It's also something you can rebound back into so easily. For an obese person the only solution is a drastic change in lifestyle, which is basically destroying the norm and rebuilding it.
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Study: Obese men and women have <1% chance of attaining a normal weight (mod edit OP)
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It does mention biological changes after living an unhealthy lifestyle for so long but yea, it does sound more general than people permanently physically being unable to lose weight.
Rabbi_Vole
Banned
It's not too tough
But what percentage of obese people give an honest effort to lose the weight? Most people I've seen try some stupid diet for a week and then go back to eating shitty foods, or work out once or twice and give up when they don't see instant results. The percentage is so low because at least from what I've seen most obese people don't have the will or desire to lose their weight.
it's the economy's fault. food's prices have skyrocketed in the last 2 years in my country and something had to be cut.
i do have some days per week that i eat twice though.
Wafflecakes
Member
It is what your confirmation bias implies.
Chance Hale
Member
There isn't a magical way to become skinny and fit again. You have to work at it and get the help you need if you can't handle the mental stress yourself.
I don't feel superior, because what I did wasn't anything to brag about. It just is. I just don't feel much empathy because I actually worked to help myself. My weight gain wasn't even because of eating habits but at the end of the day I was still grossly obese and all the empathy in the world didn't help me lose weight until I decided I would change things.
At the same time I realize I sound like one of those bootstraps people so self reflection is probably in order.
Obviously. I totally agree with all of this. I'm more referring to -and I'm going to be reductionist here- certain situations of people coming out and being proud of being "curvy" and attempting to re-label obesity.
One one hand - I feel like this is a tremendous help for self-worth, acceptance, etc.
On the other hand - I feel like it can potentially hand-wave away serious health conditions, and hurts the fight against obesity.
Open to being educated, just something I think is a fine line.
Hate studies like this.
Its a fact that any human is capable of loosing weight. The psychological challenge exists, yes, but its wildly inaccurate to say "<1%" as if its chance. Or out of the person's hands. Or something that can't be overcome.
Its not. Its a personal health choice anyone, barring extreme mental or physical illness, can make. Publicly condoning defeatism does nothing to help anyone.
Its a fact that any human is capable of loosing weight. The psychological challenge exists, yes, but its wildly inaccurate to say "<1%" as if its chance. Or out of the person's hands. Or something that can't be overcome.
Its not. Its a personal health choice anyone, barring extreme mental or physical illness, can make. Publicly condoning defeatism does nothing to help anyone.
maniac-kun
Member
Dosnt help that the diet industry is full of riddles and mysteries instead of science.
It accounts for everyone, whether they're trying or not. The study approaches it from a prevention standpoint to evaluate whether or not the current approach is effective. It's evidently not. Based on that standpoint, failing to convince people that they need to lose weight in the first place is still a failure.
If you look into it a bit closer the numbers aren't as cataclysmic. The study mentions that you have a 22% chance to retain a weight loss of 5% for 5 years. So basically, you have a 22 % chance of losing weight and keeping it off. The problem is that 5 % isn't enough to get you back to a healthy weight. If you're 180 cm tall and weigh 100 kg you have a BMI of 30,9. In order to get back to a healthy BMI of less than 25, you need to lose at least 20 kg - or in this case, 20 % of you total body mass. That's no small feat.
dreamcastmaster
Banned
Whenever the weight issue comes up, overweight GAF always seems to be like that comic with the punchline "that's totally why I don't have a girlfriend".
Baraka in the White House
2-Terms of Kombat
Apparently not.
The success rate is less dependent on what is required and more on the mindset of the person, right?
I don't think there is anything wrong with the method proposed for losing weight, it's all about whether or not the person truly wants to try.
I don't know how to put that without sounding like "they're all lazy", because that's not what I'm implying; our nutritional education and shitty marketing tactics don't exactly make eating healthy easy...but calling the method for losing weight "garbage" is not very factual.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
I'm of the <1%. Go me.
Wafflecakes
Member
I am sure your experience is 100% representative for the 99% of people who don't manage it.
Obviously they are just lazy and incompetent compared to you.
DragonSworne
Banned
Why?
Ray Wonder
Founder of the Wounded Tagless Children
Would you word it as chance? Or <1% have. I think if you want to, you can.
maniac-kun
Member
Lets all laugh at fat people guys.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
Something to do with metabolism and aging... probably.
Thanks for comparing your admittedly anecdotal experiences to an actual scientific study. That's helpful.
I know that it takes hard work and I'm not arguing that. But this is an area in which broad societal changes will be far more effective than standing on a mountaintop and belittling people for their supposed lack of willpower.
Sorry that the facts don't fit your preexisting simplistic worldview.
OpinionatedCyborg
Member
It doesn't focus on those trying to lose weight.
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
It's habit.
That's why people have a hard time, because they were clearly never taught how to properly eat and teach their body, "No, I don't need anymore food".
We are people of habit, and when you're fat as a kid and taught horrible eating habits at young ages it's going to be incredibly hard to change those habits as you grow older.
