Because science hates hope... obesity proven incurable.

[Gilgemesh]

Obesity is not a disease of the body. Your body doesn't make you not take care of it. It is a disease of the mind that started with telling kids they were special little snowflakes, then society defending obesity as being uncontrollable. It is all misinformation. People who stay active and eat healthy stay at manageable weights. This isn't a symptom of some genetic disorder that didn't exist 100 years ago. Its a symptom of a social disorder that developed over the last 50 years. It is NEVER okay not to take care of your self.

[Deleted]

Obesity is not a disease of the body. Your body doesn't make you not take care of it. It is a disease of the mind that started with telling kids they were special little snowflakes, then society defending obesity as being uncontrollable. It is all misinformation. People who stay active and eat healthy stay at manageable weights. This isn't a symptom of some genetic disorder that didn't exist 100 years ago. Its a symptom of a social disorder that developed over the last 50 years. It is NEVER okay not to take care of your self.

Tell that to obese children, scarred for life by their parents.

[Aalyy]

Can everyone please stop parroting willpower? It's way overused when it comes to dieting and obesity. Appetite is regulated by hormones and biochemical reactions that are highly indivudual. We as humans are genetically programmed to want to eat delicious fattening food. We still have those genes and are now being bombarded with easy access to fattening nutrient deficient food. We are genetically programmed to be unable to resist these foods! Or at least our bodies make it very hard for us. Then you add in the high carb grain based diet the government recommends..which is totally unntaural for humans..and it's a wonder more people aren't overweight.

Here's an interesting article from the NY Times:

Scientists Unmask Diet Myth: Willpower

A thin person, the kind who has always been thin, is confronted by a chocolate cake with dark fudge icing and chopped pecans. Unmoved, he goes about his business as if nothing has happened.

A fat person, the kind who has always struggled with weight, is confronted by the same cake. He feels a little surge of adrenaline. He cuts a slice and eats it. Then he eats another, and feels guilty for the rest of the day.

The simplest, and most judgmental, explanation for the difference in behavior is willpower. Some seem to have it but others do not, and the common wisdom is that they ought to get some.

But to weight-loss researchers, willpower is an outdated and largely discredited concept, about as relevant to dieting as cod liver oil. And many question whether willpower even exists.

''There is no magical stuff inside of you called willpower that should somehow override nature,'' said Dr. James C. Rosen, a professor of psychology at the University of Vermont. ''It's a metaphor that most chronically overweight dieters buy into.''

To attribute dieting success or failure to willpower, researchers say, is to ignore the complex interaction of brain chemicals, behavioral conditioning, hormones, heredity and the powerful influence of habits. Telling an overweight person to use willpower is, in many ways, like telling a clinically depressed person to ''snap out of it.''

It is possible, of course, to recover from depression and to lose weight, but neither is likely to happen simply because a person wills it, researchers say. There must be an intervention, either chemical or psychological.

The study of weight loss began in earnest in the early 1950's, when doctors and nutritionists treated overweight people by telling them to eat less.

''Willpower was a kind of all-embracing theory that was used all the time to make doctors feel good and make patients feel bad,'' said Dr. Albert Stunkard, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania who has been studying weight loss for five decades.

''Most people think that willpower is just a pejorative way of describing your failures,'' he said. ''Willpower really doesn't have any meaning.''

Willpower's role in weight loss was a major issue among scientists about 30 years ago, when the behavior modification movement began, Dr. Stunkard said. Until then, the existence, and importance, of willpower had been an article of faith on which most diets were founded, he said.

The behavior modification approach had its roots in a 1967 study called ''Behavioral Control of Overeating,'' which tried to analyze the elements of ''self-control'' and apply them to weight loss. The study, by Richard B. Stuart of the University of Michigan, showed that eight overweight women treated with behavior modification techniques lost from 26 to 47 pounds over a year. They had frequent sessions with a therapist and recorded their food intake and moods in diaries. And the therapists helped them develop lists of alternatives to eating, like reading a newspaper or calling a friend.

''No effort is made to distinguish the historical antecedents of the problem and no assumptions are made about the personality of the overeater,'' Mr. Stuart wrote in his article, published in the journal Behavioral Research and Therapy.

After that, the focus of weight loss programs shifted toward behavioral steps a dieter takes regarding eating, said Dr. Michael R. Lowe, a professor of clinical psychology at the MCP Hahnemann University in Philadelphia, and away from ''something you search for within.''

Behavior modification is now the most widely accepted approach to long-term weight loss. Practically, that means changing eating habits -- and making new habits -- by performing new behaviors. Most programs now recommend things like pausing before eating to write down what is about to be eaten, keeping a journal describing a mood just before eating and eating before a trip to the grocery store.

