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[yanipheonu]

American culture does not help people make better eating choices. In many areas, particularly poorer ones, there is more access to fast food options than grocery stores. Even in areas with many grocery stores, if people cook in ways that mimic fast food (excess sugar and salt), the stores do not help all that much. Ads for candy, snacks, sodas, and other items with lots of excess sugar and salt are created for each age group. Fast food places send out coupons for BOGOs and 1/2 off our meals and sides and create membership programs that encourage repeat eaters. Our lifestyle is rather sedentary due to school and work taking up about half of the day when you include the time sitting in traffic and sitting on while working/learning. After being out all day, millions of us find it more convenient/time rewarding to just pick up fast food than go grocery shopping.

Food deserts and poverty caused obesity need to be more well known for Americans.

In many parts of the states, people just don't live close enough to a grocery store and have to buy groceries from a convenience store or eat at a fast food restaurant.

Plus with cheaper food often being full of fat and sugar you get the paradox of poor people in America being both poor and morbidly obese.

 

[Palmer_v1]

I'm definitely part of the problem, and despite wanting to lose weight(I'm probably 230lb when I should be around 150), I always fail. I lack the self control to stick to healthy diets when I enjoy eating bad stuff so much.

 

[teh_pwn]

Not on mobile for once, so I'd like to give my 2 cents.

Any posts that claim we know for certain what the cause of mass obesity in the United States and increasingly the world aren't helping anyone. We don't know for sure - at least Scientifically. It's a poorly conducted field of Science that often violates the Scientific Method. It's hard to test as proper peer reviewed, double blind placebo studies would require long term locking up of humans for experimentation.

Personally I see the Food Reward Hypothesis of Obesity as the most compelling. These posts give an overview:

The Case for the Food Reward Hypothesis of Obesity, Part I
The Case for the Food Reward Hypothesis of Obesity, Part II
Food Reward: a Dominant Factor in Obesity, Part III

I think the author removed some of his posts because he recently wrote a book, but his older presentation overview is still around in video form.

I believe it is most compelling because it explains the success of all diets I've seen, and it passes a sanity check.

Basically to make a recipe high reward you take any existing recipe and ensure that it has copious amounts of all of these:
1. Salt
2. Oil
3. Sugar, or at least sweetness
4. Pleasing texture, temperature, crunchiness
5. Meat or glutamate

This passes the sanity check because:
1. We as mammals, at least non opportunistic scavenger types, need to have some sort of complex instinctual reinforcement of sustenance without overindulging. Natural selection should have refined this to a nice equilibrium over millennia, at least with foods existing until modern humanity.
2. When was the last time you overate bland foods missing most of the 5 vs overeating foods that met most of the 5 rewards? How frequently?

Any explanation should cover all diets and causes.

Vegans may clamor that they are often thin. Yes, you all are. Probably because good cooking with your food ingredients to hit the 5 criteria is likely exceptionally rare within the United States. Try eating good Indian food, like Vegetable Pakora, and see how your appetite responds.

Paleo diets have success because they remove a lot of modern flavor enhancers and reduce sugar. Low carb diets similarly.

But to brute force calorie counting clearly doesn't work. Most people want to live longer, be healthier, etc, but when surrounded by an existing culture and food options are much more likely to succumb to hunger. There aren't suddenly hundreds of millions of special snowflakes in the US and abroad that have the conflicted opinion of being healthier but instead overeat anyway; we're all humans with the same genes - or more directly any multi-generational US citizens look at family photos from 1940 and earlier...95% of people are thin. Considering rodent and a few human studies show hunger (emphasis being not high level calorie spreadsheets) can be manipulated by food reward, then I think this hypothesis is worth looking into. Or ignore it - while the US is the leader in obesity we're also the leader in cheerleading brute force solutions; and spoiler alert they fail with better odds against you than Las Vegas.

Could I be wrong? Absolutely. The beauty of Science is self correcting based on data.

 

[titiklabingapat]

Not on mobile for once, so I'd like to give my 2 cents.

Any posts that claim we know for certain what the cause of mass obesity in the United States and increasingly the world aren't helping anyone. We don't know for sure - at least Scientifically. It's a poorly conducted field of Science that often violates the Scientific Method. It's hard to test as proper peer reviewed, double blind placebo studies would require long term locking up of humans for experimentation.

Personally I see the Food Reward Hypothesis of Obesity as the most compelling. These posts give an overview:

The Case for the Food Reward Hypothesis of Obesity, Part I
The Case for the Food Reward Hypothesis of Obesity, Part II
Food Reward: a Dominant Factor in Obesity, Part III

I think the author removed some of his posts because he recently wrote a book, but his older presentation overview is still around in video form.

