Can New Guidelines Solve the Obesity Crisis?

Sorry. A, quite, uninformed opinion. Overweight is more complex than just "don't eat as much." A few factors: Setpoint, Leptin, Genetics, Environment, and Culture.

(The full text Leptin reference is at: http://www.annals.org/content/130/8/671.full.pdf+html)

As a counter balance -- and to show that there is a debate -- here's another study that says there are no complicated factors. The following paragraph from this "study" implies that the complex factors I mentioned above, were not considered.

A study presented on Friday at the European Congress on Obesity is the first to examine the question of the proportional contributions to the obesity epidemic by combining metabolic relationships, the laws of thermodynamics, epidemiological data and agricultural data.

Given that no attention was given to these factors, I have to say it isn't a very scientific study. Just a study. I don't think the methodology in this study neutralizes or disproves the validity of the above factors. The study adds knowledge to the overall picture, but doesn't address details that are significant.

I'm aware that there are certain medical conditions that can contribute to weight gain. For the vast majority of obese people though, it's boils down to more calories going in than are being burned. I don't need any studies to know that. If you want to do a study, go to an all-you-can-eat buffet and sit and watch the line. The answer becomes very quickly obvious.

So what you are saying is that a person can eat NOTHING and still gain weight?

The real solution is EXERCISE, or the lack of. We have to burn off the calories by exercising. Physical activity, like digging ditches, ranching or farming were good ways to burn calories. A rancher or farm hand 100 years ago would eat an enormous breakfast loaded with fat calories, work hard fpr 6 hours, come in for a huge lunch; go back out to work and not gain an ounce of weight. Today, ranchers drive ROV's, fly helicopters; farmers ride air conditioned tractors with power steering. It's still a lot of work, but it's not the same hard work like a 100 years ago. Kids would walk to school. Today they ride a school bus. I don't know what the USDA guidelines say, but I'm guessing it's a list of good and bad foods that people should or should not eat. It's only a guideline and shouldn't be taken as gospel. It's the lack of physical activity that is the problem.

Hi Ron,

Read my another comment what to do to stay THIN and HEALTHY. Most of the North-American farmers are fat, if not obese. Your exercise come only after good selection of food. Yes, kids walk or take the bus to go to school but the most important is when they go to eat hamburgers and frech fries, killers for humanity.

Sports and Olympism started some 110 years ago. Before people eat little veggies and some bread but once a week some proteins. Before we have taverns to drink. Now, we have restaurants and eatries to fill our desire to follow advertising,which never existed before the Olympics. Stop to say something you don't know, and participate with others to misdirect people, Gil.

I have a few fat buddies of mine that have inquired as to how I stay relatively fit despite having seen what and how much I eat.

I tell them its because of what I do most days. They then ask me about how they can get into doing what I do and I always tell them just follow me around and you will get in better shape and loose weight too.

Not one has ever taken me up on the offer despite adding in that I will pay them for helping me do my work.

The concept of loosing weight and getting shape is appealing to them but not the actual effort and motivation required behind actually doing it.

Firstly I basically agree with KRAMARAT. Every government foray into this, and most subjects, has been dominated by unforseen consequences.

For some reason, the growing body of data about fitness has been ignored by the government, and also by consumers. I will not go into it here, as it has been out there for almost 20 years and will not penetrate any better if I say it than it has in the ether.

However, it seems clear to me that the diet industry has it good. If they promoted something that worked, they would be out of business. The government and the medical industry has no motive to challenge them. Quite the reverse. Tax paying businesses busily fleecing the rotund, while guaranteeing their rotundity, nicely fits into the medical profession's conviction that their patients never do what is in their best interests. Their patients are all spineless and weak. It is their fault.

It is the patient's responsibility in fact, but there is such a smokescreen out there that I am not surprised that the facts are invisible to them. Plus no one really wants to exercise, almost no one believes it can be easy, and almost no one knows how.

