Obesity

Rants bounce around my head for a while before finally hitting the electrons. This one's been in there for a while, and since Ldragoon posted something on this topic just today, what the hey.

So, as we've all heard five bagillion times, there's an obesity epidemic in America. There's all sorts of theories of various levels of insult on why this is, from the overweight are lazy bastards (what parental marital status has to do with it is anyone's guess), to more sedentary professions and city planning that is unfriendly to pedestrians and bicyclists.

In general, though, it's reduced to "eating more calories than you use." Which is certainly a very effective way to gain weight, but I'm not convinced

1. it's always that simple, and
2. that eating more calories than needed is as avoidable as we like to think with the American food supply.

First, I've read too many cases of PCOS patients who are eating moderately and exercising excessively, and yet still gain weight at an alarming rate because of the disease. And PCOS isn't the only situation where this happens; thyroid problems are infamous for it, for example. Although it is a matter of physics that calories absorbed < calories used = weight loss, there are any number of things that could make a body absorb more calories than usual from food, burn less than usual in activities, or use muscle to fuel the energy use while storing the recently added calories as fat.

There's this phenomena with cats that a cheap food can be more expensive than a more expensive, better quality food, because the cat must eat more of the cheap food in order to get the amount of nutrients it needs, and it will instinctively do so. Of course, because the cat is also eating a lot more filler (i.e. empty calories), this is a recipe for obesity (and thus vet bills, higher longer term costs, and thus cheap food really isn't).

There's no reason to think that human food is immune to this. In fact, given the obesity rates among the poor, there's very good reason to believe that human food is absolutely subject to this same phenomena. So, let's go to the pantry and see what's in our food. Let's see what I can grab at random. I've got a can of Cream of Mushroom soup here. What's the fourth ingredient? "Modified food starch". You know what that is? Filler. Empty calories. Next to zilch in the way of nutrional value. [I really did go into the kitchen and grab the first container of something I saw. I didn't pick and chose.] American food is FILLED with that kind of stuff.

Worse than the worthless fillers, though, there may be things in our food that actively make us fat. Studies suggest that high fructose corn syrup can mess up the body's response to leptin, which is the hormone that tells you when you're full. Let's see, what's has high fructose corn syrup in it? Oh, EVERYTHING. (You know why? Because it's cheaper than sugar. You know what that is. Because 1) our government subsidizes the growth of way more corn than we need, and 2) because there is a "protective" tariff on sugar that raises the American cost to 2 or 3 times the worldwide price. :P)

Here's another one: improper estrogen levels cause weight gain. Too high, too low, both ways can cause weight problems depending on other factors and the person involved. (Remember the PCOS patients I mentioned?) Soy products contain plant estrogens. What is soy used as a filler in? Oh, everything ELSE.

This 'personal responsibility' mentality, the idea that all obesity is caused by personal failing? Bunch of bullshit. If you look at the studies, "laziness" and "poor character" are just about never listed as causes of obesity. Exercise and healthy eating are important, and will work for some people, but not everyone, and it's not their fault. There are a lot of societal issues here. Some are obvious: vehicular-centered city planning, widespread overworking that eliminates time (and energy) for exercise. Some are not so obvious. All the personal responsibility in the world is not going to give us a better food supply and a healthier environment.