Re the rising levels of obesity in the US and elsewhere. Have any studies been done to determine if it’s due more to the lack of exercise, or to an increased volume of food intake vs decades ago? I know both impact the obesity rates, but I’m curious if one reason is more powerful in it’s effect than the other.
Exercise burns so few calories that I think intake is much more to blame.
Sedentary lifestyle is a contributing factor, but the main problem is most definitely on the supply side. In addition to the increasing popularity of high-calorie junk food and sodas, portion control has gotten completely out of whack. The average first-world citizen consumes around 3000 calories per day, when they probably should be consuming between 2000 and 2500 at the most.
Study concluding that the increase in obesity is mainly due to increased caloric intake.
As the Mother of a toddler I have decided that there is one primary cause: The “clean your plate” mentality.
I think it began in the depression, this idea that it is a moral imperative to eat all the food on your plate. I have watched Mother after Mother exhort, order, and even threaten their poor children into eating more than they really want to. These kids are all like little tanks, and completely out of touch with their own appetites by the time they are three years old.
I made up my mind early on not to do this to the Celtling. She is in the 75th percentile for height, and the 25th for weight. She eats well, loves broccoli and green beans and fresh fruit, has very little use for cake (although she is a big fan of buttercream frosting). She is svelte but very strong and athletic.
I have seen her get bored and stop eating cookies, cupcakes, etc.
Her doctor says he wishes all his patients were built like her, and ate as healthily.
Parents beware! Put healthy food in front of your children four times per day and leave them alone about it. The vast majority of them will, given the option, eat what they need, and build the habits of a healthy life.
Re modern people being more obese. Is it more the lack of exercise or the volume of intake?
Yes.
Both for sure.
I’m not sure how this fits in, but it appears that we’ve become obsessed with food in recent years. Instead of eating because we like the texture, feel, taste, camaraderie, etc., we’re consumed (no pun intended) with the various components, the so-called nutrients. And instead of stopping because we’re done, we eat until we’re “full.” I heard my six year old granddaughter talk about calories the other day. Pathetic. Michael Pollan is right about one thing - we should eat because we like it, but not too much.
People, please note astro asked for studies, not anecdotes or personal opinion, and this ain’t IMHO.
[Moderating]
This is GQ. Let’s try to get a bit more factual info here before starting in with jokes and opinions.
Seconded.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
This week’s issue of Time has a relevant article, which I cannot agree with, although it does cite one study. It concludes that people lose little, if any weight, by exercise because they overcompensate after exercising, thinking they deserve their muffins. It states that after exercising, people are hungry and eat more than they should. Personally, after I exercise hard, I don’t feel like eating for a few hours, and I know others who feel the same way.
The article further states that “Many recent studies have found that exercise isn’t as important in helping people lose weight as you hear so regularly…” However, it cites only one study, done by the peer reviewed journal PLoS ONE (nonprofit Public Library of Science). The parameters of the study are contained in the article. The study group consisted of only 464 overweight women assigned into four groups, who did not regularly exercise. It found that the women who “exercised - sweating it out with a trainer several days a week for six months -” did not lose significantly more weight than the control subjects did. It opined that those who exercised hard were either more hungry, ate more afterwards because they felt entitled to do so, or moved around less than usual after the exercise session.
As I said, I would take that study with a couple teaspoons of salt. Besides my own experience and testimonials from others, I have read material before stating that exercise actually reduces your hunger, at least temporarily.
BTW, the article further states: “a pound of muscle burns approximately six calories a day in a resting body, compared with the two calories that a pound of fat burns. Which means that after you work out hard enough to convert, say, 10 lb. of fat to muscle - a major achievement - you would be able to eat only an extra 40 calories per day…before beginning to gain weight.”
Well, in the first place a body does not convert fat into muscle. You develop more muscle by exercising and lose fat by expending more calories than you take in. The author of that article appears under the misconception that you can turn fat into muscle.
I don’t have a cite to hand (because I recycle my old copies and my google-fu is weak) but I remember an article in The Economist that noted that modern foods are far more refined than in the past, so bite for bite it’s easier for the body to take nutrients out of it. Does that sound like an accurate recollection?
People do less hard work than they used to. They eat more than they used to. They can afford to eat more junk than they used to. A lot of food has far more sugar in it that it used to. But here’s something to worry about.
A lot of kids are being treated for ‘conditions’ that used to be thought of as just being kids (as well as hyper-active from over-sweetened drinks). Drugging kids into obedience is much more common in the USA than most countries because of the commercial nature of medicine, but it is the USA that publishes the psychiatrists’ diagnostic ‘bible’. Strange to say side-effects of some of the psychiatric treatments intended for adults for conditions defined in adults when used on children are rapid weight gain and diabetes.
Except that, as is well-known, that’s a myth.
Yes, another manifestation of the evil glyco-medical complex.
The human body is extremely efficient, to such a degree that even if you’re quite active you can still make yourself fat if you’re consuming something on the order of 3000 calories per day.
Fitness buffs love to tout “exercise” but I think the short answer answer is “too many calories.”
The longer answer has been the stuff of many studies, nearly all of which are “controversial” to the side disagreeing with them.
If, by “exercise” you mean the notion of walking everywhere, taking the stairs instead of the escalator, and so on, then I think “exercise” is very important. I’d call that sort of exercise not being sedentary. If by “exercise” you are talking about the hearty eater who gets his fat ass on the treadmill 3 times a week (the Pedant is looking in the mirror here) but dines on sweet fat, I’m underwhelmed that exercise is worth a damn for weight control.
If you do pull up studies–and there a bazillion–pay attention only to ones which look at folks five years or so down the road. In my opinion, short-term results from any intervention tend to be astoundingly good and utterly worthless.
We–me at least–eat too much. Way too much (well; not me, but you get the drift).