Hi Accountable,

I agree with you that governments must be out of our table. They know less than the doctors and dieticians who failed miserably. However, fitness is important when we eat healthy. I see many fitness clubs close or direct neibour of hamburger makers. One feed and the other try to loose something. So, fitness, good or non-existant, eat veggies with carbohydrates and profeins (meats), and never consume any mix of carbohydrates and proteins. Respect Glycemic Index under every food you eat must be 50 or under 50, never above!

To make some comment on THIS BIG SUBJECT: OBESITY, we need knowledge. Doctors and dieticians don't solved this problem for over 50 years, now the government come to impose us some food made by companies already poison populations. It's hard to not be critical. Everyone is right without solutions. Also, everyone has something to suggest without knowledge, Gil.

I disagree that this problem is not solved. I recommend "Fit or Fat" by Covert Bailey, among many others that do show how to be fit. These books are based on successful research that has been largely buried under a mountain of conflicting information created by the diet industry. If you are in a field, you know what is what. I was an aerobics instructor for 15 years and know this for fact, even if it is difficult to prove.

If you study the subject, as I have, you will find that regular, consistent and effective exercise tends to drive people to eat better, not the other way around. Fit people tend to not eat junk food. Exceptions do not disprove it. Most heavily restrictive and unbalanced diets stress the body with almost unlimited complications - most consistently of which is eventual and permanent weight gain. Difficulty sleeping, mood swings and emotional problems are among the other consequences of heavy restrictive dieting.

There is not any review of the subject that I know of that shows a dominance of studies proving that long term dieting results in long term fitness. There is a lot of evidence showing that exercise first, and balanced diet following, is the ONLY thing that results in long term good health and fitness.

In spite of this mountain of data, the medical industry and the government have a record of recommending ineffective health guidelines.

The problem with using "nutritional guidelines" to solve obesity is that the concept of a food pyramid is simply too complicated for the average person to apply as they go about their day to day lives. To ensure that everyone actually gets 12 servings of grain, 6 servings of fruits/vegetables, 4 servings of dairy and 2 servings of meat (or protein) each and every day would require everyone to hire professional nutritionists to setup daily menus for them.

IMHO, about the only thing that the government could do that might actually help a few people loose weight would be to make it illegal to sell so-called diet drugs or any other weight loss gimmicks that even imply that you might be able to loose weight without exercising. Perhaps the government could pass a law making it illegal to respond to the question, "how do you loose weight?" with any response other than: "You will loose weight if you exercise enough each day to burn more calories than you consume in one day. You can eat whatever you want, but you must exercise enough to burn off ALL of the calories that you consume or you WILL gain weight."

You can sole it without spending money by reducing food,walking etc

For those blasting the Government for being involved, you are 100% correct. The main problem with obesity is HFCS, High Fructose Corn Syrup that is in every processed food and beverage there is on the store shelves since the 1980's for #1 If you read any ingredient in any processed food, you will not only see HFCS, you will also see sugar, Sugar made from sugar beets that is also made from GM (Genetically Modified) sugar beets with the USDA and the Food Death Association (FDA). The FDA and USDA have been infiltrated by Monsanto. The number 1 mfg of GMO seeds for Corn and sugar beets and was just awarded a contract for Alfalfa which is also genetically modified. All GMO foods created are changing our DNA at our molecular level. There was a study just recently published that found a gene that is mutated that takes place inside our bodies that changes us, it was also found to contain a new strand that was just recently discovered and now a warning has been sent to our government. #1, the FDA, USDA must be removed from Government control and placed in a not for profit group that has no Corporations or ties of any kind within the organization and owes no one nothing except the American Public and that has 100% power to take all the scientific evidence and rid all our foods from anything dangerous or questionable from our foods. This includes all HFCS to start, and ban all GMO crops grown to be in our food supply. All other Countries have banned our GMO foods for distribution, and we must eliminate all milk and milk products that have been treated with any GBHT of any kind, and all meat products treated with any growth hormone. These are the causes that have created the health problems in this country that must be stopped. It has little to do with exercise, eating habits anymore. It is all to do with all the chemicals we injest from the products purchased at the stores and not farmers markets or organic farm stands. Processed foods are the new killer.

