What If Obesity Is Nobody’s Fault?
nautil.us
nautil.us
For the unfortunate minority that truly does have a very strong genetic component, the fact remains that eating slightly less - just 10-15% less, will allow them to match their metabolism.
This is not to say we should "blame" people - social and environmental factors are very important. Lack of sleep due to too much work / artificially lit environment causes more eating, lots of food is engineered to be super tasty for us, there were no cookie trees in our ancient past :)
Another major difference is antibiotic intake. I don't know if humans consume enough antibiotics to affect their weight, but antibiotics are regularly administered to livestock primarily to fatten them up. We're just scratching the surface of the human biome and it's entirely possible that there's an answer in there.
You might be right (and my intuition agrees with you) but I wouldn't be so certain of it. Life is incredibly complex.
Luckily, you don't need to observe them or change them. You can ignore them and focus on what is observable -- appearance and weight -- and on what is controllable -- diet and exercise.
It may well be that gut biomes, antibiotic usage, inflammation, corn syrup, global warming, diesel particulates, preservatives etc etc have an influence. But the forcing factor in the weight system is net caloric balance, which is also the easiest to control.
From a science and a policy point of view it makes a lot of sense to investigate what might be causing N% of the population to balloon in weight if they maintain their default diets and levels of activity.
//edited to add
Reason being that it might be possible to give someone a pill or a treatment that allows them to consume tons of calories and be sedentary without the health drawbacks related to obesity. From a policy point of view that would be a big win.
Put another way: the environment has changed. People have not.
For any given gradient across the population of desire to eat tasty food and desire to not engage in physical activity, the environment is progressively affecting more and more of the population.
It reminds me a lot of the lead hypothesis in regards to crime. The simple model would state that more people in prison and harsher law enforcement causes crime to decrease. However, if the lead hypothesis is true, then we can stop wasting resources on crowded prisons and draconian law enforcement, instead focusing on getting lead out of the environment. Or, more realistically, do something in between those extremes and at a policy level be far more successful.
Absolutely. Science is worthy for its own sake, it doesn't need an extrinsic policy motivation.
As for falling crime, my understanding is that the criminologists are still arguing about that one. Especially since it seems to be a global phenomenon.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-li...
Are you kidding? Almost nobody who diets to lose weight manages to keep it off for 3 years. In the very short term (say, up to 6 months) people can control their weight via diet/exercise changes, but in the long term they generally can't. If we figured out what was going on and it turned out to be any of those other sorts of factors it would almost certainly be MUCH EASIER to control weight using those other factors than via diet and exercise.
Not the general population.
I'm in the general population. I peaked at 139kg 4 years ago. I've been around 100kg for about 18 months now.
The obesity boom began around the mid 1970s with high fructose corn syrup, desk jobs (as deadly as smoking perhaps), the saturation of fast food (convenient, cheap low quality food), and the pasta + pizza (carbs carbs carbs) takeover.
Supposedly ~60 years ago the average American would have walked five plus miles per day. That may be down to a mile or less today from what I've read.
Comparing high school year book photos from the 1980s or early 1990s, versus my nephews & nieces and what their classmates look like today, the change is dramatic in a mere 20 to 30 years.
Everyone else is getting fat without it.
The rise in net calories consumed per capita is pretty much entirely explains the observed variation.
A couple of years ago I stopped eating sugar and bread. I went on a vaguely paleo diet, eating mostly meats, veggies, eggs, some dairy, and nuts, i.e. everything I used to eat minus sugar and bread. I did did not go hard-core paleo by any means. I lost 50 lbs pretty easily though I was not that I could tell eating less or less often. I ate when I was hungry, and stopped when I was full (easier to do, by the way, if you're not eating bread, pasta, or sweet things).
I never counted calories, so maybe I did consume fewer.
Recently I started eating some bread again. I really am a fan of pizza so I thought I would try indulging that every once in a while again. I have the occasional sandwich. Since doing that I gained 10 lbs back. Again I don't feel like I am overall eating more, but in my personal experience those types of carb-heavy foods cause weight gain much more than anything else.
