Re: "Famine in previous generations"

There are a lot of countries in that graph that had a certain amount of hunger/ food rationing/ black markets between the 1930s and the 1950s (a bit later in South Korea's case) because of their respective periods of war postwar (Spanish Civil War, WW2, Korea). This undernourishment of a generation can affect them (who are dying out now), their children and their grandchildren (grandmothers that STUFF YOU UP when you visit them because feeding shows love and seeing plump children is way better than seeing the malnourished children they remember from the lean years: we know them).

I really don't know if the trends would be replicated in countries not directly affected by WW2 like, say, Argentina, but postwar hunger *does* have a lingering effect in the minds of people.

The whole victim blaming in the obesity discussion is really annoying.

I recently read a pretty good point on the whole obesity issue and the very disgusting victim blaming it often brings with it:

It's not that obese people couldn't lose weight. But they have a much harder time at it. Due to various factors, usually beyond their control, it's much harder to keep an energy balance.

The list in the article is part of it. There are tons of factors that all make it hard, including genetic factors, and quite a lot of those make it harder for some people than for others. These factors are outside of the control of those people. Blaming them for it is blaming them for something they can't possibly control.

So, from a lean person, saying that obese people "just lack control" is a statement from privilege. Be happy that it is so easy for you. Other people have a much harder time at it. And, possibly just as important, not everyone wants to, or is happy to, conform to the social expectation for our bodies.

As a formerly obese person, I find it important, though, to also note that it _is_ possible to lose weight. It's very important to note here that you do not _have_ to. If you are happy with your body, awesome! Enjoy it. But if you, personally, for yourself, _want_ to lose weight, you can. All too often, in an attempt to (rightly!) defend obese people from attacks, we tend towards a position that deprives obese people of the control over their bodies, by exaggerating "it's not their fault" into "they can't do anything about it anyhow". It's not their fault. But if they are unhappy, they can do something about it.

This is where "calories in/calories out" comes in. It's the tool we can use to change our bodies–if, and only if, we, personally want to. But if we do, we can.

And that question, whether you want to lose weight or whether you are happy with your body as is, is a question between you and yourself only. Well, maybe your doctor. But in the end, that's also just advice. It's certainly not for anyone else to tell you what to do with your body, and most certainly not for random strangers to holler some stupid insults around.

Although the Aeon article only talks about BMI twice, I think that it's safe to make the assumption that many of the studies (at least among humans) it describes will have defined obesity based on BMI. However, there is (rarely) any thought about the validity of the assumptions about BMI itself.

Back in 2009, I read this really insightful article about the problems behind some of those assumptions:

http://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/devlin_05_09.html

The take-away about BMI (and research that defines obesity from the BMI) is this:

The BMI was formulated, by a mathematician, not a medical physician, to provide a simple, easy-to-apply mathematical formula to give a broad, society-level measure of weight issues. It has absolutely no scientific or medical basis. It is based purely on a crude statistical analysis. It measures a general society trend, it does not predict.

"If you ever want to have an opinion on fat again, read Berreby now."

No, you do not have to read Berreby, because he is saying absolutely nothing new. There is no official health organization that does not point to the causes of obesity as being extremely complex, as having a social, cultural, environmental, economic, technological etc. scope.

What Berreby does do is write with ludicrous, impassioned language that effectively silences anyone who dares to speak of the inclusion of personal responsibility in the obesity equation. He concludes by taking a wild leap of faith that someday we will realize that individual responsibility is not part of the discussion at all, even comparing it to when mothers were falsely blamed for their autistic children. (This in particular upsets me, given that he is a science writer and ought to have a good enough working knowledge of both autism and obesity to know how deeply flawed this analogy is.) Berreby is being both intellectually and scientifically dishonest.

Lisa is also being intellectually dishonest for pitting Berreby against a simplistic, dumbed down "model" which no health professional or health governing body actually follows, and also for conflating personal responsibility with victim-shaming. The causes and effects of obesity must always, always be spoken of in a way that reconciles both collective and individual agency and responsibility, and anyone who attempts to obscure one of the two, as Berreby does, or someone who reduces the preventable causes of a medical crisis down to the "Everything causes X" fallacious argument, as Lisa does, is the LAST person you should read if you want to form an opinion on "fat".

