Is there actually any agreement among scientists that there is a causal relationship between fast food consumption and obesity? I mean at an epidemiological level -- obviously if I eat ten Whoppers a day, I'm going to have a problem.
My favorite recent hypothesis for the obesity epidemic is the increase in snacking [1]. It seems very easy to believe that highly preserved snacks are becoming more available in these countries at the same time as fast food does.
A teacher lost ~60lbs on a McDonalds-only diet.(1)
As the article states, the reasons for obesity are "complex," and 'involve blaming society, and everyone else' for individual choices.
The most interesting thing about this topic is why does if fit entirely into the "can't blame them category," when there are still so many examples--albeit on a diminishing list--of other personal choices that one may be acceptably villified for--many of which don't even involve environmental destruction and animal rights abuses?
Yes culture, wealth, consumer products, job opportunities, and corn subsidies all participate; but perhaps the biggest problem is one of personal responsibility.
By contrast, in Japan obesity wins you an automatic trip to counseling(2).
I think Japan is a great example of personal responsibility. Food in Japan or at least the major cities is ridiculously easy to come by. Convenience stores every 2-3 minutes open 24 hours with loads of food, snacks, pastries, donuts, ice cream, liquor, beer. Liquor and Beer are as low as $1.20 a can. All the super markets now also carry tons of ready to eat foods and meals (because convenience stores were eating into their market) as well as chips, desserts, liquor, etc... Many more restaurants than anywhere else I've lived are open until morning. And there is fast food of all sorts as well, way more bread/pastries stores than just about anywhere on the planet. And yes, they have tons of greasy salty and sugary foods available.
And yet Japanese aren't nearly as obese. That would seem to suggest either genetics or self control.
Certain things help like often (not always) portions are smaller but you can always buy 2+
You also have to factor in that people generally walk way WAY more in Japan than in the US. Most cities in the US, you drive to get basically anywhere, and the only regular walking people get is to and from their car. In Japan, most people walk (including walking to and from transit stops) quite a bit, every day.
The first time we went to Tokyo, my wife lost ten lbs in a week and a half. Granted as tourists we were walking more than Tokyo residents, but still, to get around in Japan walking is just kind of what you do. My brother in law had a similar experience when he was with my sister who was doing an internship in a smaller Japanese city, he lost a ton of weight without trying.
Fair point, but if your wife lost 10 lbs in 10 days, it wasn't from the walking.
The walking would have contributed, but some quick Googling to check my intuition states 3,500calories/lb and 100calories/mile running. Call it 200/mile. That's 175 miles of walking and without eating anything for 10 days.
Probably >90% of this weight loss was due to normal fluctuations in bowel movements, fluids, and scale errors.
From the Japanese people I know and have talked to, I don't think it's so much personal responsibility as it is societal pressure.
Being fat is looked upon as a bad thing in Japan, and people will let you know. Meanwhile, in the Western world, it's rude, even taboo to talk about people's weight.
It's not just social pressure, for some it's outright forced by the employer. E.g. civil servants have to maintain a healthy BMI. You are given a physical examination once a year and if your BMI is too high you have to go on a diet or you're fired.
as harsh and intolerant as it may sound, this might be the most effective way to fix widespread obesity disease.
some more ideas - give a tax/health insurance benefits to those under certain BMI, subsidies on gym membership (but somehow make sure that there are actually regular workouts happening). some of these are happening on some places, but having it in embedded in laws would make our societies healthier and it would also fix the mindset.
or add an extra tax on all foods that contain sugar/corncrap/monosacharides above certain threshold, plus raw sugar itself.
I just went to Japan the other week and sampled some of the snacks at the convenience stores.
In general, they weren't nearly as sweet as what you find in the USA.
Did Japan go through the same low-fat craze that America went through from the 70's forward? A lot of the tasty fat here was replaced with sugar. That led to people being less sated and portion sizes going up.
