[Closed] See this is why people are fat...

I have seen the full fat milk, butter etc. advocated by some body builder, fitness types. I'm sure it was on social media in response to an NHS website saying eat low-fat yoghurts, semi-skimmed milk etc. They were stating this was fundamentally wrong

dmorts I think its because low fat stuff is often bulked out with sugar which is worse for you than fat. People just assume its a healthy option because theres no fat in it.

Yeah gotta watch a lotta the low fat yoghurts and stuff as it normally means that they've whacked a load of sugar in place of the fats.

A certain amount of the right fats good for you - trans fats the work of the devil tbh. The more unprocessed your diet the better but again portion controls important eating over maintenance calories makes you fat regardless of whether the foods healthy or not.

My pet peeves what would be healthy food but has been over sugared etc but still gets marketed as healthy.

Ok, low fat yoghurts aside (bad example, I know they're bad due to extra starch for thickeners and extra sugar to make up flavour). Semi-skimmed milk? Flora spread, why are those so bad?

All it takes is a little more time preparing fresh food instead of buying processed food which is packed with sugar and salt.

Rubbish. I can prepare you a fresh cake made from wholesome natural ingredients in about 45 mins. Eat as much as you want - it's freshly prepared!

PLEASE beware of saying 'well I did X and it worked so that's all you have to do'. Our bodies vary a lot, and what works for you may not work for someone else. It's like me saying to get to London you have to take the M4. Great if you're in Swindon, not if you're in Newcastle.

If you do want to put the blame on one thing, I'd say sugar. The largest number of fat peple would benefit the most by cutting it out imo.

Semi-skimmed milk? Flora spread, why are those so bad?

Flora spread, why are those so bad?

Rubbish. I can prepare you a fresh cake made from wholesome natural ingredients in about 45 mins. Eat as much as you want - it's freshly prepared!

Ok I don't, but I COULD have them fresh, in theory. Wouldn't make the cake any better for you 🙂

I think full fat milk has a higher GI, and more omega whatsits too. Point is that fat helps you feel satisfied, so going low fat might make it harder to abstain from bad things, since your body tends to want higher sugar things when it's really hungry (at least mine does).

Ok I don't, but I COULD have them fresh, in theory. Wouldn't make the cake any better for you

Ever wondered how many calories you need?
http://www.uk-muscle.co.uk/food-diet-nutrition-info/5071-formulating-your-diet-beginers.html

Fascinating article here with an extract from J Beradi (author of Nutrition: The complete guide) about calculating your calorie expenditure.
Not all fats are created equal, and sugar is the devil.

Ok but the point stands. Just because it's unrefined doesn't mean it's good for you or will prevent you getting fat.

Look at it from Tesco's point of view. If they put the calories and fat for the whole pack on the front, no-one would buy them, as they would be "unhealthy". If they only put 25g in the pack, no-one would buy them, as they want more than 5 nuts per pack.

This is why Tesco shouldn't be allowed to decide.

The whole aspect of potion sizes and food labelling is a massive shambles perpertated by our shower of a governement being presured by food lobyist. Two examples

King sizes: King sizes were banned due to being spectacularly unhealthly. Good. But within months the chocolate brands had all released "duo packs". To anyone with half a brain these are just king sizes in disguse but our impotent regulator has swalled the food industries BS that these sizes are two bars so are for sharing. This nuts packed is just another example of this. Should be illegal.

Food Labelling: There is some very compelling research that shows traffic light based labelling hugely improved people's purhcasing choices. I was going to be law but Tesco lobbied against it because they wanted their inferior % based system. Mainly becuase its easier to con people. 17% of your daily fat does seem as bad a red light for fat. Our incompetant government wouldn't stand up to Tesco and we have a crappy food labelling regulation.

Sure people need to make more responsibility for themselves but that is much harder when at every turn huge corportaions are deliberately trying to confuse and trick you into doing the wrong thing. This is where regulation should step in. Nobody is saying it should be illegal to eat two Mars bars or a whole pack of nuts if you want to but it should be illegal for the packagining to deliberately confuse you into thinking that is OK.

Ok but the point stands. Just because it's unrefined doesn't mean it's good for you or will prevent you getting fat.

You can be fat as you like in my book, but dont be lazy. Or use being fat as an excuse not to do things, like walk.

Medical issues aside.

These things are not mutually exclusive as we all know some large, healthy fit, active people. Contrary to popular belief, they do exist.