I believe it is most compelling because it explains the success of all diets I've seen, and it passes a sanity check.

Basically to make a recipe high reward you take any existing recipe and ensure that it has copious amounts of all of these:
1. Salt
2. Oil
3. Sugar, or at least sweetness
4. Pleasing texture, temperature, crunchiness
5. Meat or glutamate

This passes the sanity check because:
1. We as mammals, at least non opportunistic scavenger types, need to have some sort of complex instinctual reinforcement of sustenance without overindulging. Natural selection should have refined this to a nice equilibrium over millennia, at least with foods existing until modern humanity.
2. When was the last time you overate bland foods missing most of the 5 vs overeating foods that met most of the 5 rewards? How frequently?

Any explanation should cover all diets and causes.

Vegans may clamor that they are often thin. Yes, you all are. Probably because good cooking with your food ingredients to hit the 5 criteria is likely exceptionally rare within the United States. Try eating good Indian food, like Vegetable Pakora, and see how your appetite responds.

Paleo diets have success because they remove a lot of modern flavor enhancers and reduce sugar. Low carb diets similarly.

But to brute force calorie counting clearly doesn't work. Most people want to live longer, be healthier, etc, but when surrounded by an existing culture and food options are much more likely to succumb to hunger. There aren't suddenly hundreds of millions of special snowflakes in the US and abroad that have the conflicted opinion of being healthier but instead overeat anyway; we're all humans with the same genes - or more directly any multi-generational US citizens look at family photos from 1940 and earlier...95% of people are thin. Considering rodent and a few human studies show hunger (emphasis being not high level calorie spreadsheets) can be manipulated by food reward, then I think this hypothesis is worth looking into. Or ignore it - while the US is the leader in obesity we're also the leader in cheerleading brute force solutions; and spoiler alert they fail with better odds against you than Las Vegas.

Could I be wrong? Absolutely. The beauty of Science is self correcting based on data.

A new study from UK just came out that suburbs are making us fat. So we are definitely getting data in.

 

[Madness]

Food deserts and poverty caused obesity need to be more well known for Americans.

In many parts of the states, people just don't live close enough to a grocery store and have to buy groceries from a convenience store or eat at a fast food restaurant.

Plus with cheaper food often being full of fat and sugar you get the paradox of poor people in America being both poor and morbidly obese.

Also take into account people in impoverished areas struggle with sedentariness and lack of exercise and mobility as well. Less public parks, less money for gym memberships, hard to afford team sports for yoyr children etc. It all adds up. It is why this obesity epidemic needs to be tackled on a federal and state joint level. So much spent on the military or arming other nations yet 70% or more of Americans being overweight and nothing done at one of the greatest health epidemics either. Think about this. No nation in human history or civilization was ever obese on a majority level. The US will be the first, and the way things are going, not the last to hit this milestone. The UK and Canada are fast rising. Mexico is above 30% now as well.

 

[AgentOtaku]

I mean some places have sugar taxes, etc., but there are basically two sprawling, entangled areas where the U.S. is falling down.

1. The food chain is completely compromised with additives and mass farming methods that are under-regulated and distorted by dumb federal and state incentives. Americans like cheap food--and many of them need cheap food because of widespread poverty--and aren't willing to pay for better ingredients. They also broadly oppose the government intrusions that would reduce sugar content and force producers to be actually honest about what their products contain. Americans en masse have chosen a culture where the aim is to drive down prices, not raise wages.

2. Broader cultural forces make American eating habits worse. Sprawl means people are farther from the places where fresh food is harvested or slaughtered. Autocentric culture means people cycle less and walk far, far fewer steps per day than, say, Europeans. Again, deep-seeded inequities mean many people can't buy fresh ingredients, fruit, vegetables locally even if they wanted to. And American work-life balance is so fucked that people exercise less, eat less with their families, have less time for food preparation (and food education), and snack more. The availability of fast food here--and the broad acceptance of it as a regular meal, not a treat--is staggering. Even small things, like free refills on drinks; in Europe, there aren't soda fountains, and you pay for each serving.

Catching up with this thread and story, but great post

 

[CornBurrito]

It's pure willpower;

And yet obesity is becoming a worldwide epidemic. Sorry, but while you might be correct from a very simplistic point of view, you're also incorrect when we look at how humans actually work as a species.

You can close your eyes and plug your ears, but that won't stop the world from becoming obese.

 

[Coinspinner]

Good hustle, but we can do better. I wanna see 50% by January!

 

[Elfstar]

I swear to god, trying to be informed about nutritionism is the worst, it feels like nothing it's actually reliable and everything is going to be debunked by some other new research or whatever.

