
The World Is Getting Fatter and No One Knows How to Stop It - rezist808
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-global-obesity/
======
jurassic
It's not a surprise that people become fat in an environment where food is
cheap, delicious, and abundant.

But we do know how to stop it. You just have to eat a little less. A modest,
sustainable change in your diet is all that is needed to make dramatic changes
over a 6-12 month timescale.

Record what you eat to establish an honest food baseline, and reduce from
there. Stop eating all food you don't enjoy, and stop eating when you aren't
hungry.

I put off losing weight for the last decade because of the constant drumbeat
of news, blogs, and anecdotal moaning I heard from everyone about how
impossible it is to lose weight. But after monitoring my food as described
above for 6 months, I am down 20% from my starting weight. Success feels
inevitable now, because the changes I have made are small and sustainable for
me; for example, I still eat candy, but fun size instead of king size. My main
regret is not starting sooner. I lost my 20s to obesity because crash diets
failed me and I listened when people said it wasn't possible.

reddit.com/r/loseit has been an amazing support community for me throughout
this process. I'd encourage y'all to check it out if you want to make a
change.

~~~
sambe
Pretty sad that this is top comment. Obviously increased consumption and
decreased physical activity is the direct cause but everyone here knows this
already. It's not the key problem. The key problem is that for most people
this is hard. And doing it for the rest of your life is almost impossible (for
a significant majority).

The fact that willpower/compliance is the core problem is also sufficiently
well-known that I read this kind of assessment and think "and world peace too:
we just have to get along with each other".

~~~
madaxe_again
Is it hard, or are we told it's hard so often we all take it as a given that
it's hard? Are we told it's super hard so that we will buy an "easy" weight
loss solution that doesn't work?

Hint: it's not hard.

I lost 90 lbs over about six months five years go, and haven't put it back on
- and eating less is easy - saved a small fortune, too.

If anything it's harder putting on and maintaining excess weight - but the
process of getting obese is more immediately gratifying than applying self-
control and seeing the long term gains.

~~~
xlm1717
I do agree that "marketing" is a big part of the problem. We're told over and
over that it's hard, and the only time we're told it's easy is when someone is
trying to sell us some weight loss program.

The first step to winning the battle is gaining some awareness. Barring any
pre-existing condition (especially diabetes), someone who wants to lose weight
should simply start eating less, and slowly so they can gradually get used to
it. Food is so abundant, it's usually not lack of food that makes people feel
hungry, but lack of feeding the food addiction, especially addiction to added
sugars. People should try fasting every once in a while just to see they can
do it and they won't suffer ill effects from feeling hungry for ~16 hours.

The biggest obstacle is convincing yourself you can do it.

------
alecbaldwinlol
Sounds like the solution is contained in the article??

More people are finding that the only work they can find is a desk job working
long hours with a long commute and many expenses to worry about.

Throw in the US' massive subsidies for meat, soy, sugars, a cultural love of
fried food (just go to any restaurant or convenience store)- and voila, you
have a cheap vice for those overworked, unfit people to indulge in.

The solution would be for work to be less hours (more time to exercise), from
home (no commute = live somewhere more active and financially sustainable),
and for all food sources to be unsubsidized, so that people can decide that $2
for a pound of frozen veggies and some sauce is a great deal compared to the
$3 box of oreos/goldfish

------
Houshalter
Everyone knows that obesity is caused by increase in food consumption. Except
there's some evidence that suggests the cause is more complicated. Like why do
Asians less likely to be obese, or some lab animals increasing in weight
despite living in carefully controlled conditions? Why do fat people on diets
have the metabolisms of starving people, and prisoners that intentionally
overeat quickly return to their original weight? Why do separated identical
twins have very similar weights and mortality?

I've been collecting links about this stuff here:
[http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/hpz/open_thread_june_16...](http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/hpz/open_thread_june_1630_2013/coax?context=3)

I'm far from certain that any of it is correct, or have any idea what the real
cause is. But I find it really interesting, and it makes me kind of angry when
people make judgmental comments about fat people or the cause of obesity.

I mean even if it is environmental, it doesn't mean it's easy to control. Most
people who try to diet fail. There's no such thing as free will, and even if a
highly restricted diet would work in theory, we all have animal brains that
can be overwhelmed by powerful desires to fulfill basic needs like eating.
Some people can't stop eating any more than you can hold your breath for 3
minutes. Even if there is nothing physically preventing you from doing so.

One of the articles in the link I posted was about obese people in the 1950's
held in a hospital on a carefully controlled diet. It worked, but the patients
just obsessed about food and acted like starving people, despite being a
normal weight. As soon as they were allowed to leave the hospital, they
quickly returned to their normal weights.

