The Skinny on Fat (The Truth About Obesity, Part 2)

Tech Central Station ^ | July 16, 2003 | Sandy Szwarc

[Timesink]

A host of sinful foods have been demonized as the root of obesity and poor health of American adults and children. Fast food restaurants have been sued, accused of contributing to customers' obesity because their food tastes too good and they tempt us by advertising. Taxes are being proposed on foods deemed fattening or bad for us, namely, anything with meat or fat, that is fried or processed or that is sweet.

[Thorondir]

Bravo. Thanks, doc.

Personal responsibility bump.

[Thorondir]

I have gone without sugar for over 5 years.

You have consumed no milk for five years? No bread? No beer? No fruit? Wow!

[Walkingfeather]

Bttt

[Sam Cree]

When I was a little kid in the 50's, Mom used to always tell me and my brothers that bread and sweets, and starchy stuff were the fattening things. Not that any of us kids were fat, we were all skinny. Nor were many of our little friends fat, overweight kids were something of a rarity back then, the way I remember. Nowadays, though, you see lots of fat kids around, something has changed, and it's not genes I don't think. That would constitute proof of evolution.

Anyway, it seems like we are coming full circle on what is considered "fattening" to eat, Atkins seems to reflect the conventional wisdom of 50 years ago.

I have noticed a few statements, some in the article I think, others on posts, mentioning that sugar is not inherently that fattening in of itself. Perhaps not, it is beyond my knowledge to argue this. But I will say that adding sugar to foods, as is commonly done today, causes us to continue eating far beyond the point at which we are full. I reckon, since we eat so much more sugar and sweets than in the past, that this is a major cause in the rise of modern obesity.

Not to mention that sugar may encourage anti social behavior, though that is another discussion, I suppose.

[Sam Cree]

I think what I am saying is that one of the tricks is to quit eating when you are no longer hungry. And that is a lot harder to figure out when your food is sweetened.

[ravingnutter]

P.S. My thyroid is fine according to my doctor and I eat 5-6 smaller meals a day rather than 3 big ones, which is recommended for my condition to keep my blood sugar level stabilized. I also take a vitamin supplement called AlphaBetic to control my blood sugar level. It works for me, especially since it does not have iron in it, which I am allergic to. But I still can't lose the weight, no matter how hard I try.

[Publius6961]

Do you also think that depression is just a state of mind and people should just snap out of it?

Being an adult, free of ADD, I can understand the concept of "staying on topic".

Neuroses and depression may be an interesting topic for a new thread.
Why don't you start one and see if I'm interested?

[jjm2111]

"A study in the September 2000 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition actually found sugar in the morning resulted in better mental performance in children and adults."

Yeah, sugar in the form of a banana or orange juice, not Coke or TootyFrooty cereal.

The best way to stay thin is to eat less, excercise more, and stay away from processed food. Fat isn't great and I have a hard time believing that a diet of soda and potato chips is a good diet. (Not that a soda and/or a bag of chips every now and again is a mortal sin, either).

[Xenalyte]

Apparently the concept of analogy has evaded you.

[ravingnutter]

You have consumed no milk for five years? No bread? No beer? No fruit? Wow!

Milk is nasty and fruit gives me the same reaction as sugar, rarely eat bread and drink an occasional beer, but we are talking processed sugar here. No sodas, no sugar in my drinks, no doughnuts, no pies, no ice-cream, no fruit juices, etc. Oh, and no sweeteners either, there are way too many conflicting reports out there about the dangers. I won't even chew sugarless gum because it still has a minute amount of sugar in it, if I remember right it was something like 2 mg.

[BureaucratusMaximus]

Anyway, it seems like we are coming full circle on what is considered "fattening" to eat, Atkins seems to reflect the conventional wisdom of 50 years ago.

Hear hear!

Atkins is the first and only diet I have tried. It works...and I'm not going back to eating the way I used to either. I've lost 65 lbs in 7 weeks and plan to lose about 40 more. (I was 6'6" 335 when I started) I haven't really followed it exactly either. I've eliminated my almost constant consumption of bread, cereal, noodles, sweets, potatoes, and artificial sweeteners. About once a week, and very sparingly at that...I will have a piece of pie/cake or a cookie, or a scoop of ice cream...just as a treat. All the anti-Atkins folks can bite me...my blood pressure and cholesterol levels are both down to normal levels from slightly high values, I have more energy, get better sleep, and generally feel better as a whole.

[Mr. Mojo]

since we all know people are overweight solely because they lack willpower.

Certainly a lack of willpower is not the sole reason many people are overweight, but the vast majority of obese people I've know have been voracious eaters of fattening food. ...Not a coincidence, I'd imagine.

[null and void]

Ping for the rational, intelligent posters, on either side of the debate, from the first thread.

Ummmm, Am I on the right ping list?

