Obesity research confirms long-term weight loss almost impossible

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

Nobody knows you're a smoker until you pull out a cigarette, and to make the shame go away you simply put it back in your pocket. Fat people get no such luxury

Smoking makes your teeth yellow, smoking makes your breath smellow.

[V]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

Can you make those any bigger? Kinda hard to read them.

As for "discipline".... I'm not sure that is the right word to use. Would you say an alcoholic lacks discipline? If there is a overwhelming biological drive to do a certain behaviour, is it correctly to label it "undisciplined"?

Isn't that pretty much the definition of discipline? Doing what your body doesn't want to do? I don't want to eat vegetables all day and run 20km a week, but I do it because I want to be in decent shape. I would consider myself undisciplined if I just stopped doing what I'm doing, as easy as it would be to stop.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

Can you make those any bigger? Kinda hard to read them.

As for "discipline".... I'm not sure that is the right word to use. Would you say an alcoholic lacks discipline? If there is a overwhelming biological drive to do a certain behaviour, is it correctly to label it "undisciplined"?

I would say yes.

discipline is being able overcome the urges of the body with the power of the mind. Whether that's stopping yourself from drinking, eating, raging on the hockey rink, etc...

That doesn't take away the naturally occurring predespositions to obesity, addiction, etc... but I don't think it's a secret that overcoming those issues is, more than anything, an act of extreme discipline and self-regulation.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Red Herring. People don't quit because of shame. They quit because they know it's unhealthy and they worry about how that affects their loved ones. For smoking, only smoking a little bit doesn't work. Again, you can't do the same abstinence strategy

Where abstinence does work is sugared drinks and snacks. Maybe even sugar in general. I have never had to lose significant amounts of weight like others and for me losing it has always been easy but I have gotten as high as 240 (6'3). And now I am down to 210 and really should be around 200. The key for me was an abstinence strategy.

Rule 1: was no liquids with calories (except beer)
Rule 2: No snacks other than nuts and vegatables and for nuts only eating measured quantities.
Rule 3: Eat out for lunch only once per week

I have realized that I crave sugared pop if I have any at all so cutting that out actually works. This kind of abstinence strategy only works if your issues are snack foods and pop. If you generally over eat then an abstinence strategy won't work. I know that I need rules to follow rather than trying to reduce amounts. I can't drink less pop or order healthy options at restaurants or just have a few chips.

One thing that the various threads on CP about obeisity has done is given me more compassion for them. My mindset previously was that it is easy for me to lose weight so it should be easy for others so I was unfairly judgemental of them. The only area I am still very judgemental is overweight kids. That is entirely the parents fault. You can control what a child eats so there is no reason for an overweight kid.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by GGG

Where abstinence does work is sugared drinks and snacks. Maybe even sugar in general. I have never had to lose significant amounts of weight like others and for me losing it has always been easy but I have gotten as high as 240 (6'3). And now I am down to 210 and really should be around 200. The key for me was an abstinence strategy.

Rule 1: was no liquids with calories (except beer)
Rule 2: No snacks other than nuts and vegatables and for nuts only eating measured quantities.
Rule 3: Eat out for lunch only once per week

I have realized that I crave sugared pop if I have any at all so cutting that out actually works. This kind of abstinence strategy only works if your issues are snack foods and pop. If you generally over eat then an abstinence strategy won't work. I know that I need rules to follow rather than trying to reduce amounts. I can't drink less pop or order healthy options at restaurants or just have a few chips.

One thing that the various threads on CP about obeisity has done is given me more compassion for them. My mindset previously was that it is easy for me to lose weight so it should be easy for others so I was unfairly judgemental of them. The only area I am still very judgemental is overweight kids. That is entirely the parents fault. You can control what a child eats so there is no reason for an overweight kid.

This is huge (no pun intended).


Bringing you lunch allows you to control content of the lunch, and portion size.

[Devils'Advocate]

Originally Posted by V

Isn't that pretty much the definition of discipline? Doing what your body doesn't want to do? I don't want to eat vegetables all day and run 20km a week, but I do it because I want to be in decent shape. I would consider myself undisciplined if I just stopped doing what I'm doing, as easy as it would be to stop.

Originally Posted by MattyC

I would say yes.

discipline is being able overcome the urges of the body with the power of the mind. Whether that's stopping yourself from drinking, eating, raging on the hockey rink, etc...

That doesn't take away the naturally occurring predespositions to obesity, addiction, etc... but I don't think it's a secret that overcoming those issues is, more than anything, an act of extreme discipline and self-regulation.