"You NEED to drink a bottle of water every day"/"No you actually don't"
"You NEED to eat small portions of food every three hours"/"No you actually don't"
"You NEED to have breakfast every day or otherwise your metabolism is going to be fucked up"/"No you actually don't"
"Carbs are literally Hitler you gotta avoid them"/"No you actually don't"
"Sugar is addicting"/"No it's not"
"Eating fruit will make you healtier"/"No it won't"
Etc.

Jesus Christ.

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

I swear to god, trying to be informed about nutritionism is the worst, it feels like nothing it's actually reliable and everything is going to be debunked by some other new research or whatever.

"You NEED to drink a bottle of water every day"/"No you actually don't"
"You NEED to eat small portions of food every three hours"/"No you actually don't"
"You NEED to have breakfast every day or otherwise your metabolism is going to be fucked up"/"No you actually don't"
"Carbs are literally Hitler you gotta avoid them"/"No you actually don't"
"Sugar is addicting"/"No it's not"
"Eating fruit will make you healtier"/"No it won't"
Etc.

Jesus Christ.

I cannot emphasize enough the importance that Myfitnesspal played in my diet. I had a general idea of what was healthy and what wasnt, but i didnt know how Carbs/Fat/Protein worked, i didnt know how many calories i needed or any of that.

Went from 6 ft 230, to 6 ft 175, and now i've bulked back up to 190 and im roughly 1.5x to 2x stronger than i was at 230 because i've been going to the gym and giving myself quality calories.

 

[Thac0]

I lost 120 lbs by keeping a food diary and staying active. It was a pain in the ass, but got easier the longer I did it. And sure, I have binge meals or whatever from time to time. The 80/20 rule worked pretty well for me (80% I ate clean and kept portions low, 20% not so much).

It's pure willpower; blaming food companies, food deserts or whatever is just passing responsibility from yourself.

So by your reasoning, at one point in your life, you decided to be 120 lbs heavier than your current self. With no outside influence.

Access to knowledge and to the resources to make informed decisions can be another societal gate to having a healthy weight.

I grew up with that information readily presented, with access to healthy food, with options for fun and interesting exercise, and with the genetic makeup such that I've never been overweight through no active decision on my part.

The corollary to that is that there are those who are overweight through some deficiency in those things I listed. Now that isn't permanent, as your case has shown, but you have to consider that these individuals haven't yet reached whatever turning point you eventually arrived at.

 

[perfectchaos007]

I need to switch to an Asian diet. They seem to have it figured out

 

[McStickenstein]

You can only change the food so much. You need to kill the culture. That makes me think all hope is lost for the 40% of adults who are already obese. The only hope is their children who need to be raised to see food differently from a young age.

Thank you for writing this, all of it. You are already trying harder and thinking about the issue more seriously than most. Food is very much a cultural thing, and unfortunately large food corporations have ingrained the idea of large portions and tons of cheese in American food culture.

 

[teh_pwn]

A new study from UK just came out that suburbs are making us fat. So we are definitely getting data in.

And while I think I could still be wrong, differentiating suburbs versus urban life I don't think is enough to explain it all.

My observation within the United States is that suburbs are clearly fatter. I suspect the reason is complex though:
-In the United States, typical parents will venture to the suburbs for more affordable and higher quality per dollar public schools compared to urban areas. More people that are childless with fewer external responsibilities (children, maintaining a property vs apartments/condos/town houses) live in urban areas and are more inwardly focused.
-Culturally there is a greater focus on staying at home and attending friends' house parties which often is accompanied with poor food choices in the suburbs whereas urban areas have more diverse performing arts and events to attend
-Less activity in suburbs, but I think this is minor. Food reward studies on rodents becoming obese and a select few studies of humans become obese->lean based on the pure instinct of hunger and not calculators imply that activity doesn't matter. The Darwin world is brutal - species that depend on high level calculation of calories would not exist logically outside of opportunistic scavengers.

But I don't want to be dismissive - do you have a link? Maybe I'll learn something.

 

[R10Neymarfan]

I swear to god, trying to be informed about nutritionism is the worst, it feels like nothing it's actually reliable and everything is going to be debunked by some other new research or whatever.

"You NEED to drink a bottle of water every day"/"No you actually don't"
"You NEED to eat small portions of food every three hours"/"No you actually don't"
"You NEED to have breakfast every day or otherwise your metabolism is going to be fucked up"/"No you actually don't"
"Carbs are literally Hitler you gotta avoid them"/"No you actually don't"
"Sugar is addicting"/"No it's not"
"Eating fruit will make you healtier"/"No it won't"
Etc.

