing factor- hard to effectively measure. It's not particularly plausible to "redo" any of these to improve caloric burn rates. 9. Stigma/shaming as policy This is debated in communication science generally- stigma is an area of current development with a few competing theories involved. The efficacy of stigma-based interventions varies heavily, and they tend to produce unexpected external costs (like a boomerang effect subculture of embracing and identifying with the stigmatized condition/behavior, in this case, HAES groups). I'm opposed, but there's an active debate among researchers regarding the practice right now. 10. Your topic here I'm happy to discuss and expand on these, or add to the list- it'd help keep things organized if you refer to the number of the subject. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Dec 6, 2015 |
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Dec 6, 2015 00:43
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Effectronica posted:Why are you talking about fats and carbohydrates? Why not go for polysaccharides like cellulose that act as roughage? I mean, let's go all the way on creating our fake foods, since we've determined that people need to have most of their diet be indigestible to feel satisfied. Because sugar and fat are the parts of food that people want to eat. Nobody wants roughage: chocalate flavored lettuce still feels like lettuce to the palate and stomach. The qualities that make it good for you also make it unpalatable, and can't really be seperated. Olestra basically is the thing you're asking for, except that it turned out not to be satisfying to eat and also caused unpleasant, oily shits.
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Dec 6, 2015 01:25
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Sounds awesome, unirobically.
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Dec 6, 2015 01:42
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rscott posted:To be fair to fishmech I don't think he's advocating the bootstraps approach, his thing is liposuction for everyone and refuting the idea that exercise is as equally important to weight loss on a societal scale because it isn't. I disagree, there's a mountain of research showing the negative health effects of being sedentary. Probably at least as much if not more than there is showing the detrimental effects of being overweight. http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2015/01/15/is-lack-of-exercise-worse-for-your-health-than-obesity/ I've pointed this out several times now in this thread but I think there is too much focus here on weight and not enough on body composition, fitness, and overall health. There are tons of people out there who are in the normal BMI range but are still very unhealthy and have bodies that look and function like poo poo, the human body is no more designed to stay sedentary all day than it is designed to carry a bunch of extra fat. I would say the same thing about discussing diet exclusively in the context of weight control while neglecting to talk about what the research says about what you should eat for optimal health. MaxxBot fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Dec 6, 2015 |
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Dec 6, 2015 02:01
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ok but being sedentary isn't the same thing as being overweight, so you're disproving a point that no one is really making
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Dec 6, 2015 06:10
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rscott posted:ok but being sedentary isn't the same thing as being overweight, so you're disproving a point that no one is really making Were you saying that exercise isn't as important as weight loss or were you saying that exercise isn't as important as diet for weight loss? It seemed like you were saying the former which is incorrect. Anyways, the entire point of talking about weight loss is because we want better health outcomes for people. It seems pointless to talk about weight loss without exercising or weight loss while eating a nonideal diet because those things profoundly affect health outcomes as well.
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Dec 6, 2015 06:53
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Discendo Vox posted:4. Added sugar I will absolutely agree that he was right about this. I think he's completely off base about the other argument, but he is absolutely right about this one. "Added sugar" is absolutely a useless phrase.
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Dec 6, 2015 06:55
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MaxxBot posted:Were you saying that exercise isn't as important as weight loss or were you saying that exercise isn't as important as diet for weight loss? It seemed like you were saying the former which is incorrect. Anyways, the entire point of talking about weight loss is because we want better health outcomes for people. It seems pointless to talk about weight loss without exercising or weight loss while eating a nonideal diet because those things profoundly affect health outcomes as well. In the context of losing weight, diet is far more important than exercise. That has been the argument put forth since the very beginning of this thread. I don't think that anyone is denying that being more active and exercising more are not good things, they just aren't super important to what we're actually discussing in this thread.
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Dec 6, 2015 15:45
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Thanks for the great post. I'd also like to add that many of the problems contributing to the rise in obesity are not directly related to either food or exercise, but rather to capitalism, lobbying, and education. For instance, we do an incredibly lovely job, some would argue by design, of instilling actual critical thinking habits in our citizenry. This often leads to magical thinking and to being overwhelmed by bullshit. Navigating all the health advice readily available is very difficult, and many people just pick a personality like Dr Oz or a chiropractor or a "nutritionist" at the holistic vitamin store and listen exclusively to their advice.
