Why Americans Stopped Dieting: Study Shows Drop In Weight Loss Interest

Tech Times ^ | 8 March 2017, 7:19 am EST | Alexandra Lozovschi

[BenLurkin]

"There's increasing evidence that adults with overweight may live as long as and sometimes even longer than normal-weight adults, making many question whether you have to take it seriously," Zhang added.

Even in clinical practice, Zhang explained, treatment for overweight is typically considered only if patients exhibit two or more additional risk factors, like hypertension or high cholesterol.

Another possible cause for the lax perception of body weight is the increased social acceptability. With obesity becoming the norm, many feel less pressure to lose weight, Zhang noted.

One theory is that body acceptance trends on social media may have been wrongfully interpreted by a large number of people, who found a sense of comfort in their body image and chose the easy path toward better self-esteem.

While body acceptance advocates do promote body positivity, they do not however promote obesity and an unhealthy lifestyle. In fact, the idea is that embracing who you are should be the cornerstone of a personal improvement plan, by applying a positive attitude toward your body to get better results.

[dfwgator]

They have a different conception of beauty, in the african american commurnity.

[Born to Conserve]

The diet industry doesn’t want you to lose weight, just like the medical industry doesn’t want you to be healthy. People are catching on.

Personal tip: I used to be bloated and feel achy, then I stopped eating the big pile of carbohydrates that is on every plate — potatoes, bread, rice, pasta, etc. .... Now my weight ratchets down instead of up. I never tried the Adkins diet, and never will — I am not totally avoiding carbohydrates, I just pass on the big pile of white stuff.

[grania]

I'm on Medicare, so have Part A. I never signed up for Parts B and D. I avoid doctors and medications, except for emergencies. I figure that I could get a disease that I might have avoided. Then again, a "cure" could get me first.

It does bother me that I can't get a catastrophic high deductible policy for accident or major disease. Policies that compete with "B" and "D" aren't allowed. There's no way I'm paying for part B, which subsidizes services I don't use or Part D which is for pharmaceuticals.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

I hate the word diet. It denotes eating different for a certain period of time to lose weight. What the vast majority of these people need is not a diet, but a lifestyle change. They need to eat less portions and healthier foods.

30 years ago as a Marine drill instructor I ran the physical conditioning platoon for a while. It was called various things, the fat platoon, the pork chop platoon. These are the recruits that cannot make it physically and are sent to PCP until they can make it physically or drop out. A large majority of them are usually overweight and many of them do end up dropping out of boot camp. The ones that survive are better for it.

I can tell you from my experiences there, fat shaming (though we didn’t call it that back then, we called it giving the recruits the proper motivation), rigorous exercise and forcing a lifestyle change in eating habits on them works. Everyone of those fat recruits ended up losing weight no matter if they stayed in boot camp or dropped out.

[redfreedom]

I disagree. I have “dieted” several times to get back into a good weight range.

Just about any diet will work. The single most important ingredient in a diet is will power. That’s the same ingredient needed to stop smoking, stop drinking, stop drugs and other excesses/abuses there are.

It’s not so much what you eat, it’s portion control and exercise. No snacking in between meals. As the diet progresses, the body adjusts and you are seldom hungry, and losing weight at about 3 - 4 pounds per week.

Anyone can lose weight with the right attitude.

[pepsi_junkie]

The answer remains less calories and more exercise, but diet plans apparently do not provide an effective means of long term change.

Disagree. Evidence shows clearly that sustained reduction in caloric intake will result in metabolism tanking. Which is why weight loss stops even though the dieting is going full bore.

The problem is insulin. It regulates when glucose in the blood is stored or burned. Low carb is a good step to reducing it and keeping low, periodic fasts (as little as 16 hours so go to bed and skip breakfast, for example) drive it down too. In this state, two things happen. You burn stored fat for energy and it actually increases metabolism slightly. And that metabolic affect is over the long term, unlike calorie restrictions.

Still a big change in eating. But it works and better than traditional diets IMHO.

[MeanWestTexan]

“We have this bizarre situation that has never happened before in history where the poorest are the most likely to be obese.”

Concur. Being thin and fit is a status symbol, similar to straight white teeth. It’s a sign of “breeding” and success, because being fit takes not only willpower, but the time and effort necessary to achieve it.

I look around in certain circles and few are overweight. Many are very fit. Of course, I hang around the country club, the petroleum club, and the like.

[raybbr]

And our life expectancy keeps going up. The studies explain that.

Right, thanks to medical improvements. And, costs. I would say 80% of the people I see who are obese could, if they wanted to, do something about it. It's too much work. It takes a mindset of "I have to think about the future" to do that. Too many people are caught up in the instant gratification that food brings.

There is simply no way to justify obesity in this day and age. The pharma companies love it because there's always another drug they can sell to cover the symptoms not the cause.

[BuffaloJack]

Not enough bacon in that burger.

[Mr. Douglas]

My wife got so sick that she went to the doctor monday. It turned out that it was just a virus and, sure enough, though it was bad for a few days, she’s fine now.

