

Increased food intake alone explains the increase in body weight in US - ph0rque
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2009/05/08/increased.food.intake.alone.explains.increase.body.weight.united.states

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nazgulnarsil
Something I haven't seen mentioned in this thread yet: I believe that the
primary reason that we get on whacked out diets is that we're using huge
numbers of substitutes for natural foods which screw up our bodies natural
calibration. The craving you have for "sweets"? yeah, there wasn't any readily
available source of processed sugar in the ancestral environment. That craving
is actually for fruit.

This is a low tech version of wireheading. You're short circuiting the built
in reward mechanisms of the brain by giving it an overload of the things it
considers positive. You crave fat and sugar because these things are rich in
nutrients and energy. We're built for scarcity and can't cope when we have
unlimited access to these things.

Try reducing your intake of junk food and after 2 months you'll find normal
cravings start to return and normal foods tasting better.

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utsmokingaces
Not necessarily true. Asians eat tons more than Americans. their meal portions
are at least 40% more and full of carbs (rice). However, Asian meals are have
more nutrients, often mixed in with a lot of vegetables. Compare that to slabs
of meat and potatoes that Americans like to consume.

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Femur
Food != Calories

The featured article examines calorie intake and not food intake. A pound of
apples has a much lower calorie density than a pound of french fries. Changes
in the TYPE of food consumed (i.e. increase calorie density) agree with the
featured article's conclusions.

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chancho
I don't see where anyone got this confused.

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Femur
The title of this HN posting is "Increased food intake alone explains the
increase in body weight in US"

That is not true. It is "Increased CALORIE intake alone explains the increase
in body weight in US"

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chancho
I don't know about you, but I appreciate posters who copy article titles
verbatim instead of editorializing. As for the article itself, it very clearly
stated that increased energy intake was the culprit. The word "food" by itself
does not indicate a unit of measure. Do they mean calories? Pounds? Liters?
Let me read the first paragraph to find out OH THERE IT IS. It's calories.

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jhawk28
Just before summer has the highest spike (other than New Years) in weight
topics:
[http://www.google.com/trends?q=weight+loss&ctab=0&ge...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=weight+loss&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0)

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latortuga
"...indicating that the increases in energy intake alone over the 30 years
studied could explain the weight increase."

That seems, to me, to be a far cry from "Increased food intake alone explains"
I seem to be smelling a correlation/causation problem.

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ensignavenger
How did they figure out how much food was thrown away or used for non-human
consumption? I think Americans waste a lot of food! If this wasn't accurately
accounted for, it could throw the results way off.

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yesimahuman
Try eating more often but eating less. You aren't so hungry and you get to
look forward to a meal every 2 or 3 hours rather than 5. Plus, it's better for
your metabolism.

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randallsquared
Yeah, but I find that unless I'm vigilant, my portion sizes creep up just a
little every few times I eat the same meal (if I'm fixing it myself). Eating
more often while eating less seems likely to eventually end up with me eating
normal-sized meals 5-6 times a day. :)

One of the major benefits to prepared meals (like frozen dinners) is that you
can't add "just a little" more because you feel hungrier today.

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yesimahuman
I know what you mean, I caught myself doing that at first. What I do now is
make sure the meals I have are very high protein and I eat a little more
slowly. After a week or so I find myself getting satisfied by the smaller
meals.

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noss
Unrelated, but why is calorie still used for food and not kilojoule? I kind of
like the whole SI-unit comparison advantage, for geek values.

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binarycheese
So HFCS has nothing to do with it?

HFSC - High Fructose Corn Syrup

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Retric
One thery for the issue with HFSC(?HFCS) is they reduce the body's ability to
measure how many calories it has consumed which promotes over eating. The
other problem is they tend to be in high calory low nutrition food so people
need to still need to eat nutrent food and the "empty callories" don't really
help.

PS: While I have never heard much mention of this, I suspect people crave food
that contain nutrents they are missing. So hunger is probably a fiarly complex
system that might not be all that robust to "new" food types.

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triplefox
My personal experience with this bears it out; an HFCS soda will be consumed
quickly (and I feel unsatisfied) but a sugar one is better to sip through, and
I get a better sense of its impact as well.

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kingkongrevenge
Taken at face value this only invites the question Why are people eating more?
I think a good answer is reduced dietary fat, which sates, and increased
starch and sugar intake, which screw up insulin levels leading to regular
hunger pangs.

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JabavuAdams
Don't underestimate upward drift in what's considered a normal portion.

When I travel to the US, it feels like they're serving way to much food, from
an urban Canadian perspective. The portions just look huge to me, but
apparently this is considered normal.

When I eat with my parents-in-law (who are perfectly fit), their portions look
small and unsatisfying to me. I'm about 20 pounds overweight. When I eat their
portion size, I don't get hungry -- it just feels like I'm being shorted.

We need to re-calibrate.

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Psyonic
I feel exactly the same way and I've lived in the US all my life. I often take
home enough to have a complete meal the next day. I don't really know why
restaurants serve such gigantic proportions... I guess there are enough people
that eat it all to make it worthwhile.

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jsdalton
Sadly, I think it comes down to simple economics.

The marginal costs to a restaurant of a small amount of additional food on
your plate is minimal. The downsides aren't that great either...assuming the
price to the customer of a bit of extra food is the same, the people who want
extra food will be happy, and those that don't just don't have to eat it.

Now ask that same restaurant to start serving smaller portions, in comparison
with their competition. They haven't really cut too much in costs, but
suddenly they're the guys with wimpy portion sizes, while the restaurant next
door serves up a full, satisfying meal.

I think we're just seeing the result of a market that's catering to the
unfortunate preferences of us, the consumers.

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davidw
Yeah, restaurants/grocery stores definitely compete more on quantity than
quality, at least for some things, in the US, than in "Europe" (meaning that
corner of Europe that I'm familiar with), where people will discriminate
amongst products and buy the better ones.

