Hacker News Reader

Comment by kevinpet | Hacker News Reader

I rarely eat junk food, and I'm fat.

Your attitude is the same as a religious person telling depressed people they need jesus rather than prozac.

You're fat because of what you're eating, and how little your moving, sorry dude but that's 100% true. Some of that might be out of your control, but it's reality...

While those are indeed major factors, there are others that come into play. For example, a change in your thyroid behavior can cause a loss/gain in weight without changing anything else.

Say 100% of thyroid issues caused obesity. That leaves 30% of cases unexplained

It’s still early days, but there’s very compelling research around unhealthy gut flora being a significant factor in uncontrollable weight gain. Current hypotheses are essentially that certain bacteria, given free rein in the GI tract, are able to over-signal impulses for nutrition which typically leads to low satiation and high calorie intakes. It’s also hypothesized that gut flora can play a major role in suppressing satiation.

Again, only hypotheses at this time, but the existing data is far from fluffy and there’s a lot more in the pipes.

The most compelling research I’ve seen used various semi-controlled diets (unfortunately diet was indicated but ultimately self reported by subjects, as it didn’t occur strictly in a controlled environment) with some subjects receiving fecal transplants. Those receiving diverse flora from transplants succeeded much better in losing weight and keeping it off some months later. The study needed stricter controls and more subjects, but it’s a fascinating start.

I’ll point out that the cause of the differences in results isn’t necessarily gut flora alone, too — it’s all super preliminary. This comment is mostly just to say “there are other factors, we just aren’t sure what yet but we have some interesting leads”.

I had my thyroid gland removed 30 years ago and my TSH has recently been out of range (hypothyroid).

I still managed to lose 40 pounds via calorie restriction and absolutely no change in exercise.

I basically did strict keto for 6 months. CICO is a real thing. Even hypothyroid, you're not going to gain weight if you aren't intaking the calories.

It was not my intent to say that it's not possible to lose weight when you have a thyroid issue. Rather, my point was that your weight loss/gain is not determined solely by the amount of food and activity in your life. You can maintain the same amount of each and suddenly start gaining/losing weight because of a thyroid issue; or some other reason. But yes, the fact that there _are_ other factors doesn't mean you can't do things to combat/mitigate them. You're right, there.

I didn't say that all fat people ate junk food, and I didn't say that obese people shouldn't take medication if that could help. Obesity rate in the US didn't got from 10% to 40% in a few decades simply because suddenly everybody started to develop thyroid issues or other condition.

No, what you said is that food marketing and the amount of sugars and fats in purchased foods are the cause of obesity.

Before the 80s, food also was packed with fat and sugar, and advertised constantly. I subjectively feel that people saw far more food advertising in the 80s and before than they do now. And the government diet suggestions were to increase your consumption of carbs and reduce fats.

edit: and people definitely drank far more Coke, and McDonald's meals were far less healthy.

> what you said is that food marketing and the amount of sugars and fats in purchased foods are the cause of obesity.

Yes, I mean the cause of the obesity epidemics we're witnessing. Not the reason why every single obese person is obese.

My subjective feeling as a European traveling to the US is that it's extremely hard to eat healthy food there. In some states, it seems everybody is obese, including children, and I myself need to fight actively not to gain weight there. People there don't seem to realize that their diet is very unhealthy, and I'm not even sure they make the connection with their obesity. And this trend is happening in Europe too, with a few years lag behind the US.

But this is only my conviction and I didn't find the data to back up my intuition. How do you explain why obesity rate went from 10% to 40% in a few decades?

The big myth is that healthy food cannot make you fat. Basic thermodynamics shows otherwise.

Trying getting fat by eating healthy food instead of burger/fries/coke. Drink alone make a huge difference. On the long run, drinking soda instead of water can make you obese.

The magic trick is eating greens and high-water content foods, but they offer so little wow-factor that most people can’t keep it up long enough for it to become their normal food.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com