Obese Man to Sue NHS for letting him get fat.

[Coito ergo sum]

I would love to know what the argument is that says If you eat fewer calories than you need you can physically gain weight. I mean - it's physics, chemistry and biology. Bodies don't grow via magic. A person can only grow if the body takes in food. Your body uses food for fuel - it chemically burns the food in the stomach/digestive tract and the energy is delivered to the cells. Excess energy that is not burned by the body, used to make non-fat cells, crapped out, sweated out, cried out, spit out or pissed out is stored as fat.

There is no way to gain weight - no way - if the body intakes fewer calories than it needs to maintain itself. It's a physical impossibility.

Check it out! You found the problem immediately and then ran past it.

If your body cannot produce the energy needed to survive, what happens? Rhetorical question. You die. This isn't an evolutionary advantage. So what does the body do? Reduce calorie usage. What's the number one calorie user in the entire body? The brain.

This occurs parallel with the weight loss. Sensible weight loss is not just about 'eating a whole lot less.'

bdoing! BINGO.

To hell with your BINGO, my friend. As a fat guy, and friend to many fatties, the largest obstacle to weight loss is putting too much weight in (VIA the mouth). Activity can be increased in most cases, but the first, largest factor is eating like a fucking fool.

If an obese person simply ate a healthy diet (with attention to portions AND nutrition) and did NOTHING ELSE, their weight would drop. Real simple.

Sure there are factors which will make fatty eat too much, but the plain fact is that overeating is the largest problem.

That's why almost any nutritionist or personal trainer will tell you that fat reduction is primarily a function of diet and secondarily a function of working out. The first thing to control is the food. You simply can't lose weight if you keep taking in more food than your body burns/excretes.

Yes, there are things that make people eat - depression can make people eat more. But, depression doesn't cause you to get fat, it causes you to eat more. If one is depressed, but has no caloric deficit or surplus, weight will stay about the same.

I've made a point that television and video game time is a leading correlative factor with weight gain. I would never suggest, however, that t.v. and video games make fat. What they are, instead, are sedentary activities that replace calorie-burning activities, and they are also activities during which people tend to eat. So, what happens is you get more calories in and fewer calories out....and, whalla, a fat kid.

No matter how one slices it - people get fat because they eat more than their body needs/excretes. Everything else is a question of motivation/psychology (or, in the rare cases of glandular problems, medical issues reducing the amount of food the body burns or excretes).

[floppit]

I pluck and gut pheasants rich bugger's can't be arsed to so sell for a couple of quid.

Some birds are lean, most just normal, but others, occassionally, under the skin, round every organ, even globs of fat in the stuffing cavity (don't know what it's called - I mean where you pull the giblets but not on the organs), lots of fat. The birds are reared pretty much the same to each other, the VERY fatty ones don't taste right to me - perhaps psychological.

Anyway, I guess it made me think, it seemed to have little gradient between the norm and the fatty birds, if it was just behaviour I would expect a gradient, bell curve but there weren't 'fairly fat' birds in the ones I cooked. I've probably gutted 50+ birds so maybe just chance. It 'looked' to me like something genetic though and did open my mind.

[cowiz]

I would like to take issue with the term "Obese" to describe this man. He is clearly a fat cunt.

[Coito ergo sum]

[JimC]

I'm not making any kind of point here, just asking a question.
Do we shit any calories? Or does every human digest and use every available calorie in their food?
Some people seem to perform miracles. They eat like a horse and never put on weight.
Do they just lose more energy in heat? I can't see how they can do that, unless their skin temperature is much higher than others.
.

There is quite a lot of energy in turds. I understand that people vary in the efficency by which they absorb nutrients. Less efficient people would have turds richer in energy than average, and would need more food to maintain the same weight, all other things being equal. How much variation there is in the population I am not sure.

Also, people will vary somewhat in the amount of energy they need to consume per minute to maintain normal body temperature, and keep heart, lungs and other organs operating (the basal metabolism); if for no other reason than the variation in rates of heat loss.

None of this changes the point made by other posters that, for any given person, the balance between incoming (and effectively absorbed) nutrients, and outgoing energy use will control weight gain or loss. The only point is that the balance will vary somewhat from individual to individual; for an identical food intake, some people may have to exercise somewhat more to achieve a given weight loss.

[charlou]

How is that a "bingo?" I didn't run past anything, and I hadn't suggested that weight loss is just about eating a whole lot less. What I wrote was 100% accurate, and I still don't see where you or anyone else has established that one can take in more than goes out and not gain weight, and how one can take in less than goes out and not lose weight. Are you really disputing me on that?

Of course not. How did you get that from my response to GreyIce's post? As I understood it when I read it last night, GreyIce was referring to a psychological element to food consumption/weight. On rereading it just now, I can see I may have misunderstood his post. Ah well. *shrug*

[Santa_Claus]

Surprised he is not also suing for not being selected for the 2012 Olympics.

I'd pay good money to see him go off the top diving board.