I suppose. There is just something in there that rubs me the wrong way. There should be a difference between someone who is able to consciously decide to delay gratification and someone who is biologically driven not to. In OA people talk about "white knuckling" it. Trying to use every fibre of your being to overcome what seems like an uncontrollable desire. Very much on par with an alcoholic wanting a drink or a drug addict needing a fix.

Let me try this one out. I cannot control my appetite when I have sugar. Give me a box of chocolate chip cookies and force me to eat one, you wouldn't need to force me to eat the rest; they would be gone. I found the easiest way around this biological compulsion (and my eating disorder doctor said this was quite common) is to avoid sugar entirely. Do I have bad self discipline for not being able to control my appetite after having a sugary treat? Or good self discipline for avoiding sugar for the last 14 months? I see the choice to eat the sugary treat as a conscious choice. But once I start, I really cannot control the urge to continue. I have heard some recovering alcoholics explain their drinking this way. They can choose whether to have the first drink or not. But after the first drink there is no stopping them from passing out drunk.

[Devils'Advocate]

Originally Posted by GGG

The only area I am still very judgemental is overweight kids. That is entirely the parents fault. You can control what a child eats so there is no reason for an overweight kid.

I don't blame my parents for bringing me up on A&W, McD's and KFC. Obesity wasn't such a big deal in the 70s. Proper nutrition wasn't exactly on most people's radars. But today, today there is really no excuse.

When I watched the movie "Fed Up" I did notice a trend. The overweight children predominantly had overweight parents. Children take after their parents.

A support group I belong to are doing a "Virtual 5K" to raise money for charity. We are discussing which charity to give it to. One organization working to reduce childhood obesity. The other organization offers free nutrition classes for adults. I said we should give the money to the organization reducing childhood obesity since I know what it is like to have grown up overweight and it is a very hard thing to escape - most overweight children become overweight adults. However, someone pointed out that it is not the children that are in control of the situation. They don't buy the groceries. Educating the adults improves everyone's health.

[V]

Haha, I thought that was normal for everyone. Give me a box of Decadent Chocolate Chip cookies from Superstore and I'll probably eat the whole box. Shoot, all it takes is opening up the tupperware container of chocolate chips and I'll go crazy.

Last week I was driving back to the office after a meeting and didn't have enough lunch that day, so I stopped at the McD's and picked up a meal. I swore at myself the entire time I detoured over to the McD's, and the whole time I was eating it, but I still did it. I felt shameful and disgusted with myself, because there was no reason for it. I had lots of healthy food waiting for me in my lunch at the office. I was just undisciplined. All that running for nothing.

[V]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

Children take after their parents.

They also have no choice. They have to eat what their parents prepare or buy for them.

I don't know if there's been a study, I'm sure there has, but anecdotally I can say that there appear to be far more overweight kids now than there used to be. Poor kids don't have a chance.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

I suppose. There is just something in there that rubs me the wrong way. There should be a difference between someone who is able to consciously decide to delay gratification and someone who is biologically driven not to. In OA people talk about "white knuckling" it. Trying to use every fibre of your being to overcome what seems like an uncontrollable desire. Very much on par with an alcoholic wanting a drink or a drug addict needing a fix.

Let me try this one out. I cannot control my appetite when I have sugar. Give me a box of chocolate chip cookies and force me to eat one, you wouldn't need to force me to eat the rest; they would be gone. I found the easiest way around this biological compulsion (and my eating disorder doctor said this was quite common) is to avoid sugar entirely. Do I have bad self discipline for not being able to control my appetite after having a sugary treat? Or good self discipline for avoiding sugar for the last 14 months? I see the choice to eat the sugary treat as a conscious choice. But once I start, I really cannot control the urge to continue. I have heard some recovering alcoholics explain their drinking this way. They can choose whether to have the first drink or not. But after the first drink there is no stopping them from passing out drunk.

This.

Your body's natural urge for sugar is your hill to climb. You still seem to be trying to show that obesity is solely the responsibility of genetics, even in the case of not being able to confront and overcome it. While your body's cry for sugar is genetically likely much stronger than others, it still takes discipline to overcome it. If you don't inact enough discipline, you won't be able to. Just like drinking, yes the person has an ailment that drives their desire for booze, but it is ultimately the person, knowing full well what is and isn't healthy (just like an obese person), making the choice.