There is also mounting evidence that behavior affects the brain's chemical balance, and vice versa. Drugs like fenfluramine, half of the now-banned fen-phen combination, reduced a dieter's interest in eating, making willpower either irrelevant or seemingly available in pill form. And Dr. Stunkard has just completed a study that showed that people with ''night-eating syndrome'' -- who overeat in the late evening, have trouble sleeping and get up in the middle of the night to eat -- have below-normal blood levels of the hormones melatonin, leptin and cortisol.

Still, to deny the importance of willpower is to attack a fundamental notion about human character.

''The concept of willpower is something that is very widely embedded in our view of ourselves,'' said Dr. Lowe of MCP Hahnemann. ''It is a major explanatory mechanism that people use to account for behavior.''

But Dr. Lowe said he and others viewed willpower as ''essentially an explanatory fiction.'' Saying that someone lacks willpower ''leaves people with the sense they understand why the behavior occurred, when in reality all they've done is label the behavior, not explain it,'' he said.

''Willpower as an independent cause of behavior is a myth,'' Dr. Lowe said. In his clinical practice, he takes a behavioral approach to weight control. In part, that involves counseling dieters to take a more positive attitude about their ability to lose weight. It also involves some practical steps. ''Most importantly,'' he said, ''you need to learn what behavioral steps you can take before you get in the situation where you're in the chair in front of the television with a bowl of potato chips.''

It is important, he said, for dieters to keep in mind the formidable forces working against them and their so-called willpower. ''We live in about the most toxic environment for weight control that you can imagine,'' Dr. Lowe said. ''There is ready, easy availability of high-fat, high-calorie fast foods that are relatively affordable, combined with the fact that our society has become about as sedentary as a society can be.''

But not all experts reject the notion of willpower. Dr. Kelly D. Brownell, director of the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, said this was the most difficult time in history for dieters, and that it would be a mistake to dismiss the willpower concept. ''A person's ability to control their eating varies over time, and you cannot attribute that to biology,'' he said.

''There's a collective public loss of willpower because of this terrible food environment that challenges us beyond what we can tolerate,'' Dr. Brownell said. ''One needs much more willpower now than ever before just to stay even.''

All the temptations notwithstanding, thousands find a way to lose weight and keep it off, a fact demonstrated by the National Weight Control Registry, a research project that keeps tabs on people who have lost at least 30 pounds and kept the weight off for more than a year.

''A lot of times in weight loss programs patients will say to me that they need to learn to be able to live with an apple pie in the refrigerator and not eat it,'' said Dr. Rena Wing, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and Brown medical school, who is collaborating on the registry. Most behaviorists say dieters should instead arrange their lives so that they rarely have to confront such temptations.

''If I were to put an apple pie in front of everybody every minute of the day, I could probably break down everybody's quote-unquote willpower,'' she said. ''We really are trying to get away from this notion of willpower. If you make certain plans, you will be able to engineer your behavior in such a way that you will look as if you have willpower.''

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/05/he...ted=all&src=pm

---------- Post added 2012-07-08 at 12:21 PM ----------

No-one adressed my point.

Unless you believe in some supernatural force that puts fat into you while you are asleep and unaware.

How do you gain weight if you are on a calorie deficit. It is IMPOSSIBLE by nature of physics.

This implies what? Work out and eat less => less weight. Keep same level of calories, maintain weight.

Socioeconomic factors? Physics doesn't care.


This thread made me slightly angry, that is rare. How can you make excuses for laziness over 15 pages long? It is simple conservation of energy that dictates how you gain or lose weight.

I'll address your point to say that it is based on a simplistic understanding of Thermodynamics. The laws of Thermodynamics are descriptive. They are not meant to be used for explanatory purposes. They describe what happens when you "eat too much". They do not explain "why" one eats too much. What happens to the food when it enters our body? How are the various macro nutrients, fat, carbs, and protein partitioned? What percentage of them go to energy, bodily processes like cellular repair, muscle regeneration, hormone synthesis, etc etc. Are each of the three partitioned the same way? Do some people have biochemical make ups that partition energy differently making some store fat easily while others are programmed to burn it? Why do the vast majority of humans have a preference for salty, fatty, sweet foods? What is different between someone with a large appetite and someone who couldn't care less about food? Why do some healthy weight people develop type 2 diabetes while some obese people don't?

Before you chalk everything up to will power or cling to a simple understanding of Thermodynamics you should ask yourself some questions like the ones I posed.

[Deleted]

Because science hates hope... obesity proven incurable.

Because science hates hope... live proven incurable.

Scientific study proves that 100.0% of tested subject affected by life end up dieing after a variable length of time !

[lunariongames]

Obesity isn't a disease, it's a lifestyle. Having been considered obese myself a few years ago, I'm now at the point where I'm considered skinny-fat. It just takes persistence and hard work. As for keeping the weight off, you just have to resist the urge to say, "Hey, I lost the weight, so now I can go back to eating what I want", etc. etc..

