Guest Essay by Kip Hansen
Prologue: This is the fourth in a series of essays that will discuss ongoing scientific controversies, a specific type of which are often referred to in the science press and elsewhere as “Wars” – for instance, The Salt Wars. This essay covers the Obesity Epidemic, aka The Obesity Wars. The purpose of the series is to illuminate the similarities and differences involved in each of these wars. Warning: This is not a short essay. Dig in when you have time to read a longer piece.
Trigger Warning: This essay is about obesity – the condition of being fat or overweight. It is about being overweight, body size, fatness; it is about all the problems that accompany that condition. If reading about these topics will cause you any emotional distress or make you feel unsafe or threatened in any way – stop reading here.
Stephen Hawking is a very smart guy, a very very smart guy. But like some smart guys in other fields, he can make very foolish statements based on ideas that are commonly believed but almost entirely inaccurate.
In a video produced by Gen-Pep, a Swedish non-profit organization “that works to spread knowledge and get people involved in promoting the health of children and young people”, Hawking made the following statements:
[Important Note: Stephen Hawking, as you probably know, is and has been severely physically handicapped, suffering from ALS, and has been wheelchair bound since the late 1960s. His experiences with diet and exercise are not, by necessity, the same as for you and me. Neither human physiology nor human medicine are his fields of study. I do not know why he was called upon to make this promotional video for Gen-Pep.]
Hawking starts off by saying: “At the moment, humanity faces a major challenge and millions of lives are in danger…”
“As a cosmologist I see the world as a whole and I’m here to address one of the most serious public health problems of the 21st century.”
“Today, too many people die from complications related to overweight and obesity.”
“We eat too much and move too little.”
“Fortunately, the solution is simple.”
“More physical activity and change in diet.”
When Hawking says these things he is simply repeating the official opinions of almost every major medical and health organization in the world:
The US Surgeon General:
“… the fundamental reason that our children are overweight is this: Too many children are eating too much and moving too little.
In some cases, solving the problem is as easy as turning off the television and keeping the lid on the cookie jar.”
The UK’s National Health Service:
“Obesity is generally caused by eating too much and moving too little.”
The UN’s World Health Organization:
“The fundamental cause of obesity and overweight is an energy imbalance between calories consumed and calories expended. Globally, there has been:
an increased intake of energy-dense foods that are high in fat;
and
an increase in physical inactivity due to the increasingly sedentary nature of many forms of work, changing modes of transportation, and increasing urbanization.”
The National Institutes of Health tell us:
“What Causes Overweight and Obesity?
Lack of Energy Balance
Overweight and obesity happen over time when you take in more calories than you use.
An Inactive Lifestyle
People who are inactive are more likely to gain weight because they don’t burn the calories that they take in from food and drinks.”
Of course, the NIH goes on to list the following as “other causes…”:
“Environment, Genes and Family History, Health Conditions, Medicines, Emotional Factors, Smoking, Age, Pregnancy and Lack of Sleep”
Everyone knows that the causes of obesity are eating too much and not exercising enough. All the major federal agencies, the United Nations, and the learned societies agree.
So how is this a Modern Scientific Controversy?
Simple: They are all wrong. Just how wrong are they on this issue? Just how wrong is Stephen Hawking on this issue?
Almost entirely wrong.
Bruce Y. Lee, associated with the Global Obesity Prevention Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, was so concerned by Hawking’s message that he was prompted to write an article for Forbes magazine titled “Stephen Hawking Is Right But Also Wrong About Obesity”.
Let me be perfectly clear: The obesity epidemic is a major challenge for medical science and public health because, quite simply, we have almost no idea whatever as to the true cause(s) of the phenomena, or, in another sense, we have too many ideas about the cause(s) of obesity.
In fact, Gina Kolata, in the Health section of the NY Times, says that Dr. Frank Sacks, a professor of nutrition at Harvard,
“…likes to challenge his audience when he gives lectures on obesity.
“If you want to make a great discovery,” he tells them, figure out this: Why do some people lose 50 pounds on a diet while others on the same diet gain a few pounds?
Then he shows them data from a study he did that found exactly that effect.
Dr. Sacks’s challenge is a question at the center of obesity research today. Two people can have the same amount of excess weight, they can be the same age, the same socioeconomic class, the same race, the same gender. And yet a treatment that works for one will do nothing for the other.”
Dr. Lee Kaplan, director of the obesity, metabolism and nutrition institute at Massachusetts General Hospital, is quoted by Kolata as saying:
“It makes as much sense to insist there is one way to prevent all types of obesity — get rid of sugary sodas, clear the stores of junk foods, shun carbohydrates, eat breakfast, get more sleep — as it does to say you can avoid lung cancer by staying out of the sun, a strategy specific to skin cancer.”
