Should we take thin privilege and health at any size more seriously?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Should we take thin privilege and health at any size more seriously?

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fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

Lemming posted:

Lmao feel free to quote where that argument is being made.

Every single one of your posts, you wrote them, you should be aware of this. I mean there's also the "people should be eating safe diets! I won't elaborate beyond, uh, salt!" thing.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 03:20

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# ? May 29, 2024 00:50

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

fishmech posted:

The treatment for overeating is literally just "not overeating".

The correct response to global warming is just "reduce carbon emissions"

The cure for suicide is literally just "not killing yourself"

SlipUp posted:

If I could quote myself: People overeating led us to this, but what led people to overeating? Treating just the overeating is a symptomatic treatment that doesn't address the root cause of the issue in our society, which could be a worse problem down the line.

Again, Fishmech has no idea how to treat overeating in other people.

As usual, he's writing thousands of words to prove himself right on a trite and irrelevant point.

Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 03:29 on Dec 11, 2015

# ? Dec 11, 2015 03:26

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

Arglebargle III posted:

The correct response to global warming is just "reduce carbon emissions"

The cure for suicide is literally just "not killing yourself"

I'm sorry that you want to believe there's One Weird Trick that works for all of the billions of global fat people, but there isn't. The only consistent thing that works among them is Eat Less and how you convince each of them to do it can't be meaningfully generalized to the population.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 03:28

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

I agree. Your one simple solution, though trivially obvious, doesn't work for the general population. Thanks for your contribution. Please stop.

(Nobody is confused about the veracity of the statement: "Eating less will cause you to lose weight, c.p." It is facile and obvious. The idea that the general public is confused on this point strains credulity. And yet people are still fat and getting fatter.)

# ? Dec 11, 2015 03:34

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

Arglebargle III posted:

I agree. Your one simple solution, though trivially obvious, doesn't work for the general population. Thanks for your contribution. Please stop.

(Nobody is confused about the veracity of the statement: "Eating less will cause you to lose weight, c.p." It is facile and obvious. The idea that the general public is confused on this point strains credulity. And yet people are still fat and getting fatter.)

No it does, it works for everyone, that's basic biology and physics. Please stop complaining about that fact.

The reason people are getting fat is because it's a lot more enjoyable to not eat less, than it is to eat less.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 03:36

Lemming: Apr 21, 2008

fishmech posted:

Every single one of your posts, you wrote them, you should be aware of this. I mean there's also the "people should be eating safe diets! I won't elaborate beyond, uh, salt!" thing.

Feel free to try to prove this is reality. You can't, so you won't, but you're welcome to try!

# ? Dec 11, 2015 03:38

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

Lemming posted:

Feel free to try to prove this is reality. You can't, so you won't, but you're welcome to try!

It's sitting right there in your posts, your insistence on talking up salt and big macs. Here you go, since you're incapable of reading anything you posted, possibly due to some sort of faulty browser:

Lemming posted:

Injecting heroin is also not bad for your health until you're dying of injecting heroin.

Eating diets high in saturated fat, salt and sugar for your whole life trains you to keep eating that diet even once you get diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. It's really hard to get people to radically shift their diets, so it's best to have a good one from the start. Saying what you eat doesn't matter until you get a severe health issue is nonsense.

Lemming posted:

The point is that the eating habits you develop before you start suffering from those health conditions are hard to change. 1 in 4 Americans die of heart disease. Almost 10 percent of Americans have diabetes. Almost 1 in 3 have high blood pressure. Almost 1 in 3 have high cholesterol. These are severe health effects that may not be caused by eating those diets, but those diets make it worse when you do have those health conditions, and chances are very, very good that any given person will develop one or more of those conditions, and once they have, it's very difficult for them to change their diet.

If your diet will aggravate a health condition, and you are likely to develop a health condition, then that diet is a bad, risky diet. Sure, it means you can eat whatever garbage you want as long as you have inhuman willpower and self control and can completely change your diet once you develop heart problem, or diabetes, or high blood pressure, or etc etc, but since most people can't, those diets are dangerous.

Lemming posted:

Yeah, and I get that vaccinations are only useful if you're exposed to the disease. Those conditions absolutely have a lot to do with diet. Having a diet that isn't going to kill you faster when you inevitably get a health problem that most Americans will eventually get one or more of is helping protect you in advance before anything bad happens. When you get one of those problems, a doctor will tell you to change your diet. What's easier, developing a safe diet in the first place, or changing your diet a lot once you're dying? The longer you stick to a certain eating pattern, the harder it is to break out of. The causes of those health issues is also not limited to being overweight. That's obviously a huge factor, but it's not the only one.