Just expanding on your idea here - Japan also has a million times more vending machines as the US and they're full of Pepsi/Coke products, fruit juices, energy drinks, and even ice cream or beer. At 2am you can get your carb fix across the street from your apartment for a measly 100yen.
I have often wondered whether nations full of the descendants of rice-farming peasants are genetically better at dealing with carbs than those descended from northern Europeans.
These reasons are why it is only speculation. And also why I concentrated on Northern Europe, where agriculture is more recent and meat was always a larger part of the diet even in the agricultural age.
Randomly bought bread/snack in Japan (or Europe) has less sugar then bread/snack in USA. Seriously. Everything in USA is much much sweater and bread tastes like a cake. At least my personal experience was that when I eat whatever till I feel full in Japan, I am loosing weight and in USA it is very much gaining weight.
Even coke (or pepsi not sure) has different amount of sugar in it depending on region - here comparing eu vs usa.
Randomly bought bread/snack in Japan (or Europe) has less sugar then bread/snack in USA.
Is that true? When I was in Japan a couple of years ago I found that at least their 'US/European' style bread and cakes where all sickly sweet sometimes verging on being almost being inedible. More traditional snacks though did seem less sugary.
That is strange. Asian (korean/japanese in this case) bakeries are quite popular BECAUSE most of the breads and pastries are loaded with sugar. Goes well with Coffee (also with sugar)
I'm not sure about fast food burgers but Japan has amazing hamburgers. I also think most bowls of the "house special ramen" at any major ramen store are probably 1200+ calories.
>As the article states, the reasons for obesity are "complex," and 'involve blaming society, and everyone else' for individual choices.
Which makes total sense, because "individual choices" are never made from a blank state, but always in an already developed environment, which pushes towards certain vectors more so than to others.
While it's a classic (religious-derived) moral point to put it all on individual choice, the people who do so overestimate their own ability to make choices. Either because they lived life in easy mode (so they can't fathom the forces that make it hard for others to take the high road) or because they are the rare outliers that made it to the other side despite the circumstances (and suffer from survivor bias).
Humans are very imperfect machines, able to be manipulated from countless evolutionary-derived tricks -- which casinos, super markets, marketeers, politicians, and of course fast-food joints and the food industry take advantage of. The second point (tricks that can be used to manipulate people towards certain actions, from adding salt/sugar to some food to changing the color of light in a room have been studied a-plenty.
If we were raised any society of the past where some beliefs where held by most, most of us would support them (eg. pro Party in 1936 Germany, pro slavery in 1820 South), "individual choices" be damned. The outcome wouldn't be the same if we were asked our opinion for the same things in another society/time.
> but perhaps the biggest problem is one of personal responsibility.
How is it a kid's responsibility when they are fed with junk food from their parents or their school?
Freedom of choice and personal responsibility is all fine, but one shouldn't underestimate the brainwashing power of big food corporations. Mac Donald's and the like devote a lot of energy into convincing people to eat their stuff. It's their incentive to sell as much food as they can, making people obese as a side effect, and they're very successful at it. Apparently this is fine, but if the government tries to somehow counterbalance it, it's viewed as an inacceptable threat to our fundamental rights. I just don't get it.
In my post I already noted some agreement with you -- it is fair to say all those things you mention play a role, and I said that. In fact, I would go a step further with improving government intervention and am in favor of abolishing farm subsidies for corn (which subsidizes junk food and corn syrup). I even think taxes on junk food and sugar is a great idea.
So I am with you most of the way.
However, at the end of the day should we be teaching people they are not responsible for their choices? Ultimately, when even with McD as your only option you can lose weight and still be relatively healthy, is the individual without fault?
And regardless of the answer, even in the extreme case of no-fault, I just don't see the lack of responsibility productive.
Additionally, I am weary of why we put some failings in a "can't blame them basket," while others not, when everything comes down to environmental influences--A person left to age from birth in a dark, silent room will not be a person the way you and I understand it. So should we just give up on personal responsibility and blame everything on everyone else? There is not one shred of taking individual responsibility in that article.
