I read "The End of Overeating" by David Kessler, and there's a problem in the 2nd paragraph:

[hedgehog]

"For thousands of years, human body weight stayed remarkably stable. Throughout adulthood we basically consumed no more than the food we needed to burn.People who were overweight stood apart from the general population. Millions of calories passed through our bodies, yet with rare exceptions our weight neither rose nor fell by any significant amount. A perfect biological system seemed to be at work.

Then, in the 1980's, something changed."

(Italics mine.)

If Dr.Kessler's description of an obesity epidemic beginning in the 1980's is accurate, than any discussion of obesity must determine what changed. I find the notions that in 1980 people abruptly began to overeat or that restaurants and food processors increased portion sizes across the board rather hard to swallow. With all due respect to Dr. Kessler, that simple statement in the 2nd paragraph seems to undermine his entire thesis. I will allow that overeating could be part of the problem, but if so, why are people overeating? Could it be the quality or composition rather than the quantity of food that is the problem? Did high fructose corn syrup meet the pesticides and herbicides in our bodies and throw our metabolisms out of whack?

There have been diet books around for centuries, but it is only in the past 30 years that we have had a worldwide public health crisis. Why?

[Kitty Herder]

1. I keep wondering about this too.

What changed? It couldn't simply be the move away from homegrown farm food and to more sedentary lifestyles. That happened far earlier.

[soleft]

2. I didn't read the book but my partner did

In fact, I was just looking at it on her bookshelf last night.

I know he writes a lot about how food companies started engineering their products with a salt/sugar/fat combination in order to trigger complusive eating behaviors. Could it be that this started in the 1980's?

[hedgehog]

4. Sugar/fat/salt may be cheaper than real food, so I have no doubt

food companies opt for these ingredients, but I have to believe they were doing this way before 1980. FWIW, we used to put sugar on our Cheerios back in the 50's without any assistance form the food companies. We didn't drink a lot of soda, but we did drink Kool-Aid.

[shanti]

13. sugar isn't HFCS

that's the facts, jack.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

18. HFCS, not all sugar is HFCS.

:shrug:

[tabatha]

3. I heard a scientist say that HFCS does not signal the brain

when full like other sugars do. Hence, one keeps on eating without a "full" signal happening.

On edit: I found this

"Since HFCS’s widespread introduction in the 1980’s North American obesity rates have skyrocketed. Obesity has been linked to may heath issues including heart disease and many forms of cancer. When HFCS is ingested, it travels straight to the liver which turns the sugary liquid into fat, and unlike other carbohydrates HFCS does not cause the pancreas to produce insulin; which acts as a hunger quenching signal to the brain. So we get stuck in a vicious cycle, eating food that gets immediately stored as fat and never feeling full."

[lunasun]

5. Ruebens paintings? Henry the eighth depictions?

Queen Victoria photos..
"People who were overweight stood apart from the general population"
well at some point it was the wealthy; which was an exception, but others were substarving and over worked in hard labor...so are we getting fatter ...or are more people wealthier to buy more food as we please without having to toil for it physically now??

[hedgehog]

6. So, what? We all got a raise in 1980 and headed down to Mickey D's to celebrate?

I'm an engineer, not a biologist, (thanks Dr. McCoy!) but in my experience gradual changes in output follow gradual changes in input (Process starts to slip because valve starts to leak more and more) and abrupt changes follow abrupt changes (Process goes to pot because supplier sent Product AIII instead of Product AII)unless some sort of threshold has been crossed (Tank gradually fills and then abruptly overflows because float gets stuck.)




In this case, I think portion sizes and the use of fat/salt/sugar were gradual changes. So I submit that c.1980 some other change was added to the system and/or a threshold was crossed.

[yankeepants]

7. It's the computer age

The last 30 years have introduced the most sedentary lifestyles ever with computers, video games, and home entertainment systems. Couple that with all the above factors and you have a population of humans who sit and eat 8-12 hours a day

[iris27]

8. So the author posits this change, but never goes on to

describe what it was (and back up that description)? I agree, that puts his argument on shaky ground indeed.