[maiforpeace]

I'm not making any kind of point here, just asking a question.
Do we shit any calories? Or does every human digest and use every available calorie in their food?
Some people seem to perform miracles. They eat like a horse and never put on weight.
Do they just lose more energy in heat? I can't see how they can do that, unless their skin temperature is much higher than others.
.

Yes, calories are shat, cried, sweated, spit and pissed. Calories "out" includes those burned and used by the body, and those excreted, defecated, urinated, etc.

More calories in than calories out = weight gain. That weight can be muscle, bone, fat, etc.

As for some people eating like a horse and performing miracles - it's not miraculous. It's chemistry and biology.

People's metabolic rates can differ: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_metabolic_rate People with higher metabolic rates burn more calories faster, all else being equal.

Also, sometimes people who claim they aren't eating too much aren't accurately accounting for the amount they really eat. A person who doesn't exercise and who eats 3 sensible meals totally 2000 calories in a day, but adds five coca-colas, 3 coffees with loads of cream and sugar, a big glass of orange juice, and a bowl of ice cream while watching t.v. most likely is consuming too many calories.

I'll get back to you when I'm done reading the book I posted earlier. In the meantime I leave you with the book's Amazon synopsis, that should get you going.

An eye-opening, myth-shattering examination of what makes us fat, from acclaimed science writer Gary Taubes.

In his New York Times best seller, Good Calories, Bad Calories, Taubes argued that our diet’s overemphasis on certain kinds of carbohydrates—not fats and not simply excess calories—has led directly to the obesity epidemic we face today. The result of thorough research, keen insight, and unassailable common sense, Good Calories, Bad Calories immediately stirred controversy and acclaim among academics, journalists, and writers alike. Michael Pollan heralded it as “a vitally important book, destined to change the way we think about food.”

Building upon this critical work in Good Calories, Bad Calories and presenting fresh evidence for his claim, Taubes now revisits the urgent question of what’s making us fat—and how we can change—in this exciting new book. Persuasive, straightforward, and practical, Why We Get Fat makes Taubes’s crucial argument newly accessible to a wider audience.

Taubes reveals the bad nutritional science of the last century, none more damaging or misguided than the “calories-in, calories-out” model of why we get fat, and the good science that has been ignored, especially regarding insulin’s regulation of our fat tissue. He also answers the most persistent questions: Why are some people thin and others fat? What roles do exercise and genetics play in our weight? What foods should we eat, and what foods should we avoid?

Packed with essential information and concluding with an easy-to-follow diet, Why We Get Fat is an invaluable key in our understanding of an international epidemic and a guide to what each of us can do about it.

[Cunt]

There is an interesting blog entry here which might cause you to think again about the book.

[Coito ergo sum]

An eye-opening, myth-shattering examination of what makes us fat, from acclaimed science writer Gary Taubes.

Red flag number one - "the truth revealed!" strategy.... all of science is just there to sell us a bill of goods, and Gary Taubes has the truth that "they" don't want you to know....

...doesn't mean he's wrong, necessarily....but, science isn't marketed like this....gimmicks are.

In his New York Times best seller, Good Calories, Bad Calories, Taubes argued that our diet’s overemphasis on certain kinds of carbohydrates—not fats and not simply excess calories—has led directly to the obesity epidemic we face today.

So - is he saying that if I eat less than my body needs (or shits/excretes), I can gain weight (because certain kinds of carbs are overemphasized)? Is he saying that if I eat more than my body needs (or shits/excretes), that I can lose weight? That's red-flag number 2 - talking about carb/protein/fat balancing i important - because the body needs all of them, and the right balance can effect metabolic rate as well as general health and nutrition. That, of course, doesn't change the fact that you can never lose weight if calories in exceed calories out - well, unless Taubes is going to claim that he has found out that the basic laws of thermodynamics are wrong, not to mention the basic law of conservation of energy and matter.

Building upon this critical work in Good Calories, Bad Calories and presenting fresh evidence for his claim, Taubes now revisits the urgent question of what’s making us fat—and how we can change—in this exciting new book. Persuasive, straightforward, and practical, Why We Get Fat makes Taubes’s crucial argument newly accessible to a wider audience.

So - what exactly is making us fat? Is it just a coincidence that we're fatter today than we were 40 years ago, and we also eat more on average on a daily basis and exercise less on average on a daily basis than we did 40 years ago?

Taubes reveals the bad nutritional science of the last century, none more damaging or misguided than the “calories-in, calories-out” model of why we get fat,

Nice extreme claim to sell a book. What's bad about the science, though? This claim sounds eerily like "western medicine is killing us" claims (when quite the opposite is true - western medicine works).

and the good science that has been ignored, especially regarding insulin’s regulation of our fat tissue.

Nobody has ignored that. But, if he's blaming insulin on the obesity epidemic, then it would stand to reason that he would demonstrate that there was a change in human physiology in the last 40 odd years. I mean - we had the same insulin systems in the 1960s, but far fewer of us were overweight and obese. Are we a generation with mutant pancreases?

What foods should we eat, and what foods should we avoid?