When I lost weight I went on a strict caloric deficient diet for two months and lost around 30 pounds. Relatively speaking that wasn't too hard. I was miserable, but it was the following two years and now that are a struggle as I try to lose more weight, let alone maintain the weight loss.
That's why people have a hard time, because they were clearly never taught how to properly eat and teach their body, "No, I don't need anymore food".
We are people of habit, and when you're fat as a kid and taught horrible eating habits at young ages it's going to be incredibly hard to change those habits as you grow older.
When I lost weight I went on a strict caloric deficient diet for two months and lost around 30 pounds. Relatively speaking that wasn't too hard. I was miserable, but it was the following two years and now that are a struggle as I try to lose more weight, let alone maintain the weight loss.
dreamcastmaster
Banned
There's a point that you have obviously missed in your defensiveness. I guess you also assume I'm a skinny.
Given how this thread is going, "obese people have less than 1% chance of successfully losing weight from diet and exercise and lifestyle changes!" is going to pop up with regularity on GAF from here on out, taking a number out of context given the lack of clarity whether the study limited its dataset to obese people trying to lose weight versus obese people.
Wonderful for discourse!
EDIT:
Wonderful for discourse!
EDIT:
Look at it as a lifestyle change instead of diets or whatever that is short term, gotta look at it as something for the long haul. Helps me lose weight. I'm not obese though...
So easy 1% of people manage to do it!
No one ever said it was easy. Simple, usually. Easy, never.
entremet
Member
Metabolism slows down as you age and you lose some muscle mass as well.
Uh, that one's on you my friend. Calories ain't a big secret.
I agree with the overall sentiment though, health education should be revamped and given priority. Once I realized how simple eating right actually is loosing weight wasn't hard.
Sorry the rest of my post blows out your cute pithy remark.
uuaschbaer
Banned
Study: ball has <1% chance of rolling uphill.
Wafflecakes
Member
People in this very thread have said it is easy.
Pretending that it is not a common attitude on gaf is simply wrong.
If I'm reading it right this study is very misleading. It's saying that given 210 obese people, 1 will lose weight. So in other words, this includes people not trying to lose weight.
It says nothing about the difficulty. If someone can link the full study and prove me wrong please do, but according to their own school press that seems to be what they are saying.
It says nothing about the difficulty. If someone can link the full study and prove me wrong please do, but according to their own school press that seems to be what they are saying.
Alligatorjandro
Banned
A lot of it has to do with eating better. But it's not always easy to eat healthy, especially not at home.
I'm curious about this, in this time period, were/are you still doing a caloric deficient diet and not seeing any results anymore, or are you having a hard time doing a caloric deficient diet now?
This is what I got. If the study said the whole sample was actively trying to lose weight I missed it.
Wafflecakes
Member
The study also does not take into account those who put the weight back on, which is the vast majority.
So you have a <1% chance of losing the weight, and then a tiny chance of keeping it off long term.
Lostconfused
Member
That's not really misleading. Its a health problem with supposedly the simplest possible solution ever. The fact that only 1% of people manage to deal with it is a problem.
Are you really? I'd say a lack of empathy is one of the defining characteristics of people here.
Yes. A gradual approach and reduction in consumption is the best way to lose weight and maintain that weight loss. Some people will argue that calories, or carbs, or sugar is what is causing the obesity epidemic and I'm not here to argue that. But I think that almost everybody can agree that in the case of the severely overweight or obese, the single best thing you can do to lose weight is to reduce your portion sizes -- gradually so that you become accustomed to eating less food.
When it comes to weight loss, I agree. Other topics, not as much.
That isn't hopeless at all, it's reality. Obesity is a systemic problem, and changing people's environments and training them as kids to go for healthy foods instead of junk is a far more effective means of ending the problem, instead of just running around shouting "calories in calories out" at grown adults, who have significant issues changing learned behaviors. The obesity results for children have been an issue for years, so we should not be surprised that we now have a bunch of obese adults with unchangeable bad eating habits.
Obesity as a systemic issue is the approach being adopted by US nutrition education programs as well, after 20+ years of trying just the informative approach with adults (some kid education was going on too, don't get me wrong, but the focus is now entirely toward enabling families to raise their kids better and stop the problem before it starts).
I knew what a calorie was, I just didn't know that it was pretty much solely responsible for weight loss. I didn't know weight loss was so simple.
What it does suggest is that willpower, in this regard, is mostly an illusion.
People can "just lose weight, it's so simple" in the same way it's simple to rise out of poverty. "Just go back to college, get a good degree, and then aggressively go job hunting. It's really straightforward!"
Ok? Then lose some weight when you get older and can control what you eat. The study isn't saying it's impossible for fat people to get a normal weight.
The fatties (of which I'm technically part of) have always been an allowed and accepted target because getting fat is a choice.
Again, it's approaching the problem from a preventive medicine standpoint. When you do that the only thing you look at is whether or not your current efforts are effective - in this case what society does to promote healthy weight. If that approach fails because it can't convince people to lose weight it still fails. Lack of personal motivation is not considered an excuse, it's just proof that the current approach doesn't get people motivated.
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