True but I would be more specific than that. Basically we have two major trends going on:
1. Calories in per capita are falling slower than calories out per capita. For traditional, hand-tool-based farming, it required a lot of calories. Even animal-powered farming required a lot more than is required today. It's a bloody lot of hard manual work as my British friends would say. When one talks about net calories, one has to recognize that a hundred years ago people had to eat a lot more than today.
2. More reliance on high tech foods (HCFS, hydrogenated oils, etc, but also see frozen dinners, often which are loaded by excess corn sugar and oil). These are far from ideal dietary-wise.
These combine to mean fewer micronutrients, and an excess of macronutrients. But the lack of hard physical labor as the normal way of life is a major part of things.
Calories per capita per day is up from 2168 in 1970 to 2673 in 2008. If you're at maintenance weight, that extra 500 calories per day will cause you to gain about a pound a week until you reach equilibrium again ~50 pounds heavier.
http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20070820/obesity-virus-more-b...
My mom is/was obese -- before she had a lap band installed. My dad is obese. My significant other is/was obese.
Being a 'bigger' person is something that I grew up in, and something that I attribute to being normal.
I didn't realize that being a "bigger" person was a problem until I went off to college and noticed that I was the exception, and not the norm. I only dated bigger women, because that's basically the only type of woman who would date someone who's bigger, and you can begin to see a cycle move forward again.
My SO got a full gastric bypass surgery in 2009 (after we had been through the second round of our post-grad work), and went from 400 pounds down to 150 pounds (for a 6' tall woman). She's been egging me on to get a lap band or bypass, but, I've already dropped a good 100 pounds from my heaviest weight, and will be able to drop the last 100 pounds on my own. My SO no longer has diabetes, heart issues, or anything like that -- other than some vitamin deficiencies, she's a pretty healthy (and stubborn) woman.
I don't think it's a genetic thing -- I think it's an environmental thing; you don't see a lot of chubby kids in a smaller household, and vice versa -- I don't see a lot of skinny/smaller children in a household that has obese or overweight people in it.
That's liable to be the case whether it's environmental or genetic (or, most likely, some sort of combination - though one may well dominate).
Thus, "personal responsibility" is a red herring if you are trying to get people to stop making bad choices. Instead, find out what neural, genetic, or environmental influence makes those bad choices more appealing than good choices, and fix that influence.
If this is the same study as a recent Ars article, then no choice is involved at all. Nobody chooses to have more or fewer immune cells converting white fat to beige fat.
But we know that assumption is false (this happens with remarkable regularity in the sciences, that important theories that generally work are built on assumptions known to be false). People metabolize pharmaceuticals differently (google "cytochrome P450 defect", and try to convince me that such natural variation in metabolism of certain pharmaceuticals is a defect from any perspective other than big pharma's).
Now, the assumption, even though it is false, is generally useful because we know also that exercise changes metabolism. In other words, the human body isn't even static and so the abstractions generally work to an extent even though we know they are wrong. I think this sort of thing is why Heisenberg argued at book length that data does not imply theory.
Currently reading Antifragile by Taleb and it goes in to these fallacies at length (machine vs body and data vs theory).
This oversimplification leads many to employ strategies of weight loss that revolve around simply measuring the calories they expend vs the calories they consume while ignoring the source of calories or other habits which affect hormone levels.
I'm not an expert on nutrition, fitness, biology, genetics or medicine... so you are free to dismiss my assertions if you require such a qualification.
Though, I do recommend reading some Nassim Nicolas Taleb, as he makes a much better case for what I'm discussing while also dismissing the idea that one needs to be an expert to recognize bullshit.
Also, I personally think articles drawing conclusions from scientific studies shouldn't be published before the study is replicated...
but of course, that would reduce the supply of articles for the ravenous pseudo-scientific commenter and we'd have to have more rigorous arguments on a smaller set of more rigorous information and people would run the risk of coming to all sorts of agreements and reducing click-through.
Again, it's an abstraction which mostly works but it is also clearly not entirely true.
But if you still question this, let's consider an EVEN SIMPLER equation that governs your weight: we'll ignore calories and instead focus on MASS! Here's the equation:
(mass in) < (mass out) == (mass loss)
So if you want to lose mass, all you have to do is breathe out more than you breathe in and poop/pee more than you eat/drink. This is clearly literally true - if you lose mass you must have done that! (Okay, I'm simplifying a little - there's also dandruff, perspiration, hair and nail trimming and absorbing water through the skin - but those factors are probably small enough to safely ignore.) So go out and use my simple equation to lose mass!