And "whatever you want but less" isn't a solution if what you want is something like a Big Mac, which is 540 calories and almost 1000mg of salt. If you had high blood pressure and needed to reduce your salt intake, that would make your diet, uh, like one and a half Big Macs per day, and then more food with no salt in it so you don't starve to death. Which is a substantial diet change.

Lemming posted:

The other thing that makes a diet bad is if you have health conditions that are exacerbated by things you're eating in your diet. Since it's harder to change your diet once you develop a health problem, it's a lot safer and smarter to have a diet that isn't dangerous once you develop the condition you are statistically likely to develop in the first place.

I talked specifically about salt and blood pressure with respect to the Big Mac. The CDC says to limit your salt intake to below 1500 mg/day if you have high blood pressure. A Big Mac has about 1000mg of salt in it. If you eat more than one and a half Big Macs, you will be eating too much salt if you have high blood pressure. Since a Big Mac has about 540 calories in it and most people need to eat more than 810 calories every day, this would require supplementing your diet with a lot of food with literally 0 salt in it, which is a substantial diet change more than "eat whatever you want but less." I'm sorry this very simple math is too complicated for you.

Edit: My point is that instead of having the 5 Big Macs Every Day diet that fucks you over when you get high blood pressure, it's a lot smarter and safer to have a diet that doesn't have 5000mg of salt in it in the first place, even if it won't cause any health problems directly at the time.

Lemming posted:

You keep arguing against things I'm not saying, so feel free to point out where I said the diets were inherently dangerous, rather than dangerous for their potential future effects if you develop a health condition. Please also point out where I said salt was dangerous outside the context of high blood pressure. Please point out where I said having 5 grams of sodium a day was bad for you outside the context of where you keep eating that sort of diet when you develop high blood pressure.

You also say "public health officials are seeing more cases where people are eating way too little sodium based on scares about sodium and becoming at risk to various problems because of it." Do you have numbers on hand? 10 cases instead of 5 would be an increase but not relevant in any way to the conversation. I'm skeptical that you're not trying to dishonestly frame the conversation in a certain way through being technically correct about an irrelevant fact.

Lemming posted:

The argument that I have been consistently making is that certain diets are "safer" in the sense that they are easier to modify to follow medical guidelines if you develop certain health conditions. You'll note I've used the sodium example a few times, where I talk about how a diet that is already higher in sodium requires more radical changes (ie the Big Mac diet) to fall in line with the guidelines. This is abundantly clear from the context of what I'm arguing. If you take my argument out of context and focus on the word "safe" outside of this context, you can twist what I'm saying, but that would be dishonest of you. Please feel free to quote where I said "eating too much salt is bad for you in general" like you just accused me of in the bolded portion.

You also made a very, very specific claim here:

that there was a relevant increase in people who eat too little sodium specifically as a result of "scares" about sodium. Would you care to back that up? The fact that not eating enough sodium may be bad for you was not the relevant point.

Here's something I missed the first time:

Lemming posted:

If your diet will aggravate a health condition, and you are likely to develop a health condition, then that diet is a bad, risky diet.

This is hilariously stupid because it means any diet on earth can retroactively become a risky diet with you having no way to tell, since most diet-affected conditions are undetectable before they present themselves. E.g. you might unknowingly have genetic problems with your kidneys and when their condition gets critical, potatoes, tomatoes and bananas all contain otherwise innocuous amounts of potassium that can be dangerous for you now that your kidneys are hosed.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 03:46

Lemming: Apr 21, 2008

fishmech posted:

It's sitting right there in your posts, your insistence on talking up salt and big macs. Here you go, since you're incapable of reading anything you posted, possibly due to some sort of faulty browser:

Here's something I missed the first time:

This is hilariously stupid because it means any diet on earth can retroactively become a risky diet with you having no way to tell, since most diet-affected conditions are undetectable before they present themselves. E.g. you might unknowingly have genetic problems with your kidneys and when their condition gets critical, potatoes, tomatoes and bananas all contain otherwise innocuous amounts of potassium that can be dangerous for you now that your kidneys are hosed.

Yes, you managed to quote a bunch of my posts. Where in them do I argue "I want to blame this on salt, and I think people who eat a lot of salt are bad" and "I really want to get angry at big macs" like you claim? I argued neither of those things, so it might be difficult.

For that second part, you'll note I was talking about health conditions you were likely to develop. For Americans, this would mean things like heart disease and high blood pressure. Eating a diet that would exacerbate these conditions were you to get them is risky because if you develop them, like you've argued, it's hard to change your diet, so you're setting yourself up to face a dangerous situation. Which means they're risky. Eating gluten is not risky because most people are not at risk of having Celiac's disease. You seem to think I'm arguing that any diet that can theoretically be harmful if you have a health condition means it's risky even if you don't have it, which is not what I was saying at all. I clearly am referencing health conditions that you might reasonably expect to develop. The example I used was high blood pressure, since Americans have an almost 1 in 3 chance of developing it.