Hi everyone,

The more people are exposed to the same thing, the more they think it is the normal; the next step is that it becomes the norme.

For legalities, we all know that to be politically correct, all genders colours and creed must be represented. However in show business (TV series, films etc) spectators (who do not have access to the medical records of the actors) cannot know if obesity is a disease or if he/she is just fat .

The worrying aspect is when fat/obese children are employed on the screen, series, adverts, etc....and become popular.........all the children who watch want to mimic their heroes. ...... being too fat/obese becomes normal and "cool".

I won't go go down the road of "conspiration" , it suffices to state that :

Those who benefit from obesity are food manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies, the victims are "Jo public" brainwashed into apathy.

Hi Jim,

Solution: Eliminate processed food from your table. When everyone stop to eat processed foods, there will be no more GM (Genetically Modified) veggies and grains. I just dreaming about a GOOD FUTURE, which will never come, Gil.

Hit the gym, not the drive-thru.

Yeah, you're right of course, but a lot of us have no interest in the gym. Just a little self control does the trick.

I like fast food sometimes. When I hit the drive through, say I want a cheeseburger, I just order one small burger from the $1.00 menu, and take my time eating it. It satifies the craving, and I didn't just eat 1000 calories. I never drink soda.

My belly comes from beer, not eating, and one just doesn't cut it.

"It is all to do with all the chemicals we injest from the products purchased at the stores and not farmers markets or organic farm stands. Processed foods are the new killer."

Yet they have to ingest it some how so by eating less the odds are they would be in effect reducing the amounts of what ever it is they are being exposed to!

To me that still comes down to the simple concept you can't get fat if you don't put food in your mouth.

The government put good intensions to work making housing available to people who should never have had a home loan to begin with. Just imagine how curing the obesity "crisis" would go.

"Step away from the fries".

or "Sorry, Mrs. Jones, we investigated your medical records and you do not, repeat, DO NOT have a thyroid problem. You will have to come with us."

or "Your honor, my client pleads not guilty to selling Twinkies within 500 feet of school property"

Hi Everyone,

In the early 1930s, Newburg and Johnston made an error to write in a medical newspaper that simply high level of calory intake and low calory consumed or burned contributes to obesity. However, a few years later they discover that the original theory was not correct but being attractive and easy to understand and tell everyone, and the "theory of calories began". They found that metabolism adjust to, let say 2,500 calories per day. When we eat only 2,000 calories, human metabolism take from our reserve but when we don't have the reserve, metabolism adjust to the 2,000 calories intake per day. It's the same when we reduce calories at the next level up to a certain limit, mechanism of the human instect of survival. The theory sais; There is no loss of energy! It's mathematic coming from Lavoisier.

This was a big error of doctors who were not competant in diethetics!

How to explain the survival of German camps' prisoners with around 700 calories for months, if not years? Also, what's happening with THIN people who eat in a daily base 4,000 calories or more?

When someone tell another individual that she/he should cut the number of calories, the suggestion doesn't take in account the nutritional value of FOOD. It's an error!

Food contains many edible substances, which are proteins, fats, carbohydrates, minerals, vitamines, and also water, fibres, and non digestibles parts.

Consumption of to much fats and carbohydrates, both go in the blood system and can become a reserve for the future, and reserve drives us to obesity. Also, it's extremely important to understand that human stomach cannot mix PROTEINS and CARBOHYDRATES. So, eliminate the mixes of these two, meals with bread, which is our burger. Also, don't eat fruits except with empty stomach, mainly the early morning and late evening. Eat PROTEINS with VEGGIES, and CARBOHYDRATES with VEGGIES! Use little quantity of good FATS. Cook with peanut or olive oil. Visit the nearest library and know the GLYCEMIC INDEX of all food you eat. Make choices! Eat FOODS only when their GLYCEMIC INDEX is 50 or less. Never touch above 50. For example, CORN and POTATOES are the perfect food to grow PIGS and we are not! Eliminate all CORNS and POTATOES containing foods from your list and YOUR LIFE will become BETTER and HEALTHIER, Gil.