But wait, what about our beloved Stephen Hawking’s “Fortunately, the solution is simple. More physical activity and change in diet.”? Well, frankly, that is not just wrong, that’s utter nonsense.
Dr. Kaplan and his associates have identified, so far, fifty-nine (59) different types of obesity.
Dr. Stephen O’Rahilly, head of the department of clinical biochemistry and medicine at Cambridge University, and his group, have identified 25 genes “with such powerful effects that if one is mutated, a person is pretty much guaranteed to become obese.”
Many of these genetic disorders are on the rare side, but Ruth Loos and her team at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, have other evidence – that any one of 300 different genes may be involved in the tendency to overweight, and that each gene can add to the effect of the others—add to the genetic propensity for overweight and obesity. “It is more likely that people inherit a collection of genes, each of which predispose them to a small weight gain in the right environment….each may contribute just a few pounds but the effects add up in those who inherit a collection of them.”
There are more than three dozen available therapies (Dr. Kaplan claims to have 40 at his disposal) for overweight and obesity, and 15 different drugs. Using them is guided by experience and plain old-fashioned trial-and-error.
Bariatric surgery, in which the size of the stomach is physically altered by various means, is a drastic last resort for the profoundly obese.
Only the last mentioned treatment, bariatric surgery, is universally successful at bringing about a major and permanent reduction in the body weight of the obese.
In June of 2013, the American Medical Association announced that it had classified obesity as a disease. This event was covered by the NY Times – in the business–not science—section:
“The American Medical Association has officially recognized obesity as a disease, a move that could induce physicians to pay more attention to the condition and spur more insurers to pay for treatments.
In making the decision, delegates at the association’s annual meeting in Chicago overrode a recommendation against doing so by a committee that had studied the matter.
“Recognizing obesity as a disease will help change the way the medical community tackles this complex issue that affects approximately one in three Americans,” Dr. Patrice Harris, a member of the association’s board, said in a statement. She suggested the new definition would help in the fight against Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, which are linked to obesity.”
“The vote of the A.M.A. House of Delegates went against the conclusions of the association’s Council on Science and Public Health, which had studied the issue over the last year. The council said that obesity should not be considered a disease mainly because the measure usually used to define obesity, the body mass index, is simplistic and flawed.”
The move by the AMA was hugely controversial within the medical community. In fact, it prompted an editorial from the editors of the journal of the Australian Medical Association, Lee Stoner and Jon Cornwall, titled “Did the American Medical Association make the correct decision classifying obesity as a disease?”
“The American Medical Association (AMA) recently classified obesity a disease, defining obesity as having a Body Mass Index (BMI) measure above 30. This decision went against the advice of its own Public Health and Science Committee, and has sparked widespread discontent and discussion amongst medical and healthcare communities. The fact that this classification has been made has potential ramifications for health care around the world, and many factors need to be considered in deciding whether the decision to make obesity a disease is in fact appropriate.”
“Are we classifying obesity correctly?
“Before considering whether obesity should be considered a disease, we must question the suitability of BMI as a rubric. The assumption is that the ratio between height and weight provides an index of body fatness. However, there is an imperfect association between BMI and body fatness, and BMI does not and cannot distinguish adipose type and distribution. While total body fat is important, studies have shown that central adiposity (e.g., visceral fat) poses a higher risk for developing disorders associated with obesity than overall body fatness. There are superior anthropometric indices of central adiposity, including waist-to-hip ratio, yet BMI continues to be the criterion owing to previous widespread and historical use despite its obvious shortcomings. Using the BMI tool, incorrect clinical categorisation of “overweight” or “obese” is common. Therefore, this editorial accepts that the AMA has selected an imperfect tool for classifying obesity, and will hereafter focus on the theoretical notion of obesity.”
“Undeniably, obesity is a risk factor associated with a clustering of complications, including hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and type 2 diabetes, each of which independently and additively increase cardiovascular disease risk. However, obesity is exactly that—a risk factor. Being obese does not necessarily equate to poor health, despite the hormonal alterations that are associated with high body fat. Strong evidence has emerged suggesting that an adult may be “fat but fit”, and that being fat and fit is actually better than being lean and unfit.”
The Australian Medical Association’s editorial wraps up with this:
“Conclusion
Obesity has reached pandemic proportions, is strongly associated with myriad co-morbid complications, and is leading to a progressive economic and social burden. However, being obese does not necessarily equate to poor health, and evidence suggests individuals may be fat but fit. Perhaps most importantly, labelling obesity a disease may absolve personal responsibility and encourage a hands-off approach to health behaviour. This knowledge raises the question of morality, as individuals must now choose whether they will invest effort into maintaining a healthy lifestyle in order to free society of the healthcare burden associated with obesity. Given the myriad issues surrounding the decision to classify obesity in this way, perhaps a new question should be posed in order for society to continue this discussion: who benefits most from labelling obesity a disease?”