I look forward to your intentional misunderstanding of what I'm saying.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 04:00

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

Lemming posted:

Yes, you managed to quote a bunch of my posts. Where in them do I argue "I want to blame this on salt, and I think people who eat a lot of salt are bad" and "I really want to get angry at big macs" like you claim? I argued neither of those things, so it might be difficult.

For that second part, you'll note I was talking about health conditions you were likely to develop. For Americans, this would mean things like heart disease and high blood pressure. Eating a diet that would exacerbate these conditions were you to get them is risky because if you develop them, like you've argued, it's hard to change your diet, so you're setting yourself up to face a dangerous situation. Which means they're risky. Eating gluten is not risky because most people are not at risk of having Celiac's disease. You seem to think I'm arguing that any diet that can theoretically be harmful if you have a health condition means it's risky even if you don't have it, which is not what I was saying at all. I clearly am referencing health conditions that you might reasonably expect to develop. The example I used was high blood pressure, since Americans have an almost 1 in 3 chance of developing it.

I look forward to your intentional misunderstanding of what I'm saying.

A) Your whining about salt which started from the very first post B) your whining about Big Macs.

Heart disease isn't meaningfully hurt or helped by any particular diet. Eating too much of any sorts of food puts you at increased risk for it. Similarly high blood pressure is more quickly alleviated by cutting the pounds tubbo, instead of lowering your salt intake. As it stands there's no longer strong evidence that overconsumption of sodium leads to high blood pressure. The actual cases of a particular food or component being bad for you are from diseases and conditions that are not induced by diet, as previously mentioned with potassium and late stage kidney disease (incidentally, early stage kidney disease isn't diagnosed all that often, and the primary symptom is high blood pressure. And since one method of cutting down sodium because you have high blood pressure is using potassium based alternatives, I think you can see where the problem is!!).

You're intentionally misunderstanding reality. The only thing you outright claim to be dangerous seems to be salt, and unspecified things that cause heart disease which you don't even have the balls to name. And your argument about secretly risky diets is effectively useless to anyone who hasn't already been diagnosed.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 04:12

Lemming: Apr 21, 2008

fishmech posted:

A) Your whining about salt which started from the very first post B) your whining about Big Macs.

Heart disease isn't meaningfully hurt or helped by any particular diet. Eating too much of any sorts of food puts you at increased risk for it. Similarly high blood pressure is more quickly alleviated by cutting the pounds tubbo, instead of lowering your salt intake. As it stands there's no longer strong evidence that overconsumption of sodium leads to high blood pressure. The actual cases of a particular food or component being bad for you are from diseases and conditions that are not induced by diet, as previously mentioned with potassium and late stage kidney disease (incidentally, early stage kidney disease isn't diagnosed all that often, and the primary symptom is high blood pressure. And since one method of cutting down sodium because you have high blood pressure is using potassium based alternatives, I think you can see where the problem is!!).

You're intentionally misunderstanding reality. The only thing you outright claim to be dangerous seems to be salt, and unspecified things that cause heart disease which you don't even have the balls to name. And your argument about secretly risky diets is effectively useless to anyone who hasn't already been diagnosed.

Feel free to read those posts in good faith, you'll see they make a very different argument from the one you're imagining.

Citation needed that heart disease once you have it isn't hurt or helped by any diet, lmao. Again, you're claiming these things as self evident without any backup. Also, feel free to point out at any point where I claimed eating too much salt leads to high blood pressure. The only argument I've made is that it's difficult to change your diet to eat less salt once you have high blood pressure. I have never made a single argument in this thread about food causing any of those problems. I have only argued that once you have those problems, it will be difficult to change your diet to meet the new restrictions, and so it's less risky to eat a diet that wouldn't exacerbate those issues in the first place.

Please, point to a single place where I say eating a lot of salt when you don't have high blood pressure will itself directly harm you. I also didn't make any claims about diets that would themselves cause health issues, only diets that exacerbate them once you get them. I don't "have the balls" to name anything because my argument was never about diet causing those problems, which is something you clearly don't get.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 04:31

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

Lemming posted:

Feel free to read those posts in good faith, you'll see they make a very different argument from the one you're imagining.

Citation needed that heart disease once you have it isn't hurt or helped by any diet, lmao. Again, you're claiming these things as self evident without any backup. Also, feel free to point out at any point where I claimed eating too much salt leads to high blood pressure. The only argument I've made is that it's difficult to change your diet to eat less salt once you have high blood pressure. I have never made a single argument in this thread about food causing any of those problems. I have only argued that once you have those problems, it will be difficult to change your diet to meet the new restrictions, and so it's less risky to eat a diet that wouldn't exacerbate those issues in the first place.