For any interested readers, note that young Korean *women* are actually becoming more UNDERWEIGHT, despite the (male and female) population becoming more obese overall. As far as I know, Korea is the only country in the OECD where this is occurring:

"In the context of this societal rise in overweight and obesity, the
demographic of young women presents a distinct contrast. A 2010 study by
Y.H. Khang and S.C. Yun revealed a definite rise in “underweight” BMI
among young Korean women. Based on findings from four Korean National
Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, which encompassed data from
22,995 men and women aged 20 and over, Khang et al. noted a
statistically significant rise in underweight rates among women aged
20–39, from 8.2% in 1998 to 13.2% in 2007 [Fig. 2]. 6 Even considered within Korea’s generally low rates of obesity and overweight, the direction of this trend toward underweight uniquely
among the demographic of women aged 20–39 is an important finding that
demands greater study. Given trends toward greater obesity, both
internationally and within Korean society, what factor(s) contribute to
this rise in underweight?"

Read the full article here: http://expose.fas.harvard.edu/issues/issue_2012/hellgren.html

Everyone can complain about BMI all he/she wants but this chart shows what it was intended for--a rough gauge of health on the average.

The gif below (I presume most have already seen it) shows the BMI state averages in the nation from 1989 to 2009--it's pretty horrific.

As usual, Cracked.com is an exemplary repository of knowledge.

http://www.cracked.com/funny-4180-diet-products/

Comparing and contrasting mainstream media response to obesity vs. anorexia is interesting. When it comes to obesity the media has eagerly taken on a role of police, judge and jury, and a bit of surgeon general on the side. They have assumed the responsibility to control this "epidemic" with gusto. With anorexia, on the other hand, they are clearly not responsible. There is nothing that they can do, nothing that they ever did. It's all about the individual's genetics and their personal, idiosyncratic traits that have no connection or interaction with culture or society. It's a disease that society cannot do anything about.

Glad to see heavy metals making the list (they usually don't).

Arsenic specifically is a thyroid disruptor and as far as I know is still being added to chicken feed (has been for a long time). It was finally phased out of pressure treated wood and a couple years after it was banned in lumber the rate of obesity rise leveled off, which may or may not be a coincidence just like the fact that the most chicken farms and pressure treated wood factories are in the Southeast which also happens to be where the highest rates of obesity in the U.S. are found.

So we get arsenic-laced chicken from farms whose runoff also contains arsenic (that ends up in streams and rivers and municipal water supplies). We eat our spicy arsenic chicken and wash it down with arsenic water while eating it on old arsenic-infused picnic tables while watching the kids play on playground equipment made of old arsenic-treated wood.

Arsenic leaches into soil and gets on our hands if we touch treated wood when it's wet and the soil under playground equipment made from CCA-treated wood has been found to contain extremely high levels (some of the highest in urban landscapes). While each individual exposure is to a relatively small amount it adds up fast when exposure is chronic (unless a kid eats any of the dirt found under playground equipment, which they do occasionally and few probably wash their hands after playing before eating their lunch). So yeah, I'd say arsenic/ heavy metal toxicity is likely causal factor in a whole lot of cases. And that's just arsenic; there are plenty of other troubling things in animal feed and our water supply nowadays (antibiotics, hormones, etc.) that may be playing a part either individually or by synergizing with other compounds/pollutants.
These links lead to articles that cite peer-reviewed papers:
http://neurologicalcorrelates.com/wordpress/2008/11/06/does-environmental-arsenic-contamination-cause-obesity-by-disrupting-thyroid-hormone-mediated-gene-regulation/
http://neurologicalcorrelates.com/wordpress/2009/07/10/friday-dysfunctional-roundup-things-time-mag-ignores-in-reporting-on-obesity-in-the-southern-usa/
http://neurologicalcorrelates.com/wordpress/2012/04/06/arsenic-in-the-chickens-revisited/

lab animals on controlled diets are getting fatter too

We're severely kidding ourselves if we think that individual responsibility & personal choice don't play a huge, even predominant, role here. Choices have consequences and, just like Walt & Skyler White are learning, my choice to eat a Big Mac for lunch & a Popeye's 3 piece for dinner might result in consequences I don't like. This cannot be called victim blaming.

