HFCS in basically everything + driving everywhere instead of walking + no time / money to work out or cook healthy food = obesity epidemic.
That my hypothesis anyway. Many other countries have one or more of these issues, but it seems like America is the only one that has the full combination.
… + driving everywhere instead of walking + … = obesity epidemic
Great channel. Funnily enough, everyone I know that watches his videos is a car enthusiast.
I don’t hate cars, but the ones I tend to appreciate have less silicon in them than pixie dust.
It’s odd – I love working with high-end IT stuff as my day job, but I hate computerized vehicles.
The reason we hate computerized vehicles is because the implementations are horrible compared to what we imagined when we were kids.
In theory, a computerized car should be amazing! In practice, it’s an amalgamation of awful security, DRM bullshit and thoughtless UIs.
Same. I can only tolerate my car because they made a package without the tech, and it has physical buttons for the important stuff.
Working in computer science has made me a luddite. I love computers, but not when normal objects are computerized.
I can’t understand why certain things are considered in any way “better” than old tech.
Tachometers and speedometers, for example. These used to be plain rotating wires, hooked (respectively) up to the engine prior to the transmission, or to the driveshaft. Aside from the step-down gears (for the instrument cluster dials), that’s all what they were. So if your tach or sped no longer worked, you knew that in 99% of the cases it was a broken cable, and that’s invariably all that it was. You replaced that for a dollar or five, and you were on your way.
Now with electronics, the problem scope of a non-functional tach or sped has expanded to thousands of potential points of failure and potentially equally as much in costs in order to effectively repair.
This doesn’t sound “better” in any shape or form. It just sounds like more ka-ching for the auto companies, as well as a better way to monetize your behavioural use of the vehicle through its computerized Black Box that has an always-on cellular connection to the manufacturer’s mothership.
It’s better for the manufacturer because it’s cheap, sadly. A screen is way cheaper than dials these days. I don’t know why luxury cars got them first though. Digital dashboards look cheap as fuck
What car do you own?
2015 Q50. It was the last year before a lot of tech stuff got rolled into the base package
I had a 2017-era car and I regret selling it a year ago.
New Yorkers remain the lowest in obesity, who would have guessed that walking literally everywhere and burning the same amount as your resting rate leads to a recommended 2500 calorie diet making you not gain weight? What do you mean obesity is simply solved by just eating less and actually has not much to do with the foods in question? But my fitness magazines have to sell me their new juice only diet!
Spoiler, diets are hard (calorie restrictions, not fad trash). Humans have spent millions of years evolving in an environment where every meal could be the last for days. You are biologically wired to crave and eat everything in sight, even more so the rare and useful sugar and sodium. In high amounts, these lead to higher calorie intake, obviously these are overdosed consistently. But you are still fighting millions of years of evolution, with only ~150 years of dietary knowledge and the ability for any person of any class to eat at any time. You are programmed to fail.
Adding to the topic though, numerous studies and almost all data shows sugars, refined or not, do fuck all to the obesity cause. They are a byproduct of larger problems.
Just FYI the amount of calories burned by walking and exercise is absolutely minimal compared to your regular resting rate.
Which studies exactly? If you look closer I’m sure you’ll find they contribute to poor regulation of various mechanisms related to weight
Not true. Within an average day (pending weight and mass overall as well as heart rate) someone walking 15k+ steps a day could easily come close to matching their daily resting rate. An hour of exercise, yes trivial. But simply just not being sedentary will easily get you to needing 3500-4000 calories just to maintain. Of course that’s only 1000-1500 more than a man needs on average, and with how easily replaced it is by bad food choices, yes it could also seem trivial. But if maintaining consistency, it could be the difference between success and failure.
http://www.nutritionmd.org/nutrition_tips/nutrition_tips_understand_foods/carbs_versus.html
http://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/simple-carbohydrates-complex-carbohydrates#3
http://www.newhealthadvisor.com/What-Do-Complex-Carbohydrates-Break-Down-Into.html
Bottom line, be slightly active and you’re fine. Be sedentary and suffer the consequences of your own actions.
I don’t think sugars are an issue because they magically create fat, I think they’re an issue because they have a ton of calories and make us crave more food.