Please, point to a single place where I say eating a lot of salt when you don't have high blood pressure will itself directly harm you. I also didn't make any claims about diets that would themselves cause health issues, only diets that exacerbate them once you get them. I don't "have the balls" to name anything because my argument was never about diet causing those problems, which is something you clearly don't get.

I'm reading those posts in good faith. They're just stupid posts, I'm sorry dude.

There is no particular diet that's universally applicable to people with heart disease, nor particularly bad once you have it. The thing that helps the most towards managing it, besides taking your medicine obviously, is simple losing weight. I notice you haven't bothered once to back up your claims once. It is difficult to change any diet once you have health problems, and since we generally have no idea WHAT health problems we might end up having, it's nonsensical to do your plan of "just don't eat anything that could be a problem so you have to change less :downs:

". Like there's pretty much no group of foods that will add up to your needed basic nutrition that aren't bad for some sort of ailment or another, many of which are genetically caused.

Your very first post whined about people eat so much salt dude. What don't you get here? And the only thing you've actually mentioned as far as exacerbating things is just "salt". So far the only concrete thing you oppose is salt, which is ironic considering how salty you're getting.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 04:38

Lemming: Apr 21, 2008

I'm glad you're proving that you didn't read my posts because that very first post you quoted mentioned a diet high in saturated fat, which is bad when you have heart disease.

Edit: I am on a plane now. Have a good night's shitposting without me, fishmech.

Lemming fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Dec 11, 2015

# ? Dec 11, 2015 04:43

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

fishmech posted:

Heart disease isn't meaningfully hurt or helped by any particular diet.

No.

fishmech posted:

As it stands there's no longer strong evidence that overconsumption of sodium leads to high blood pressure.

No. Evidence doesn't go away. Your own source contradicted you. This is an ongoing dispute in nutrition.

fishmech posted:

The actual cases of a particular food or component being bad for you are from diseases and conditions that are not induced by diet.

No.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 04:46

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

Lemming posted:

I'm glad you're proving that you didn't read my posts because that very first post you quoted mentioned a diet high in saturated fat, which is bad when you have heart disease.

I read your posts. Your post also ranted about salt and sugar at the same time.

Discendo Vox posted:

No. Evidence doesn't go away. Your own source contradicted you. This is an ongoing dispute in nutrition.

Hey failed the bar guy, you're contradicting yourself here. The ongoing dispute means that it's no longer solidly thought to be a cause, you'd think you'd notice that as you were typing it out!.

Seriously how can you type "this thing causes this" and then immediately type "we actually have no idea if it does" right after each other and not fuckin' explode from self-contradiction?

fishmech fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Dec 11, 2015

# ? Dec 11, 2015 04:47

Solkanar512: Dec 28, 2006; by the sex ghost

fishmech posted:

Hey failed the bar guy

This is loving pathetic, even for you.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 14:07

sweek0: May 22, 2006; Let me fall out the window
With confetti in my hair
Deal out jacks or better
On a blanket by the stairs
I'll tell you all my secrets
But I lie about my past

Fishmech: what would you actually like to do about any of the problems around obesity and food-related diseases, if anything at all? Is it all completely hopeless?

# ? Dec 11, 2015 15:08

Toph Bei Fong: Feb 29, 2008

fishmech posted:

No it does, it works for everyone, that's basic biology and physics. Please stop complaining about that fact.

The reason people are getting fat is because it's a lot more enjoyable to not eat less, than it is to eat less.

Yes doctor, but how do we get people to use the condoms and curtail the spread of STDs?

# ? Dec 11, 2015 15:13

Brannock: Feb 9, 2006; by exmarx; Fallen Rib

Does someone have journal access for this? It's been years since I was a student.

http://journals.ama.org/doi/abs/10.1509/jppm.14.020

quote:

The (Ironic) Dove Effect: Usage of Acceptance Cues for Larger Body Types Increases Unhealthy Behaviors

Lily Lin and Brent McFerran*

The average weight of the population has risen rapidly in much of the world. Concurrently, in recent years, advertisers have increased the usage of larger models in their campaigns, and many of these ads claim that their larger models (as compared to thin models commonly used) possess �realistic� body types. Many groups have lauded these moves as beneficial to promoting a healthy body image in society. However, in five studies, the authors found that cues suggesting the acceptance of larger body types resulted in greater intended or actual consumption of food and a reduced motivation to engage in a healthier lifestyle. The authors suggest that one reason why being larger-bodied may appear to be contagious is that as it is seen as more socially permissible, individuals exhibit lower motivation to engage in healthy behaviors and consume greater portions of unhealthy food. The authors also contrast acceptance with communications stigmatizing various body types, and identify limitations of both approaches. The authors conclude with implications for public policy.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 18:32

Brannock: Feb 9, 2006; by exmarx; Fallen Rib

Fishmech, the Chief Medical Officer in the UK recommends a sugar tax. What do you think?