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Dec 6, 2015 18:24
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What if most jobs had company-lead PT? Show up an hour before work starts and get paid to exercise? Calisthenics don't cost anything, and you don't need any skill or experience to get started at doing them. They're also really easy to do as a group. Frosted Flake fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Dec 6, 2015 |
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Dec 6, 2015 20:00
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Frosted Flake posted:What if most jobs at company-lead PT? Show up an hour before work starts and get paid to exercise? This is happening with some success in various European countries. Only the big progressive tech companies in the US would foot the bill for that, though. Incentivising it with tax cuts or health insurance regulations would make this more likely. It's not even remotely panacea for the obesity problem, though, for tons of reasons.
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Dec 6, 2015 20:39
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Frosted Flake posted:What if most jobs at company-lead PT? Show up an hour before work starts and get paid to exercise? That would loving suck unless the company also provides showers for all its employees, and even then it would be massively more inconvenient. As it turns out, though, some companies are doing that. The company my friend is working for is starting a Friday-morning hockey thing, and if you participate you get a paid hour as you're playing.
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Dec 6, 2015 20:46
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Trent posted:It's not even remotely panacea for the obesity problem, though, for tons of reasons. Exercise is half of the equation, and if people can exercise without worrying about scheduling it around work then all the better. The other half - eating well - falls on the individual, because I don't see many companies being able to feed their workers during work hours. PT6A posted:That would loving suck unless the company also provides showers for all its employees, and even then it would be massively more inconvenient. That's a good point. I haven't worked an office job, what do people who cycle to work do?
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Dec 6, 2015 20:46
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Frosted Flake posted:The other half - eating well - falls on the individual, because I don't see many companies being able to feed their workers during work hours. Lots of workplaces have cafeterias or at least small kitchens. Obviously you can't force them to eat healthily or in appropriate amounts, but it would certainly be possible to incentivize that behaviour by providing properly portioned, healthy food.
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Dec 6, 2015 20:48
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Frosted Flake posted:That's a good point. I haven't worked an office job, what do people who cycle to work do? I honestly have no idea. That's one of the reasons I don't think cycling is a good commuting option for a lot of people. I guess some people don't sweat much, but when I exert myself to any degree (even a brisk walk) I sweat. When I do anything that could actually be termed "exercise," I rain. Without being able to shower and change at work, bicycle commuting would simply be impossible.
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Dec 6, 2015 20:51
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Frosted Flake posted:Exercise is half of the equation, and if people can exercise without worrying about scheduling it around work then all the better.  General good health-wise, exercise is important, yes, but if you are taking about reducing obesity specifically, diet is far, far more important than exercise.
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Dec 6, 2015 20:54
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PT6A posted:Lots of workplaces have cafeterias or at least small kitchens. Obviously you can't force them to eat healthily or in appropriate amounts, but it would certainly be possible to incentivize that behaviour by providing properly portioned, healthy food. That makes sense to me! I would (and have) accept a deduction on my pay to cover food being provided in-house. Having nice food at work would help people who would otherwise have to pack a lunch or eat fast-food over their lunch break. Exercise and diet can be hard to fit around a typical work-day, anything that makes it easier would be great. I don't think it would hurt productivity for employers to have a fit, well-fed workforce.
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Dec 6, 2015 20:58
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I just wish we didn't work so many hours. It makes scheduling exercise with all of of my other household chores difficult. The last thing I want to do is spend more time at work doing whatever lame workout they came up with. I want to lift weights.
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Dec 6, 2015 20:59
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Many companies, mine included, have showers and gyms available on-premise; I go there every day instead of lunch, when its' mostly empty. I then eat at my desk during conference calls. This hasn't done poo poo to my belly fat, but at least I'm not exactly skinny fat any more. What made the difference was making my own lunch of mainly chicken with rice/buckwheat/vegetables, though even then I expected more progress considering I almost completely eliminated sweet drinks and snacks. Frosted Flake posted:That's a good point. I haven't worked an office job, what do people who cycle to work do? Shower or don't get sweaty in the first place.