Jesus Christ.

Some studies are flawed or biased due to big food financing them and making cases positive to consume their product. I am not joking

These corporations also fund orgs like AHA and Diabetes association

 

[RC0101]

I was on the boarder of obesity but have been hitting the gym and watching my calories. Last weigh in I am on the border of over weight and normal according to bmi.

I think part of the problem is that there are very few "healthy" options for fast food or to pick up at restaurants. Once I began actually looking at the calorie, salt and other counts at restaurants it was eye opening.

 

[turmoil]

I swear to god, trying to be informed about nutritionism is the worst, it feels like nothing it's actually reliable and everything is going to be debunked by some other new research or whatever.

"You NEED to drink a bottle of water every day"/"No you actually don't"
"You NEED to eat small portions of food every three hours"/"No you actually don't"
"You NEED to have breakfast every day or otherwise your metabolism is going to be fucked up"/"No you actually don't"
"Carbs are literally Hitler you gotta avoid them"/"No you actually don't"
"Sugar is addicting"/"No it's not"
"Eating fruit will make you healtier"/"No it won't"
Etc.

Jesus Christ.

Made me remember this:

New Nutrition Study Changes Nothing

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/...ate-intake-of-things-linked-to-health/538428/

Neophilia is a problem for science, though. And especially the sort of science pertaining to nutrition. Demand for newness leads writers and publishers to focus on narratives that upend conventional wisdom. If new research doesn’t change or challenge the way readers think about the world, why is it a story worth publishing? Eggs are in, and now they’re gone. Butter? It’s back. Every six weeks, The New York Times is legally obligated to tell us either that breakfast isn't important or that skipping it causes death.

 

[titiklabingapat]

And while I think I could still be wrong, differentiating suburbs versus urban life I don't think is enough to explain it all.

My observation within the United States is that suburbs are clearly fatter. I suspect the reason is complex though:
-In the United States, typical parents will venture to the suburbs for more affordable and higher quality per dollar public schools compared to urban areas. More people that are childless with fewer external responsibilities (children, maintaining a property vs apartments/condos/town houses) live in urban areas and are more inwardly focused.
-Culturally there is a greater focus on staying at home and attending friends' house parties which often is accompanied with poor food choices in the suburbs whereas urban areas have more diverse performing arts and events to attend
-Less activity in suburbs, but I think this is minor. Food reward studies on rodents becoming obese and a select few studies of humans become obese->lean based on the pure instinct of hunger and not calculators imply that activity doesn't matter. The Darwin world is brutal - species that depend on high level calculation of calories would not exist logically outside of opportunistic scavengers.

But I don't want to be dismissive - do you have a link? Maybe I'll learn something.

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(17)30119-5/fulltext

https://www.citylab.com/life/2017/10/obesity-housing-density-suburbs-research/542433/

The notable thing about the study is the sheer size of the data sets.

They got more than 400,000 respondents.

 

[thepotatoman]

Not really the same, though. There are numerous reasons people are poor; some out of their control, some not.

The food you choose to eat is one of the few things in life that IS fully under your control.

It's really not that difficult. It's simple.. not easy, but simple. Food is an addiction, depression is a thing, but at the end of the day it's your decision whether or not to chase the McDragon.

And yet the probability of an obese person having lost just 5% of their body weight is roughly the same as the probability of a person in the bottom 20% of family income at birth being in the top 20% of family income, at around an annualized 10% chance.

It's obviously not a 1 to 1 comparison, but I think it does show how incredibly hard it is, and I'm not sure if anything that hard is really that simple to solve. Sure, almost any obese person could theoretically free will themselves into being thin, but realistically you're going to need a lot of education, planning, support, and motivation.

 

[Madness]

Lots of veggies. Noodles and rice. No deep fried meat. Water and tea. Not super sugary desserts. Lots of fruit.

Also, more importantly...

Small servings. Significantly smaller than US serving sizes.

Along with walking a lot of steps per day. Always drives me crazy how some say avoid rices and pastas and carbs to lose weight and then you see Japan and Italy have some of the lowest rates of obesity in the developed world.

The serving size is the biggest one. Peoole don't realize when they eat out or get fast food, they are often getting half their daily caloric needs in one meal. The average American now eats 700 more calories per day than in the 1970's and yet exercises far less or is far more sedentary. It is why year over year weight increases, waists get bigger etc.

 

[MrOogieBoogie]

A person's mentality about food play's a huge role.

My girlfriend's mother is obese and is trying to lose weight. However, she'll start planning what to eat for breakfast and lunch at 8pm the night before. That tells me that food is constantly on her mind, whether or not she's controlling her portions.