Full report here.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 18:40

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Brannock posted:

Does someone have journal access for this? It's been years since I was a student.

What do you need from it?

fishmech posted:

Hey handsome sexy guy, you're contradicting yourself here. The ongoing dispute means that it's no longer solidly thought to be a cause, you'd think you'd notice that as you were typing it out!.

Seriously how can you type "this thing causes this" and then immediately type "we actually have no idea if it does" right after each other and not fuckin' explode from self-contradiction?

Because you've shifted your position from "this doesn't happen" to "this is disputed and we should act like no one thinks it happens", when the state of evidence is actually "all major medical organizations and the groups that establish dietary guidelines still think this is happening, but aren't sure whether they should tweak the ceiling on intake levels, despite a several decades-long proxy war by different industry groups making it hard to figure out what evidence is legitimate". And no, an IOM report (now a NAM report, but even their website still uses the old name) doesn't represent the position of the full IOM- it's a sort of structured literature review or, sometimes, a workshop summary.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Dec 11, 2015

# ? Dec 11, 2015 18:41

Brannock: Feb 9, 2006; by exmarx; Fallen Rib

Discendo Vox posted:

What do you need from it?

Pretty much the main thrust of the summary, I want to see the numbers that they used to conclude that society/media showing obese bodies increases unhealthy behavior (eating more, less activity) in those affected.

Sorry if that's unclear, I don't have a hard science background.

edit: Their suggested implications for public policy would be interesting to read over as well.

Brannock fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Dec 11, 2015

# ? Dec 11, 2015 18:49

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Brannock posted:

Pretty much the main thrust of the summary, I want to see the numbers that they used to conclude that society/media showing obese bodies increases unhealthy behavior (eating more, less activity) in those affected.

Sorry if that's unclear, I don't have a hard science background.

edit: Their suggested implications for public policy would be interesting to read over as well.

As it turns out, I don't need to have a moral crisis- one of the authors has the final proof up on their personal website.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 18:58

Brannock: Feb 9, 2006; by exmarx; Fallen Rib

Discendo Vox posted:

As it turns out, I don't need to have a moral crisis- one of the authors has the final proof up on their personal website.

Excellent, thank you. Reading over it now.

I also came across this.

quote:

Three experiments by Crystal Hoyt and colleagues, recently published in Psychological Science, found that presenting obese people with a passage that described obesity as a disease decreased the dissatisfaction they reported about their own bodies, but also made them more likely to select a high-calorie sandwich from a list of options.

The study in question. Also further down in the above article:

quote:

Consistent with these ideas, other studies have found that describing obesity in biological terms can decrease the perception that people have control over their weight, and it can also influence behavior: reading a fictional news story about "obesity genes," for example, led participants to eat more cookies in a subsequent task.

Ditto.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 19:07

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

I'm headed out the door, but as we start into the primary research literature, my usual caveat needs to be expanded. Nutrition research as a field has serious method problems, and a lot of effectively meaningless stuff gets published. Because obesity is a "hot topic", you're especially likely to see folks jumping onto the bandwagon and writing/publishing studies about obesity that don't actually mean very much.

I can probably speak more to discussion of making obesity a disease this evening, if nothing comes up.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 19:14

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

fishmech posted:

No it does, it works for everyone, that's basic biology and physics. Please stop complaining about that fact.

The reason people are getting fat is because it's a lot more enjoyable to not eat less, than it is to eat less.

You're Fishmeching again. Your point is trivially true and irrelevant. Please stop.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 19:16

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

Arglebargle III posted:

You're Fishmeching again. Your point is trivially true and irrelevant. Please stop.

I'm pretty sure he can't help it. He's literally said

fishmech posted:

You can't adjust tastes to enjoy bland or lightly seasoned vegetables as much as foods that are practically tailor made to appeal to our senses of taste and smell.

And

fishmech posted:

I think this concern is utterly ridiculous. Especially because "ridiculous" flavors tend to be novelties and gimmicks that don't actually taste good. Like there's no way this Mountain Dew sauce wings is going to taste good enough that someone will prefer it.

Also "intense" flavor is such a wishy-washy nonspecific charge at that! I mean there's people out there who think table pepper on food is too spicy and intense.

In the same thread he pretended not to understand our discussion of palate.

