A century of weight gain.

[xyzzy]

Pretty much agree with what everyone says about the quantity and quality of foods we eat today being a primary cause.

Anyone else want to make a comment on what they would do to try and resolve the problem as that was the second part of my original question.

My personal views as listed in my earlier posts are very interventionist and amount to forcibly stopping the population buying bad foods by pricing them out of reach and by severely restricting advertising. The purpose of a policy like that is an attempt to force us back to how things were up to around 40 years ago when to me the balance was just about ok. To do this in my mind entails ending up having a ban on advertising similar to that on tobacco, a government campaign in the same style as drink driving campaigns, an anti bad food education campaign rather than just a pro "five a day one" and adopting a similar minimum price model that gets debated about alcohol.

What other ways are there to stop this inexorable rise that would work? Do we really need to be worried if we don't stop it?

 

[catherinecherub]

The Government actually uses the makers of junk food to sponsor the Change4Life programme. :lol: :lol:
http://www.gponline.com/News/article/93 ... onsorship/

 

[xyzzy]

The Government actually uses the makers of junk food to sponsor the Change4Life programme. :lol: :lol:
http://www.gponline.com/News/article/93 ... onsorship/

That is so typical and why I loathe politicians of all types. Just down right corruption of the highest order! :x

What chance have we got, pretty soon the junk food industry or just as bad the overall food industry will be setting what a good diet is.

Well actually that's what many people think happens already regarding the overall concept of GI foods and why we've ended up with the "healthy" carb / fat / protein balance recommendations as they are set today.

 

[Moogie1947]

If eating between meals and snacking is one of the problems, perhaps we should frown on people eating in the street or on public transport, my school rules in the 1960's forbade eating (in school uniform of course) in public. I still think it looks slovenly as does drinking from a can or bottle whilst wandering about.

Employers could ban people from eating and drinking at their desks too - food to be consumed only in the staff restaurant (if available) or coffee lounge during official breaks from the routine.
As someone who had to get sticky, crumb infested and unhygienic computer keyboards cleaned up after use IT departments would welcome this.
As with the smoking ban, this is possible.

 

[hanadr]

There's no doubt there's a LINK between T2D and obesity. Unfortunately too many people, who should know better have forgotten the distinction between "LINK" and "CAUSE". Jenny Ruhl[diabetes 101] is certain that Obesity is a symptom of metabolic syndrome rather than a cause..
I was disappointed by the recent Horizon TV programme on the secrets of Fat. It concentrated on the hormonal reasons why obese people continue to eat and gain weight and said NOTHING about WHAT they ate, other than "Fatty sugary"
Certainly as far back as the 1970s and probably much further back, it was known that carbs cause weight gain. In livestock farming[ cattle etc, being mammals like us] Beasts for slaughter are fattened on grain NOT fats.****
As for MacDonalds. I've had a salad bowl lunch, whilst taking Grandchildren to places and found it excellent. Again if you leave out the bun or the fries, you will get a pretty good meal for the price. There's a reason MacDonald's is so popular. the food tastes good to many people. If it didn't they'd go out of business. I quite like it andd I have eaten Michelin starred food, which I liked less.
**** Just in case someone reminds me that cattle can eat grass and we can't, Remember the cattle use the presence of microbes in one of their 4 stomachs to digest cellulose. They can't do it with their own enzymes any more than we can.
Hana

 

[Patch]

Groovy - my kinda discussion!

Fat doesn't make you build fat - SUGAR does. When you eat carbohydrate foods, your own body converts that into SUGAR, uses what it needs, then STORES the rest for "future" use (if required - and if you don't top up those stores before they're used!)

It'll do this with fat/protein, too - but in no where near as significant quantities.

carbohdrate gets converted to sugar once you've eaten it. Therefor: CARBOHYDRATE = SUGAR.

Back OT - the original picture really hit home with me.

I suspect that the original fat man had an EXTREME case of carboyhdrate sensitivity/metabolic syndrome. The little carbs that he ate (that were available at the time), along with the fat/protein that was eaten as teh norm back then, put him that position.

The Policeman in the second photo, I suspect, had/has a much lesser degree of carbohydrate sensitivity/metabolic syndrome - but access to MUCH more sugar/carbohydrate rich foods.