I intitially thought it was the CDC's decision to change the BMI qualifications for overweight from 27 down to 25, but I just looked it up online and that happened in the 90's.

"but if so, why are people overeating? Could it be the quality or composition rather than the quantity of food that is the problem?

Yeah, his argument in the rest of the book (I skimmed it a few weeks ago) is that food companies began working methodically to create ever-more-patalable products so that we're always craving more, with the result that almost every bit of packaged food and restaurant food sold today is "sugar on fat on salt". I buy that, but I don't think cognitive-behavioral therapy is the best way to combat it. And this also doesn't explain what mysteriously happened in the 80's.

[calico1]

9. I have that book around somewhere but have not read it,

So I don't know if this is what he is referring to but I can distinctly remember that around 1980 is when dietary fat started to be demonized. Also, carbohydrates became a "free" food as long as they were low or no fat. This seemed to be the mentality change that happened around that time.

I can remember growing up in the 60's and 70's and when people wanted to lose a few lbs. what they generally did was just eat less. They also might cut down on the bread and pasta and skip dessert. This is how most people thought then. I really do not remember anyone worrying specifically about fat but instead of total food intake and a little more about the bread and starches.

It was around 1980 when the shift changed to eating "low fat" and eating more carbohydrates and generally just not worrying about them but instead worrying about fat intake.

Also by 1980 and from then on people really started eating regularly at fast food places and the portion sizes also got bigger.

But for me the biggest change overall was going from eating less food overall to lose weight to eating less fat but not worrying about the other stuff.

[global1]

10. You Might Want To Check Out This Link......

this might help: http://www.slashfood.com/2010/03/23/super-size-the-last-supper/?icid=main|hp-laptop|dl3|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashfood.com%2F2010%2F03%2F23%2Fsuper-size-the-last-supper%2F

[ecstatic]

11. he's probably going to recommend a low carb diet

I'm guessing in the 1980s, the country moved away from natural foods to more processed/factory created foods (including HFCS).

[calico1]

15. The country also moved from "the 4 food groups" to

the pyramid which called for a lot more carbohydrates and a lot less fat.

I think this had a lot to do with it.

I think a lot of younger people today believe that low fat, high carb has always been the norm, but this is fairly recent.

People did not eat low carb or low fat before the 80's. It was just smaller portions, less fast food, and no supersized anything.

[Hannah Bell]

12. what happened in the 80s was reaganism/neoliberalism.

[Liberation Angel]

14. Hormonal Problems caused by nuclear effluents/thyroid damage may explain some of this

I worked in environmental medicine (determining causation of nuclear workers' illnesses) early in my career - working with environmental doctors who specialized in this field for the industry (I did not stay there long as the industry was too dirty and denying workers' legitimate claims as well as engaging in what I believed to be unlawful practices)

Since the dawn of the nuclear age our endocrine systems have been irradiated and damaged causing hormonal problems with the production of essential metabolic hormones and the mutation and damage of thyroids and the pituitary and pineal glands etc.

Such damage explains some of the reason that our metabolisms are so f-cked up and unable to work properly.

There have been very few if any tests to determine what damage has been done to the metabolism of two or three or more generations since the first atomic bomb tests in the 1940's spewed literally tons of strontium 90, radioiodine and other radiation-laced particulates into the upper atmosphere to blow globally.

Daily operation of commercial nukes also emit radioactive mutagenic and carcinogenic toxic pollution into our air and water and hence our food and drink (especially milk and dairy) causing more damage to our metabolic systems and additionally causing immune disorders.

Couple that with HFCS etc and a sedentary lifestyle, cutting of phys ed budgets and recess time and extracurricular activities that promote health, - plus fast food and junk food diets served in schools - etc - and we can see why there has been an explosion of obesity.

