Obesity: Why are we getting fat? :epizza:

[Racoon]

Apparently having Kids will make you fatter. Being too busy running around and buying pre-packaged convenient foods, spurred on by creative brand advertising the kids love, will affect which pant or dress size you'll be wearing...

Having a kid in the house makes you fatter - Diet & Nutrition - MSNBC.com

Adults living with young children eat significantly more fat than grown-ups with no kids at home, a new study shows.

Adults with kids consumed nearly 5 more grams of fat and 1.7 more grams of saturated fat every day, the equivalent of an individual pepperoni pizza a week, Dr. Helena Laroche of the University of Iowa in Iowa City and her colleagues found. Adults living with children younger than 17 also ate more salty snacks, cheese, beef, ice cream, cakes and cookies, pizza, and processed meats like bacon.

&

“These findings suggest that food advertising aimed at children may influence not only the child’s diet but also indirectly affect parents’ diets,” they note in their report.

What ever doesn't kill you makes you fatter,
Racoon

[InfiniteNow]

Fat's the new Hitler...

[maikeru]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

Fat's the new Hitler...

Perhaps. I'd say it isn't a curse as everyone makes it out to be, but it isn't a blessing, either.

[Michaelangelica]

i would have thought having kids would make you thinner!

Living in the intestine of all humans are trillions of bacteria that assist our own stomach acids and enzymes in breaking down food. Two groups - the Firmicutes and the Bacteroidetes - together account for more than 90 per cent of intestinal bacteria.

U.S. researchers compared the gut bacteria of obese and lean people, and found that obese people had fewer Bacteroidetes than their slender counterparts.
. . .
The researchers took this discovery further in experiments with mice, finding that the gut bacteria of obese mice not only had fewer Bacteroidetes than their skinny counterparts, but also that their bacterial genome was rich in genes that broke down hard-to-digest foods more efficiently
. . .
To make certain that the difference in gut bacteria was the reason behind the obese rodents' digestive prowess, the team actually transferred the gut microbes from obese mice to skinny mice. Notably, the skinny mice that received the transfer gained weight..

Bacteria might make you fat | COSMOS magazine

[gribbon]

What no-one else has mentioned is the Atkins diet: it was found that the only reason why people lost weight was because they were forced to eat protein rich foods which made them feel far less hungry than sugary or fatty foods. Therefore only people who overeat on sugar lose weight. (Which is most of the population).

If anyone wants to research the angle, they are welcome to it.

(only joking)

[maikeru]

As I understand it, the Atkins diet works primarily because the body does not normally use protein as its primary source of energy, and turns that preference around. Normally some of the protein we eat is used for "building materials" and "maintenance" and some is converted and stored as energy Typically, the body prefers: carbs > fats > protein.

Even in a starving person, first the body will use up glycogen stores in the liver (1 day's worth, or about 1500-2000 kcal); second, it will move on to stored fat reserves (1 month's worth or more); and finally protein as the body cannibalizes muscle and other protein-rich tissues. So I think the body is pretty "reluctant" to use protein as a major energy source. To get usable energy out of protein, it's usually converted into glucose, and a lot of energy is wasted in the process.

In the Atkins diet, the body may have to draw upon additional energy reserves to supplement the "energy deficit" that the protein-rich diet creates, and the most available reserves probably would be liver glycogen and stored fat. As the body uses these up, a person gets slimmer. Seems to come with a price, though. Too much protein in the diet can cause ketosis, which is caused by ketones from the breakdown of amino acids, and these can lower blood pH, making it acidic, and create extra burden on some organs like the liver and kidneys. Would this be wise for people who might be ill or having problems related to weight?

All in all, the Atkin's diet always struck me more as personal torture (by limiting food choice and putting the strain on the body) than as a real diet.

[Bec]

Originally Posted by orbsycli

so wait,
all those fat people
caught a virus???????

Really I think any excuse for why they are fat will be welcomed. Although it does sound possible that this virus can cause someone to gain weight more readily, I don't believe thats the reason for obesity as if those people were eating healthily and exercising regulary, regardless of how easily they put on weight, they would not be obese (unless of course this virus is extreme which the article does not seem to say).

Excuses, excuses.

[Michaelangelica]

http://www.pulpnoir.com/?p=93

One of the most surprising news items of 2006, at least to me, was the announcement that there are now more overweight people in the world than hungry ones.

Say what? It was not that long ago that all the experts were predicting that our skyrocketing human population would soon outstrip its food supply, leading directly to mass famine. By now millions were supposed to be perishing from hunger every year.
It was the old doom-and-gloom Malthusian mathematics at work: population shoots up geometrically while food production lags.
It makes eminent sense. I grew up with Malthus’s ideas brought up-to-date in apocalyptic books like The Population Bomb.

Who defused the bomb? Instead of mass starvation, we seem to be awash in food. And it’s not just the United States.
Obesity is on the increase in Mexico. Fat-related diabetes is becoming epidemic in India. My parents used to tell me when I didn’t eat my dinner to think about the hungry children in China. Today one in five people in China is overweight, 60 million are obese, and the rate of overweight children has increased 28-fold since 1985. Everywhere you look, from Buffalo to Beijing, it’s ballooning bellies.

Instead of going hungry, humans around the world on a per capita basis are eating more calories than ever before.
Perhaps it’s time for Walt Disney to update his theme ride. It’s not a small world, after all. It’s a big, fat world. And it’s getting fatter.

[Monomer]

Originally Posted by ronthepon

(Further, it is fact that genes do cause fatness in some races, like us Indians. This is because in the recent times there have been devastating famines in India, leading to 'natural selection' of those individuals who could store food best.
Now that food is surplus, this food storage mechanism is killing us.

Well, according to this article, the reason obesity is on the rise is because those who survived the ice age had the genes to store fat and metabolise it sparingly. The climate has changed, but the genotype remains in some cultures, hence the increasing number of obese people.

Darwin's Revenge: Why Are We Getting Fat? - Newsweek: International Editions - MSNBC.com

Apparently it's the protein ghrelin that allowed the body to gain weight quickly so there would be a good supply when food was sparse. That function is no longer needed, so scientists have developed a vaccine to neutralise the effects of ghrelin, which will hopefully prevent the rise in obesity.

Vaccine Stops Big Eaters Getting Fat


And it's something in the genes again:

Obese individuals often suffer from the metabolic syndrome, which is a combination of medical disorders that increase an individual's risk for cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Deregulation of a protein known as mTOR (which is a nutrient sensor that when activated increases energy expenditure by the cell's of the body) has been implicated in the development of obesity and the metabolic syndrome in humans.

ScienceDaily: Two Proteins Stop Mice Getting Fat

[Racoon]

Originally Posted by Monomer

Darwin's Revenge: Why Are We Getting Fat? - Newsweek: International Editions - MSNBC.com

Apparently it's the protein ghrelin that allowed the body to gain weight quickly so there would be a good supply when food was sparse. That function is no longer needed, so scientists have developed a vaccine to neutralise the effects of ghrelin, which will hopefully prevent the rise in obesity.

Vaccine Stops Big Eaters Getting Fat

ScienceDaily: Two Proteins Stop Mice Getting Fat

Great Post Monomer..

But I need fat people! Its good for business.
If everyone was thin some food companies would go out of business, Doctors would have less patients, magazines that manipulate self-consciousness will die out...
People wouldn't need a fitness trainer as much.

Gotta move towards Physical Therapy,
Racoon