Obesity now Recognized as a Disease in the US

[Dang]

I haven't read every post on here so not sure if this has been talked about but here's my take on obesity being a disease.

It has been shown that the human body allows weight gain but resists weight loss aggressively. This is because as we grow, weight increases. However, the human body, evolutionarily, has never been put in a situation where weight loss is normal. That is, the body thinks it's starving.

New studies have have found that when people lose more than about 10% of their current body weight, the body begins to secrete increasing levels of hormones that create hunger. It's easy to tell obese people to stop eating, but the hunger that these hormones make is almost uncontrollable. An analogy I have heard is that it's like trying to tell yourself to breath 10 times a minute and resist your body's natural inclination to breath. Try doing this the whole day while living your normal life. As people lose more weight, the hunger becomes even more prominent.

So with these new findings, a lot of physicians are thinking that obesity is an endocrine disease (ie. hormone related, like thyroid disease or diabetes). Like diabetes, even if someone can control obesity with diet and exercise, it is still a disease.

[SeeBass]

^^
I have lost close to 80 pounds in the last six months and it took over 5 months just for that feeling of constant hunger to stop.
This was a fight that if the people in your home are not on board I would have failed again, in less than a week.
The most effective way I found to stop snacking at home was to not have butter or margarine in the house.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Originally Posted by Ark2

I don't know much about Runtastic, but I get the impression that it must involve a lot of cardio. If you are trying to gain weight, I would drop that and focus on lifting weights (primarily compound exercises like squats, dead lifts, bench press, etc.)

The apps are Running (which won't help bulk up I know). Sit-ups, push-ups, squats and pull-ups.

I've cut back my running. But I do enjoy it so I've only been going out about twice a week for 5K a piece.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by 3 Justin 3

Some of you must really hate me for having to make a 2000+ calorie weight gain shake and still barely put on weight.

That metabolism.

Not really, skinny little freaks are just as ugly.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

Not really, skinny little freaks are just as ugly.

All I ever wanted was to be treated as an equal. Thank you good sir, thank you.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by 3 Justin 3

Some of you must really hate me for having to make a 2000+ calorie weight gain shake and still barely put on weight.

That metabolism.

Metabolism is usually a pretty minor factor. There are variances between healthy individuals, but in all but the most extreme cases it only amounts to a couple hundred calories difference in BMR per day when you're talking about people of roughly the same weight and body makeup.

There's no magic behind it; if you're trying to gain weight and having no success then you're not eating enough to match your activity level. And if you are in fact regularly consuming thousands of extra calories and not gaining weight, then you should probably go to the doctor about it because that's not normal and might imply a medical issue.

More often, the difference between people who eat whatever they want and don't gain a pound and people who have to deprive themselves to maintain their weight is their body's ability to regulate their appetite. For some people eating 2500 calories would be a chore while for others it'd feel like they were hungry most of the day.

[3 Justin 3]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Metabolism is usually a pretty minor factor. There are variances between healthy individuals, but in all but the most extreme cases it only amounts to a couple hundred calories difference in BMR per day when you're talking about people of roughly the same weight and body makeup.

There's no magic behind it; if you're trying to gain weight and having no success then you're not eating enough to match your activity level. And if you are in fact regularly consuming thousands of extra calories and not gaining weight, then you should probably go to the doctor about it because that's not normal and might imply a medical issue.

More often, the difference between people who eat whatever they want and don't gain a pound and people who have to deprive themselves to maintain their weight is their body's ability to regulate their appetite. For some people eating 2500 calories would be a chore while for others it'd feel like they were hungry most of the day.

To be fair, I have been gaining weight and I drink the high calorie shakes to supplement some of my meals (since I never eat at work for 8 hours at a time sometimes).

And MMF I am not a skinny little freak, but if you want me to be.

[chemgear]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/no-hea...inds-1.2448856

Obesity increases the risk of premature death even in people without high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes, according to a review of studies challenging the idea of "healthy obesity."

Researchers in Toronto collected information from eight studies on more than 60,000 people to determine whether people who are obese remain healthy in the long term.