It just needs to be said - and Obama's embracing of nuclear energy recently will add to the death and destruction of our world if it stands.

check out www.radiation.org for info on just how much radiation has been found in our babies' teeth everywhere in the United States. Then consider what it is doing to our internal organs and endocrine and other systems. Not just cancer and thyroid disease, but severe metabolic damage. To ALL of us (some worse than others depending on how much exposure you get - but we ALL are being dosed daily by man made corporate (nuclear energy) radiation.

Edited to add - many poor people fish in irradiated waterways in the US and this adds to their illness and death and often obesity.

[librechik]

16. Thx--not enough attention paid to radiation exposure in this country

[Liberation Angel]

33. It is a critically important issue and Obama is mucking up on it by supporting new nukes

they are neither "Green" nor safe nor affordable nor effective nor intelligent.

It is a greedy deadly industry with cancer as its trademark and a legacy of mass death in its wake.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

23. Yep. There are 30 or 40 million people in the US with thyroid problems.

Either overactive or underactive.

Mine died in 1966 when I was a preadolescent and I've taken thyroid extract ever since.
I was normal sized then. I was 5 foot 3 and wore a size 8 or 9 juniors in high school. That was 115-120 lbs.

Over the decades I gradually started gaining weight.

I eat very little food, all my life my mom and grandma nagged me about not eating enough. Now my hubby tells me to hurry up and finish off leftovers in the fridge and that messes with my head and brings back bad memories of being urged to eat more.

So, no, it's not always about sitting and eating huge portions. I never eat huge portions. I can't even finish normal portions a lot of the time.

I was on a doctor supervised super low cal diet (500 cal/day) and took vitamin shots and all sorts of supplements. I lost six or eight pounds and stopped, because I was starving to death so my metabolism adjusted down. I would have been better off getting liposuction to take the fat off, for the same amount of money.

[Liberation Angel]

24. I suspect the numbers are higher - but it is so tragic that people are unaware

I feel for your problem and empathize.

There is a National Cancer Institute site that allows one to find out how much they were dosed by atomic bomb testing during the cold war. I will try to find the site but you enter your date of birth, your locality and whether you drank milk or were nursing during that time period etc and they calculate how much radioactive iodine you were exposed to.

The thyroid NEEDS iodine to function and absorbs it readily - and we all, during that period, especially in the Northeast or near the test sites, got radioactive rain with radioiodine which can damage or kill the thyroid gland - and can cause abnormal hyper or hypo thyroid disorders and cancer. An underactive thyroid causes the metabolism to slow.

BTW have you tried natural armour thyroid (which is supposed to be better than synthetic)?

MANY people have low body temperature and immune system problems, chronic fatigue, depression and even mania and bipolar symptoms if their thyroids are f-cked up. They think they are just a mess when in reality their thyroids have absorbed radioactive iodine from nuke plants or military sites or nuke testing (even New England got dosed from Chernobyl when that melted down and spewed the radioactive iodine into the jet stream and it rained down in the US a week or so later.

Sorry to hear of your troubles. The nuke industry is the most powerful in the world and they keep the lid firmly on this story as people would revolt. But the more who know can change the future for our descendants if we can stop this industry and recognize this part of the problem even if we are already f-cked

[Manifestor_of_Light]

26. I already take Armour. They stopped making it in the USA.

They are reformulating it. I had to order some on the Internet from India.

I have kicked and screamed all my life to take it instead of Synthroid.

I was raised near the Houston Ship Channel and there are plenty of yucky chemicals produced and flared off by the stinking refineries.

[Liberation Angel]

30. sorry to hear that

probably tons of radiation there too from nuke ships etc.

Are you a downwinder too (nukes nearby?) or just of an age where you may have been downind of atomic testing in the 40's,50's or 60's?

[Liberation Angel]

31. You are downwind too of South Texas Project Station (nuke plants)

They emit sh^t that messes up your metabolism too.

have been emitting it for twenty years. And they are trying to build MORE there 80 miles south of you. Shame.