Now, no doubt, the increased volume of processed food, the easy availability of fast food, the decreased level of physical activity, and increasing proliferation of digital over physical entertainment has contributed. Frankly all of these factors are a direct result of increased real wealth across the globe. Even tho income inequality has increased in the US, real wealth--even for the poor--has risen dramatically over the last 100 yrs. That is why we have processed food, fast food, video games, and big screen TVs to comfort us. In other parts of the globe--esp the Middle East, Asia, and Australia--real wealth has also dramatically increased. Go back to the 1500s & even then wealth was correlated with weight (see: a picture of King Henry VIII).

And, considering the role of stress, does anyone really believe that people a hundred years ago were LESS stressed? Back then you didn't have a social safety net & you had to worry abt things like World Wars, the Spanish Flu Pandemic, Wall Street Booms & Busts, riots, lynchings, and other things. Women might work at home but they had 10 children to raise, and half of them might very well die. How was the world of 1913 conceivably less stressful than today's world?

Look on YouTube at reruns of TV dance programs from the 1960s, and the difference is shocking. Kids were thin as poles. Now, they flow out over their belts.

Embrace fat. Fat (not overly obese) people live longer, live happier lives and have better sex. Who wants a bony ass?

"conform to the social expectation for our bodies."

I think there is a dangerous idea in there. The idea that not being obese is just a "social expectation". First of all, the evidence is undeniable that obesity increases the risk of all sorts of diseases ultimately significantly lowering the life expectancy of obese people. Telling someone it's ok is not doing them any favors.

Further, besides all of that, you get one life to live and it's a big world out there with lot's of things to do and experience. Being obese makes it harder and less pleasurable to just go out and do things. Having a lot of weight to carry around makes one more prone to sitting around at home. It also makes summer heat unbearable.

Even if all of the social stigma of being obese were to disappear and everyone felt beautiful obesity would still cause people to live shorter and less fulfilling lives. Let's not try to convince people that that is ok!

For most of human history, eating too much when it was available was an important survival strategy. Now that food is readily available and cheap, it is no surprise that our hard wired survival strategies work against us. It is up to us, and our uniquely abstract-thinking brain to over-ride this instinct and eat less.

fatties will blame everything

This would have been a lot more useful if actual data had been presented. The Aeon article pulls what? Two lab animal types. No mention if this is two lines or averages across lines. The data given for them is in percentage gain per decade and no mention as to how much of current obesity it could explain. If it isn't much, then it's really not worth all that text.

I have to revise my previous comment a bit after watching

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

This is a _must_ watch for everybody here.

Fructose, as in HFCS (High Fructose Corn Sirup) is the main culprit. A calorie is not a calorie, i.e. there are good calories (glucose) and bad ones(fructose). This explains some of the comments from people who did not loose weight even while dieting.

But the fact still remains if you take in too many calories (especially of the bad, fructose, kind and that is what we do by virtue of what is on the supermarket shelf) and don't exercise you'll get/stay fat.

Add to the list increases in consumption of:

fast food
junk food
processed food
meat and dairy
high fructose corn syrup
portion sizes
plastic

pesticides and other chemicals in our environment

I have listed 97 putative causes of obesity at http://www.downeyobesityreport.com/2013/08/update-97-putative-causes-of-obesity/

Also worth noting: the BMI definition of "overweight" and "obese" has changed over the years. People are "overweight" now who would not have been defined as overweight 15 years ago.

It seems like most people who have commented really did not get this article (perhaps they didn't even read it). Read it again while bracketing your knee-jerk assumptions.

The virulence, hatred, and defensivness they show in defense of the "its all self-control" argument is remarkable. It says far more about them than they realize. Why are people so irrationally committed to this form of social prejudice and status?

The thing that annoys me the most about the majority of discussions about obesity is the assumption that people who are fat eat poorly, or eat too much. It is not always true, and I suspect that we would understand a heck of a lot more about human metabolism, disease, and the effects of various environmental and genetic factors if most researchers and medical professionals did not automatically assume that a person who is fat is consuming more calories than they should.

The observation that drastically reducing calorie intake does not always lead to weight loss has been discussed a million times and the existence of "starvation mode" is widely accepted, fat people are still implicitly viewed as over-consumers. Until this changes and the actual physical diversity of people who happen to be fat is taken into account, we will make little progress in the so-called war against obesity.

In the late 1970s / early 1980s the USA and UK Governments changed (reversed) their dietary advice.

http://www.theobesityepidemic.org/introduction/