And what about a cure? Is it possible, short of radical invasive surgery, to help an obese person permanently lose enough weight to become a normal weighted person?
If the learned societies, and Stephen Hawking, are correct in stating that obesity is as simple as eating too much and exercising too little, then the obvious cure is to take obese people, feed them less and exercise them more.
Let’s go back and look at the results from Dr. Frank Sacks, professor of nutrition at Harvard, and his study “Comparison of Weight-Loss Diets with Different Compositions of Fat, Protein, and Carbohydrates”.
Results
At 6 months, participants assigned to each diet had lost an average of 6 kg [13 lbs], which represented 7% of their initial weight; they began to regain weight after 12 months. By 2 years, weight loss remained similar in those who were assigned to …[the four diets, ranging from 6 to 9 lbs]…Among the 80% of participants who completed the trial, the average weight loss was 4 kg [ 9 lbs]; 14 to 15% of the participants had a reduction of at least 10% of their initial body weight. Satiety, hunger, satisfaction with the diet, and attendance at group sessions were similar for all diets; attendance was strongly associated with weight loss (0.2 kg per session attended). The diets improved lipid-related risk factors and fasting insulin levels.
Digging in a little more, we find that:
“At 2 years, 31 to 37% of the participants had lost at least 5% of their initial body weight, 14 to 15% of the participants in each diet group had lost at least 10% of their initial weight, and 2 to 4% had lost 20 kg [45 lbs] or more (P>0.20 for the comparisons between diets).”
These are serious weight loss diets, closely supervised, with group and individual reinforcement sessions, for 2 years. Only 2 to 4% of the participants lost truly substantial amounts of weight that would reclassify them as normal weight persons. The rest of the participants lost those easy first 10-15 pounds in the first six months, but after a year, they began to regain their lost weight, despite staying on the diet and receiving group counseling, to end up with average loss, for 80% of the participants, of 9 pounds [4 kg], after two years of supervised dieting.
Let’s see what these results mean for those suffering from obesity:
I’ve added three colored dumbbells, showing just what a permanent 10% reduction in body weight means for three sample obese patients. Two have managed to move from Morbidly Obese to Obese, and one is still Obese. We have not considered the more extreme cases, which are not rare – persons weighing > 286 lbs. You can picture for yourself what the loss of 9 lbs would represent for you or someone you know who is far too heavy.
The real finding is that under a strict diet, most people can generally (but not always) lose 10-15 pounds if they are supported by counseling (professional or family). With care, these people can keep most of those extra pounds off. This benefits those whom who (h/t jsuther2013) are classified Overweight, but not generally those that are truly Obese, who remain obese after this weight loss. Nonetheless, medical bio-markers do improve even with these fairly small weight loses. Whether this improvement in bio-markers adds up to improved health and longevity is not known.
It is important to note that the above chart is based on the metric BMI which is under serious doubt within the obesity research community.
25 genes guaranteed to make you obese; 300 genes that add to each other to pack on pounds; 56 different types of obesity; 15 drugs; 40 therapies; three or four surgical approaches…definitely not simple, Mr. Hawking.
But that’s not all.
Erin Fothergill’s “Biggest Loser” study found:
“In conclusion, we found that “The Biggest Loser” participants regained a substantial amount of their lost weight in the 6 years since the competition but overall were quite successful at long-term weight loss compared with other lifestyle interventions. Despite substantial weight regain, a large persistent metabolic adaptation was detected. Contrary to expectations, the degree of metabolic adaptation at the end of the competition was not associated with weight regain, but those with greater long-term weight loss also had greater ongoing metabolic slowing. Therefore, long-term weight loss requires vigilant combat against persistent metabolic adaptation that acts to proportionally counter ongoing efforts to reduce body weight.”
What this means is that a person’s body fights back against weight loss and adapts its base metabolic rate to burn fewer calories while resting in an apparent attempt to regain weight lost by dieting and thus maintain a set weight point under conditions of lower caloric intake. This study was such big news that it is featured in the New York Times’ “Medical and Health News That Stuck With Us in 2016”.
Eleonora Ponterio and Lucio Gnessi, in their study “Adenovirus 36 and Obesity: An Overview” report that:
“…the data indicating a possible link between viral infection and obesity with a particular emphasis to the Adv36 will be reviewed.”
Thus, the Obesity Epidemic might be just that, an infectious epidemic.
In a study titled “Trim28 Haploinsufficiency Triggers Bi-stable Epigenetic Obesity”, Andrew Pospisilik and team found that there are titillating hints that epigentics may play a role in determining who is fat and who is lean, even when they generally share the same genes (closely related individuals) , or in the case of identical twins, exactly the same genes.