~~~
yummyfajitas
The phenomenon of people quickly returning to their "normal weight" is
explained perfectly by the Harris-Benedict equation. You can literally
translate Harris-Benedict (i.e. calories in/calories out) into a differential
equation, solve it, and get these results. Other immediate results include
rapid weight loss at the start of a diet but very slow weight loss at the end.

[https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2011/weight_stability.htm...](https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2011/weight_stability.html)

Many of the "complicated" phenomena are simply people not doing the math and
not understanding what the simple model actually predicts.

~~~
Houshalter
That doesn't really fit with this part of my link:

>Before the diet began, the fat subjects’ metabolism was normal — the number
of calories burned per square meter of body surface was no different from that
of people who had never been fat. But when they lost weight, they were burning
as much as 24 percent fewer calories per square meter of their surface area
than the calories consumed by those who were naturally thin.

...

And even if it was as simple as Calories in Calories out, it doesn't explain
why some people want to eat more food than others:

>The Rockefeller subjects also had a psychiatric syndrome, called semi-
starvation neurosis, which had been noticed before in people of normal weight
who had been starved. They dreamed of food, they fantasized about food or
about breaking their diet. They were anxious and depressed; some had thoughts
of suicide. They secreted food in their rooms. And they binged.

I'm also not disputing that rapid weight loss is possible. But then why don't
most people that try radical diets experience it? Yet those who gained weight
unnaturally seem to lose the weight effortlessly in months.

>The implications were clear. There is a reason that fat people cannot stay
thin after they diet and that thin people cannot stay fat when they force
themselves to gain weight. The body’s metabolism speeds up or slows down to
keep weight within a narrow range. Gain weight and the metabolism can as much
as double; lose weight and it can slow to half its original speed.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I said "Many complicated phenomenon", not all.

Obviously Harris-Benedict - which is not a theory of the mind - will not
explain why I'm obsessed with food while others don't care.

~~~
Houshalter
The point is it doesn't explain anything. Otherwise the fat people who had
lost weight would have the same metabolisms as people naturally their weight.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Metabolism (like mental state) is exogenous to Harris-Benedict so claiming it
fails to predict metabolism is entirely besides the point.

Harris-Benedict does explain "prisoners that intentionally overeat quickly
return to their original weight" and "As soon as they [people on restricted
diets in lab conditions] were allowed to leave the hospital, they quickly
returned to their normal weights."

These are exactly predictions of Harris-Benedict (with metabolism held
constant).

~~~
Houshalter
What is it predicting exactly? Just that weight loss should be rapid? But that
doesn't seem to be generally true except in these special cases.

------
earljwagner
It's not just people getting fatter, it's pets and even lab mice:
[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/08/the...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/08/the-
animals-are-also-getting-fat.html)

------
xiaopingguo
Seems more like people are refusing to listen to those who do actually know
how to stop it. The resistance to LCHF/IF I've seen and experienced has been
ridiculous. People just do not want to change or give up their precious
carbs/sweets.

Of course LCHF promoters can do a lot more about concerns with sustainability,
animal exploitation/ethics, convenience and so on, but anyone interested in
fixing this problem already has the knowledge and tools to do so.