But other countries have sugar, so like you said, that walking sure helps a ton. I have a friend that likes to alternate between living in their home town, and New York. It’s wild to see how much their weight changes every time they move back.
HFCS is just a scary word. HCFS is just a form of sucrose and believe it or not can containe slightly less or slightly more fructose than regular sucrose 50/50. HCFS 42 is 42% fructose (less than regular sugar) or 55% fructose, slightly more than regular sugar.
HCFS is only bad because it made sugar cheap, but it shouldn’t to be blamed directly.
Agree. The core issue is why the fuck is there so much sweetener in literally everything that isn’t in the vegetable aisle.
I was blaming hfcs because of the calorie count, not because of any natural grocers “real food” nonsense.
Johnson’s ultimate goal is to bring a drug that inhibits fructose metabolism to market. He’s working on formulating and testing one now, and hopes that his efforts will bear fruit in the next five years or so.
That’s… not a good idea. Why don’t we just focus on not having people eat trash food in the first place? That approach is like the They Feed Us Poison meme, but unironic.
Also, here’s a related chart that recent had some HN discussion:
In other news, the fossil fuel industry may be contributing more than most to climate change
And some scientists suspect that the plastic patch in the ocean may be made out of plastics.
Hilariously stated - and I couldn’t agree more. Plus, I much admire your username!
I think it’s been known that fructose negatively impacts the liver, there must be some weird fructose metabolism pathway involved in a host of diseases.
Fructose is metabolised in the liver like alcohol, and the consequence is the same - fatty liver disease.
I make most of my own food. Fructose isn’t my problem. Eating my emotions bc no support network and lots of family relying on me is my problem.
• Hypotheses explain the rapid rise in obesity over recent decades.
• Energy balance: Weight gain due to consuming more calories.
• Carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis: Excess carbohydrate intake stimulates the insulin response.
• Effect of Protein: Eating insufficient protein causes constant hunger.
• New hypothesis: sugar, especially fructose, is to blame for obesity.
• Fructose suppresses mitochondrial function, causing hunger and thirst.
• In the long term, regular exposure to fructose can damage mitochondria.
• Corn syrup, honey and cane sugar are common sources of fructose.
• Fruits are still healthy, but they contain less fructose than juices or candies.
Excess carbohydrate intake stimulates the insulin response.
This. This right here is where the obesity epidemic comes from. People eat way, way more carbs than any time in history, and we wonder why everyone is fat. Carbs do not induce a satiation mechanism like fats, the opposite in fact. Yet it’s fats that get demonized because of the shit science that came of the Seven Countries study.
No shit. Has everyone forgotten that the sugar industry (and corn lobby) literally backed the crusade against fatty foods for decades based on their own findings?
Not I.
I don’t disagree, but bigthink.com? Not many names more sus than that.
Much better.
No. Still calories.
I constantly see people bickering about this online, but that’s not at odds with CICO. Yes, the overarching limits is CICO, but most people don’t track calories. Fructose makes you more hungry and so you eat more food, and therefore CICO means you gain weight. From the article:
When these cellular powerhouses are slowed, the cells get stuck in a low-energy state, triggering hunger and thirst
So you’re correct, but it’s an unhelpful response. Kind of like saying “No, the Earth still isn’t flat” when people are trying to figure out exactly how round it is.
EDIT: To your other comment:
At no point is fructose a direct cause of obesity, a byproduct yes.
“direct cause” is the wrong way to look at this. Even if the mechanism by which it acts doesn’t cause obesity itself, it can be a root cause if, without it, people wouldn’t engage in behaviors that lead to obesity, i.e. overeating. The difference between “he died because he ran into a tree” vs “he died because he was texting and not paying attention”.
It really isn’t this complicated. You are obese because you do not count calories. End of discussion. External factors of a bad diet are entirely your fault. Personal responsibility is the only outcome for becoming healthier. Calorie counting and adherence are 90% of being not obese. Everything else is supplementary. Fructose is far from the problem, nor is it even as bad as this trash research wants to make believe.