No, the obesity epidemic is far from Hawking’s, “Fortunately, the solution is simple.” And the solution to obesity is orders of magnitude more complicated than “More physical activity and change in diet.” In fact, universally reliable solutions to the problem of obesity do not yet exist.
There is nothing clearer from obesity research than that the simplistic policies of the federal health agencies and the learned societies – all of which were summarized by Stephen Hawking — “Eat Less & Exercise More” are totally inadequate to address the problem and are not based on scientific evidence. The “Eat Less & Exercise More” policies include the war on sugar and the war on soda – they cannot and will not make a clinically important difference in public health.
Summary:
- The kernel of truth in obesity studies is that consuming more calories (food energy) than one expends can lead to weight gain–energy stored as fat.
- Reversing this does not lead to a remedy for obesity – eating less and exercising more is not a cure for obesity.
- The reality of the problem of obesity is vastly more complex and only vaguely understood at this time.
- Current public policy on obesity is almost universally based on #1 above, ignoring #2 and #3. Thus, this public policy – no matter how strenuously enforced through education, indoctrination, regulation of the food industry, punitive taxation, etc will not resolve the Obesity Epidemic.
- On a positive note, the recommendation that people “eat less and exercise more” will not hurt anyone [with the rare exception of the profoundly underweight, the anorexic, etc] but, in general, will actually improve most people’s health even though it may have no effect whatever on their weight status.
- The Obesity Wars share the common feature seen in other modern scientific controversies — public government agencies and scientific [and medical] associations forming a consensus behind a single solution, one known to be ineffective, to a complex problem – uniting in a broad effort to enforce the ineffective solution on the general public through regulations, laws, and mis-education.
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Author’s Comment Policy:
I have utilized only a tiny fraction of the information I have collected on this topic in the writing of this essay. Readers familiar with the literature on the topic will notice this immediately. This is not due to ignorance or laziness on my part – I have been constrained by the necessity of keeping the essay to a readable length, without unduly stretching the patience of you, my readers.
I realize that many readers here will want to move on immediately to discuss the Climate Wars – one of the distinctive science wars of our day. I ask that you please try to restrain yourselves
The last essay in the series will be an attempt to lay out a coherent pattern of modern science wars and maybe suggest ways that the different science fields themselves can break these patterns and return their specific area of science back to the standards and practices that should exist in all scientific endeavors.
# # # # #
Steak reared milk boys who also chow down on lots of carbs. Got Pringles?
Well, I get messages that say one of three kids is obese, but one in four is starving. So are the fat ones eating the poor ones?
They’re both a crock. I’ve traveled all over the country and ever since Michelle Obama’s BS statement on the subject, I’ve started counting fat kids, and was in three states before I counted half-a-dozen kids who I would define as obese – two of them following behind a mother who was definitely so, walking them in a city street in the middle of a school day, and one of the kids (seven- or eight, I’m guessing) had a purple Mohawk, so I’m guess that’s a lifestyle thing with that family.
Of course, if you can’t find enough obesity, changing the definition helps.
Mr Hanson has a huge problem and huge bias that prevented him from writing a good article on obesity.
And one minor problem with comments on his articles.
The huge problem: I don’t believe he has ever been obese and tried to lose a large amount of weight.
The huge bias: Based on reading some of his prior articles, Mr. Hanson is strongly biased against establishment views, something that has been especially popular in 2016, and has always been popular among climate change skeptics.
The minor problem: Hanson gets too offended by people who disagree, and is quick to tell them they are wrong with little or no supporting data.
Well, Mr. Hanson, I’ve got news for you:
– Sometimes the establishment is right, and the anti-establishment guy is wrong.
This is one of those times.
The article dismisses a real scientific consensus on obesity (unlike the phony 97% consensus on climate change).
Mr. Hanson apparently thinks he is smarter than “almost every major medical and health organization in the world” and “they are all wrong”!
When I stopped laughing, I decided to write this comment.
My conclusion, based on available evidence, is the obesity consensus is real, and correct.
Of course I could be wrong — I was wrong once before.**
** My wife disputes that number.
I have no problem with an off-topic article, if it provided useful knowledge.
This one doesn’t.
The article tells us the obesity ‘establishment’ is wrong, obesity is very complicated and losing weight is very hard, with surprisingly little data to support those conclusions.
There are logical fallacies in the article: Primarily repeated appeals to authorities — are we supposed to be in awe of the people mentioned simply because they are from Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts General Hospital, etc. ?
Are we suppose to believe them simply because they are anti-establishment?
Couldn’t those anti-obesity establishment “authorities” be completely wrong?