He has also pounded the "Only calories" drum all thread

fishmech posted:

You take the things you eat, and you eat the same things, but less of them. It's simple. You avoid switching to other foods and mistakenly eating more. People just don't bother to do it

Yet suddenly when it is expedient for him to 'win' there's a lot more nuance about what works for different people and what doesn't.

fishmech posted:

Because, for example, a lot of people found it was easiest for them to cut to the requisite low calorie rates needed to not get fat if they avoided fats. Other people, sugars. Other people, carbs in general. Still other people did it by only eating foods that at are green in color. Others swear by never eating anything red or purple. Basically there are assloads of things you can do that for a particular person, can get them into eating the necessary low amount of calories. They all work equally well, and none of them work at all if the person manages to overeat anyway.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 19:38

Brannock: Feb 9, 2006; by exmarx; Fallen Rib

Discendo Vox posted:

I can probably speak more to discussion of making obesity a disease this evening, if nothing comes up.

I'd be interested in reading your take on this, as well as anything you could write about common methodology problems that come up in this field.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 19:39

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Nevvy Z posted:

Yet suddenly when it is expedient for him to 'win' there's a lot more nuance about what works for different people and what doesn't.

There's no contradiction there. He's expressing these as methods of getting people to eat fewer calories, as he says right in the passage you've quoted. It's saddening how quickly people let their fury blind them in the case of fishmech.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 19:41

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

Effectronica posted:

There's no contradiction there. He's expressing these as methods of getting people to eat fewer calories, as he says right in the passage you've quoted. It's saddening how quickly people let their fury blind them in the case of fishmech.

All diets are fads until it became expedient for them not to be.

Edit- This also seems pretty contradictory.

fishmech posted:

The idea that the horror of things tasting good is what's causing people to be fat is hilarious, and tends to betray a lack of understanding of just how little is needed to be added for things to be appealing even to the dreaded Guy Who Eats McDonald's A Lot.

fishmech posted:

You can't adjust tastes to enjoy bland or lightly seasoned vegetables as much as foods that are practically tailor made to appeal to our senses of taste and smell.

Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Dec 11, 2015

# ? Dec 11, 2015 19:47

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Nevvy Z posted:

All diets are fads until it became expedient for them not to be.

There are two possible causal mechanisms for dietary weight reduction. I'll call them type 1 and type 2 diets.

1. Reduce the number of calories consumed. This is what the vast majority of weight loss diets do, but they often wrap themselves in false mechanistic language. The efficacy of individual caloric reduction diets depends on caloric limitation and how well the dieter adheres to them. Dieter adherence seems to be an individual difference problem- what works for person A at time B won't work for person C at time D. There are very few diets with any kind of strong, cross-sectional effectiveness, because of rebound problems and adherence problems*. But the mechanism for all of them is reducing the amount of calories consumed. Pop evolutionary psychology about "what we like" isn't supported in any systemic way that justifies large-scale policy restricting particular foods or nutrients.

2. Screw with your metabolic system so that you don't process calories consumed, or are raising your tendency to burn calories via radiant heat. Zero carb diets(Atkins, for example) are an example of this. They will help you lose weight! They are also a terrible idea because they tend to kill a nonzero portion of users-turns out carbs are, like, needed to sustain parts of your heart and stuff. They, too, will often wrap themselves in false mechanistic language. These haven't come up in the thread very much because they're an incredibly bad idea.

I don't think there's a strong basis for recommending one sort of type 1 diet over another as policy. Individual and psychological differences determine long-term adherence and avoiding rebound effects. My general position on this area of policy is that a first step is education- to study and address the miasma of false nutritional information that's out there about diets. I'm actually second author on a study on this right now.

* The only one I've heard of with strong supporting evidence of this sort is ironically the DASH diet, which ironically is meant to manage sodium intake. Even in that case, I'm suspicious of the results.

Brannock posted:

I'd be interested in reading your take on this, as well as anything you could write about common methodology problems that come up in this field.

drat it, I have work to do! let me live, thread! I'll tell you what little I know on this in a couple hours. The fun thing about any area of scientific research is it takes like a minute of scratching the surface to start seeing massive problems in practice.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Dec 11, 2015

# ? Dec 11, 2015 20:23

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Nevvy Z posted:

All diets are fads until it became expedient for them not to be.

Edit- This also seems pretty contradictory.

Do you understand the reason why fad diets are condemned under a caloric approach? Because if you did, (it's because they often end up with excuses to overeat so long as the right preparations or restrictions are abided by) you wouldn't see the contradiction there. As for your backup complaint, there's also no contradiction there, because there's a middle ground between "bland vegetables" and "heart attack on a plate". Furthermore,

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."- Ralph Waldo Emerson

# ? Dec 11, 2015 20:26

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

Watch out this guy's got a platitude!

Discendo Vox posted:

drat it, I have work to do! let me live, thread! I'll tell you what little I know on this in a couple hours. The fun thing about any area of scientific research is it takes like a minute of scratching the surface to start seeing massive problems in practice.