[Spectral]

Because science hates hope... live proven incurable.

Scientific study proves that 100.0% of tested subject affected by life end up dieing after a variable length of time !

4:05 -

[goki]

Can everyone please stop parroting willpower? It's way overused when it comes to dieting and obesity. Appetite is regulated by hormones and biochemical reactions that are highly indivudual. We as humans are genetically programmed to want to eat delicious fattening food. We still have those genes and are now being bombarded with easy access to fattening nutrient deficient food. We are genetically programmed to be unable to resist these foods! Or at least our bodies make it very hard for us. Then you add in the high carb grain based diet the government recommends..which is totally unntaural for humans..and it's a wonder more people aren't overweight.

Here's an interesting article from the NY Times:



http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/05/he...ted=all&src=pm

---------- Post added 2012-07-08 at 12:21 PM ----------



I'll address your point to say that it is based on a simplistic understanding of Thermodynamics. The laws of Thermodynamics are descriptive. They are not meant to be used for explanatory purposes. They describe what happens when you "eat too much". They do not explain "why" one eats too much. What happens to the food when it enters our body? How are the various macro nutrients, fat, carbs, and protein partitioned? What percentage of them go to energy, bodily processes like cellular repair, muscle regeneration, hormone synthesis, etc etc. Are each of the three partitioned the same way? Do some people have biochemical make ups that partition energy differently making some store fat easily while others are programmed to burn it? Why do the vast majority of humans have a preference for salty, fatty, sweet foods? What is different between someone with a large appetite and someone who couldn't care less about food? Why do some healthy weight people develop type 2 diabetes while some obese people don't?

Before you chalk everything up to will power or cling to a simple understanding of Thermodynamics you should ask yourself some questions like the ones I posed.

Highly irrelevant. Laws of thermodynamics are yet unbroken, they are not some "theory" in the same sense tinfoil hat theories are. They are daily proven in your refrigerator and your combustion engines, in the condensing of the sweat on your brow, on the energy used to lift your arm.

There is no way a closed system (human body) can violate the laws of conservation of mass and energy.

It does not matter what happens inside the body, there is NO way for someone to gain weight on a calorie deficit program. Sure some factors skew the bias up (good genes) and others down (bad genes) in terms of how easily you can gain weight or lose weight but it doesn't matter. Genetics is a gaussian curve of effect vs population, most are where it is most beneficial to be. You could argue for the few individuals who have really shit luck and have a superhard time losing weight based on the bullshit willpower article you just quoted but most people can easily afford to drop 200-500 calories a day. That bullshit article makes it seem we are robots without any control what so ever over what we eat.

[starlord]

Highly irrelevant. Laws of thermodynamics are yet unbroken, they are not some "theory" in the same sense tinfoil hat theories are. They are daily proven in your refrigerator and your combustion engines, in the condensing of the sweat on your brow, on the energy used to lift your arm.

There is no way a closed system (human body) can violate the laws of conservation of mass and energy.

It does not matter what happens inside the body, there is NO way for someone to gain weight on a calorie deficit program. Sure some factors skew the bias up (good genes) and others down (bad genes) in terms of how easily you can gain weight or lose weight but it doesn't matter. Genetics is a gaussian curve of effect vs population, most are where it is most beneficial to be. You could argue for the few individuals who have really shit luck and have a superhard time losing weight based on the bullshit willpower article you just quoted but most people can easily afford to drop 200-500 calories a day. That bullshit article makes it seem we are robots without any control what so ever over what we eat.

i think the point of the OP & that person is that "what is a calorie deficit" is that much more difficult to determine when a person has been overweight. it changes the way your body reacts to food, so you have to eat far less and exercise far more than a normal person at your weight. your appetite is indeed regulated by your body, not your mind. its difficult to avoid eating when your body and instincts all scream that you are starving to death.

[eriseis]

Highly irrelevant. Laws of thermodynamics are yet unbroken, they are not some "theory" in the same sense tinfoil hat theories are. They are daily proven in your refrigerator and your combustion engines, in the condensing of the sweat on your brow, on the energy used to lift your arm.

There is no way a closed system (human body) can violate the laws of conservation of mass and energy.

It does not matter what happens inside the body, there is NO way for someone to gain weight on a calorie deficit program. Sure some factors skew the bias up (good genes) and others down (bad genes) in terms of how easily you can gain weight or lose weight but it doesn't matter. Genetics is a gaussian curve of effect vs population, most are where it is most beneficial to be. You could argue for the few individuals who have really shit luck and have a superhard time losing weight based on the bullshit willpower article you just quoted but most people can easily afford to drop 200-500 calories a day. That bullshit article makes it seem we are robots without any control what so ever over what we eat.

Fine, keep your closed circle.

In the meantime we have sociology making your closed simplistic physics a mere factor out of a complicated social phenomenon.