It cost us a prescription for strong cough syrup ($10) and a $50 doctors visit.

Since the bronze plan would cost over a thousand a month for just one of us and that is with around a $7,000 deductible, I think the fifty bucks was fine. :)

Our primary care provider is the best physician I’m aware of. He goes by the name of Jesus. He’s doing an amazing job!

[wrench]

Atkins is not about totally avoiding carbs. This is a giant misconception.

Read the book, it is chock full of very important nutritional and lifestyle information.

[skinndogNN]

Have these “experts” noticed the fatter we get, the higher life expectancy gets?

[Hardastarboard]

Not fat. Famine prepared. If there ever is another famine, more Americans will survive than anywhere else except Samoa. :-)

[discostu]

And thanks to the fact that some of what we think about health is quite simply hokum. Remember the life cycle of cholesterol: first cholesterol was bad and we should avoid it, then they noticed that people who lowered their cholesterol were actually MORE likely to have heart attacks, so we figured out there was good and bad cholesterol, you gotta lower one but keep the other up, next they figured out the number one source of bad cholesterol is NOT your diet, it’s YOU, your body actually produced it, which then brings up the question of how bad is it really, and now they’re re-shuffling the whole cholesterol chart based on new life expectancy data.

There’s plenty of reason to justify obesity: genetics. That’s the simple fact we learn over and over again, most of these things boil down to genetics, there are people that are not susceptible to heart disease no matter what, there are people that will not get cancer no matter what, there are people that will be fat no matter what. Then of course there’s the fact that society keeps changing, fewer and fewer people do anything that’s really and truly work, we mostly don’t need hard physical labor anymore, which means we’re not burning the calories we used to. But we still have a body that is genetically pre-disposed to are hard scrabble life, our body EXPECTS scarcity and hard work. This is why fat and sugar taste good, the body WANTS them because it thinks it NEEDS them and rewards you for getting them. For millions of years these traits that make us fat now made us SURVIVE. Someday the body will catch up to the new reality, but it will take a couple hundred generations.

[grania]

Isn't it something how there are so often alternatives if we know about them? When I dislocated my shoulder, I only needed six physical therapist visits, clinic style. The PT was honest about how many visits were actually necessary because I was paying. I got a discount because I paid by check the same day as each visit. One can't help but wonder how many visits would've been "necessary" if it were covered by insurance, what my co-pay would've been, and how much would've been charged to insurance.

What I'd like is first-aid clinics, with common sense inexpensive health solutions, much like your doctor provides. These politicians just can't grasp that it makes no intuitive sense to cover expected costs. Insurance only serves to make those things more expensive and overused.

[stylin19a]

I thought michelle’s lunch program helped a lot of kids lose weight.

Damndest thing. I quit smokin last march and starting losing weight. By August i was @ 180(down from 195) looking to get back down to about 170-175. Playing a lot of golf. I usually can eat most thing and I was able to keep the weight off.

I honestly don’t know what happened, but In August, I started eating everything I saw. Stuff I didn’t like...everything. My weight went the other way. My wife patted my stomach and said “I’ve never seen you with a belly”. I went 30 pounds the other way.
I’ve reduced my intake and reduce the munching between meals. but it’s a struggle.

maybe it’s all the extended time I’ve been on FR lately...yeah that’s the ticket.

[Badboo]

Look at a picture, any picture, of kids in the 1950s, 1940s, etc.
Look at one today.

This is why there is a huge difference.

Mom's cooking from scratch - not any more
Food from the garden or nearby farm - not like it used to.
Few options for processed foods loaded with fat, sugar and salt - now it's everywhere and at all times
Kids with their bicycles, skate boards, dirty play clothes from being outside all today - ain't happening anywhere now.

This is a man made pandemic created by the food industry, government, and sociopathic parents.

If you are fat, you shouldn't have kids. If you have fat kids, you should quit feeding them long acting rat poison type foods.

[tahoeblue]

Yes!

[stylin19a]

...proper motivation...

and at times, very creative....

[Veto!]

I actually taught classes in healthy living to people who didn’t have a clue. The program came from Stanford, and was sponsored locally by some government agency. They asked me to teach the minute I walked into my local clinic…I’m extra healthy, slim, ate right all my life, and go to the gym almost daily. Anyway….

The people in the class had no clue. (I’m old enough to be their grandmother.) Some, like young single mothers, were in pretty good shape, and were very interested in bettering themselves and having healthy kids. They were a pleasure. But others were second and third generation welfare recipients, overweight and dull, if not stupid. One young man in a wheelchair because he was too fat to walk was pleasant and had an extraordinary voice. I mentioned to him that he could probably find work as a radio announcer, why not take a class (free) at community college?

You should have seen the look on his face as he said “No, no, no.” Utter shock. He’d never considered bettering himself and he never will. He’ll keep eating hideous junk, keep living on other people’s money until he dies very young.

So, this is one mindset that keeps people fat. And unhealthy. They don’t want to change, or get better, or even live. Sad, really. I couldn’t continue teaching that class for very long.