https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIl-6UnlGVs

Youuuu are defiantly watching too much daytime TV. If it was that simple epidemic obesity would not be a problem, WhoTF by the way is Jessica Ennis? Someone with a personal trainer, on beck and call 24/7, dietitians, advisers and oh by the way a professional athlete.
Thing is a human body is hardwired to obesity, if you are religious blame your maker for making you that way. It takes time to loose weight, think about four to six times the amount of time it took you to pile on the wobble, so when you say willpower and consume less calories think about doing that for decades.
Before you ask yourself: "Slammer what the hell do you know about weight loss?" 92 Kilos permanent in five years, that's what I know, but it has been the toughest thing I have ever done, stopping smoking was kids stuff.
So in future please be carful with spouting rhetoric like that.

__________________
Lummerland
Eine Insel mit zwei Bergen,
und im tiefen weiten Meer,
mit viel Tunnels und Geleisen
und dem Eisenbahnverkehr
nun wie mag die Insel heißen
ringsherum ist schöner Strand
jeder sollte einmal reisen
in das schöne Lummerland

Hard-wired to obesity... my arse!

Unless you are one of the few people who has a medical condition that causes them to gain weight, that is utter tosh!

It doesn't matter weather you are an athlete or not. You have to want to not put the food in your mouth and you have to make yourself get up and go training.

I put on weight a few years ago, after an accident that left me bed/sofa bound for several months. I just watched TV and ate cake ... yum! But then after 6 months later I decided to cut the food and start exercising. To be honest I hate dragging myself out for a run and I'd kill for a jam doughnut ... but hey I'd rather fit in my skinny jeans!!

Sorry your argument that it is utter tosh doesn't hold much water.
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_br...61/index1.html
There are hundreds of studies that point to the conclusion, you can google them yourself, that indeed our brains are hardwired to fat, high calorie and sugary foods, the main cause of obesity. Essentially (us from the northern latitudes) are creatures from the ice age where the ability to pour on the pounds gives us a evolutionary advantage.

So please explain why it wasn't the same 60 or 70 years ago?

Evolution doesn't work that fast, sunshine.

No evolution doesn't work that fast, the availability of cheap and abundant food does however.
The link I posted explains it better though.

Have you considered that you might both be correct, albeit in a simplified manner?


However, it isn't as simple as "just eating less" for some because of the psychological elements associated with food, and we are not hardwired to obesity - rather our bodies are good at liking high calorie foods.


I'm surprised to see you write that Mr I think all fast food should be banned and their company executives taken into a field and shot.

Food composition, epidemiology and social changes moving faster that evolution are the reason we have obesity problems.

__________________
Never let right or wrong get in the way of a good opinion

I've never said or written that. You really shouldn't misquote. It's bad form.

An apple is still an apple.
A potato is still a potato.
A lamb chop is still a lamb chop.

I may not be a food scientist (or whatever you are) like you but I'm quite capable of reading the ingredients on the side of a packet.

Perhaps putting higher taxes on these foods is the answer?

What would you do?

Lets break down the key components of the debate:
1) If you consume more calories than you use you'll put on weight. It is that simple. It makes no difference if you are a professional athlete or a sofa slob.

2) We are hard wired to consume food when it is available because until recently aquiring food was relatively difficult and/or financial and/or time expensive.

Society has evolved such that #2 is no longer the case. With an abundance of food we end up tending towards over consumption. Some people will have high metabolisms and/or high calorie requirements - either because of an active work life and/or an active leisure time.

Our consumption can be quickly be skewed to the point where intake > outtake either by combination foods (50/50 fat/sugar calorie foods), by portion sizes and then further by marketing, perceived society norms and "celebrity" press.

For example you see a picture of a skinny Victoria Beckham drinking a smoothie - therefore drinking smoothie = skinny. The fact that might the only calorific thing she consumes doesn't matter to Tracey from Sheffield who has the smoothie alongside her BLT sandwich, bag of crisps and Mars bar for lunch.

It doesn't matter if you are tall, short, man, woman, muscular, skinny, low or high metabolism, gluten intolerant, vegan or whatever you are - you put more in then you take out and you will put on weight.

(Finally a note on "But if I eat a big load of protein I feel full longer and lose weight" well of course you do - because you feel full longer and don't snack on a slice or 2 of cake. Calories are equal but how they are consumed by your body isn't.)

__________________
"Don't believe everything you read on the internet" Abraham Lincoln

What people are implying (not you) when they explain obesity by this is that it's out of their own control and is down to our evolutionary makeup which has allowed us to survive as a species.

