"A Fat Rant"

[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

Insurance companies might soon have a different view. Regardless, I'm fairly certain that most of the nearly one quarter of Americans who suffer from obesity and the full 50% of the population who are categorized as overweight didn't get to where they are due to a "genetics issue".

Imagine the outcry if insurance companies refused to cover light-skinned people for skin cancer.

You were also quoting me out of context. You deleted the first sentence of the paragraph:

People who eat a healthy diet and get enough exercise may still be overweight because they have inherited an efficient, thrifty metabolism. For such people it is as wrong to vilify them as it is to vilify someone on the basis of race or gender: people cannot change the genes they inherit.

If everyone ate a healthy diet in moderation and got enough exercise, there would still be fat people. Some people have very efficient metabolisms, and others have inherited appetites that make it difficult to avoid gaining weight.

However, it seems you have completely missed the point that I was making. The difference between dark skin and light skin is about seven genes. A similar number of genes may be the difference between someone with a moderate appetite who can maintain a healthy weight easily, and someone who eats like a sparrow and still gains weight or someone whose appetite becomes ferocious if they lose five kilograms. Such people are only the unlucky recipients of a bad deal from the genetic deck, yet such people are often discriminated against to a degree that is not dissimilar to Apartheid-era South Africa or the Southern USA during the slavery era.

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by Kingswood

If everyone ate a healthy diet in moderation and got enough exercise, there would still be fat people.

I didn't buy this at first, but I browsed around and found some interesting articles that detail how complex the issues is, including this one about stress.

That's because fat in the abdominal area functions differently than fat elsewhere in the body. It has a greater blood supply as well as more receptors for cortisol, a stress hormone. Cortisol levels rise and fall throughout the day, but when you're under constant stress, the amount of the hormone you produce remains elevated. With high stress and, consequently, high cortisol levels, more fat is deposited in the abdominal area since there are more cortisol receptors there.

That is some odd stuff. Point taken.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

I browsed around and found some interesting articles that detail how complex the issues is, including this one about stress.

Interesting. This was front page news today in the Washington Post because of the results of a new study.

Scientists reported yesterday that they have uncovered a biological switch by which stress can promote obesity, a discovery that could help explain the world's growing weight problem and lead to new ways to melt flab and manipulate fat for cosmetic purposes.

In a series of experiments on mice, researchers showed that the neurochemical pathway they identified promotes fat growth in chronically stressed animals that eat the equivalent of a junk-food diet.

The international team also showed that blocking those signals can prevent fat accumulation and shrink fat deposits and that stimulating the pathway can strategically create new deposits -- possibly offering new ways to remove fat

The Abstract from Nature Medicine.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Kingswood

If everyone ate a healthy diet in moderation and got enough exercise, there would still be fat people. Some people have very efficient metabolisms, and others have inherited appetites that make it difficult to avoid gaining weight.

We look at those people who have very efficient metabolisms - 40 years ago. What is now considered normal was, back then, considered clearly obese. By today’s standards, there were literally no fat people back then. My grandfather was considered fat. Today about one in three adults are that fat.

Did genetics suddenly change in 40 years? What Kingswood posts can only be credible if people were also that obese 45 years ago. Back then we also were hauled to school in cars, trains, and buses. Nobody walked great distances. Why was fat so rare back then? Or has mankind's genetics changes in only 45 years?

I routinely look in other's shopping carts. I could not eat anything in the carts of the obese. We did not drink soda when I was a kid. It was a rare treat. Today, it replaces milk.

Like Kitsume, my waist is one inch larger than what it was in college. Two inches larger than in high school. I still eat in many ways the same as I did in wrestling. In part because I can measure a drop in intelligence when my diet slips. Yes, even daily intelligence changes with diet. And again, I am appalled at what I see in so many shopping carts. I would be dumb - probably have migraines - if I ate that junk.

Do you have migraines? What do you eat?