IMHO, the experiment of Morgan Spurlock is more significant than your teacher. A McDonals-only diet might make you lose weight in a more definitive manner.
If you had to point at something in the fast food category, my money would be on the insanely portioned sugary drinks.
Maybe fries too, because people buy combo meals and then scarf everything down without stopping to see whether or not they actually feel full.
If you go to a fast food restaurant and get just a burger and water, I don't think it would actually be that bad for you, even if you ate like this more often than you should.
Maybe 6-9 months? It's been a while since I started. I've generally stuck to it for 22 years. Twice during those years I've had a period of regular exercise of some form and gotten down another 10 or so lbs, around ~170 but then I stop and it goes back to 180. I'm 5'10"
my money would be on the insanely portioned sugary drinks.
When visiting the States I also found that the US tradition of offering free refills on sodas led to me drinking more soda that I otherwise would have.
In his lecture “sugar the bitter truth” [1] Robert Lustig talks about the obesity epidemic starting in the 70s. His hypothesis is that the shift from high fat to high sugar diets and excessive use of high fructose corn syrup are likely one of the primary causes for the obesity rates we see now in the western world. It is quite insightful and full of data.
I'd bet if you're an adult and regularly eating processed, ready-to-eat food out of a bag or a box the chances that you're already obese is probably many times more than the overall population.
>Is there actually any agreement among scientists that there is a causal relationship between fast food consumption and obesity?
Yes and no...part of the problem, much like cigarettes there are many industry paid physicians and scientists happy to create confusion and dispel truth. And just like the cigarette industry who took their carcinogenic products to countries with less regulation, fast food and sugar industries are doing the same.
First fast food is high calorie and low in nutrients. Its also high in carbs which tends to trigger insulin production, insulin enlarges cell size in the body including fat cells priming a body for obesity (just add excess calories here). Additionally, fast food is notoriously inflammatory (sugar, grain fed meat, gluten, additives, saturated fat, BPA type toxins, preservatives, fried, etc...) and inflammation is linked to obesity, of course coming full circle you will find scientists paid by the sugar/fast food industries happy to claim its the other way around and that obesity is linked to metabolic inflammation.
I will highlight the comment below regarding the teacher on the McD's diet for 6 months who lost ~60lbs is the type of misinformation the food industry thrives off. Just to highlight, the individual lost 56lbs but was still classified as obese, the individual limited himself to 2,000 calories per day (which can easily be exceeded in a single meal) and the individual walked 45 minuted everyday, but there is no information pre-McD diet.
It's not that straightforward. In Thailand, compulsive snacking is a national obsession and you can't throw a rock outside without hitting five food vendors selling delicious food in small portions. Yet most Thais, particularly women, are incredibly skinny by Western standards.
Also, I've seen discussion of "fat-shaming" elsewhere ITT, and I think it's relevant, but shame isn't the right word. Seems like Asian cultures are frank about discussion of weight (and salary, and other things), but without the taboo of talking about it there isn't the associated shame of being talked about, in my experience.
Also probably homemade on the spot by someone who really knows how to make it taste amazing. A small portion of something well made, from good ingredients, that tastes amazing will satisfy much more thoroughly than something that's nothing but carbs, sugar, and MSG.
One thing people keep thinking is this is somehow a "poor" people problem. This is true when looked through a developed country citizen perspective - in terms of lifestyle. But please read the article before applying the same standard here.
In developing countries KFC and McDonald are costly. Not everyone, specially the poor, can afford it. For the people who can afford it, the upscale nature, clean-looking environment and the lure of eating something "western" is the driving factor.
As a person who moved from Pakistan to Germany, I can confirm. In Pakistan an average person will only eat fast once in a while, on occasions like a birthday party as the article suggests; in developed countries on the other hand fast food is a cheap no-brainer lunch and dinner option
Honestly, the cleanliness and the "elegant" appearance of fast food restaurants are factors that add a lot to the allure. I noticed this in China where even places like Starbucks can really stand out in comparison to the other venues surrounding it.