The long article wastes much space with quotes from obesity establishment people and organizations the author later says don’t know what they are talking about.
The article says there are 59 types of obesity without any explanation of what that means.
The article says bariatric surgery is the only successful weight loss method, which is completely wrong — any “diet” that keeps calorie input lower than calorie output will lead to weight loss, and that is most “diets”.
There are three problems with “diets”:
(1) People cheat on spouses and diets,
(2) Accurate calorie counting is impossible, and
(3) People who “diet” think they can stop dieting after they lose weight — when in fact they have to permanently change their eating and drinking habits to keep the weight off.
I have no problem with an individual like Hanson challenging a scientific consensus.
That’s how progress is usually made in science.
But the consensus that ingesting excessive calories in your food and drink causes weight gain is correct.
The problem with the consensus is even though it is correct, it doesn’t really help people lose weight.
It is impossible for individuals to accurately count calories for everything they eat, especially restaurant meals, and count calories used for their activities during the day.
Rough estimates are possible, but even tiny errors could result in gaining a pound or two each year — and after 30 years, a pound or two gained each year adds up to a large weight gain.
The obesity epidemic is recent — there was no epidemic in the 1960s and early 1970s when I was in high school — only one or two percent of students were fat — my spouse and baby boomer friends had the same experience in another state.
There is no way genes could have mutated so much in the 50 years since the 1960s to cause an obesity epidemic that seemed to start in about 1980 in the US — so blaming genes is nonsense.
A few minutes of brainstorming with several fat and semi-fat friends over a HUGE pizza, about changes since 1980 that might have contributed to the sudden rise of obesity in the US, came up with this list:
(1) The US population is aging — older people tend to be fatter than younger people,
(2) Fewer jobs require physical exertion or standing,
(3) Kids get much less physical activity during and after school,
(4) People eat in restaurants more often, where it is impossible to accurately measure portions and count calories, portions are often large and high in fat and sugar, and usually have more calories than specified on the menu, assuming the menu says anything at all about calories.
(Examples of growing portion sizes: In the 1960s a standard MacDonalds burger was two ounces, now four ounces is typical. Good restaurants served five or six ounce burgers then, now eight ounces is typical. A large MacDonalds fries today looks triple the size of a typical french fries portion in the 1960s).
(5) Families less often eat dinner together at one table, where an overeater might be told to “slow down” — people much more often eat alone and/or distracted by doing other things.
Hanson believes the obesity establishment consensus is wrong but offers very little persuasive, specific data to refute it. There are links to other articles/websites — but why read them if the original article is not convincing? Back to the drawing board Hanson!
I provided an excessively long comment because it’s easier for me to type than to edit.
Richard “Heavy R” Greene
4′ 10″ tall**
455 pounds
Not my fault.
Bad genes.
** actually four foot nine and one-half inches without heels.
Richard ==> It is expected that you’ll do your share of the work, read the studies, at least their abstracts.
An essay like this is not meant to be an exhaustive treatise on an issue, but to lay out the basic point of the author (in this case, me) and support the author’s view with the facts.
I will repeat this one more time in the comments — especially for you, since you seem so concerned — energy imbalance, more calories in than consumed, causes extra energy to be stored by the body as fat. This simple statement is so true, that I have labelled it the Kernel of Truth of obesity.
The fact that doing the reverse, Eating Less and Exercising More, does not cure the overweight and obese, means something else is also going on — thus ELEM is not going to be an effective public health tool to fight the obesity epidemic.
The Obesity Consensus is not on the Cause of the obesity epidemic — the consensus is formed around a public health remedy for the epidemic — a remedy that their own literature shows will nearly totally ineffective.
The research literature lays out the known causes and some of the causes-under-consideration.
You can accept the evidence of the field or not….your choice certainly — I am sure that in your personal situation you are quite aware that THERE IS NO EASY ANSWER.
Or you can supply your own list of coincident associations and label them causes.
And, of course, as someone affected by obesity, you are free to try the public health remedy of Eat Less Exercise More — but I think that you already know that it will not help you.
I am very empathetic with your situation — I have a relative in a similar condition, with no real hope of recovery. My hope is that the research continues down paths that will lead to useful, applicable findings that will help.
Kip Hansen said:
“I will repeat this one more time in the comments — especially for you, since you seem so concerned — energy imbalance, more calories in than consumed, causes extra energy to be stored by the body as fat. This simple statement is so true, that I have labelled it the Kernel of Truth of obesity.”
Yep, if your body receives more energy than it burns, thermodynamics dictates that you will gain weight.
“The fact that doing the reverse, Eating Less and Exercising More, does not cure the overweight and obese, means something else is also going on — thus ELEM is not going to be an effective public health tool to fight the obesity epidemic.”