You CAN control to not to continue. You can't control/stop the urge, that is the natural occurance you have to deal with, but you CAN control the actions you use to respond to the urge. Your brain moves your arms to the cookies and to your mouth and you can avoid that impulse with a bunch of different techniques (abstaining from the first one being #1). It is a very, very hard urge to control, just like a smoker taking a drag he feels is disgusting, but taking it anyways. Just because it is more difficult for you, does not allow you to use it as an excuse for being unhealthy. A reason yes, but not an excuse. There are many cases of people overcoming an abundance of life handicaps, obesity is just another challenge for some people. That does not mean it can't be controlled. The moment you free yourself of responsibility and control, is the moment you let it take you over.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Alberta_Beef

I think it is ridiculous that you can call people fat when for many it is not a choice, but I can't call you an ####### when it is 100% your choice to be one

You must have an extremely negative view of fat people if it riles you up so much.

If I call gay people gay, gay people don't get insulted. Being gay is not a choice whatsoever. If I call black people black, black people don't get insulted. Again, it's not a choice. Yet when I call fat people fat, you get bent out of shape.

If I were calling people who weren't fat, fat, because I didn't like them for other reasons, that would be derogatory use. It's the difference between using "gay" to describe anyone you don't like, and using "gay" to describe people who are gay.

[Devils'Advocate]

BTW - I have been giving a lot of thought to SebC's "smoking" vs "obesity" comparison. It is true. We shamed smokers. I was part of that. "You smoke? Really? That's disgusting." Thinking back on it now, I feel pretty ashamed of myself for doing that. I don't think being cruel to people is the right tact even if I was doing it because I thought it would help their health.

BUT - and I say this without having ever attended a narcotics anonymous meeting - I don't know how many people tie up their self worth with their smoking the way that obese people tie their self worth up with their weight. Many people in OA speak about feeling worthless and depressed. And that's not a good place to be in.

This article below points out that people who are ashamed of themselves due to their weight are more likely to cope with these feelings BY EATING. While that sounds counter-intuitive, I know that's what I did for two decades. Bullying and shaming does NOT work. It's just being cruel to another human being. It was wrong with smoking. It's wrong here.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25749218

[ben voyonsdonc]

Originally Posted by SebC

You must have an extremely negative view of fat people if it riles you up so much.

If I call gay people gay, gay people don't get insulted. Being gay is not a choice whatsoever. If I call black people black, black people don't get insulted. Again, it's not a choice. Yet when I call fat people fat, you get bent out of shape.

If I were calling people who weren't fat, fat, because I didn't like them for other reasons, that would be derogatory use. It's the difference between using "gay" to describe anyone you don't like, and using "gay" to describe people who are gay.

Why do you need to call anyone fat in the first place? Why does it matter to you?

Most overweight people know that they are overweight...and they don't feel good about it. Why do you need to remind them?

Behind many overweight people lies a story. A story that most people don't know. How do you know that the person that you are calling fat wasn't 400 pounds but worked their @ss off to lose 125 pounds? You might think they are fat but you don't know the story. What if that person you are calling fat just came home from Afghanistan after seeing their friends get shot in front of their faces and all they could do to cope with the images was to eat? What if that person that you are calling fat is in an abusive marriage and has turned to food for just a little satisfaction? What if that fat person is a closeted gay person who has been raised to hate themselves? What if they were raised in a family so poor that they eat food because they were raised with the concept of scarcity and fear that someday they won't have any food at all?

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

This is huge (no pun intended).


Bringing you lunch allows you to control content of the lunch, and portion size.

I really wonder why there isn't a Boston Pizza/OJ's/Earl's/etc style chain by now that has a real plethora of quality, healthy menu options.

I mean, you order a salad from one of those places and it usually comes covered in a high calorie dressing with blue cheese, a bunch of bacon on it and a big slab of garlic toast on the side.


I wonder if such a place would actually be successful.

That or a selection of healthy snacks carried by convenience stores. I always walk out with nothing because its all crap.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by SebC

You must have an extremely negative view of fat people if it riles you up so much.

If I call gay people gay, gay people don't get insulted. Being gay is not a choice whatsoever. If I call black people black, black people don't get insulted. Again, it's not a choice. Yet when I call fat people fat, you get bent out of shape.

If I were calling people who weren't fat, fat, because I didn't like them for other reasons, that would be derogatory use. It's the difference between using "gay" to describe anyone you don't like, and using "gay" to describe people who are gay.