[Aalyy]

Highly irrelevant. Laws of thermodynamics are yet unbroken, they are not some "theory" in the same sense tinfoil hat theories are. They are daily proven in your refrigerator and your combustion engines, in the condensing of the sweat on your brow, on the energy used to lift your arm.

Correct. However, there are contexts and proper and improper ways to apply them.

There is no way a closed system (human body) can violate the laws of conservation of mass and energy.

No it's not. We interact with our surrounding environment and take in energy and give it out in the form of heat and waste products. Our bodies are in no way shape or form closed systems. Neither is the Earth.

It does not matter what happens inside the body, there is NO way for someone to gain weight on a calorie deficit program. Sure some factors skew the bias up (good genes) and others down (bad genes) in terms of how easily you can gain weight or lose weight but it doesn't matter. Genetics is a gaussian curve of effect vs population, most are where it is most beneficial to be. You could argue for the few individuals who have really shit luck and have a superhard time losing weight based on the bullshit willpower article you just quoted but most people can easily afford to drop 200-500 calories a day. That bullshit article makes it seem we are robots without any control what so ever over what we eat.

Of course it matters what happens inside the body. It's everything, actually. Genes are only a part of the picture. You also have to look at the type of energy intake. Energy can only be obtained from fat, protein, or carbohydrate. Then you ask whether energy is obtained and partitioned from each of them the same way. It's not.

Protein is much more thermogenic than fat or carbs. In other words more of the protein you eat is automatically converted to heat and leaves the body. That's one difference right there. Protein is also used to maintain muscle mass, synthesize hormones, enzymes, and many other biochemical processes that have nothing to do with using it for energy. So just because you ate 200 calories of protein doesn't mean you actually gained an additional 200 calories of energy. Chances are your body partioned it for other uses.

Fat is also a very important part of cellular membranes. Every single cell in your body needs fat just for it's structure and function so it's not all automatically used for energy. Carbs are pretty much pure energy. They all turn to glucose eventually and since too much glucose is toxic in the blood stream we store them as fat. In order for fat to be stored it has to enter your fat cells in its broken down fatty acid form and carbs are broken into glucose and either burned or turned into fatty acids and shuttled off to your fat cells. This requires insulin. insulin promotes fat storage and inhibits fat burning. Insulin is the driving hormone behind fat storage. Carbs raise insulin fat has a minimal effect on it. Protein also causes an insulin release to get the amino acids to your cells where they are needed but it stimulates a glucagon release at the same time which stimulates fat burning and the release of fat from cells. Carbs do not cause a glucagon release just insulin. So which food is more likely to be turned into fat?

In order to store fat or create fat from glucose we need hormones and enzymes. Same goes for burning it. There are a whole host of biological processes meant to conserve your fat stores. For some people these are up regulated more than others. Your metabolic health (are you insulin resistant? diabetic?) as well as genetic differences determine the rate at which this happens.

So yes, if you consume more energy then you expend your body will store it as fat. But it is far more complicated than calories in = calories out. Our bodies use food for different things and partition it's energy at different rates. What might be "too much" for me may be "too little" for you. That doesn't violate the laws of thermodynamics. It takes into account that these laws are descriptive rather than explanatory and that it's not so much how much potential energy a food has but the chemical makeup and the way your body reacts to the food that is most important.

[kymmico]

barring some rare genetic disorder it is in part always your fault that you are overweight.

Try hypothyroidism. We saw people with it all the time at the clinic (doctor's office) I worked at.

[goki]

Fine, keep your closed circle.

In the meantime we have sociology making your closed simplistic physics a mere factor out of a complicated social phenomenon.

Meanwhile we have sociologists using the internet.
QED

No point in repeating my same point over and over again. Calories in - calories out = weight gain/loss.

[Blobfish]

However, Scientists appear to have created an Obesity Vaccine... Known as the "Flab Jab"

http://www.sundaysun.co.uk/news/uk-w...4229-31352656/

An obesity vaccine has been developed that uses the immune system to keep the body slim.

The "flab jab" has shown promising early results in mouse studies.

If the vaccine passes further safety trials, scientists believe it could provide a revolutionary new weapon against obesity.

Currently the only non-dieting options for controlling weight are surgery and strong drugs that can have serious side effects.

The vaccine works by stimulating the immune system to attack a hormone that promotes slow metabolism and weight gain. In tests, obese mice fed a high fat diet saw a 10% drop in body weight four days after receiving the jab.

Two slightly different versions of the vaccine were studied. Both produced a sustained 10% reduction in body weight after booster injections were administered after three weeks.

The slimming effect was not seen in a matched group of 10 untreated mice.

Lead researcher Dr Keith Haffer, from the US company Braasch Biotech in South Dakota, said: "This study demonstrates the possibility of treating obesity with vaccinations".