I'm sure we were hard-wired to hunt animals for food, too. Most of us have managed to stop doing that.

Men were hard-wired to pro-create as much as possible, and with whom we liked (whether they liked it or not).
Most of us have managed to stop doing that.

Yup, just need to look at the statistics on the obesity pandemic for proof.

True, but the mechanisms behind it are still there, ever felt the rush of hunting for a parking space and finding one?

Child payments put a full stop to that, at least in the western world, but look at population pressures in other parts.

I'm with Ken on this. I read the Precis and the full text of the Rand study. Both are sloppy writing, particularily the Precis - one could easily interpret it as "It is in our genes, and impervious to willpower - therefore we are destined to be overweight, but are absolved from any personal responsibility."


When shopping I use a simple trick: Whenever I am standing at the checkout, or in an aisle surrounded by sweets I repeat in my head (with a Dalek voice) "Resistance is futile, Resistance is futile..." I sometimes forget myself and say it out loud, which usually yields odd stares, but every now and then a snigger or a snort.



30-40 years ago there just wasn't that much junk food and the supply of snacks in general wasn't as ubiquitous. Coca Cola took a long time to build an empire, Red Bull did it within one generation.

This thread needs the Monbiotic diet:


http://www.monbiot.com/2015/08/11/slim-chance/

..That was very interesting. I would just like to add that a person who hasn't had to deal with obesity simply can't even begin to comprehend the difficulties involved, they aren't even on the same planet.
I am not talking about a few pounds here and there or the epic fight to get back into last years bikini. Start with getting rid of a hundred kilos without gastric surgery and you will know what I am talking about.

Are you saying your struggling to lose your post-preganancy weight Dougal??

I never said you did. I made up the title for you. No need to thank me.

Great for you. Most people are not and being aware of what is in packaged food is a relatively new phenomenon. Eating "healthily" is also a relatively new phenomenon. The proof that many people aren't is in the pudding, i.e. increasing rates of obesity, diabetes, heart failure. What is more painful is seeing these rates explode in populations that are only recently becoming "Westernized".

We are in an age where packet foods rule and when you combine that with lack of knowledge around nutrition, and worse, active ignorance, many people think "half fat, I can eat twice as much" or "low-cal - that's healthy".

The irony being that we now live in an age where information is at everyone's fingertips, but people still think that being "gluten free" is about having a healthy diet.

I remember when I first came to CH, the supermarkets were full of fresh produce and the prepared foods section was relatively small. Over the past 15 years, that prepared foods section has steadily increased. In the UK, the situation was already reversed, although on my last couple of trips to the UK I get the feeling that the situation is slowly being challenged (if not reversed).

Education, education, education.

Taxes wouldn't work. Their application would be too difficult. As a parallel, look at how car manufacturers get around low CO2 emission targets.

But fundamentally, it isn't really my problem. I look after myself and my family, beyond that people need to take responsibility for themselves.

That said, I come back to the original reason I posted, it isn't as simple as saying eat less. Biologically it may be, but we are more than the sum of our biological parts and we are programmed to eat more calorific foods.

It is also disingenuous (never-mind unkind) to sneeringly say "eat less" to someone with weight problems (no matter how tempting that might be! ).

__________________
Never let right or wrong get in the way of a good opinion

Excuse me, my post was serious.

Eating healthily as a "trendy lifestyle choice" is relatively new but people have been eating healthily for centuries.

I'm sure that in isolation, that won't work. It's probably true to say that at least 50% of the users of this forum are overweight to some degree or other.

But, are you saying that they all not informed about food to enable to feed their themselves and their families a healthy diet and make that more of a priority than other aspects of their life (wasting time on social media, for example)?

Perhaps a poll is needed:

Are you overweight and too stupid or too uneducated to know what constitutes a healthy diet? Yes or No.

In reality I think most people on this forum know exactly what they should or shouldn't be eating (or at least enough to ensure their diet is healthy). The fact that they choose not too is their choice and nothing to do with education.

Perhaps people reading this would like to disagree with me and reply?

Exactly!

I completely agree that... there is a lot of unhealthy convenience food in the shops these days, that most people like the taste of "bad" foods, that a lot of people enjoy sitting at home and watch TV/Play video games.

HOWEVER

Most people know these things are bad of them and they know that preparing fresh foods and doing exercise is good for them.

It is a choice between the two, which is down to the indivdual. It's not beyond your control due to your genes... it is YOUR CHOICE!!