Whereas I don't think I have EVER thought of food as anything but immediate sustenance. It's not exciting to me, I don't plan days or activities around food. For someone like my girlfriend's mother, the food IS the activity. It's a dangerous mentality to have, in my opinion.

 

[highrider]

It’s also worth mentioning that as a society we have largely forgotten how to cook. Being a chef I consider my knowledge of food preparation to be one of the most valuable mental assets I have.

 

[teh_pwn]

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(17)30119-5/fulltext

https://www.citylab.com/life/2017/10/obesity-housing-density-suburbs-research/542433/

The notable thing about the study is the sheer size of the data sets.

They got more than 400,000 respondents.

From your first link's interpretations (us Yanks say conclusions):

Housing-level policy related to the optimisation of healthy density in cities might be a potential upstream-level public health intervention towards the minimisation and offsetting of obesity; however, further research based on accumulated prospective data is necessary for evidencing specific pathways. The findings might mean that governments, such as the UK Government, who are attempting to prevent suburban densification by, for example, prohibiting the subdivision of single lot housing and the conversion of domestic gardens to housing lots, will potentially have the effect of inhibiting the conversion of suburbs into more healthy places to live.

My American English may be different, but my translation of this interpretation is:

Urban city centers have a higher correlation with health, specifically with lower rates of obesity. We're not entirely sure why, but we should optimize for that. But if we do, we should be cautious not to have unintended side effects.

Basically this whole study reported the average obesity rates per urban area. It doesn't say anything about causality.

A lot of people in this thread blame causality on carbs, meat, laziness, etc, but don't fall into the correlation camp. The United States has that problem with regards to animal fats based on sheer numbers and the fudged 7 countries study, meanwhile France has less heart disease with 3x the animal fats. My opinion: because France is obsessed about food quality and is generally bland. If your weight is appropriate, your liver is more likely to be healthy which means cholesterol production for LDL will not be likely to clog arteries.

 

[CornBurrito]

"Eating fruit will make you healtier"/"No it won't"

Jesus Christ.

On the other hand, "fruit will kill you" is also ridiculous. Fruit as a snack or dessert is perfectly fine.

It's also worth mentioning that as a society we have largely forgotten how to cook. Being a chef I consider my knowledge of food preparation to be one of the most valuable mental assets I have.

How true is this really? I think a large amount know how to cook, but don't have the time or energy to on a daily basis. And I know mealprepping is a thing, but leftovers are gross (sorry, they are).

Cooking is so easy now with youtube tutorials and billions of recipes.

 

[PerkeyMan]

Yeah I heard it takes a while for the body to get used to that.

How is it bait?

Sugar is not a drug and not addictive. Types of food containing sugar (and fat and salt) can be addictive. Comparing sugar to cocaine is bisarre.

I lost 120 lbs by keeping a food diary and staying active. It was a pain in the ass, but got easier the longer I did it. And sure, I have binge meals or whatever from time to time. The 80/20 rule worked pretty well for me (80% I ate clean and kept portions low, 20% not so much).

It's pure willpower; blaming food companies, food deserts or whatever is just passing responsibility from yourself.

The "if I can do it, anyone can do it" -argument is terrible. I hope you understand why.

 

[PerkeyMan]

Not on mobile for once, so I'd like to give my 2 cents.

Any posts that claim we know for certain what the cause of mass obesity in the United States and increasingly the world aren't helping anyone. We don't know for sure - at least Scientifically. It's a poorly conducted field of Science that often violates the Scientific Method. It's hard to test as proper peer reviewed, double blind placebo studies would require long term locking up of humans for experimentation.

Personally I see the Food Reward Hypothesis of Obesity as the most compelling. These posts give an overview:

The Case for the Food Reward Hypothesis of Obesity, Part I
The Case for the Food Reward Hypothesis of Obesity, Part II
Food Reward: a Dominant Factor in Obesity, Part III

I think the author removed some of his posts because he recently wrote a book, but his older presentation overview is still around in video form.

I believe it is most compelling because it explains the success of all diets I've seen, and it passes a sanity check.

Basically to make a recipe high reward you take any existing recipe and ensure that it has copious amounts of all of these:
1. Salt
2. Oil
3. Sugar, or at least sweetness
4. Pleasing texture, temperature, crunchiness
5. Meat or glutamate

This passes the sanity check because:
1. We as mammals, at least non opportunistic scavenger types, need to have some sort of complex instinctual reinforcement of sustenance without overindulging. Natural selection should have refined this to a nice equilibrium over millennia, at least with foods existing until modern humanity.
2. When was the last time you overate bland foods missing most of the 5 vs overeating foods that met most of the 5 rewards? How frequently?