Same result for both of 'em.

 

[ladybird64]

Hmmm. The thing is McDonalds did not become famous for their salad bowls did they? I would hazard a guess that this is a fairly recent introduction to the MaccyD's menu (within the last ten years maybe?), they became famous on the back of their burgers in a bun.
As for the popularity of them and others like them..well, it's not rocket science. Cheap, easy to get hold of and more or less instant and on practically every street corner. Teenagers don't have to stay in school to have their meals, they are allowed off premises. School dinners, packed lunches or burger in a bun with fries on the side..inevitable outcome.

I know that many will disagree with my opinions but that's all they are, opinions. I'm 2 years away from the big 50 and used to have to do home economics at school. Hated it mind you, but at least the info on how to make simple dishes was available to me, todays' pupils don't have that opportunity. We would all like to believe that everyone is interested in and wants the best nutrition for their child but that isn't always the case. If you have parents that have been raised on a diet of chips and eggs/pizza/sausages with good helpings of bread then that is the way they will raise their kids, especially those who are on a low income. Not saying it is the same for everybody but is is common.

I know I touched on this subject before but poor quality food is cheap. Yes, frozen veg isn't too bad but fresh food, meat, cheese and veggies and fruits are expensive stuff. So we have got the combination of a second or possibly third generation who wouldn't know how to "cook" a meal if they had to because they buy what is within their budget and possibly what they think is less effort to prepare.

I don't have the answers. I can see the thinking behind raising the price of these foods out of reach but wonder if this will really reach the people it needs to. Bringing back cookery lessons in school maybe a start, showing that simple meals can be made out of very little would help but when the kids get home, well..if the adults can't see the importance of a better diet than how can we expect the kids too?

Zizzy, also the trouble is defining a "bad" food...how do we do that? The goalposts are changing constantly, look at the cholesterol debate. (Go on, you know you want to ). Only a few years ago, fried food was the devil. Bacon sausage and eggs, a coronary on a plate. Eggs were to be eaten extremely sparingly becaused they helped to send you to an early grave. Now? Wonderfood. Go to work, school, whatever on an eggy breakfast. How do we apply that to MaccyD's horrible breakfast things, the sausage, eggy and hash brown job. Ok, they stick it into a bread muffin but at least two of those ingredients, the egg and the sausage we endorse here!

Take aways of the Chinese and Indian varieties. Bad foods or not? Lots of oil, lots of sugar, lots of butter and cream..good? bad? how can we decide?

I'm not looking at this from the angle of a diabetic and what foods are better for us. ****, we could argue about that until the cows (with whatever they eat in their tummies) come home. I'm looking at what we can do to halt what has been started and what so many people are paying the price for.

I don't think we can do anything to stop it, it's too damned complex. And that is a very sad and worrying thought.

The lines are muddled, the whole topic is full of various shades of murky grey.

 

[noblehead]

My personal views as listed in my earlier posts are very interventionist and amount to forcibly stopping the population buying bad foods by pricing them out of reach and by severely restricting advertising. The purpose of a policy like that is an attempt to force us back to how things were up to around 40 years ago when to me the balance was just about ok. To do this in my mind entails ending up having a ban on advertising similar to that on tobacco, a government campaign in the same style as drink driving campaigns, an anti bad food education campaign rather than just a pro "five a day one" and adopting a similar minimum price model that gets debated about alcohol.

A ban on advertising of 'bad foods' would have little impact IMHO, education is the key by teaching kids from a very early age what is and isn't good for their health.

I personally don't have a problem with fast food outlets as long as people use them sparingly and not become reliant on them for their everyday dietary needs, my children along with my wife and I have always eaten healthy but we still treated the kids to a McDonald's when they were younger, has this damaged them and lead them to being regular clientele?.....simple answer is NO!

Going back 40 years things weren't much different to what they are now, we had more chip shops then we have today and greasy spoons were on every corner of most high streets, we don't want to controlled by a Nanny State and told what we can and cannot eat and what constitutes a healthy diet is always going to cause controversy amoung the population.