Taste aside, people really do value the safety of the food and the amenities that the restaurant provides. These are reasons why I think Western fast food restaurants are able to take root so quickly and in so many places. There's the atmosphere that extends beyond just the food that's sold.
I feel the same way when visiting certain parts of the US. The McDonald's might not be the best restaurant, but it's certainly not the worst. I've had some really awful experiences and it's just not worth the risk.
I've never had a bad experience at a McDonald's. I dislike their beef products, their sausage, and their cheaper chicken products. Their bacon and their more expensive chicken products taste fine to me.
Also McDonalds and many other fast food places have nutrition information on all their products so one can make a good decision. With smaller restaurants, there is no such information available.
Joking aside, when is McDonalds a good decision? At least in Denmark where I live, you can get the same equivalent food (say a burger, fries and a soda) for half the price (if not even less) if you go to a supermarket and buy the stuff, and it will also be healthier (more good nutrients, less bad things). You can cut the cost even more if you decide to make everything from the ground up, and then it's even healthier than both the McDonalds and the supermarket alternatives.
I can see how something like coffee or ice-cream could be an okay choice at McDonalds, but the ignores the fact that the coffee is bad and the ice-cream isn't very good either compared to what you can get in other places.
McDonalds isn't ever a good choice. It might be the best out of a bunch of bad choices, though.
One big factor they have is consistency and availability. I'm UK based and probably go there 5-10 times a year usually when I have very little time and am travelling. I know exactly what the quality and presentation of the food is, I know it can easily and cleanly be eaten in a hurry and is pretty much perfect for the times I need it. They also have excellent packaging, another known quality.
That's irrelevant. It's not a given you actually need to eat "fast-food". Many could do with changing their schedule a bit to eat more home cooked meals, or choosing healthier "fast food chains" than McDonalds.
In periods where I have lots of stuff to do, I make boxed lunches and dinners for the following 5 days on sunday. Takes a few hours, but then you have home-made fast-food for the following weeks workdays. You just have to choose some dishes that actually store great or you'll be sad. There's a subreddit for that, though.
Not eating at McDonalds or other fast food chains is only equal to not eating to the ignorant.
Also, since home cooked food in general are healthier, you'd quite possibly end up with less stress, feeling better and so on, which results in you having even more energy to eat great food that boost you instead of keeping you down, which traditional fast-food does by being unhealthy.
That comment has absolutely nothing to do with what was suggested previously, which was: IF you are in a place with at best sketchy food choices (travelling maybe?), going into a place like McDonald's and KNOWING what you're getting could be an appealing option for many.
Sure, if your alternative is: Stay at home all the time, so you never ever have to eat anywhere else, then I guess you don't need McDonald's. Only that's not how most people live.
> IF you are in a place with at best sketchy food choices (travelling maybe?), going into a place like McDonald's and KNOWING what you're getting could be an appealing option for many.
This is more anecdotal than anything, but one of the very few times I've gotten food poisoning visiting India in my life was after eating at a McDonald's. This was in 98 or something; McDonald's in India today is pretty much indistinguishable (except for different menu choices, obviously).
> That comment has absolutely nothing to do with what was suggested previously, which was: IF you are in a place with at best sketchy food choices (travelling maybe?), going into a place like McDonald's and KNOWING what you're getting could be an appealing option for many.
Sure it has. Agreed, it's better to know what you are getting, but that doesn't make it a good choice in any way, and it's, in most cases, a false notion that it's the only option except for not eating.
> Sure, if your alternative is: Stay at home all the time, so you never ever have to eat anywhere else, then I guess you don't need McDonald's. Only that's not how most people live.