~~~
victorhooi
Yeah, I've yet to jump on this whole low-carb fad...lol.

Look, I'm not saying it doesn't work for some people, or some people just
don't like the taste of bread/pasta - but to sell it as some instant weight-
loss cure, or a magic cure-all for illness is overdoing it a bit.

It's like saying, I'm only going to eat seafood - damn, everybody else should
eat seafood as well!

Ultimately, just being aware about what you eat - whether it is not eating
eating carbohydrates, or only eating seafood, or only eating organic food from
a certain brand - is better than just mindlessly eating what's in front of
you, or near to hand.

The article states:

> The causes of the worldwide weight gain are complicated, and the story is
> different from country to country. There are some common trends: Rising
> incomes, global trade, changing food supplies, and declines in physical
> activity all contribute.

Basically - we're eating more, and exercising less.

So if we did the opposite - ate less, and exercised more - that would go some
way to reversing the trend.

How exactly you choose to do those things is really a personal preference - I
don't think we should prescribe that you need to do by eating less
carbohydrates.

~~~
xiaopingguo
Calling something a fad or saying it is too complex to be solved is also part
of the willful blindness people seem to have on this issue.

I think it is all part of a trend of outsourcing ownership of your health to
doctors and hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry, all of whom have
financial disincentives to really fix this issue. Nassim Taleb's writings on
iatrogenics was really eye-opening in this regard.

~~~
victorhooi
I'm not really sure where you get the idea I'm claiming it's "too complex to
solve"?

In fact, I said the exact _opposite_. It's very simple - eat less, and
exercise more.

How you choose to do that is up to you.

To your other point - calling it a fad - it is most certainly a fad.

There are entire books and TV shows devoted to this low-carbohydrate
phenomenon.

I've had friends who were previously •completely* uninterested in their health
jump up and down in front of me, talking about how going "low-carb" changed
their life, and how I should stop eating those evil carbohydrates, and stop
eating so much fruit (I confess, I do eat a lot of fruit).

But try to get them to go for a run at lunchtime? Or reduce their portion
size? Not on yoru life...lol.

And your final point, about "outsourcing ownership of your health to doctors
and hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry"....I'm not really sure where
you got that from my post.

Although now you do mention it - I do happen to trust doctors/hospitals. I
don't believe they're in some vast conspiracy - on the whole, I think they're
looking out for us. Their advice has been pretty constant for the last century
or so.

Get fresh air, exercise, and eat things in moderations. I mean, if you think
there's an "exercise lobby group", or a "eat smaller portions" conglomerate
who are out to get you, sure.

But it's a bit like saying - "I have a cold, but my doctor said I should get
some bed rest and drink lots of water" \- conspiracy!

[http://www.theonion.com/article/powerful-rest-and-fluids-
ind...](http://www.theonion.com/article/powerful-rest-and-fluids-industry-
influencing-doct-2634)

Gosh, I love the Onion...haha.

Anyhow - summary - I don't think caring about what you eat is necessarily bad
thing - just the very act of being conscious or what you're putting in your
body is a good thing. But I think general guidelines - like, eat different
foods in moderation are better, and easier for people to stick to over time.

------
smn1234
I'm starting to think more and more the culprit is easy access to alcohol
(bars everywhere, large quantities and selections of beverages in stores
everywhere) - which pauses your metabolism to be broken down as it cannot be
stored by the body, and the ease of purchasing sugary (everywhere, in
everything!) foods.

In addition, humans used to live in towns where they'd always be walking
around whereas the now suburban lifestyles require cars to get around and so
less exercise.

~~~
nikanj
Traditionally the europeans have consumed much more alcohol, yet remained
slimmer

~~~
trhway
my wife visibly slimmed down as result of spending 2 weeks in Paris. She
indulged in all the great food there, especially pastries, without
limitations. Of course she didn't have car there, lived on Montmartre and
walked those stairs.