But wait, you say that you can't MAKE your body exhale more mass than it inhales or excrete more mass than you consume on a consistent basis? Well, maybe you're just not trying hard enough. Exercise more willpower! :-)
Both equations are true, yet both are useless.
His nutritional theories are asinine.
The food labels are averages, adjusted based on other averages. The exercise tables are averages, based on small studies. Any figure you come up with is an estimate, and unsurprisingly, they won't always work for outliers.
But for any given individual, on any given day, there is a net caloric balance. It will be different someone else's, given the same conditions. But there is still a net caloric balance.
"Individuals have varying responses to the environment" is not the same as "aha! physics is wrong".
Under controlled conditions there is variation, but it is actually pretty modest. And it can be swamped by a habit of buying one Starbucks sugarcreamacino per day.
Psychologists have done a lot of work on motivations, but mostly focusing on pathological cases which -- by their nature -- are the most difficult and irregular.
http://examine.com/faq/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-peop...
Still, weight gain is still a function of calories in > calories out
1. All excess calories end up as fat, and 2. All weight gain is fat
Then it is a function generally. However, if that is not the case, then you have many possible outputs for any given input, and that's not a function.
For a forum where functional programming is frequently discussed, I think it is worth using the term "function of" in the strict sense.
I was too lazy to correct by misuse of "function", hoping you would understand me.
Obesity is a hot topic because it is epidemic. There may be a genetic predisposition in some people, but there is no way the gene pool could have changed so fast since Reagan got elected.
Most likely obesity has become the new normal thanks to some environmental toxin. (Ex. Bisphenol A). So there is someone to blame somewhere.
As for the in != out stuff I'll say that scientists have been wrong on this so long in face of the evidence; for instance, based on that theory long term weight control could be attained by cutting one cookie a day from your diet, which doesn't work. Also if you look at the metabolic charts, there are enough alternate pathways that the efficiency of metabolism could vary by 10% or more.
And yet, when you watch a show from the 70s, say "Soap" (highly recommended - passes the test of time with flying colors), you'll notice that all the actors there -- and they all look considerably thinner than modern actors (e.g., take Friends for a nineties comparison). Standards have changed, regardless of Hollywood, and you can measure relative changes (though not absolute values) on through Hollywood.
If you expend more energy than you take in via calories, you lose weight, period. With a rational approach to food intake, that 10-15% the researchers claim is like cutting the crust off of a sandwich. It's nothing. You don't see a lot of obese animals in nature, regardless of any genetic metabolic mutation, because they have to actually work to acquire their food.
It's funny that when I see people stick to traditional diets, they gain weight at a vastly slower rate than people who eat fast food and drink sodas. They may still end up being technically obese, but it will be at age 70 instead of age 35.
To better understand cause and effect, a question that Peter Attia asks is that, do children eat more and grow (gaining weight as they age), or is it because they are growing that they eat more? Nutrition turns out to be a lot more complex than just calories in and calories out. It looks like that is a manifestation of something deeper, like growth hormones triggering a different type of metabolism.
He asks the same question about obesity. Do people get fat (elevated number of triglycerides stored in the fat cells) because they are eating more than expending energy? Or, are they eating more because of hormonal imbalances? He (along with many other doctors) suggest that it is actually the effect of insulin that causes the body to be conservative with the expending of energy. Insulin resistance also leads to diabetes, which is strongly correlated with obesity. So the hypothesis is that it is out of control insulin (due to sugar intake, HFCS, simple carbs, prevelant in american diet) that is the cause for the obesity epidemic, and not just less exercise (although exercise can be used to eliminate the excess glucose in the body which triggers the insulin response).
Here are some of his talks:
TED: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMhLBPPtlrY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAWdHYSrh7M
And his blog
I think your phrasing is important here, because there is a lot of debate about "Calories in, calories out" especially considering studies showing that not all calories have equal effects on the body. Generally though the first law holds, the distinctions are about what timeline...
Do you have a citation? Bearing in mind that food calorie labels are already adjusted for the average thermic effect of different macronutrients.