[JackRiddler]

17. Of course you find increased portion sizes rather hard to swallow...

(Sorry. Sorry. Can't help myself when a bad joke opportunity appears.)

[Lex]

19. In the book he explains why people are overeating.

He explains it in very great detail. He doesn't just say people are overeating due to increased portion size alone.

There are several things happening and he explains that.

[hedgehog]

21. Given that he selects the early 80's as a time of an abrupt

increase in obesity rates, I think he has to show an abrupt change on eating patterns or a threshold change.

[Lex]

22. I think that data shows that.

For instance:

"about 5 percent of children and teenagers in the United States were obese in the 1960s and 1970s."

"in 1980, 6.5 percent of children age 6 to 11 were obese, but by 1994 that number had climbed to 11.3 percent. By 2002, the number had jumped to 16.3 percent"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/health/research/28obesity.html?pagewanted=print

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

20. It's probably cosmic rays.

I'm sure modern agriculture and easy access to high sugar, high fat diets have nothing to do with it.

[Liberation Angel]

25. Man made radiation causes metabolic syndrome by damaging the hormonal system

but I bet you knew that already per your hysterical dissemblage of a comment.

add a fucked up radiation damaged thyroid to a poor diet and many more people will be unable to metabolize even good food properly - HFCS then helps finish them off along with genetically modified food that further mucks us up.

[hedgehog]

27. I don't think it's a case of "A" or "B" but rather "A" and "B"

and "C" and "D":

Exposure to radioactive fallout

Introduction of HFCS

Replacement of fat with simple carbs

Exposure to pesticides/herbicides which mimic human hormones

Meat from animals fattened with antibiotics

Meat from animals fed grain instead of grass

Plant foods raised with fertilizers

Loss of trace elements in the diet due to factor farming

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

28. Man made radiation is not making anybody fat.

But I bet you already knew that.

[Liberation Angel]

29. Yeah it is: Radio-iodine causes hypothyroid (metabolic) disorder which results in excess fat

provided one is eating.

Your position is like saying that cigarets do not cause cancer unless one breathes - so breathing actually causes cancer. not cigarets (and guns don't kill people, people do yada yada right-wing yada)

Yeah if you eat NO food then a f-cked up metabolism won't make you have excess fatty tissue ---- but, as someone upthread commented, they barely eat and still are overweight due to a f-cked up thyroid.

And what causes the f-cked up thyroid?

Radioactive iodine exposure in the environment (and other damaging substances).

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

34. How many cases of radioiodine poisoning have there been in the last thirty years?

[Liberation Angel]

35. According to the National Cancer Institute MILLIONS

You can look up how much you may have been dosed with here:

http://resresources.nci.nih.gov/database.cfm?id=1267


EVERYONE exposed suffered risk of harm and therefore should be classified as "poisoned" by radioiodine.

Chernobyl dosed the US as well as much of the rest of the world.

Nuke tests in China and India and North Korea (even underground) release radioiodine into the atmosphere via gas and particulates.

So it is pretty safe to say that if you live on this planet you have been dosed some. NOW, our ability to survive the dose without being permanently damaged depends on many factors.

But there is no dose which is harmless hence all doses are poison even if we do not get seriously sick.

Thyroid disease is epidemic and even pandemic globally.

But I will add this: since radio-iodine has a relatively short half life it is usually not detectable after several months of absorption and decay in the thyroid gland or elsewhere in the body. It does it's damage as it decays and then evaporates. Kinda like being stabbed with an icicle. You see the damage (thyroid and hormonal disease and death) but not necessarily any weapon or fingerprints left around to examine.

We know radioactive iodine causes these problems, but the nuke industry buries the data as we bury our dead.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

36. I'm not asking how many have been dosed, but how many have been poisoned.

How many people have been exposed with enough radioactive iodine to cause obesity?

Kthnxbai.

[BlueIris]

32. Interesting. I keep meaning to read that.

Will keep your comments in mind when I do.