Any explanation should cover all diets and causes.

Vegans may clamor that they are often thin. Yes, you all are. Probably because good cooking with your food ingredients to hit the 5 criteria is likely exceptionally rare within the United States. Try eating good Indian food, like Vegetable Pakora, and see how your appetite responds.

Paleo diets have success because they remove a lot of modern flavor enhancers and reduce sugar. Low carb diets similarly.

But to brute force calorie counting clearly doesn't work. Most people want to live longer, be healthier, etc, but when surrounded by an existing culture and food options are much more likely to succumb to hunger. There aren't suddenly hundreds of millions of special snowflakes in the US and abroad that have the conflicted opinion of being healthier but instead overeat anyway; we're all humans with the same genes - or more directly any multi-generational US citizens look at family photos from 1940 and earlier...95% of people are thin. Considering rodent and a few human studies show hunger (emphasis being not high level calorie spreadsheets) can be manipulated by food reward, then I think this hypothesis is worth looking into. Or ignore it - while the US is the leader in obesity we're also the leader in cheerleading brute force solutions; and spoiler alert they fail with better odds against you than Las Vegas.

Could I be wrong? Absolutely. The beauty of Science is self correcting based on data.

Great post.

 

[UrbanRats]

I swear to god, trying to be informed about nutritionism is the worst, it feels like nothing it's actually reliable and everything is going to be debunked by some other new research or whatever.

"You NEED to drink a bottle of water every day"/"No you actually don't"
"You NEED to eat small portions of food every three hours"/"No you actually don't"
"You NEED to have breakfast every day or otherwise your metabolism is going to be fucked up"/"No you actually don't"
"Carbs are literally Hitler you gotta avoid them"/"No you actually don't"
"Sugar is addicting"/"No it's not"
"Eating fruit will make you healtier"/"No it won't"
Etc.

Jesus Christ.

This is so true, especially if you're not already knee deep into nutrition as a subject, if you're just trying to figure out stuff for the first time, you see a lot of people pushing their side of the argument as the obvious truth, until you hear the opposite from another source, sold with just as much fervor.

It's really confusing if you're new to this stuff.


Ketosis being the biggest recent example I can think of.

 

[PerkeyMan]

I swear to god, trying to be informed about nutritionism is the worst, it feels like nothing it's actually reliable and everything is going to be debunked by some other new research or whatever.

"You NEED to drink a bottle of water every day"/"No you actually don't"
"You NEED to eat small portions of food every three hours"/"No you actually don't"
"You NEED to have breakfast every day or otherwise your metabolism is going to be fucked up"/"No you actually don't"
"Carbs are literally Hitler you gotta avoid them"/"No you actually don't"
"Sugar is addicting"/"No it's not"
"Eating fruit will make you healtier"/"No it won't"
Etc.

Jesus Christ.

I agree that is extremely difficult to filter what’s correct and what's not. And I know that several people get the impression that the facts change regularly, but this is not true. One of the reasons are newspapers "cherrypicking" studies about X (and ignores the entire field of research about X) and draws a conclusion. This is why you might get the impression that one week fruit is bad and one week it’s not. Basically don’t listen to the popular media.

You should also ignore people who shout “it’s a conspiracy” when their arguments/world view are questioned (LCHF-gurus for example).

And when it comes to your list:
"You NEED to drink a bottle of water every day"/"No you actually don't /Drink when your thirsty
"You NEED to eat small portions of food every three hours"/"No you actually don't"
"You NEED to have breakfast every day or otherwise your metabolism is going to be fucked up"/"No you actually don't"
"Carbs are literally Hitler you gotta avoid them"/"No you actually don't"
"Sugar is addicting"/"No it's not"
"Eating fruit will make you healtier"/"No it won't"

 

[Fritz]

Try to learn to really listen to your body and stop eating anything processed.

 

[biggersmaller]

That 40% figure is so high it's almost unbelievable to me. It just doesn't seem that if I were to line up 100 random adults off the street nearly half would be obese (not overweight).

I could find no studies to back my disbelief, so I guess I'm struggling with my own denial. I also live in Minnesota where "only" 27% of us are obese - but even that seems nuts.

 

[Izuna]

Eat Vietnamese food since it is the best cuisine anyway.

 

[Spuck-uk]

We need to ask Asians for their secret.

The secret is: Not eating a shitty diet with massive portions of carbs and chugging down giant mugs of soda.

The portions of food in the US are absurd compared to most of the rest of the world, and your addiction to sugar is killing you.