You are the best poster you can't leave!

# ? Dec 11, 2015 20:31

Brannock: Feb 9, 2006; by exmarx; Fallen Rib

Discendo Vox posted:

drat it, I have work to do! let me live, thread! I'll tell you what little I know on this in a couple hours. The fun thing about any area of scientific research is it takes like a minute of scratching the surface to start seeing massive problems in practice.

There's no rush, I'll look forward to reading it whenever you find the time and inclination to write it up. And thank you.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 21:21

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

Brannock posted:

Fishmech, the Chief Medical Officer in the UK recommends a sugar tax. What do you think?

Full report here.

We already have a sugar tax in America, it's the 1970s sugar tariffs that result in the price of refined sugars and any suitable replacements being double the price they are globally - it's effectively a 100% tax on sugar. Now I don't know if you've looked around lately, but I don't think we've gotten skinnier as a nation since the tariffs took full effect in the late 70s!

So I'd rather doubt it's actually going to cut obesity in the UK to raise their sugar prices to the relative level America's been living with for nearly 40 years. Especialyl because they don't even seem willing to go that far in their tax rates.

Toph Bei Fong posted:

Yes doctor, but how do we get people to use the condoms and curtail the spread of STDs?

All you can do is tell people they should wear condoms and tell them they should eat less. You can't really force them.

Discendo Vox posted:

Because you've shifted your position from "this doesn't happen" to "this is disputed and we should act like no one thinks it happens"

Nope. The fact that all of the old data seems to be invalidated is a pretty strong indicator that it in fact only causes the problem in far more limited situations versus the previous assumption that it always caused it - and this is my position too. But you refuse to allow nuance, because you're desperate.

sweek0 posted:

Fishmech: what would you actually like to do about any of the problems around obesity and food-related diseases, if anything at all? Is it all completely hopeless?

Frankly there isn't anything that can be done with the population as a whole.

Nevvy Z posted:

He has also pounded the "Only calories" drum all thread

Because this is literally and unequivocally true, no matter how much you want to pretend that if only everyone ate whatever weird diet you prefer, no one would be fat. There is 0 evidence that calories aren't equivalent between foods.

Take your foodie puritanism bullshit to the dumpster of history where it belongs.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 21:31

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

fishmech posted:

Take your foodie puritanism bullshit to the dumpster of history where it belongs.

My what?

# ? Dec 11, 2015 21:36

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

fishmech posted:

Frankly there isn't anything that can be done with the population as a whole.

Because this is literally and unequivocally true, no matter how much you want to pretend that if only everyone ate whatever weird diet you prefer, no one would be fat. There is 0 evidence that calories aren't equivalent between foods.

Again, I 100% completely agree with you that you are correct on the widely accepted point that "eating fewer calories is sure to produce weight loss" and I also 100% agree with you that you don't have anything to add to the discussion.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 21:45

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

BTW, general protip- it can be a bit unwieldy, but IOM reports are all freely available as pdfs to the public off of their website. As per the sodium discussion, though, while IOM reports are often very good, they're not beyond criticism and should be read with caution. While they're close to beyond reproach for ethical issues such as conflict of interest, they can still have methods problems or produce unclear, overly conservative or badly communicated findings.

fishmech posted:

Nope. The fact that all of the old data seems to be invalidated is a pretty strong indicator that it in fact only causes the problem in far more limited situations versus the previous assumption that it always caused it - and this is my position too. But you refuse to allow nuance, because you're desperate.

"All of the old data" isn't considered invalid. As the sources you've posted state, even the 2013 IOM report involved debate about where the specific threshold for sodium intake should be. It wasn't the full recantation you're presenting, which was a product of lay press distortion- and even so, its statements on the 2300 mg limit were heavily criticized in the subsequent literature by almost all other stakeholder groups. You're using the word nuance as a substitute for, as far as I can tell, actually knowing anything about the subject.

# ? Dec 11, 2015 22:14

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

Arglebargle III posted:

Again, I 100% completely agree with you that you are correct on the widely accepted point that "eating fewer calories is sure to produce weight loss" and I also 100% agree with you that you don't have anything to add to the discussion.

It is rather the people who sit and say there must be a solution but can't actually come up with anything workable who don't "add". Like you, f'r'nstance.

There's not going to be a silver bullet to permanently bring obesity under, say, 5% long term; outside of horrible things like food becoming massively expensive (and thus inducing mass starvation), or banning all food production and consumption outside of a true strictly enforced rationing system.

Discendo Vox posted:

BTW, general protip- it can be a bit unwieldy, but IOM reports are all freely available as pdfs to the public off of their website. As per the sodium discussion, though, while IOM reports are often very good, they're not beyond criticism and should be read with caution. While they're close to beyond reproach for ethical issues such as conflict of interest, they can still have methods problems or produce unclear, overly conservative or badly communicated findings.

