- Joined
- Jan 2, 2009
- Messages
- 17,728
- Reaction score
- 10,664
- Location
- Washington State
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Conservative
Obesity is certainly a problem in the US and also here in Canada. We should never accept it as normal, and anyone with weight issues should try to strive to be healthier.
Now that I got that out of the way, there area few underlying issues as to why people are fat. This was not a problem in the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s like it is now, so why is it? Is it because people are lazier today than in the past? Is it because people eat more? Is it because people care less?
A kidney doctor from Toronto wrote a book a few years ago because he wondered why he had so many patients with complications from diabetes. Instead of lecturing his patients, he decided to delve into why it's such a problem. His conclusions -- based-on human trial studies and endless research -- is that people are fat because of our overly processed food abundance. Corn is heavily subsidized and you'll find in some form in everything that is processed. People have less time these days to make nice meals and settle for stuff in a package or box. These processed food cause insulin resistance which leads to diabetes and weight gain. So, in essence, laziness, high-fat, high-calorie diets do not cause obesity. Too much insulin causes obesity. Insulin makes you fat. It's so not about calories in and calories out.
I am skeptical by nature so a friend asked me to read it and get my take. Her doctor told her about it because she had gastro surgery many years ago and had been slowly putting on weight every year despite not changing her diet. I relunctantly read it and I must say I was blown away. I think about food and exercise so differently now.
There’s an excellent video made by UC-San Francisco called “The Bitter Truth About Sugar”. It’s very informative and supports what you’ve said.