Yes vegetables are more expensive than fast food, that's not an excuse, your fresh food prices are still lower than most of the western world.

 

[LegendofDragoonLives]

You can eat whatever you want as long as you keep your calories in check.

Sometimes American salads have more cals than our burgers btw.

Don't know what the solution is. Honestly food is one of the few reliable pleasures people have in their life. And most people don't have the self control to exercise or control their diet. Bad combo.

what are they putting in them

 

[Randomizer123454444]

40%?? That's a lot. Well my country had 25% or so, so it's not like we are doing much better.

I swear to god, trying to be informed about nutritionism is the worst, it feels like nothing it's actually reliable and everything is going to be debunked by some other new research or whatever.

"You NEED to drink a bottle of water every day"/"No you actually don't"
"You NEED to eat small portions of food every three hours"/"No you actually don't"
"You NEED to have breakfast every day or otherwise your metabolism is going to be fucked up"/"No you actually don't"
"Carbs are literally Hitler you gotta avoid them"/"No you actually don't"
"Sugar is addicting"/"No it's not"
"Eating fruit will make you healtier"/"No it won't"
Etc.

Jesus Christ.

I have taken a "plug the holes" approach to my diet. I only eat as much as I need to not feel awful. After that I try to eat foods that give me certain benefits, rather than focus on things "YOU NEED TO DO".

Examples:
- I get dehydrated very easily so I need to keep that in mind when planning my diet.
- Just enough protein so I recover from exercises (4 times a week)
- So on

Might not be the optimal way to do a diet but my "fix what is wrong with me" -approach works for me. Beyond that I just add random fruits, vegetables and other "not unhealthy" stuff.

 

[Rockandrollclown]

what are they putting in them

Cheese, breaded maybe fried, chicken, shitloads of croutons, ranch dressing

 

[McBryBry]

I'm part of the problem. I have no willpower to avoid bad foods, though I have been making effort towards less fast food and more ramen noodles/pb&j/whatever else for lunch. I've also cut out regular soda for water and diet. I just can't stick to a strict diet. Living with my grandparents, whatever they're making for dinner sounds and tastes a lot better than a diet.

Also, having a sedentary job, when I get home all I want to do is either sleep, chill out, play video games. I fucking hate working out, no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise.

 

[HariKari]

I swear to god, trying to be informed about nutritionism is the worst, it feels like nothing it's actually reliable and everything is going to be debunked by some other new research or whatever.

"You NEED to drink a bottle of water every day"/"No you actually don't"
"You NEED to eat small portions of food every three hours"/"No you actually don't"
"You NEED to have breakfast every day or otherwise your metabolism is going to be fucked up"/"No you actually don't"
"Carbs are literally Hitler you gotta avoid them"/"No you actually don't"
"Sugar is addicting"/"No it's not"
"Eating fruit will make you healtier"/"No it won't"
Etc.

Jesus Christ.

Most people need to drink more water
The small portions thing is personal preference, it's not based on science. You can eat one meal a day if you want.
Same thing for breakfast, completely optional
Don't need carbs unless you're extremely active, so cut as many as possible
Sugar is definitely addictive, cut as much as possible
Everything in moderation

 

[trembli0s]

what are they putting in them

Ridiculous fat bomb dressings. There's a place here in town where I order their buttermilk garlic salad dressing because I could mainline that stuff but it's hilariously unhealthy. At home it's always a vinaigrette.

 

[trembli0s]

I'm part of the problem. I have no willpower to avoid bad foods, though I have been making effort towards less fast food and more ramen noodles/pb&j/whatever else for lunch. I've also cut out regular soda for water and diet. I just can't stick to a strict diet. Living with my grandparents, whatever they're making for dinner sounds and tastes a lot better than a diet.

Also, having a sedentary job, when I get home all I want to do is either sleep, chill out, play video games. I fucking hate working out, no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise.

I've never had a weight issue but definitely have a will power issue. Honestly, moving out is the extreme solution but it works. When I lived on my own I never bought ice cream or regular sodas. Starting to cook for myself also made it easier to deal with cutting out the really delicious snacks like Cheezeits/chips that I love.

I'm back home for a spell before I move States and living at the house with two kids has made me realize how little willpower I have if the food is easily available.

 

[God Dayumm]

That 40% figure is so high it's almost unbelievable to me. It just doesn't seem that if I were to line up 100 random adults off the street nearly half would be obese (not overweight).

I could find no studies to back my disbelief, so I guess I'm struggling with my own denial. I also live in Minnesota where "only" 27% of us are obese - but even that seems nuts.