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Dec 6, 2015 21:11
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Trent posted:It's half of the equation in the sense that your chances of winning the lottery are 50/50, you either do out you don't whats an effect size 
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Dec 6, 2015 21:14
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I've had time think of some ideas since this thread began, so in addition to the others I've mentioned: -Personal fitness tax credits: Try and improve overall healthiness and alleviate some poverty, strongly suspected to one of the leading causes. -Public gyms: We have public libraries to improve creativity and knowledge, why not a public institution for fitness and health? Provides a safe place to exercise at low cost and also improves public hygiene. -Public Health Campaign focusing on the positive benefits of a healthy lifestyle but hitting all the hard advertising markers. ("Have great sex!") Societal scale there are some changes I would like to see that would also positively affect obesity rates: -Federally mandated 30 hour work week. Higher employment, less wageslave burnout. -Universal Preventative Health Care. Allows access to mental and physical preventative care. Psychologists and nutritionists for everyone! -Check Urban Sprawl, promote alternate means of transportation. Reduce dependency on cars, make them inconvenient compared to biking or transit in urban centres. -Ban food marketing to children. How many kids diets have been wrecked for a lifetime at the age of six because of a red headed clown? They are not capable of making informed choices and are very susceptible to advertising techniques. I've made them broad as to not be limited to american political issues. I don't feel targeting soda sizes or anything like that will ultimately be productive.
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Dec 6, 2015 21:31
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Public gyms would also be nice for the homeless population. Having a place to shower and exercise is a valuable resource. The Romans had it right. 
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Dec 6, 2015 21:33
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Dec 6, 2015 21:35
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SlipUp posted:-Ban food marketing to children. How many kids diets have been wrecked for a lifetime at the age of six because of a red headed clown? They are not capable of making informed choices and are very susceptible to advertising techniques. Six-year-olds have neither money nor mobility. Maybe it's because I grew up in such a small town that we literally did not have fast food (or any restaurant that served dinner) and thus it was never an issue, but what's wrong with a parent saying "You'll eat what I prepare you, or you won't eat."? This is what my friend did with his daughter. Now she doesn't even like McDonald's or fast food in general, because home-cooked meals are actually way better in addition to generally being more reasonably portioned and more nutritionally balanced.
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Dec 6, 2015 21:45
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PT6A posted:Six-year-olds have neither money nor mobility. Maybe it's because I grew up in such a small town that we literally did not have fast food (or any restaurant that served dinner) and thus it was never an issue, but what's wrong with a parent saying "You'll eat what I prepare you, or you won't eat."? The child's desire has overwhelming effect on the parents purchasing decisions. Fast food is way more prevalent than in your small town. Many parents are single and/or work multiple jobs and/or in poverty and don't have the time or the energy to fight a battle with the entire fast food industry over what their picky child will eat Tuesday night and Wednesday lunch when the fast food place is offering a fee toy and all you can eat ranch. SlipUp fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Dec 6, 2015 |
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Dec 6, 2015 21:50
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SlipUp posted:The child's desire has overwhelming effect on the parents purchasing decisions. But... how do people let a six-year-old run their lives? Like, what if they asked for liquor or cigarettes? Do you just give in because it's easier than arguing?
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Dec 6, 2015 21:52
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PT6A posted:Six-year-olds have neither money nor mobility. SlipUp posted:The child's desire has overwhelming effect on the parents purchasing decisions. Yep, exactly. Marketing to kids is how companies circumvent the rational decision-making process of parents. It's actually a pretty vile tactic if you think about it.
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Dec 6, 2015 21:53
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No, I don't think it's right, I just don't care to stand on the grotesquely bloated bodies of the citizenry at large to pat myself on the back.
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Dec 6, 2015 21:53
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PT6A posted:But... how do people let a six-year-old run their lives? It's not that a six-year-old is running their lives. It's a combination of two things: a) Most parents want their kids to be happy b) Most parents want their kids to stop whining and shut the hell up Feeding the kid fast-food accomplishes both of these goals, and it doesn't cause any immediate short-term harm (and unfortunately, the long-term harm is still contradicted by many marketing campaigns and even research). quote:Like, what if they asked for liquor or cigarettes? Do you just give in because it's easier than arguing? Both cigarettes and liquor are illegal and much more obviously harmful than fast-food. Giving them to a child is child-abuse.
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Dec 6, 2015 21:57
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