 

[lovinglife]

Grat post ladybird :clap:

Hmmm. The thing is McDonalds did not become famous for their salad bowls did they? I would hazard a guess that this is a fairly recent introduction to the MaccyD's menu (within the last ten years maybe?), they became famous on the back of their burgers in a bun.

A macdonalds for an adult in the early days was probably the size of the happy meal they do now and eaten infrequently- everything these days is "bigger and better"

in my humble opinion there is no bad foods only bad choices - I hate the thought of "food police" - education for me is the key - at home with my son we never used crisps, chocolate, fast food as a "treat" or reward - all food is equal- he makes good choices - salads, veg, drinks water - likes a MD or any fast food like any teenager but only occasionally - never really liked kiddies sweet - like a bit of chocolate but only a few squares at a time, we bought 1 tin of chocolates at Christmas and there is still half a tin left.

But the big thing for me is that we eat home cooked food and he was taught to cook from an early age, - most of his friends can't even open a tin of beans or make a liunch box for themselves - he can when pushed to produce a decent evening meal - well he is teenager and "just because he can doesn't mean he has to" - his words not mine :lol: :lol:

 

[xyzzy]

I was disappointed by the recent Horizon TV programme on the secrets of Fat.

Yes likewise, it started out posing exactly the question that needs answering "Why the rise in obesity in the last 20 years" then never answered that. Went on to stating what I though was obvious stuff about if you have a genetic (or whatever) switch that gets switched on you'll get fat. If you switch it off you'll get thin again. What it never addressed was why in the last 20 years that switch is being turned on in more and more people and what to do about it.

As for MacDonalds. I've had a salad bowl lunch, whilst taking Grandchildren to places and found it excellent. Again if you leave out the bun or the fries, you will get a pretty good meal for the price. There's a reason MacDonald's is so popular. the food tastes good to many people.

Don't disagree with that as a nutritional statement Hana but just think you have to view corps like MacD's more holistically and compare the public face that they promote, in MacD's case some "wholesome healthy family corp" against the reality of what they do which is imo to do loads of deforestation damage and then compound the problem by having hundreds of 000's of cows all emit vast quantities of dangerous greenhouse gases as methane. I was told this was quite a contributor to global warming. I wonder if they have ever replanted a forest or even accepted that global warming exists... In any case I hate the clown. I have the same objection and don't buy other company's products such as Gillette because they still do (or use to do) animal testing on cosmetics. Even if Gillette no longer do that they lost me as a customer years ago.

Hmmm. The thing is McDonalds did not become famous for their salad bowls did they? I would hazard a guess that this is a fairly recent introduction to the MaccyD's menu (within the last ten years maybe?), they became famous on the back of their burgers in a bun.

Ladybird I agree with everything you say (again!) because effectively unless there is a "new world order" nothing will get done. Certainly nothing like I suggest! There would of course in my world order have to be exemptions for my local Indian takeaway can't be having the price of that put up!

A ban on advertising of 'bad foods' would have little impact IMHO, education is the key by teaching kids from a very early age what is and isn't good for their health.

Those of you advocating "education." Nope don't see that it works. Isn't that what is supposed to happen now? There were education campaigns against smoking, drink driving and driving without seat belts. Nothing really changed until there was legislation put in place. I don't think education is by any means wrong but when its put into a fight against private sector marketing campains it doesn't stand a chance. Hence you need to give those education campains an advantage. If you want to call that the "food police" then fine by me.

Also I use to enjoy all those wildly different greasy spoon cafes we use to have. Far better than the plain bland sameness of the major junk food outlets.

As for the Nanny State argument my opinion is that we may not like the idea of a Nanny State but at some point someone has to impose some sensible regime on a society. I look at it this way. If we go back to that stupid UK only debate over MMR jabs a while back my opinion (even as a father of four children) was societies overall benefit should be what prevails not the individual so even if there was a very small risk a parent should take that risk because it benefits society overall. Given that that MMR stuff was one mad scientists view against the prevailing view of every other scientist then I never believed in the risk anyway. A similar argument exists for why student grants and not student loans. Society benefits from the graduates that are produced and should accept the cost not the student.

perhaps we should frown on people eating...

Whoa... even more radical then me! Great suggestions imo about time this got taken seriously. Like my proposals though never going to happen.