[najida]

I lost my 70 pounds 4 years ago by eating like I was raised to eat...and practicing what I preached. Lots of fruits, veges, complex carbs, low fat dairy, small meat portions and lots of water.

But I had to have a come to Jesus meetin' with my OB/GYN about my hormones first.

After that, the weight came off...
And most importantly, it has stayed off...helped dancin' my butt off.

[jjm2111]

After reading both articles, my opinion is that they are agenda driven.

With the rare exceptions, fat people are 100% responsible for their weight. Even those who have body types pre-disposed to fat benefit from a healthy diet and excercise.

Personally, I believe it's the processed food and the ridiculous amount sugar that people consume that makes them fat. Look at kids these days. So many kids are chubby compared to just 15 years ago.

[jjm2111]

BTW, this is a good thread.

[Timesink]

How much do I win? I have gone without sugar for over 5 years.

You ARE taking in some sugar; you're just taking it in via foods that contain it naturally instead of via foods that have it added (or via dumping Domino Sugar packets into your tea).

[jjm2111]

"[We] all know [most] people are overweight solely because they lack willpower.

There you go.

[najida]

Personally, I believe it's the processed food and the ridiculous amount sugar that people consume that makes them fat. Look at kids these days. So many kids are chubby compared to just 15 years ago.

That and those kids are inside with the video games and their computers and not out playing and riding bikes like they used to.

[aruanan]

The problem with people talking about genes or the environment is that they don't realize that if someone has a genetic predisposition toward having greater fat deposits, the way those deposits are filled is by having a greater energy intake than energy expenditure since merely having the predisposition won't create the fat out of thin air.

Some blame individual foodstuffs. One of the current food demons is high fructose corn syrup. I had someone tell me that he wasn't talking about table sugar, he was talking about fructose. Well, table sugar is 50% (by molarity) fructose. There's also far too little known by the general public about basic nutritional physiology. So here goes, from an earlier post:

To: SamAdams76; TomB

Is sugar making us fat?

Neither sugar (sucrose, which is glucose and fructose in a 1:1 ratio) nor high fructose corn syrup (which has a greater than 1:1 ratio of fructose) is making us fat. A diet with an energy intake that exceeds an individual's energy output is what makes him fat.

The truth is relatively simple, but that won't stop this thread from being filled with outlandish nonsense. The following can be used to separate fact from nutzoid nutracrap.

Fructose* (a six carbon sugar) enters the glycolytic pathway and is used in exactly the same way as glucose (another isomer of the same molecular formula and known as dextrose, grape sugar, or corn sugar). In fact, glucose is phosphorylated on the 6 carbon to become fructose 6-phosphate. Fructose 6-phosphate is phosphorylated again on the 1 carbon to become fructose 1,6 diphosphate. Dietary fructose (whether it comes from sucrose or from honey or from fruit or from high fructose corn syrup) is phosphorylated on the 1 carbon and then on the 6 carbon, ending up as fructose 1,6-diphosphate, the same as glucose.

Neither glucose nor fructose is made into fat in the human body. Fat cannot be converted into glucose. The human body makes very, very little fat de novo. The way one gains fat is principally from fat in the diet that is stored in adipose tissue. If you took a sample of all the fats you ate over a year's period and compared their types and relative quantities to the fat in a tissue sample of your adipose tissue, you'd find they were almost exactly the same.

The way you accumulate such fat has to do with your body's storage capacity for the three macro-nutrients (proteins, carbohydrates, and fat) when faced with dietary excess. The body has no real storage form of protein. Protein intake in excess of physiological needs for protein synthesis results in the constituent amino acids being deaminated and catabolized either in the glycolytic or lipolytic pathways depending on the type of amino acid. Carbohydrate intake can be buffered through about three days worth of storage in the form of glycogen, a polymer of glucose molecules. Relative to proteins and carbohydrates, fat has almost unlimited storage capacity.

When ones energy intake exceeds output, the body compensates by prioritizing the catabolism of macronutrients. Proteins have most immediate priority, followed by glucose, followed by fats. If the continued excess of caloric intake threatens to overtax the glycogen storage capacity, the body shifts substrate usage away from fat oxidation (nearly all your resting metabolic rate is accounted for by fat oxidation) and toward glucose oxidation. The result is that energy intake that exceeds energy output is preferentially saved by the storage of dietary fat.


*So any time you have one unit of sucrose, 1/2 of that is fructose. And it is principally the fructose in sugar, not the glucose, that makes it taste sweet. This is why it takes much less fructose to sweeten something to the same degree as it does sucrose. Maltose is two molecules of glucose. Lactose is one molecule of glucose and one of galactose. All hexose dietary sugars (fructose, glucose, and galactose) are eventually converted into fructose 1,6-diphosphate.

126 posted on 07/03/2003 2:51 PM EDT by aruanan