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I literally powerlift. I bulked from 230 pounds to 270 within 6 months and cut back to 242 within another 4 by, wait for it, eating whole foods and counting my caloric intake tracked with my weight change twice a week. If you’re obese and don’t realize the inability to fix it is your own fault, you’re coping and desperate for any level of confirmation bias like this trash paper to make you feel better.
6’2, 18% bodyfat (maybe 24% at max weight), under no drug assistance beyond caffeine if you want to count it.
Nevermind Sumo wrestlers who eat a shit ton of rice and protein rich stews and beer. Average about 6000 calories a day and oh would you look there. Obese. (Spoiler, after they retire from the stable they usually end up losing all that weight because, oh, they stop eating 6000 calories a day). You people treat cico like it’s a theory and not just basic energy maintenance of the body.
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Self admittance that you are not taking personal control over it, causing your being underweight. When you become stressed you’re turning focus even more away from your diet, focusing instead on other issues, and begin unconsciously overeating. All the points leading to personal responsibility over your diet and the consequences of inconsistency.
Anyone struggling, and refusing to take the accountability to just flip a food container and check the amount of calories, is lazy. If you’re comfortable with your weight, fine that’s fair. But if you’re unhappy, dealing with health repercussions, and wish for something better: put the work in. This idea that society as a whole is obese because of fructose (a sugar found naturally in fruit) or any sugar is braindead and would come from the same people who fell for “Eggs are bad because they have cholesterol”. Uneducated, misinformed, and unwilling to learn or act, those are the issues. All solvable through personal growth and accountability, something sorely missing in this new cringe culture of being coddled. And in my experience/opinion, anyone unwilling to take their issues seriously and grow for themselves, aren’t my fucking concern and they could die obese for all I care.
My own anecdotal experience was being overweight after highschool due to a reduction in my activity but no change in intake. I picked up powerlifting as a hobby and began to explore data, books, and videos by well known industry members like Mark Rippetoe and Dr. Mike Israetel regarding both training and nutrition. Since then I’ve successfully managed my weight the way I need it for competition by calorie counting and tracking how my weight responds weekly. Take this year: I’m 6’2 and in January was ~230 wanted to bulk, by June was ~270 decided to cut, now I’m 242.
Objectively the only way to not be obese is calorie deficit management. This is basic thermogenic energy balance science and the only people who seem to not understand it are the psuedo-intellectuals here that have never been active or done a sport in their life.
I do not count calories and eat until I’m full. Yet I’m not obese, not even overweight. In fact, if I had to become obese, I’m not sure that I physically could. How does a theory of “personal responsibility” explain that?
Obesity is caused by some neurochemical fuckery that affects hunger and/or metabolism. That is a fact, supported by science, though the exact mechanisms are still very badly understood (in large part due to lack of funding for decades, caused by a completely misguided dogma that obesity is a moral failing). If it was all a willpower thing then how come some medications make people lose or gain significant weight?
(Yes, you can gain or lose weight by counting calories. However, every step of the way, you will be fighting your own body’s attempts to go back to its baseline, even if that baseline is very unhealthy. Of course in the absence of a better solution it’s better to lose weight by counting calories than staying unhealthy, but please realize that you’re in deep with the Dunning-Kruger effect and stop disparaging medical science).
Just because you are not actively counting, doesn’t mean you aren’t at maintenance or below. The vast majority of morons that are incapable of understanding basic thermogenics and the fact that if your body is fueled less than it needs it will draw from stored adipose lipids and if fed more than needed it goes back into storage, are just coping beyond anything.
Obesity is not caused by your desire to eat. It is caused by your inability to stop eating. End of discussion. Metabolism is a buzzword to describe people too lazy to understand basic concepts. Look in any gym and the people who maintain willpower to eat less and focus on energy intake are the quickest to achieve results. There are reasons that losers looking for the easy way to weight loss never receive longterm results. This isn’t a “well um yes you can gain or lose weight through calories” it’s literally the ONLY way. Even hormone imbalances only increase or decrease your need for intake. This is something understood since the Spartans who would eat less if they noticed any fat gain in their physiques. There’s a reason every single diet based in fact will tell you to spend 3 months in a deficit and 2-3 months in a ned maintenance, to establish the new baseline. This is a marathon not a sprint. You’re the only one disgracing “medical science” by trying to overcomplicate a very simple concept.