"All of the old data" isn't considered invalid. As the sources you've posted state, even the 2013 IOM report involved debate about where the specific threshold for sodium intake should be. It wasn't the full recantation you're presenting, which was a product of lay press distortion- and even so, its statements on the 2300 mg limit were heavily criticized in the subsequent literature by almost all other stakeholder groups. You're using the word nuance as a substitute for, as far as I can tell, actually knowing anything about the subject.

You have an interesting strawman. My position, which is what the current state of the evidence supports, is that mass amounts of sodium intake does not induce high blood pressure in all people or even most, but rather only some people, which is likely to be linked to a number of genetic and other conditions and predispositions. Further research is going to narrow down what those things are, and possibly allow for population screening to determine which people will always need to be somewhat careful versus those who don't need to care.

The old assumption was that you could do it to anyone, or most people barring a few people with special resistance for unclear reasons. This is what is now rejected.

fishmech fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Dec 11, 2015

# ? Dec 11, 2015 22:15

Series DD Funding: Nov 25, 2014; by exmarx

Zero carb diets aren't actually that dangerous except for the whole being tired and smelling bad thing; in fact epileptic kids have been kept on them for years. Glucose can be synthesized in the body

# ? Dec 11, 2015 22:22

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# ? May 29, 2024 00:50

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

fishmech posted:

You keep ranting about how afraid you are of salt and the horrors of a gram of sodium in a burger the verage consumer has a couple times a week tops. It's wholly irrelevant, and high blood pressure tends to go away simply by eating less and losing weight, barring other organ problems also being present.
There's nothing wrong with having a whole 5 grams of sodium a day, deal with that fact. You'll just need to piss more, barring certain rare genetic conditions or cases where you developed organ problems separately.

fishmech posted:

Salt has little to no impact on the vast majority of people, according to recent research. It doesn't actually cause high blood pressure, it can merely aggravate it in people who already have it from another source, and have certain conditions (the vast majority of people simply piss it out about as soon as it comes in).

fishmech posted:

Get this through your head: the only thing that makes a diet bad is if it involves excessive calories compared to what would be needed to maintain you at a healthy weight for your height and activity level, or if it meets those goals but somehow you're grossly undereating on a major macronutrient or completely lacking in multiple vitamins or minerals
And salt isn't bad for you. Get over that outdated bullshit too while you're at it. And Big Macs are absolutely fine to eat, guy who apparently learned his negative knowledge of nutrition from the documentary with the guy who ate 8 big macs a day or whatever. There's absolutely nothing objectionable in a Big Mac.

the loving CDC posted:

The IOM report, Sodium Intake in Populations: Assessment of Evidence, focused on studies evaluating the relationship between sodium intake and health published since 2003. Instead of looking at measures such as blood pressure, the researchers assessed the relationship between sodium and other health outcomes, including strokes, deaths from cardiovascular disease, and heart failure, among others.

the authors of the loving report posted:

After release of the IOM report, several news outlets highlighted disagreement among health agencies about targets for dietary sodium intake and reported that experts disagreed about the importance of blood pressure. Focusing the debate on specific targets misses the larger conclusion with which all are in agreement and may hinder implementation of important public health policy. Rather than focusing on disagreements about specific targets that currently affect less than 10% of the US population (ie, sodium intake of <2300 mg/d vs <1500 mg/d), the IOM, AHA, WHO, and DGA are congruent in suggesting that excess sodium intake should be reduced, and this is likely to have significant public health effects. Accomplishing such a reduction will require efforts to decrease sodium in the food environment and provide individual consumers more choice in their dietary consumption of sodium.

Again, the report, including this quotation, was viewed as being a significant overstatement of the relevant literature. Go away, fishmech. You've demonstrated an incredible capacity to be right about some things, then instantly destroy all your goodwill by refusing to acknowledge error on other things. You're like a horrifying funhouse mirror version of my own posting- a me without self-awareness, humor, the capacity to love, or research database access.

Series DD Funding posted:

Zero carb diets aren't actually that dangerous except for the whole being tired and smelling bad thing; in fact epileptic kids have been kept on them for years. Glucose can be synthesized in the body

You are wrong. Sorry, I'm pissed at the fish, so I'm being blunt here. There's been a significant amount of discursive pollution by Atkins et al, but diets that rely on continuous or even cyclic ketosis are basically a medical intervention with significant side effects. And to keep the weight off, you have to stay in that state. It's a type 2 diet- you're screwing with your ability to process food. There are people for whom it works, but it's risky, and a bad large-scale approach to weight reduction.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Dec 11, 2015

# ? Dec 11, 2015 23:09

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Should we take thin privilege and health at any size more seriously?

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