Hacker News Reader

Comment by cwp | Hacker News Reader

I've noticed the same thing geographically. Twice now, I've taken a "sabbatical" and moved to Quito, Ecuador for a year to be near family. Both times, I lost weight when I arrived, stabilized at a leaner equilibrium, then gained the weight back when I returned to North America.

Could be nutritional, could be bacterial, could social. Whatever it is, the effect is dramatic.

View on HN

Noticed the same exact thing when I go to Europe, vs. America

I think the article mostly applies to America. American food is just fattening

The study factored in the nutritional value of the food, so your comment seems counter to their findings.

"...eating the same amount of calories, taking in the same quantities of macronutrients like protein and fat, and exercising the same amount as a person of the same age did in 1988 would have a BMI that was about 2.3 points higher."

The study factored in the nutritional value of the food

The study factored in the macronutrients, but that's not all that matters when it comes to food.

Except the calories are obsolete (meaningless) A lot of the food now is higly processed, ground to microns, resulting in way higher "usable engergy" that can be extracted. Especially the "cheap" food - full of awful sugars, stabilised fats or other junk, gelatine, mechanically abused.

Your answer may look unscientific (hand-wavy, with the word "meaningless" being too strong, that's how I explain the downvotes), but I guess if eating is (partially) feeding gut bacteria, then the micro structure of the food could well matter a lot with regards of which kinds of bacteria it promotes and which it weakens, and hence change the composition of the biome.

And this is pure bullshit. Do you eat macronutrients, or do you eat food ? If everyone then and now was eating Soylent, yeah, it may have some sense.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com