Their answer is no.

"Our results do not support this concept of 'benign obesity' and demonstrate there is no 'healthy' pattern of obesity," Dr. Caroline Kramer at Mount Sinai and her co-authors concluded.

Earlier this year, the myth of healthy obesity was supported by the findings of a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that concluded being overweight or obese (body mass index of 25 to 34.9 kilograms per metre squared) were associated with lower risk of death from all causes.

But Kramer's team found obese individuals showed an increased risk for deaths and cardiovascular events such as heart attacks, strokes and congestive heart failure when followed for 10 years or more.

The length of followup is key to the evaluation, the researchers said.

[missdpuck]

I empathize/sympathize with all weight problems.

I became a vegetarian at 16. I had been a skinny kid, but by 18 I weighed 188 lbs and I'm about 5'6". There's lots of vegetarian junk food/ fatty food out there.

I got rid of the weight problem for awhile by working out, but it did come back to haunt me as I was usually 20 lbs overweight.

Then I studied where my food came from-the milk and eggs etc. I then became a vegan. Problem mostly solved.

I still have a disgusting problem that I think a lot of overweight people end up having.
In fact, I even had it as a skinny 12 year old.

It's redundant skin! On my stomach. It's so gross. A severely overweight person may stretch his/her skin out so much that it can't shrink back after weight loss. But some people are just born with it.

Mine is pretty much hereditary. I've always looked like someone put a roll of bubble wrap around my waist. My mother has it too.

Just saying this because some of you guys may be beating yourself up over losing something that can't be lost, except by the knife,unfortunately.

I really hope you don't have this problem.

As for "skinny little freaks" I've always found them attractive for some reason

[Devils'Advocate]

I was INCREDIBLY lucky in that department. I should be human equivelant of this little guy:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2oXH8AbQCf...wel_Dog__4.jpg


But I am not. It is noticable to some. Not to others. I was thinking about the surgery, but one day I was at the public pool swimming and my friend Gary introduce me a new pool member and he told the guy how much I lost. The new guy said "you are lying to me... if he lost that much weight he'd have loose skin". That new guy saved me an $8,000 tummy tuck. But I was in Toronto in September and went out on my own to have a night on the town and ended up having a one-night-stand (judge, judge not, I don't care)... I didn't feel any need to tell her about how much I weighed before so I never brought it up. But before I left her place she asked me how much I had lost. She said she could tell it was significant due to the loose skin.

Now, granted, the guy at the pool didn't see where it is most noticable (my rear end).

My friend Dionne wrote an short article for a book where she touches on the skin issue:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16687118/Dionne.rtf

Originally Posted by missdpuck

There's lots of vegetarian junk food/ fatty food out there.

No need to tell me. People ask me all the time how I could have possibly gained all that weight being a vegetarian and what I did to lose it. I tell them "I used to eat pasta, pizza and pie. I now eat banana, broccoli and beans." People associate vegetarians with eating lots of fruits and vegetables... but there is all the starchy carbs out there... including the big one - SUGAR.

[Devils'Advocate]

Originally Posted by chemgear

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/no-hea...inds-1.2448856

What I'd like to see studied is:
(a) Does this hold true for overweight people as well as obese people?
(b) Is premature death rates the same for overweight or obese people who exercise an hour a day vs those that do not?

My eating disorder doctor is a big proponent of "The Obesity Myth" by Campos which suggests that studies like the above cited one have a big flaw to them. Okay, there is a statistical link between obesity and higher death rates. But we all know that correlation does not prove causality (although I firmly believe that the decreased number of pirates is the cause of global warming). Studies should be looking at what is CAUSING the higher mortality rates, not just trying to find things that correlate. Campos/my doctor would suggest that there is also a very likely statistical relationship between lack of exercise and obesity. It is Campos's theory is that it's not the fact that someone is overweight that makes them more at risk for disease, but rather their lack of exercise. With the limited data that Campos had at his disposal, his findings were that overweight (not obese) people who exercised an hour per day were at a far less risk of premature death than people who were at a normal weight and didn't exercise at all.