Please, for the love of god, get your macho douche-bro ass energy out of here.
“Obesity is not caused by your desire to eat”
“even hormone imbalances only increase or decrease your need for intake”
the fact that you don’t see these two sentences as hilariously contradictory shows how circular your entire reasoning is. So close to getting the point, yet so far.Zzzzzzz. Cope.
You do not want to understand the complexity of things like bioavailability, disruption of regulatory systems like faulty hunger signals and absorption, etc. You might as well be saying that drugs don’t don’t influence behavior.
Tell people to own their own faults and if they want change look inward instead of for confirmation biased articles rooted in bad data: “erm no its not my fault I just have a thyroid problem and also my brain is telling me im hungry and I HAVE to listen and also um I just erm um”
Cope. Millions of people have fixed their weight issues and it wasn’t through anything but a controlled diet.
Source please
Oh I don’t know, any respected dietician or nutritionist just telling you to focus on macronutrient balance to get the proper 500 calorie deficit from maintenance to lose 1 pound a week?
Or maybe https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18025815/
Or https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8017325/
Or https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/diets-weight-loss-carbohydrate-protein-fat/
Maybe stop looking to psuedo-science that just wants to sell you a product, meal plan, or supplement and just accept it’s very basic. This fucking thread article literally says he wants to develop and sell a drug to counteract fructose. Or maybe just maybe take some accountability and just enjoy fructose containing foods in a caloric moderation and boom you’re not obese. This is BASIC thermogenic energy management. 90% of a healthy diet is consistency in caloric intake. The rest regarding timing, macros, micros, food quality are all supplementary to reach your goals. But setting being NOT OBESE as the BARE MINIMUM GOAL, it’s so fucking easy to just reduce daily calories.
From your second link:
Our review indicated that there is no single best strategy for weight management
Obesogenic environments and biological and psychological factors all contribute to obesity.
However, energy intake and energy expenditure are dynamic processes influenced by body weight and influence each other. Thus, interventions aimed at creating an energy deficit through the diet are countered by physiological adaptations that resist weight loss.
Moreover, metabolic adaptations to decrease energy expenditure can lead to a plateau with this type of diet, which individuals may misinterpret as “failure” due to “lack of willpower.”
See? The scientists you quoted took a stab at you
Everyone needs calories, no one needs fructose.
What kind of statement is this. Calories are not comparable to the macronutrients that make them. Secondly, fructose (the worst of sugar) still isn’t even dangerous unless in extreme amounts. It is objectively overeating calories, whether they be from protein fats or carbs, that make people obese. Objectively. At no point is fructose a direct cause of obesity, a byproduct yes.
Saying “People are obese due to calories” is about on the same level as “Cars crash because they move” or “Your floor is dirty because you spilled coffee”. It’s entirely correct, but it’s also pretty useless.
“Eat fewer calories” is advice that’s on the same level as “Next time, instead of dropping your coffee, don’t drop it”. It’s true, and it works, but it’s also useless since that’s just not how it works. Why does someone overeat? Do they not know something is bad? Do they feel hungry all the time because of their diet? Are they eating shit because they don’t have time/knowledge/ability to cook? Did I drop my coffee because I sneezed? Did I trip over the cat? Is my floor full of random holes? Am I wearing rollerscates? The nuances make all the difference, and the nuances are what you can use to improve the situation.
“If you don’t want to crash, do not press the accelerator” is not road safety advice. “Make sure you keep your distance and check your brakes” is road safety advice.
Lmao, such a reach to defend people being too lazy to count calories. Dieting isn’t this complicated and if you’re fat, it’s 100% your fault.
I’m sure you need to tell yourself that to have people you can feel superior to
Cope
The issue is more refined fats and sugars in general than any specific (anti)nutrients. Some of the healthiest people eat WFPB diets which often contain a fair amount of fruit, but they aren’t drinking Coca Cola with every meal.
And at 11: rain is wet
No it’s not.
Today I learned!