What would you do to sort the mess out Patch?

 

[Patch]

Spend a VAST (vulgar??? :wink amount on money re-evaluating ALL of the research that HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE, with a completely open mind (ie - not biased towards any preferred result). Carried out by people with no vested interests, who could look at all of the evidence objectively, and that would be happy to admit "hey - previous advice onthis issue was WRONG" and provide definitive answers to the questions that we ask so often:

Why do some fat people not get diabetes?
Why do some people with diabetes not get fat?
What causes weight gain?
What CAUSES high cholesterol?
Is high cholesterol linked to heart disease?
Do carbohydrates cause weight gain?
Does fat cause weight gain?
What role do hormones play in weight gain and the development of diabetes?
Which came first - chicken or egg? :wink:

 

[xyzzy]

Spend a VAST (vulgar??? :wink amount on money re-evaluating ALL of the research that HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE, with a completely open mind (ie - not biased towards any preferred result). Carried out by people with no vested interests, who could look at all of the evidence objectively, and that would be happy to admit "hey - previous advice onthis issue was WRONG" and provide definitive answers to the questions that we ask so often:

So like me and ladybird64 then, you don't think any things gonna happen then :wink:

But if it did with those goals I'd put you in charge of getting it done

 

[Patch]

I don't think anything is gonna happen. THEY'VE go too much to lose. I'm certain that the advice they've been giving out for donkey's years is completely wrong - and that advice has, unfortunately, been the cause of a great number of deaths. (Yeah - I said it...)

They never will admit that they were wrong all those years ago. If they do, what happpens to their credibility, and their ability to issue new CORRECT guidelines? Who'd believe them?

Far too much to lose.

There is revolution coming, though. :shh:

 

[Patch]

OR - maybe I'm cpompletely wrong, and they do realise that THEY were wrong, and they are SLOWLY rectifying that by very SLOWLY altering their advice. They are making miniscule steps towards what a lot of us believe to be true.

Not very good for those of us that need correct information NOW. But good news for the diabetics of 50 years time...

 

[librarising]

we may not like the idea of a Nanny State but at some point someone has to impose some sensible regime on a society

Yeah, don't we just need diabetes police checking on and enforcing our carb intake. Those rebellious lo-carbers may just end up being sectioned under newly granted powers, or appearing before a Truth and Reconciliation Panel if they agree to recant their heresy (perhaps by eating a plate of mashed potato.)

Your new world order frightens me.

What we need are responsible scientists to establish good dietary guidelines (clue : the current ones aren't working, even for the MacDonalds et al avoiders.)
Then teach this in school (I marvel at my 8 yr old grandson's grasp of what he's been taught in school about food.
Food pyramid ? Should have gone out with the Egyptians.

Then ensure we keep up-to-date with developments in dietary understanding.

But all that does sound like a new world order. Don't expect it any time soon : (

Geoff
(off to report to my food probation officer.)

 

[xyzzy]

Patch I really do hope its your later post.

I sometimes despair of the human race and think that maybe we really don't deserve to survive long term. One day soon unless we are careful those powerful vested interests and the corruption of our politicians will kill us all.

 

[xyzzy]

we may not like the idea of a Nanny State but at some point someone has to impose some sensible regime on a society

But surely that's what government and democracy (or dictatorships) are all about. Without having someone imposing a regime on society then isn't that called anarchy?

The problem is that governments are becoming increasingly corruptible by the lobbying tactics of corps like MacD's. As Patch says we know what's needed but it never gets done. If those vested interests hadn't corrupted people eating habits over a period of time there would be no need to consider taking such drastic steps as the problem wouldn't have arisen.

 

[noblehead]

Also I use to enjoy all those wildly different greasy spoon cafes we use to have. Far better than the plain bland sameness of the major junk food outlets.

Ate in many greasy spoon cafe myself in my youth..... but fast forward 20-40 years and we have huge global companies serving equally unhealthy food as those served in the greasy spoons of yesteryear :crazy:

 

[xyzzy]

Looks like the gov heard my ranting at least on alcohol, they seem to be introducing a minimum price thing despite the protests of the food and drinks industry. Good for them but lets wait and see if it amounts to anything.