What kind of coal? Doesn't matter.
What's the hill gradient? Doesn't matter.
Is the driver tired? Doesn't matter.
Boiler size? Number of driving wheels? Who the engineers were dreaming of marrying when they designed the pistons? Track width? Hardness of the water?
Doesn't matter. You can control the whole system by observing one output and using one input.
If these cannot be observed exactly, what's the point in being so insistent about them?
I'm saying that weight and appearance are observable, and that diet is adjustable.
Want to gain weight? Change your diet a bit, observe the results over the following weeks. Repeat until satisfied.
Want to lose weight? Change your diet a bit, observe the results over the follow weeks. Repeat until satisfied.
Some people do these with old-fashioned calorie counting. Some with specialised diets. Some but dropping sweet drinks.
But unless you first internalise the locus of control, you won't get anywhere.
For "eating less to lose weight" you're looking at megajoules/week change. Theres plenty of room for impreciseness here.
We know that some gut flora encourages obesity; we know other flora encourage thinness; so having a method to make sure obese people don't have the fat-encoiraging flora and do have the thin-encouraging flora at least gives people a fighting chance.
Yes. The goal is to maintain a particular speed.
> so having a method to make sure obese people don't have the fat-encoiraging flora and do have the thin-encouraging flora at least gives people a fighting chance.
Sure, I think that's a very promising line of research that may make it easier for many people to modify their appetites. But for any given gut flora, the basic logic still holds. Just as for any given steam engine, the Watt governor works on the same principle.
In theory yes, but the vast majority of people who try to lose weight through diet fail. And obese people who are forced to stick to a diet have the metabolisms of starving healthy people - their body desperately trying to return to it's previous weight.
Obese people who go on diets have the metabolisms of starving people. While on a diet they burn 24% fewer calories per square meter than a normal person.
In experiments normal people forced to eat huge amounts of calories gain weight. But as soon as the experiment stops they quickly return to the previous weight. During the experiment their metabolisms increase by 50 percent, and they need far more calories to maintain the weight.
"The body’s metabolism speeds up or slows down to keep weight within a narrow range. Gain weight and the metabolism can as much as double; lose weight and it can slow to half its original speed."
Also it's really easy to test if something is genetic. Just look at identical twins. Twins have the same weights even when raised in entirely different environments. "Weight is more strongly inherited than nearly any other condition, including mental illness, breast cancer or heart disease."
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/health/08fat.html?pagewant...
Based on the paper, it appears that they performed targeted mutations to manipulate the Mrap2 gene and fed the mice equal quantities of chow, and then they did the tests described in the parent article. At least to me, this is strong evidence that this gene affects obesity in mice.
So, it has a fault. Metabolic efficiency means if one has a slower metabolism, one requires less fuel. Eat less.
The fact is that we now have proof that 2 mice can eat the same energy, burn the same energy and poop the same energy, and yet 1 will become fat and the other won't.
Say what you will about responsibility when it comes to obesity, you can no longer argue with authority that "calories in - exercised calories out = weight" due to this single counterevidence.
Unless by "dieting" you mean "permanent lifestyle change" which is fair enough.
The headline is fine if you keep in mind that the subject of the study is only one of a number of mechanisms by which people could be not at fault for their weight gain. There's things like the "fat virus" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infectobesity). There are epigenetic factors - we're just learning that how well your grandparents ate can affect your health. There might well be chemical or medical factors too - overuse of antibiotics changing the bacterial load is a common suggestion.
What kind of food were the mice given?
What would happen if we gave them some "healthy"(mice-wise) food?
Too much energy intake and not enough expenditure means that energy goes somewhere. We can examine the science and sociology of how it happens, but the only thing pieces like this accomplish is to make people feel better about their health issues and filled the coffers of snake oil salesmen.
Don't read the article and read the studies instead.
Given the less controllable tail end of the process creates a widely variable amount of flammable solids and gases, it isn't as though it is just the inputs you should be considering. I'm skinny and fairly sedentary and I know damn well that with a different set of genetics and the same behavior, then I would be fat. Also, seems that in terms of lifespan, I may be better off being a bit overweight than slightly under, really, the benefit seems mainly aesthetic for most people, which is a crap reason to guilt-trip a society.