Hacker News Reader

Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

TLDR: Second law of thermodynamics still in effect. However, food is not the limiting factor in developed countries so being fat is really a question of eating behaviors and there are relationships between food types and eating behaviors in both the short and long term.

View on HN

By saying Second law of thermodynamics still in effect I assume you mean "calories in calories out" still in effect, and that's actually not what the article said at all (though the law is still in effect of course).

Consuming the same number of calories with different consumptions led to different amounts of calories being burned, and different amounts of weight being gained.

TLDR: what you eat matters, it's not just how much.

No, they are still saying "calories in calories out" These subjects expended, on average, only 100 fewer calories a day than they did at their full weights. They where also saying that types of calories in changes calories out.

Sorry yes you're correct, I meant they are not saying that in the colloquial way it is used, which is that it doesn't matter what you eat assuming all else is constant (activity level etc).

They are saying it in the technical sense that the people did in fact burn more calories on different diets. But those calories being burned were caused by the change in diet (assuming the hypothesis is correct). That is a massive change in American nutrition theory.

I don't know why it's out of consideration that people are just shameless slobs now and that's a major component of the obesity epidemic. Bastardy, tattoos, and dressing like a sloppy clown in public were inconceivable 40 years ago when everyone was thin. Anything goes now (no one will call your bastard a bastard), and so does being a gluttonous fat ass, really. The social consequences are minimal.

I'm around a fair number of fat people and I don't need any nutritional science background to notice they eat very often and they eat a lot. I suppose there's clinical evidence that low carb diets work, but it pretty much seems to me the main factor is these people just don't care about being fat slobs.

40 years ago we did not grow enough food per person to support a fat population. So, without the 'green revolution' it would have been impossible for the 'obesity epidemic' to occur. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution

Also obesity has been an issue for middle aged wealthy people for at least the last few thousand years. Which suggest's people tend to eat more when they can afford to do so.

So why do bastardy, bad taste in fashion, and obesity all track so closely? You see this all over the world. Where people are well dressed and there is little bastardy, they are thin, regardless of the affluence level.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com