Yep, if your body expends more energy than it receives thermodynamics dictates that you will loose wei….. oh, hang on…
So what went wrong there?
The only way to not loose weight by expending more energy than you receive, is to not expend more energy than you receive.
Any other issue you can come up with ultimately comes down to not actually expending more energy than you receive. The “something else” that is going on is people not actually expending more energy than they receive. If they did, thermodynamics dictates that they must loose weight.
So, any solution must involve finding a way to get people to expend more energy than they receive. If something is stopping a person from doing that, then sure, look at ways to help them, but there is nothing you can do that will work that doesn’t involve actually making them receive less energy than they expend.
Hanson says:
“Richard ==> It is expected that you’ll do your share of the work, read the studies, at least their abstracts.”
My reply:
Abstracts are misleading — they are usually not an accurate, unbiased summary of the study.
It was YOUR job to summarize the studies and present a persuasive case — you failed miserably.
A person who is an expert in a subject can easily summarize it concisely using simple English that ordinary people will understand.
To keep it simple, so even you can understand, I will sum up obesity science in three brief sentences:
(1) People who are overweight and DO NOT CHANGE their caloric intake are very unlikely to lose weight.
(2) People who are overweight and INCREASE their caloric intake will not lose weight.
(3) People who are overweight and DECREASE their caloric intake have a chance to lose weight. If they reduce caloric intake enough, they WILL lose weight.
This is so simple a six year old child could understand it.
Go find a six year old child to explain it to you
Thank you Richard. You said it so much better than I did in previous posts. You don’t know how much I appreciate the many Hansen posts to to Andy Revkin’s NYT “DotEarth”- two very good people and one of them, Revkin, mostly wrong. I feel the same way about Kip’s analysis of the obesity problem as I feel about Revkin’s analysis of global warming.
Let me give an analogy. I just watched an hour CBS Oprah Winfrey program interviewing Michelle Obama. Michelle and Barack are wonderful people. Barack’s selection of science advisor Holdren was awful; some of Barack Obama’s decisions, based on Holdren’s advice, were awful. And yes, I think Obama went well beyond constitutional authority, again based on bad advice
I think the takeaway is that good people often give and receive bad advice; good people in power make bad decisions based on the bad advice they receive. I think that was true of George Bush and Colin Powell with regard to to Iraq, and Barack Obama in regard to global warming/climate change.
I hate the incivility, meanness, and demonizing I find on all the blogs including this one.
I very much disagree with Kip Hansen’s analysis, but I am very grateful for his expressing a point of view.
And Richard, Kip asked me if I had worked with the over-weight or obese. Though qualified, I said no, too many other passions like- see web site.
Bad genes or not, I think it is possible for you to get to a normal, healthy weight. I’m here to help you if I can be of assistance.
Doug
What a wonderful world we live in! So many wonderful good people make so many bad decisions to manipullate so profitably us, deplorable hard-working fools! And they are so benevolent and self-sacrificing as to offer us assistance (for e fee) after robbing us blind! I siply melt in admiration.
Doug Allen wrote:
“I hate the incivility, meanness, and demonizing I find on all the blogs.”
My reply:
A close relative viciously character attacked Trump to shreds before the elections in an email to me.
I didn’t even like Trump much, yet the attack offended me, and I told them so.
After the election, they began posting flowery lets be nice to each other and sing Kumbaya together posts on Facebook. I wrote back asking why that advice didn’t apply to them before the election!
Liberals, and you may be one of them, adopted the Alinsky style of ridicule and character attack decades ago. In 2016 they threw everything they had at Trump — he ONLY won because he used Alinsky style character attacks on Hillary.
If you sit back and try to calmly defend yourself against Alinsky style ridicule, you lose the debate / argument / election.
The climate “establishment” has used Alinsky-style ridicule to avoid debate for decades — “climate denier” , “the science is settled”, “97% of scientists say — are you smarter than them?”, “science denier”, etc.
What most people here don’t understand is skeptics have to fight back with Alinsky style ridicule first to get attention and put the warmunists on defense. Only later will our data, facts and logic have any effect. 40 years of grossly inaccurate climate predictions — there’s something easy to ridicule!
I think the quote below summarizes the main point author Hanson is trying to make:
“Everyone knows that the causes of obesity are eating too much and not exercising enough. All the major federal agencies, the United Nations, and the learned societies agree. So how is this a Modern Scientific Controversy? Simple: They are all wrong.”
More of my comments:
Hanson is wrong — this time what ‘everyone’ knows is right.
Hanson has cherry-picked scientists with anti-establishment theories.
They are wrong.
In the obesity/dieting science you must present a “new” theory to get attention.
It doesn’t have to be right, it just has to be new.