Depends on how much you eat really.

How about sucking on sugar cane all day?

Sure people need to make more responsibility for themselves but that is much harder when at every turn huge corportaions are deliberately trying to confuse and trick you into doing the wrong thing.

Worse than this is the normalisation of it. Walk around an office and there's cakes and doughnuts everywhere, half the office is drinking coke and eating chocolate. And there are always vending machines ready to dish it out.

It's a bit like (I imagine) being an alcoholic and having to spend 8 hours a day in a pub full of people drinking lots and having fun.

To anyone with half a brain these are just king sizes in disguse but our impotent regulator has swalled the food industries BS that these sizes are two bars so are for sharing.

I think it's more likely they were advised they couldn't win in a lawsuit if the industry decided to push the issue. So it's lawyers making us fat 🙂

why does the pot contain two and one-sixth servings?

This is a particular bug-bear of mine at the moment, and I'm convinced it's intentionally misleading.

I got a bag of chocolate buttons the other day. The nutritional guidelines listed "per 100g" (good for comparisons) and "per 25g serving" (good for marketing BS). So far so froody.

Except, the bag contained 119g of chocolaty goodness. Ie, four and nineteen twenty-fifths servings. WTAF? Surely, [i]surely[/i] that completely counters the 'servings' concept? How many calories are in the bag? How's your 1.19 times table?

How about sucking on sugar cane all day?

[i]Apparently raw sugar cane is low-GI[/i].
No, its just unrefined. The people who harvest sugar cane will chew on it during the day. However, harvesting sugar cane by hand is apparently hard, physical work.

[i]I'm struggling to picture a scenario where someone who only eats unrefined/unprocessed foods is unhealthy[/i]
I'm not sure I'd like to find out how healthy I'd be if I tried to survive on unrefined grains and unprocessed pulses.

Nice try, but not really relevant as they aren't human foods are they? You might as well argue that you wouldn't survive eating unrefined rocks. 🙂

Try eating a punnet of fresh, unrefined apricots...... I don't think I've ever felt so close to death

I bet you've only done it once though!

and I'm convinced it's intentionally misleading.

Of course it is, it's a total con.

Supermarkets et al sign up to the voluntary traffic light scheme then purposely abuse it by doing this sort of bollocks.

[i] as they aren't human foods are they? [/i]
I'd agree, but the baker will tell you different 😉

😆 @ Batfink

Politically and morally tricky but someone needs to make the case for the economic impact of obesity & diabetes:
Reduces energy levels and likely therefore productivity
Increases absence and therefore productivity
Increases cost of running NHS and therefore increases taxes or reduces government investment elsewhere.

You could add that fatties tend to peg out earlier than skinnies, so while short term they may cost the NHS a fair whack, Society saves dosh by not having to pay their pensions or store them in an old folks home until they're 120.

WackoAK.
Well put, things in that respect haven't changed from the 70s. When told to reduce fat content. Food manufacturers turned it around & made low fat a selling point, ie, they turned a threat, into an opportunity and boy does low fat sell !

I think it's more likely they were advised they couldn't win in a lawsuit if the industry decided to push the issue. So it's lawyers making us fat

But who makes the laws? The goernment made a crappy law that the evil lawyers are exploiting.

This is a good example.

Except, the bag contained 119g of chocolaty goodness. Ie, four and nineteen twenty-fifths servings. WTAF? Surely, surely that completely counters the 'servings' concept? How many calories are in the bag? How's your 1.19 times table?

You can't make it illegal to sell a large bag of chocolate but you can force the manaufacturer to label it properly. So rather than the manufacturer getting to pick a portion size that means the bag seems healthy they should be forced to make it relate to what people will actally eat.

So rather than a crappy little warning saying if you eat 25/119th of this bag you will have eaten 9% of your daily fat allowance there should be a big warning saying if you eat half this bag that is RED = bad for you.

People aren't stupid, they know chocolate is bad for you. But then they read a warning like there currently is, which basically says "go on... they're not that bad for you"

I've been using the my fitness pal app for a couple of weeks now..... It's genuinely surprising how many calories are in [i]what you previously thought were[/i] healthy foods.

I previously subscribed to the whole "everyone knows what's healthy and what's not" school of thought.... But now I don't.

The labelling of products is exactly the same in the Dutch supermarkets, most of the products are the same but the level of obesity is about half that of the UK - I'm not convinced that it's product labelling thats the root of the issue.