I can't wait to hear what foods allow me to eat more calories than by body needs (and shits/excretes, etc.), and still lose weight. I'll pig the fuck out on it, because I love to eat. I am willing to bet, though, that for all his debunking of 100 years of modern nutritional science, he never tells us that there are foods we can eat 4000 calories a day of, lay around on our asses, and still lose weight. I'll wait to see if I'm proven wrong on that.

Packed with essential information and concluding with an easy-to-follow diet, Why We Get Fat is an invaluable key in our understanding of an international epidemic and a guide to what each of us can do about it.

[/quote]

Awesome - an easy to follow diet. If someone can post that diet, I'd love to see it. Man, I can't wait to find out what combination of food I need to eat to be able to eat more calories in than go out, and I can still lose weight. That's going to be so awesome! I'll be a lean, mean eating machine.

[maiforpeace]

A synopsis of a synopsis?

I have a friend who has read his first, and is now reading the second book too. Let's see if I can try to convince her to join the discussion, that should make it really interesting.

[Cunt]

Why do you suppose it is that so much bullshit is pitched at, and accepted by, those who would try to eat healthier and live healthier?

My thought is that it is for the same reason that there is so much bullshit around 'get rich quick' schemes. For living healthy, or for getting rich, there are few shortcuts (none for most of us). We would all wish it to be much easier, though. I think bullshit usually preys on our greed...we want to expend less effort to make money, or to be 'weller', so we are more vulnerable to accepting bullshit which supports our lazy wishes.

Just a thought, but I bet a lot of books are sold that way. Just reading the arguments the author made to one of his critics makes it pretty clear I wont be buying or reading his book. I think Sagan hit something really important when he said in his baloney detection kit that one should encourage substantive debate between proponents of both sides of an issue (approximately). One smart fucker, Sagan. I don't remember him EVER pitching his stuff with 'the truth revealed' lol

[Sisifo]

Hi, by the way :-)

The nutrition science, when dealing with food as a mathematical formula carbs+protein+fat+other nutrients, hasn't been very successful so far and its advice should be taken with a healthy dose of schepticism. Regardless of what you say, the digestion reactions have not been quite as determined as thermodynamics. The metabolization of food is not one, but a myriad of chemical reactions far more complicated that calories-in and calories out. Vitamins in-vitamins out. Apart of the necessary interactions between nutrients that may need each other (vitamins and fats, for example, omega 6 and omega 3 another, Vitamin D and Calcium) there are others that can nullify each other (caffeine and the same Vitamin D). At the same time, the absortion of those nutrients changes absolutely depending on things such as what time of the day they are taken, or how much sunlight you got in the day, how much acid you have in the stomach at the moment, even how much you masticate them, and with how much saliva you swallow them!... Not to mention -again- what other things are in the stomach at the time (like fibre). For example: The same juice (for you, just sugars) taken eating a fruit and squeezing the liquid, don't have the same result. The fiber in the fruit releases the sugars gradually compared to the juice, and then less is stored as fat.

The sports nutrition science is still, and after the years, still changing almost every month what to eat, and when, for sportsmen.

And regarding the OP, my point of view is that case by case, each person is responsible of its own health and nobody can blame anyone else. But as a overall health state of western/developped societies, each government or health administration would be very suable by consumer's associations for the incredible negligence -at least- that they have shown in controlling what gets in people's mouths as food.

[Coito ergo sum]

A synopsis of a synopsis?

I have a friend who has read his first, and is now reading the second book too. Let's see if I can try to convince her to join the discussion, that should make it really interesting.

I've not read the book - so, I can only go by what's written about it. I did a google search and there are some articles by Taubes. Naturally, he doesn't explain the "secret" that the book supposedly reveals.... He's big on generalizations -- and, he follows a tried and true pseudoscience methodology....he establishes his own street cred as an authority figure, then he announces that he has "secret knowledge" to share that "they" (the medical establishment) don't want you to know about...

IMHO, without having read the book, it's a red flag that the science Taubes is touting is so hard to get at outside of the book he's hawking. Why isn't there a peer reviewed journal article? Something, at least... to me, my skeptics antenna goes up when someone claims they have the secret knowledge that overturns scientific principles that are known, tested, predictable, and proven. Obviously, all science is falsifiable, but if the claim is that people can gain weight when they take in less than goes out of their body, or vice versa, then that strikes at the very heart not just of "conventional wisdom" but of thermodynamics, heat transfer, biology, physiology, etc., that have been known and established for hundreds of years. Before accepting his conclusions, we as skeptics or rationalists ought to require him to show his work.

[Coito ergo sum]

Hi, by the way :-)

The nutrition science, when dealing with food as a mathematical formula carbs+protein+fat+other nutrients, hasn't been very successful so far and its advice should be taken with a healthy dose of schepticism. Regardless of what you say, the digestion reactions have not been quite as determined as thermodynamics. The metabolization of food is not one, but a myriad of chemical reactions far more complicated that calories-in and calories out.

I've not suggested it isn't a complicated process. However, the chemical processes in the body are measurable, and not magical.

I need to know one thing so I understand where you are coming from. Are you suggesting that a person can, in fact, take in fewer calories than go out and still gain mass? Or, the reverse, are you claiming that a person can take in more calories than go out and still lose mass?