This makes me angry.
- If... there is more to obesity than simple thermodynamics, some of the billions spent on individual-centred policies and products may be being wasted. Time, in that case, to try some alternative policies based on alternative theories, and see how they fare.
The reason that health professionals focus on diet and physical activity is because science evidence demonstrates that these have the most positive impact on long term health. The majority of healthcare (inc. social care) spending is on reactive and emergency services. We don't spend anywhere near enough on preventative healthcare and interventions. Tackling social factors (providing education/access/choice) could go a huge way in reducing obesity, increasing physical activity and improving health. Let's not discount it before we have actually given it a go.
People need to take responsibility for their own health. We don't need another excuse to justify why you are fat. We need to provide people with the knowledge and access to make an informed and active choice about their lifestyle.
*edited, realised I had re-framed a sentence without correcting the beginning of it.
I don't think that pointing out that there are many causes of obesity should make you angry. Would it make you angry if one pointed out that there are many social causes of teen pregnancy, even though abstinence works 100% of the time? Articles like this can be important, because they highlight that many things that we perceive as innocuous can be dangerous, although I agree that diet and exercise work without fail.
It is not the content of the article that I find frustrating but the context in which the article is framed. It reads as if we are already doing too much to tackle obesity through the promotion of a healthy lifestyle (diet and exercise) or attempting to overcome the associated social barriers. I think it is important that we understand all of the contributory factors, but let's not undermine the importance of what we already know.
I agree, I agree. But did you get to the part where it talks about "infectobesity"?
- These theories are important for a different reason. Their very existence — the fact that they are plausible, with some supporting evidence and suggestions for further research — gives the lie to the notion that obesity is a closed question, on which science has pronounced its final word. It might be that every one of the ‘roads less travelled’ contributes to global obesity; it might be that some do in some places and not in others. The openness of the issue makes it clear that obesity isn’t a simple school physics experiment.
I think this is fascinating. And terrifying. And I wish there were more hours in the day to work out.
I would say that's possible, but you would have to be in excellent shape. That takes a lot hard work and time. More importantly, it includes a healthy amount of sleep and healthy meals in during that time frame. You'll be surprised that by doing a simple workout like plyometrics. Start there, work hard at it, and you'll experience changes in your way of thinking and physiology. It's hard work, just like anything else. Just like academics, a new trait, dancing, anything.
I used to be overweight. Not by much but then I met crossfit. I walk down the grocery store and all I see is shit on the shelves. Most of the "food" that is pushed out to us isn't really food at all. Really, it's just mostly empty calories. I go to the grocery store and I see a girl my age with a cart full of food. She's slender, but her cart contrasts to mine in that mine had more whole-foods content. I have veggies, meats proteins, whole fruit, etc., whereas hers contained mostly frozen T.V. dinners. Albeit this is a common sight among college-age adults, it still shouldn't be so.
That said, people need to know what they're consuming. Fruity Pebbles is not breakfast. A banana and a granola bar with some OJ might be. There are a lot of industrial chemicals that are used to "clean" and "process" some foods. This is also part of the problem: The industrial food complex.
And, on that note, people should be responsible for their physical health. After crossfit, and becoming in excellent shape overall, I can't eat the shit food most Americans eat. I hardly eat anything that is microwaveable or already mostly prepackaged. I can barely stomach a cheeseburger. I believe my body has become accustomed to eating wholesome foods, and getting the most nutrients out of them. The body becomes self-aware of sorts when you're at a certain fitness level. You just don't crave those things as much (although I could go through a gallon of ice cream in a week) -- I make it habit to work my ass off for that ice cream. And even though it tastes delicious, I can feel the emptiness inside in terms of density as opposed to, say, a few carrots or even an apple. More nutritionally dense, I guess you could say.
You can eat whatever you want. Exercise (or abstention from shit food) is pretty much the only way to maintain a generally healthy lifestyle. These, or the abolition of the corporations which pump out these so called foods.
I agree with a lot of what you say. Breakfast cereal in no way resembles actual cereals (grains). As for a "banana and a granola bar with some OJ" as a good breakfast, well, I'd go so far as to say that that's way too much sugar in my mind. Of course, I'm the dude who wanted a rare rib-eye finished with butter and rosemary for breakfast.
Anyway, I think Louis CK has a good bit about (see, b_b?) the way junk food influences kids.
I mainly feel negatively towards the food industry for this. I mean, if you put a bunch of humans in a place where Cheetos and KFC grew on trees, we'd be having the same problem.
This type of food simply shouldn't be consumed as a main source of energy. And the fact is, many humans will inevitably gravitate towards the cheapest and most convenient food source. No amount of cultural enlightenment is going to eradicate this. It'd be wonderful if it could, and if these campaigns for healthier living would convince every person to stop eating badly on their own conscious terms. But right now they're competing with a massive, expensive food industry that makes all of its money from doing the exact opposite.
IMO the solution will be in the direction of strengthening awareness of why this food is bad for you, awareness of exactly what the food industry is doing, AND getting everyone on the collective ass of the corporate food giants. Probably disallowing junk food to be bought on food stamps, too.
If a company claims to provide food, and all they provide is sneaky snacks that mess with your body's ability to understand what it's actually getting, nutritionally... it's just not right.
I fear that this problem can only be solved by good policy. To me, that means making the incentives to eat healthy outweigh the incentives to eat unhealthy. Namely, it must be relatively cheaper to eat well than to eat shit. The only way this is possible is to overhaul the farm bill, which is at the root of the problem. Unfortunately, Congress is about to reauthorize this travesty, and the only notable 'reform' is to gut SNAP, the one positive in the bill.
That "inevitability" stems in part, from economics and in part, culture. I think that you're right that cultural enlightenment won't fix the problem, at least not without the economic side. Unfortunately, as part of the cultural side (in America most especially) efficiency at the cost of all else is prized, much to our detriment at nearly every level of our society. This means that the people employed to engineer junk food do it well. They do it as efficiently as possible so that their company or corporation can most efficiently make money. Thus lubricated by the warm, lipid embrace of highly engineered foods, many people slip down the long slide toward death.
Efficiency and morality are often at odds, because well, doing the right thing is all kinds of inconvenient, time consuming, resource draining. In a word: inefficient.
This article would be great without the first seven or so paragraphs. If instead of implying that calories in, calories out isn't important (which it almost certainly is important) and instead went straight to pointing out that diet and obesity are complicated then it wouldn't have been so hard to actually get to the interesting part of the article. Putting your reader's offside might seem like a good strategy but the writer probably lost a lot of interested readers by deciding to try and hook with anger instead of interest. Personally, I'm finding it far more difficult to overcome my own bias simply because the author insisted on attacking instead of using a bit of discretion.