Labelling Guidelines:

"[i]Just tell them what's in the f'ing pot and don't be a deceitful shit about it[/i]".

I'm a massive fan of MyFitnessPal too - you're right it really opens your eyes to less-obvious calories and stupid portion sizes (both large and small).

A set of digital scales is an excellent investment too.

The labelling of products is exactly the same in the Dutch supermarkets, most of the products are the same but the level of obesity is about half that of the UK

Activity levels play a part obviously. A few extra calories matters a lot less when a large part of your population cycle everywhere.

it's genuinely surprising how many calories are in what you previously thought were healthy foods.

Lots of calories doesn't necessarily mean unhealthy though. I think most things only become unhealthy when you eat an awful lot of it or don't do enough physical activity to burn off the extra calories. For your average joe eating fast food once a month only becomes unhealthy when he's doing it every other day.

I think most things only become unhealthy when you eat an awful lot of it or don't do enough physical activity to burn off the extra calories

That's the whole point of MyFitnessPal: track estimates of Calories In versus Calories Out and keep the numbers in your favour.

It's crude and people will argue that calories in versus calories out is an oversimplification (which I'm sure it is) but it works and is easy to understand.

But who makes the laws?

Sugar:

[url= http://www.indiana.edu/~oso/Fructose/sugar-consumption2.jp g" target="_blank">http://www.indiana.edu/~oso/Fructose/sugar-consumption2.jp g"/> [/img][/url]

Invention of processed foods? Hah. More like mass production of sugar.

Bit of a pointless graph though.

You see this a lot on breakfast cereals. A "30g serving with skimmed milk provides". 30g of cereal is not a proper breakfast for anyone other than a small child.

People are fat for a variety of reasons. Knowledge is certainly up there. The comment about transfat shows this. People pin the blame on something specific. Now I agree trans fats aren't great but they are not the work of the devil and if you eat too many calories cutting out trans fats won't help you*. We are no seeing the backlash against "low fat" but stupidly high sugar foods. People having smoothies for breakfast. Strange diets cutting out specific food groups.

I don't know what the answer is but i guess it would lie in moderation, excercise and education.

*FWIW I would guess that paying attention to what you ate would make more difference. If I were to design an experiment I would have you and your identical twin living identical life styles, one eating only trans fats the other only cis fats.

miketually - Member

Correlation does not equal causation... but you may be right.

Bit of a pointless graph though.

Not really: the high sugar consumption fits nicely with the fatty-fatty-tum-tum figures.

I don't know what the answer is but i guess it would lie in moderation, excercise and education.

I would add wholesomeness to that list.

Not really: the high sugar consumption fits nicely with the fatty-fatty-tum-tum figures.

And a boatload of other things.

I think most things only become unhealthy when you eat an awful lot of it or don't do enough physical activity to burn off the extra calories

That's the whole point of MyFitnessPal: track estimates of Calories In versus Calories Out and keep the numbers in your favour.

And.... Ahem.... The point of this thread I think. Namely that ANY food can be marketed/packaged as "healthy" if you fudge the portion size. When reading a label now, I look at the number of cals in a "portion", then check the net weight of the food, then calculate how many actual "portions" a normal human being would consume, then work out how many calories there would be in a real-life portion. That's not exactly making it easy for people

The thing that's mfp opened my eyes to was not just how calorific some foods were, but how inefficient exercise is at burning those calories.

Onzadog - Member
The thing that's mfp opened my eyes to was not just how calorific some foods were, but how inefficient exercise is at re i . . burning those calories.u

Tell me about it - you realise how skewed your perception is! I did consider myself relatively educated/aware about diet and exercise, but it's a question of perspective. I have learned that if you have a sedentary job, no amount of exercise is going to make up for a bad diet 🙁

I see no scale on that graph, or a definition of what constitutes sugar or processed food - I assume it doesn't consider cheese or wine or bread or cakes or pastry as processed foods for eg?. Also as a minimum I would want to and an equivalent plot of total calories, average daily activity levels, analysis of diet constituents etc etc.

Doesn't mean that sugar isn't a problem (or a big part of the problem) but is part of a much wider set of issues.

mfp opened my eyes to was not just how calorific some foods were, but how inefficient exercise is at burning those calories.

Hate to say it but in my experience MFP seems to over-estimate the calories burnt for cycling by a fair bit (at least compared to other estimates and pulse-based guesstimates).