That's because some of them can't even leave the house

 

[Teh Lurv]

Most people need to drink more water
The small portions thing is personal preference, it's not based on science. You can eat one meal a day if you want.
Same thing for breakfast, completely optional
Don't need carbs unless you're extremely active, so cut as many as possible
Sugar is definitely addictive, cut as much as possible
Everything in moderation

I wouldn't recommend one meal a day, as I understand it the body will more aggressively hold onto fat and lower your metabolism if you load up your daily food intake into a single meal. It's better to spread the same amount of calories throughout the day as small meals.

I can attest to cutting suger/carbs. About 10 years ago I was about 275lbs and finally got serious about losing the weight. I slowly started dialing back the suger/carbs I took in. After the first two months of feeling miserable and not seeing much progress, my body flipped a switch and I started shedding the weight (about 1lb a week). I eventually got down to 190lbs after two years, but it's still a struggle to keep the weight off. Getting older and everything around me being infused with unneeded sugar and carbs doesn't help.

 

[Rekwest]

We need to ask Asians for their secret.

Rice and seafood work 14 hours every day.

 

[God Dayumm]

I swear to god, trying to be informed about nutritionism is the worst, it feels like nothing it's actually reliable and everything is going to be debunked by some other new research or whatever.

"You NEED to drink a bottle of water every day"/"No you actually don't"
"You NEED to eat small portions of food every three hours"/"No you actually don't"
"You NEED to have breakfast every day or otherwise your metabolism is going to be fucked up"/"No you actually don't"
"Carbs are literally Hitler you gotta avoid them"/"No you actually don't"
"Sugar is addicting"/"No it's not"
"Eating fruit will make you healtier"/"No it won't"
Etc.

Jesus Christ.

Who says you don't need to drink even a bottle of water?

 

[HariKari]

I wouldn't recommend one meal a day, as I understand it the body will more aggressively hold onto fat and lower your metabolism if you load up your daily food intake into a single meal. It's better to spread the same amount of calories throughout the day as small meals.

No evidence of that. In fact, fasting long enough to have one meal a day has benefits. Metabolism changes tend to occur over weeks, not hours. Meal frequency is more about diet adherence than anything else. Do what works for you.

 

[Randomizer123454444]

Most people need to drink more water
The small portions thing is personal preference, it's not based on science. You can eat one meal a day if you want.
Same thing for breakfast, completely optional
Don't need carbs unless you're extremely active, so cut as many as possible
Sugar is definitely addictive, cut as much as possible
Everything in moderation

Excellent advice, you can over-eat fruits too if you try. Just harder to do that than over-eating fast food.

I wouldn't recommend one meal a day, as I understand it the body will more aggressively hold onto fat and lower your metabolism if you load up your daily food intake into a single meal. It's better to spread the same amount of calories throughout the day as small meals.

I can attest to cutting suger/carbs. About 10 years ago I was about 275lbs and finally got serious about losing the weight. I slowly started dialing back the suger/carbs I took in. After the first two months of feeling miserable and not seeing much progress, my body flipped a switch and I started shedding the weight (about 1lb a week). I eventually got down to 190lbs after two years, but it's still a struggle to keep the weight off. Getting older and everything around me being infused with unneeded sugar and carbs doesn't help.

Eh, only an issue if you are prone to binge eating. Eating constantly and at set times helps you form a routine that you are able to follow. Eating once a day means a bigger meal which for some people might trigger eating more and more and more and...

16/8 eating has done wonders for me. 16h without eating, eat everything in same 8h window. Which is ~4pm to midnight for me. In practice this is 2 meals or so. I skip breakfast and eat nothing while at work. Took a bit getting used to but I can drop up to a pound a week now.

 

[jmdajr]

It's amazing how much stuff you would eliminate from the grovery store if we banned sugar and flour.

Not saying that's a solution to obesity , but like 70 percent of everything or more would be gone.

 

[texhnolyze]

They're subsidizing different foods, and they have smaller portion sizes, even at unhealthy restaurants like McDonalds.

Here's what a regular person in my country would order for lunch/dinner at McDonalds.

How bad is it in the US?

 

[Sulik2]

what are they putting in them

Fried chicken, bacon, loads of dressing and in cases like McDonalds they actually sugar the salads. The amount of dressing restaurants dump on salads is insane.

 

[Aiustis]

Here's what a regular person in my country would order for lunch/dinner at McDonalds.

How bad is it in the US?

There are loads of fastfood options.
All of them are bad.

 

[poppabk]

It's amazing how much stuff you would eliminate from the grovery store if we banned sugar and flour.

Not saying that's a solution to obesity , but like 70 percent of everything or more would be gone.

Bye bye most fresh vegetables and fruit. Hello Crisco.