Based on his prior articles here, Hanson is extremely biased toward favoring anti-establishment views.
That bias might make him popular at this anti (climate) establishment website.
The climate establishment gets attention by making scary climate forecasts — we have four decades of wrong predictions to prove they can’t forecast the future climate.
When a scientist gets attention by claiming a new obesity or diet theory, laymen have no way of really knowing if his “study” can be replicated by others (most scientific studies can’t be replicated), really supports the claimed conclusion(s), or was “adjusted” to reach a desired conclusion.
Anti-establishment sentiment (Brexit / Trump / Bernie) became ‘cool’ in 2016.
Sometimes the science establishment is wrong (CAGW), and sometimes its right (obesity).
Reading Hanson’s articles, you’d think the science establishment is ALWAYS wrong.
The author appears to believe he is an expert on an unusually large number of subjects.
No one is an expert on so many topics.
Hanson is not an expert on obesity and dieting.
He is extremely biased in how he chooses what scientists to believe.
And he obviously has no personal experience with obesity and large weight losses.
Based on physics:
Calorie intake minus calories burned determines if you gain weight, lose weight, or remain the same in the long run. You lose weight by burning more calories than you take in.
Then it gets complicated.
It’s very difficult to precisely measure calorie intake and calories burned.
And people are reluctant to self-report what they actually eat … or weigh … especially if they are fat.
The right way to test a diet theory would be to use pairs of identical twins.
The tests would have to be done in a laboratory to strictly control diets, how much energy participants burned, and to keep them double-blind.
One twin would drink only diet Coke, for example, and the other would drink only sugar-laced real Coke.
After a few months you might have evidence switching from real Coke to diet Coke promoted weight loss.
On the other hand, putting people in a laboratory for months might be too stressful to them, or to some of them, and would significantly affect the test results.
I don’t need no stinkin’ scientists, and their new theories that could be complete BS.
I’m going to share some personal experiences that may help other obese people lose weight slowly.
In my tips below, the word “diet” will simply mean all the foods and drinks you consume, and I assume no change in exercise:
(1) The best way to know if you are overweight is to take off your clothes and stand in front of a mirror. Then turn sideways. You’ll know, and hopefully get motivated to lose weight. If you’re not motivated to lose weight, you might as well stop reading now.
If the thought of looking at yourself sideways in a mirror scares you, as it does for many obese people: Consider if your waist diameter has repeatedly increased as you aged — if it has, you probably need to reduce your waist size. If you change your diet and your waist is getting smaller, then you are losing weight — you don’t even have to weigh yourself. “Waist loss” also happens to be is medically important for male diabetics (I don’t know if that applies to women too).
(2) Anyone can lose weight (we know that from prisoners at German concentration camps). To keep the weight off you can not go back to the diet that made you fat — your diet must change PERMANENTLY. It could be worse for your health to repeatedly lose weight, go back to your old diet, and then gain it back. I donated all my fat clothes to the Salvation Army halfway through my “ten-year-diet” after I lost the first 25 pounds (of my 50 pound weight loss goal) and bought all new (cheap) clothes. I hope to donate my current wardrobe in another five years!
(3) Most people gain weight slowly, but want to lose weight quickly. A mistake. Your body will resist weight loss, especially fast weight loss, by slowing its metabolism rate. Losing weight slowly will be easier. My own easy goal was to lose five pounds a year for ten years in a row. What’s the rush? It took me 30 years at a desk job to gain the weight.
(4) Exercise is a difficult subject for obese people. I don’t have the answers. You could exercise and give yourself a heart attack. You are at much higher risk for back, knee or ankle damage during weight-bearing exercise compared with a skinny person. You don’t have to exercise at all to lose weight. But if you want to improve your health: Try sitting rather than laying down, standing rather than sitting, and walking rather than standing, whenever you can.
(5) One easy way to gain weight is to avoid becoming very hungry, perhaps by skipping meals. The best way to avoid great hunger is to eat four to six small meals throughout the day — that will reduce the fluctuations of your blood sugar, especially important for diabetics, which many obese people are, whether they know it or not. (If you wanted to gain weight, wait all day until you are starving, eat one huge meal at the end of the day, then go to sleep for eight hours!)
Another easy way to gain weight is to eat fast. Fast eaters should try this experiment: Cut your planned meal in half: Eat half ay your usual fast speed, and then stop eating for 20 minutes before you start eating the second half. After 20 minutes there is a good chance that you will not want to eat all the food you saved — what you originally thought was a normal portion was probably more than you needed to satisfy your hunger, had you eaten slowly.
(6) Don’t automatically believe (or dismiss) “studies” done by scientists! It doesn’t matter if they are establishment scientists or anti-establishment scientists –a majority of “scientific studies” can not be replicated by other scientists.
