What Really Makes Us Fat

[boston bean]

A CALORIE is a calorie. This truism has been the foundation of nutritional wisdom and our beliefs about obesity since the 1960s.

What it means is that a calorie of protein will generate the same energy when metabolized in a living organism as a calorie of fat or carbohydrate. When talking about obesity or why we get fat, evoking the phrase “a calorie is a calorie” is almost invariably used to imply that what we eat is relatively unimportant. We get fat because we take in more calories than we expend; we get lean if we do the opposite. Anyone who tells you otherwise, by this logic, is trying to sell you something.

But not everyone buys this calorie argument, and the dispute erupted in full force again last week. The Journal of the American Medical Association published the results of a clinical trial by Dr. David Ludwig of Boston Children’s Hospital and his collaborators. While the media tended to treat the study as another diet trial — what should we eat to maintain weight loss? — it spoke to a far more fundamental issue: What actually causes obesity? Why do we get fat in the first place? Too many calories? Or something else?

The calorie-is-a-calorie notion dates to 1878, when the great German nutritionist Max Rubner established what he called the isodynamic law.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/opinion/sunday/what-really-makes-us-fat.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

I am posting because we have had many threads regarding weight and it seems to be something our members like to discuss. Especially since overweight women are discriminated against much more than an overweight male in our society..... I found the article pretty interesting. But I am no expert, that's for sure...

[G26]

1. This makes all kinds of sense...

Since refined sugars and processed carbs don't exist in nature, it makes sense that the body isn't able to handle a steady diet of these things. Salt, too, was historically a scarce commodity.

More and more, it seems like the big diet culprits are: sugar, salt and simple carbs. Maybe it's because these things are rare in nature that people (and animals) find them so delicious.

Something that I just became aware of was the idea that just sitting for long periods (like many of us do all day at work) has a negative effect on metabolism and muscle tone. So much so that even getting regular exercise, may not offset or prevent the negative effects of sitting.

[Hatchling]

2. My personal suspicion sounds a little woo.

When I was growing up we had the four food groups: milk, meat, fruits and vegetables , and bread. At three meals a day we were to choose one from each group. That was 3 milks, 3 meats, 3 fruits and vegetables and 3 breads.

The Food Pyramid called for 2-3 milks, 2-3 meats, 3-5 vegetables, 2-4 fruits, and 6-11 breads! Positing only a 100 calories per serving (which is low) that is an increase of 500 to 1500 calories a day in the higher glycemic foods.

Now they have changed it to MY plate in which they do not suggest portions but a percentage of what should go on a healthy plate. No guidelines about how big your plate should be.

Here is a source that seems to back up what I have bee thinking.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/pyramid-full-story/index.html#healthy-eating-plate

Tragically, the information embodied in this pyramid didn't point the way to healthy eating. Why not? Its blueprint was based on shaky scientific evidence, and it barely changed over the years to reflect major advances in our understanding of the connection between diet and health.

The USDA retired the Food Guide Pyramid in 2005 and replaced it with My Pyramid—basically the old Pyramid turned on its side, sans any explanatory text. Critics lambasted the symbol from the get-go for being vague and confusing. So in June 2011, with great fanfare, the USDA replaced its much-maligned My Pyramid with a new simpler food icon, the fruit-and-vegetable rich My Plate.

The good news is that these changes have dismantled and buried the original, flawed Food Guide Pyramid and its underwhelming My Pyramid successor. The bad news is that the new My Plate icon, while an improvement over the Food Guide Pyramid and My Pyramid, still falls short on giving people the nutrition advice they need to choose the healthiest diets.

[hlthe2b]

3. I fear there are going to be tremendous adverse consequences to the "conventional wisdom" pushed...

the past many decades and in particular the ultra low fat/high carb diets. With type 2 diabetes at an all time high, the irony that that advise may not only have prompted an explosion of obesity, but had a great deal to do with the current diabetes crises, while doing relatively little to address risk of cardiovascular disease, is immense.

The dogmatic "calorie is a calorie" and equating obesity to merely a problem of self-control harms both men and females. But, it has a particular sting to women, who are far more discriminated against with respect to weight than are men.

No where is the patriarchy more established than in the field of academic medicine, medical research and medical policy--and with that comes dogma defended as though their own life depended on it. Things are changing, but far too slowly.