------
prawn
The problem is that the easiest ways to lose weight often cost less or nothing
so there is no financial incentive for business to advertise them. That means
they don't hit the media because there's no PR driving it, they're not on TV
or radio and on it goes.

Eating less is cheaper than eating more. Drinking water instead of sugary
drinks is free or cheaper, assuming you avoid bottled water. Walking more is
free. Running is free.

Instead, the things you see advertised are: big meals, value for money eating,
exercise equipment, gym memberships, soft drinks, juices, supplements (my god,
the advertising of supplements in Australia is insane).

And so, because of the onslaught of advertising, people think the ab-roller is
going to eliminate their gut or they're tempted by the advertising of treats
or "healthy" juice and so on.

~~~
miseg
I agree whole-heartedly.

The one point they kind of sold me on is supplements, as in vitamins and
minerals. The argument is that even fresh veg these days don't contain the
same amount of nutrients as before, so it's a "good idea" to top up with
supplements.

------
Torkel
I think robotics will solve this issue.

Today, automated cooking makes food that is unhealthy. Industrially processed
food equals bad food. I think this is a large part of the reason for obesity.
There is so little healthy food that is cheap and requires no manual effort to
cook.

With sufficiently advanced robotics, the equation changes. All food that
humans can cook well today becomes available with no cooking-cost. The
availability of tasty and healthy food, at low cost, with no effort involved
in preparing it, should be a game changer in more ways than one - and obesity
ought to go down.

(Side-note: that the cost of cooking today is not in money, but in effort and
time, doesn't make it less deterring but rather more so.)

~~~
akerro
In future robots will make it worse, because the wealthiest 1% will control
the robots with patents and money, they don't care what you eat, so you won't
decide about it. Less and less people will care.

------
kinai
One of the big reasons: education.

I bet most here never had nutrition/sport theory in school, I did have that.
If you know how your body works, how food is processed internally and what is
good/bad fats/sugars/carbs then it is not hard to eat healthy. I don't do much
sport and still don't gain. The rest is selfdiscipline

~~~
madaxe_again
We called it "biology" when I was at school.

Do people really not notice the correlation between eating crappy food and
feeling like crap?

You literally are what you eat.

~~~
kinai
We had this as extra courses, Biology was another one, different.

------
seele
It is clearly known how to do this. I lost 15 kg in 3 months after changing my
eating habits and I can tell it is simple (but not necessarily easy).

Key changes to introduce to your diet: 1\. Eat less carbohydrates, especially
those with high glycemic index (eg. pasta, pizza, bread). Ideally replace them
with beans, lentils, peas (they have lower glycemic index). 2\. Remove alcohol
from your diet. It is highly caloric and increases your insulin levels (which
will make you eat more). 3\. Remove sugar and sweets from your diet. Use
xylitol as alternative to sugar (it has lower glycemic index).

Additionally: 1\. Drink water, avoid soft drinks, juices or milk. Do not add
sugar or milk to your coffee. 2\. Eat more protein (fish, chicken, beef,
eggs). 3\. Eat more high quality fats (fish oil, nut oil, olive oil, coconut
oil). 4\. Eat more vegetables, but avoid potato, sweet potato, corn. 5\. To
maintain results, motivation and high energy - excercise (eg. running, gym)
for 1 hour every 2-3 days. It will make you feel great, after 1-2 months you
will start missing the training day :) 6\. Let yourself enjoy anything, in any
quantity once in a week (but consider avoiding alcohol) to deal with your
cravings and temporarily boost metabolism.

The advice is based on Tim Ferris recommendations from his "4 Hour Body" book
[1]. I followed it and it simply works.