Those of us who are climate ‘deniers’ know establishment climate scientist PhD’s often Pile it High and Deep with scary but wrong climate predictions — they are less trustworthy than used car salesmen, who are one step above Congressmen.
Establishment obesity scientists are likely to have integrity issues too.
Many current establishment diet theories are likely to be falsified some day.
But not the basic physics of reducing caloric intake to reduce weight.
Richard “Heavy R” Greene
PS to Hanson:
The 4′ 10″ 455 pound “sign off” in my prior post was intended as a joke to amuse people. We obese people are allowed to make jokes about our condition. Unfortunately, half my jokes are not even recognized as jokes. The “joke” explained for slim people: Among obese people its popular to blame our genes for our obesity while eating eating four scoops of ice cream!
I know you accept bad genes as an excuse for obesity — I don’t — genes could not possibly be the correct explanation for the SUDDEN acceleration of obesity after 1980.
The truth is I’m not really 4′ 10″ tall and 455 pounds — I wrote that trying to be funny and I guess it wasn’t funny — I’m actually 3′ 10″ tall and weigh 655 pounds***
*** anotherbadjokefromHeavyR
Oh dear. The money is behind the carbs. Big sugar and Big food fund the nutrition organisations, and Big Pharma the medical organisations. Check what the Australian establishment has done to Gary Fettke, or the South Africans to Tim Noakes. The similarities with the climate wars are obvious.
Anyway, my wife & I went low carb/gluten free/high vege/healthy fats etc etc and lost 50kg between us.
After the last 4 years her progressive Multiple Sclerosis has stalled – i.e. not progressed. MRI from 2012 is the same in 2016 with no decernable changes. She is stronger and can do more – though, as a skeptic I note that lose 30+ kgs and you will find yourself stronger and able to do more regardless of any underlying condition. We may not be able to reverse the MS, but we have at least stopped it in its tracks, and maybe, just maybe, slowly clawing some health back for her.
Oh, and accidentally, my asthma and hayfever largely disappeared, with no more acid reflux and a number of other painful ailments I’m glad to see gone. There are some who can eat carbs all day & not get fat (I have friends like that) – but most of us wear out our pancreas by middle age & then the pain begins.
But, as Margaret Mead said “It is easier to change someones religion than their diet”
A lot of quacks have jumped onto the low carb bandwagon, but many informative sites exist to assist without trying to sell you anything (e.g Dr Peter Attia’s eatingacademy.com)
But diets never work, you need a permanent lifestyle change, and everyone is different, so find what works for you.
There’s a big difference between high fiber natural “farm” carbs like raw vegetables, and low fiber high sugar “factory” carbs like candy
“kiwistonewall December 19, 2016 at 7:00 pm
But, as Margaret Mead said “It is easier to change someones religion than their diet”
Millions don’t have a choice!
“Thus, this public policy – no matter how strenuously enforced through education, indoctrination, regulation of the food industry, punitive taxation, etc will not resolve the Obesity Epidemic.”
You’ve made this statement with no evidence to back it up.
There is no doubt that the aetiology of obesity and overweight are complicated but it is an error to suggest that large scale public policy initiatives based on sound evidence cannot have a positive effect in this area.
Well, women think fat on the hips are directly coming from eating porky fat and meat;
so openly they digest yogurt with dried rosins / aka sheer sugar – at home in the refrigerator they host packs of fair traded chocolate –
that’s where fat on the hips come frome.
Fat in food is burnt to energy immediately
while
carbons and sugars are saved as body fats.
__________________________________________
german saying
‘spare in der Zeit dann hast Du in der Not’
to body language
‘save in time then you have when the body needs’.
Duh!
that will discuss ongoing scientific controversies, a specific type of which are often referred to in the science press and elsewhere as “Wars” – for instance, The Salt Wars. –
There’s no need for ‘Salt Wars’ –
when the mouth is dry You ingest lots of liquids. And carry the saltwater to the locus.
that will discuss ongoing scientific controversies, a specific type of which are often referred to in the science press and elsewhere as “Wars” – for instance, The Salt Wars. –
There’s no need for ‘Salt Wars’ –
when the mouth is dry You’ll AUTOMATICALLY ingest lots of liquids. And carry the saltwater to the locus.
The UN’s World Health Organization:
“The fundamental cause of obesity and overweight is an energy imbalance between calories consumed and calories expended. Globally, there has been:
an increased intake of energy-dense foods that are high in fat;
___________________________________________
There’s no studies correlating thin people to foods low in fat.
Equally there’s no studies proving thin people consuming high in fat foods are doing sports.
And
there’s no studies / metastudies showing
– people are thin when doing sports
OR
– thin people are sportive