What are you rambling on about? Of course gay and black people get insulted if you point out they're black or gay, whether it's derogatory or not. Why would you be pointing out that gay and black people are gay and black? How is this even an analogy?

[photon]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

That or a selection of healthy snacks carried by convenience stores. I always walk out with nothing because its all crap.

Some have a "healthy" section, where they sell fruit, and various bars and other things that are supposedly better than the standard stuff. You still have to watch since some of the supposedly healthy bars really aren't.

Problem with healthy snacks is they usually don't preserve well, are more expensive (salt, sugar, and fat are cheap), and when you're talking about convenience stores or grocery stores, shelf space is everything.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by photon

Some have a "healthy" section, where they sell fruit, and various bars and other things that are supposedly better than the standard stuff. You still have to watch since some of the supposedly healthy bars really aren't.

Problem with healthy snacks is they usually don't preserve well, are more expensive (salt, sugar, and fat are cheap), and when you're talking about convenience stores or grocery stores, shelf space is everything.

I always feel sorry for parents with kids waiting in line to put their groceries on the belt. Child reaches over and grabs chocolate bar with parent saying no! Child screams and or howls with parent looking embarrassed while trying to get the child to calm down. Parents allows child to have said bar and all is well. Having worked for many years in a grocery store incidents like that were a regular occurance. There's a reason why candy bars are kept there

[bcsoda]

This was a reply to something else, but they made a good argument that I wasn't necessarily looking at the data they were talking about. But I'll leave this here anyway, as it's something to think about (that maybe the obesity epidemic, if it did in fact occur, is at least leveling out now).

"Among Canadian youth (aged 12 to 17), the rates of overweight and obesity between 2005 and 2012 are largely unchanged (2003 data were not available)."

"The very latest CDC study confirmed that in recent years the adult obesity rate has plateaued, at worst."

http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploa...-in-canada.pdf

[wittynickname]

Originally Posted by V

They also have no choice. They have to eat what their parents prepare or buy for them.

I don't know if there's been a study, I'm sure there has, but anecdotally I can say that there appear to be far more overweight kids now than there used to be. Poor kids don't have a chance.

This is a huge, huge statement, and a massive part of the obesity epidemic at least in the US. There are huge swaths of the country, both urban and rural, where access to healthy food is simply not plausible. Areas where an actual grocery store is too far to walk to, and if the family doesn't have access to a vehicle or proper public transportation, they cannot get to an actual grocery store to buy healthy food.

http://apps.ams.usda.gov/fooddeserts/foodDeserts.aspx

Also there's the issue that healthy food--fresh produce, fresh lean meat--is often far more expensive than is preservative-laden, prepared crap. You can get 2000 calories of garbage food for a few dollars, or you can spend $20-30+ on 2000 calories worth of nutritious food. I don't know if this is as much an issue in Canada as it is in the US, but I would say it's a really big part of the obesity problem in this country.

[V]

Originally Posted by bcsoda

Science would say you're wrong.

"Among Canadian youth (aged 12 to 17), the rates of overweight and obesity between 2005 and 2012 are largely unchanged (2003 data were not available)."

And interestingly, from the same article

"The very latest CDC study confirmed that in recent years the adult obesity rate has plateaued, at worst."

http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploa...-in-canada.pdf

I found that so unbelievable I had to go looking.

This doesn't agree with your science at all.

http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/obesity/facts.htm

Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years.1, 2
The percentage of children aged 6–11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7% in 1980 to nearly 18% in 2012. Similarly, the percentage of adolescents aged 12–19 years who were obese increased from 5% to nearly 21% over the same period.1, 2
In 2012, more than one third of children and adolescents were overweight or obese.1
Overweight is defined as having excess body weight for a particular height from fat, muscle, bone, water, or a combination of these factors.3 Obesity is defined as having excess body fat.4
Overweight and obesity are the result of “caloric imbalance”—too few calories expended for the amount of calories consumed—and are affected by various genetic, behavioral, and environmental factors.5,6

And a more Canadian slant.

http://www.childhoodobesityfoundation.ca/statistics

There has also been a dramatic increase in unhealthy weights in children. In 1978, only 15% of children were overweight or obese. By 2007, Statistics Canada found that 29% of adolescents had unhealthy weights2. Most adolescents do not outgrow this problem and in fact, many continue to gain excess weight3. If current trends continue, by 2040, up to 70% of adults aged 40 years will be either overweight or obese4.

I might have to check up on your previous attempts at science. This was really weak.