[1] [http://fourhourbody.com/](http://fourhourbody.com/)

------
felhr
There is an industry pushing us to eat more, there is another industry pushing
us to lost weight through exercise but there is no one pushing us to lost
weight through fasting.

~~~
raincom
Yeah, fasting is cheaper than exercise and eating.

------
otabdeveloper1
> ...and No One Knows How to Stop it

Well, actually, we do. Just stop eating sugar like it's food. (Yes, I know
it's addictive, that's part of the problem.)

------
vixen99
There shouldn't be a 'we' stopping it, at least not in a free society. As it
is, every individual does know how to stop it, should it be a problem. This
isn't to belittle the difficulty experienced by most of us in putting that
knowledge into action by selecting and restricting what one consumes.

The UK Government's sugar tax disproportionately hits the poor and only
applies to some sugary foods. Indeed,sugar consumption per capita has been
falling. Which food will be taxed next? Ultimately it's up to individuals to
solve their own problems. If people elect to spend what money they have on
healthy foods, suppliers will meet the challenge because that's their
business.

[ Correction: all foods are healthy though not if you eat inappropriate
amounts of them. ]

~~~
roel_v
"Ultimately it's up to individuals to solve their own problems."

Sure, but the problem is the externalities. We don't say 'it's up to factories
to solve their emission problems on their own' either - well, we do, but we
impose limits on their emissions. It's politically (and arguably morally)
infeasible to do the same for weight, so we do the next best thing.

------
fabulist
I would like to believe that, in the future, we'll use bikes for intracity
transit, and few people will own cars, renting them when they need to drive
long distances or move large loads. I think this would help with both obesity
and global warming.

~~~
deepnet
Is anyone working on self-driving bicycles ?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT3vfSQePcs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT3vfSQePcs)

"Daisy, daisy..." sings HAL while pedalling...

------
jimjimjim
your surroundings are doing it. the economy is finely tuned to sell and this
includes food. the approaches to losing weight that work for the individual
will fail when applied to the general population because of reactionary
changes in the economy.

e.g cut out fat = products that have more sugar and salt sell more. cut out
sugar = products that have more fat and salt sell more. end result will still
be bad eating.

------
dawhizkid
cheapest ingredients happen to be carbs and sugar. not a coincidence.

------
sjg007
Eat less, and mostly plants. Drink water.

------
justsaysmthng
Here's a crazy theory of mine - just planting some seeds.

Industrial scale farming is creating "institutionalized" plants - we call them
"fields", but they could be looked at as industrial plant camps, were plants
don't have to do any effort to grow - there are no pests, there is no
competition from other plants, there's plenty of food (fertilizer) and water,
etc. We take care of everything for them so the plants grow up big and "lazy".

Similar thing is happening to farmed animals, who are fed these "lazy" plants
and kept in similar "food camps" in conditions which prevent physical
movement, competition or effort.

Plants or animals, goal is to obtain highest weight in shortest amount of time
in order to increase profits.

I remember the taste of the vegetables from my grandmother's garden. Rich,
full and powerful. Plants were strong, showed signs of fighting for survival -
having scars and being bitten by insects, etc.

My grandmother took care of those plants personally. She talked to them, she
touched them, she collected pests manually. Similar thing with the animals
that she had on her farm.

Of course there was no obesity in my grandmother's village.

I think there is a connection between "lazy" plants and low energy that it
generates in their consumers - be it humans or animals. This "laziness" and
the instruction to grow to large sizes may be transmitted from species to
species by mechanisms which might not be known yet.

~~~
CJefferson
I don't think that's the problem, I think you need to go one level deeper.

I've lost 52kg in the last year, and a large part of that was eating less
processed food. Not because I am a hippy, but because almost every part of
food processing leads to easier to digest, more calorie rich, food.

It is almost impossible to get fat (in my experience) from eating unprocessed
vegetables, leafs, and whole cooked pieces of meat -- the food is mostly not
calorie rich enough. It is however a much more expensive and time consuming
way to live.

~~~
pitchka
Eating veggies and fruits is more expensive? How can that be since one needs
tons of grains to feed a cow, tons of grains to get milk?

I think you've been scammed by the "organic and natural" veggie industry.

As for time consuming, have no idea why. Most of the dishes that I do take
from 15-30 minutes to prepare.

This fear of processed foods is without grounds.