When it comes to a thrifty metabolism, that is me. Often I may only eat one major meal every other day. But then one does not get hungry when one avoids diet foods and that junk so common in obese people shopping carts. One gets hungry because the body did not get nutrition. Once you eat a cookie, you must eat half the bag - the body keeps demanding some nutrition in the form of hunger.

For youngsters who would become wrestlers - that is how one loses weight, is not always hungry, and wins matches. By eating right, a wrestler with only two years training had to win by outputting more energy. That meant nutrition – and no dieting. Learn that what you eat today affects even your intelligence tomorrow.

Kitsume has accurately defined the only thing that changed. Look at the crap in so many shopping carts - and that includes diet soda that will also contribute to weight gain.

An example: eat one carrot. Is it nutritious? Yes. It provides today's necessary vitamin A. Eat a second carrot. Is it nutritious? Of course not. More vitamin A is not required. Carrot also is higher in sugar. We already have too much sugar. That second carrot is junk food.

People brainwashed by nutrition taught in TV commercials would never learn that. I learned it from wrestling. My wrestling was only as good as my diet. That meant eliminating junk foods so as to lose 20% of my body weight - and eating nutritious foods so as to not be hungry.

What was necessary to lose weight and maintain my wrestling ability? Breakfast.

When the season ended, I put back 20% in two weeks. How? I continued to eat mostly as I did in wrestling. But, for example, I ate two hot meals for lunch. No junk food. No pizza, etc. We never had potato chips or candy machines in school. That 20% came back mostly as muscle. Again, it is not genetics as TV myth promoters would claim. It is not miracle diet foods. Exercising the abs does not flatten the stomach. All that is myth. People are obese mostly because of what they eat today. Then they jump for myths such as genetics - as if genetics has changed. If an obese person drinks a soda - diet or regular - then he is only fooling himself when blaming genetics. Obesity is directly traceable to the person himself - his destructive attitude.

Apple juice 45 years ago contained juice from apples. Today it is total corn syrup - complete sugar with no nutritional value. Genetics had nothing to do with that either.

Why put corn syrup in apple juice? US government subsidizes sugars. About one half the cost of sugar is paid for my government 'corporate welfare'. Nobody could sell apple juice make with nutrition. It costs more.

Fundamental difference between products from Kellogg’s and General Mills. The former has a long history of pushing low nutrition foods and hyping them as healthy. Nutribars? Total junk food. If you did not know that, then how are you staying at a healthy weight?

[kerosene]

Insightful post, tw.

At what point did our community become oversaturated with junk food made of HFCS and fat? I have been thinking about this, lately and trying to determine where, when and how that shift took place. Does anyone have some insight on this?

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by tw

Like Kitsume, my waist is one inch larger than what it was in college.

I sure as hell wasn't skinny in college thanks to my diet. I'm still trying to get back in shape -- my food intake and weight may be somewhat normal, but I have a long way to go to make my bmi a healthy one.

Speaking of clothing sizes, I found it funny that the "fat rant" woman complained that she can never find her size at the major chain stores. It must be different for women, because I've experienced much the opposite: it is damn near impossible to find blue jeans with a waist smaller than 36 inches. 34? Good luck. 32? Ha! I have to go from store to store to find anything in my size because no one keeps the slimmer stuff in stock, anymore. You'll find piles of 38, 40, and higher rotating in stock on a daily basis, but there isn't as much demand for reasonable sizes, anymore, so they rarely get them in. And what is measured as a "32in waistline" isn't really 32 inches, either, since everything is "baggy", "comfort fit", and "loose fit". I've found I have to step down anywhere from 2" to 3" on the listed tag size to get it right.

[glatt]

My wife and I were just talking about that. I was complaining that I had to return a bunch of "large" polo shirts to Eddie Bauer because they were way too big. I've always worn a large. The medium fits me now. I haven't shrunk. I'm the same.

She says it's the fashions that are to blame. I used to wear my clothes baggier, and now the style is a tighter fit. So I always wore a large to get that baggier effect. Now I want a shirt that fits so I should get a medium. I don't know if she's right. Maybe I should dig through some old clothes in the attic and see if clothes have grown or if my perception has changed.