That's ignorance right there. Home cooked food doesn't mean (and I don't believe anybody thinks it does) food that has been cooked in your home. It can mean a couple of things, but all the meanings boil down to "food where you've bought some good ingredients and cooked it your self (or someone you know) and are not relying on factory prepared microwave food and the likes."
And no, most people don't travel for work, except if you mean pendling. If you do travel, as in are gone from home say for a week at a time, then home cooked meals can be tough, but in that case, there are most likely a lot of better options than going to McDonalds, like going to a more health-focused chain or going to a grocery store and buying some fruits, breads and so on. Makes a perfectly good, healthy meal that's also cheaper compared to fast food chains here in Denmark anyways.
For all the people pendling, which is many times more than people who travel for work, there is no excuse, you could easily have prepared home cooked box meals on sunday and not have had to think about lunch and dinner until next weekend, or simply choose a better, more health focused chain than McDonalds if you don't want good, healthy, home cooked box meals.
In the Philippines, the customers seem to be of a middle class or higher. Most people can't afford to eat in McD's unless they want to spend half a day of pay or more to eat a Big Mac meal. That attracts more of the same.
In places where food safety reg is weak, this definitely a reason people would consider western fast food vs local hawkers sidewalk food stalls. Only time I'll eat from a sidewalk food stall, if I can trust the ingredients, is if it's cooked in front of me at high heat and straight into a disposable container.
Sure, I bet it has nothing to do with the fact that it's quick, cheap, and addictive. Poor people must really love the elegant atmosphere of their local KFC.
Those are for sure factors, but McDonalds just a pretty good place to hang out if you're poor, especially in the developing world. Lots of them have free wi-fi, power outlets. They're air conditioned / heated. You can basically hang out all day for next to free. Really, it has all of the amenities of somewhere like Starbucks, just at a lower price point.
I'm not a fast food apologist, just saying that you're missing the perspective the gp is trying to bring.
McDonalds often seems to serve as a local community center for the retired and young, most of them I go to outside of the PNW, have 4-10 older guys sitting together for coffee in the mornings.
You seem to have created this account just to comment on this thread.
Fast food is quick and cheap, but barring something more substantive that empirical evidence (or one single study cited elsewhere in the comments), its probably not addictive.
When you're a single mom raising one or more kids and working a full time job, drive-thru starts to sound mighty attractive, same with those poor folks who don't have a real grocery store, also for those folks in developing counties who don't really have affordable options for dining out. We all aspire to better things, but for many being able to afford to regularly eat out is a sign of 'having arrived' its also a leading cause of obesity (and it doesn't matter if its fast food or fine dining).
I'm not sure you understand what real poverty can look like. Compared to an unregulated street food stall, or a tiny, roach-infested kitchen, or nothing at all, yeah, KFC does look elegant.
The atmosphere adds a lot extra value. There's obviously cheaper food options available that are as convenient available to them too. As for addictiveness, I'd say this is where fast food shines unfortunately. That's really only because it tastes good, though.
You can get a healthy meal at McD's: the quarter pounder sandwich, side salad, and a cup 'o water. Nobody says you gotta buy the coke, fries and shake.
Some of the reason for obesity might be fast food but some of it is just rising incomes along with unique cultural things.
For example, in the Philippines, you look healthy if you are chubby and people show concern if you are skinny. People encourage you to eat until you feel full. The food is generally fattening, but poor Filipino's can only afford enough that they won't get fat. Much of the fattening dishes are reserved for special events. Back in the day, a bottle of coke was a special thing. Now people can afford to keep the fridge always stocked.
ETA: Fast food restaurants are relatively high-end. Even then, the food is relatively expensive. I see a lot of Filipino's ordering drinks and then sharing the biggest order of fries on the menu.
Notice how all the US diets are always about consuming 'different' and never about consuming 'less'?
I'll leave it at that as the food industry has successfully manipulated public discourse pointing out the emperor has no clothes to be taboo.
Same story in Asia. Go to Thai cities and be surprised how many overweight children and adults you'll see. It's not just fast food, its anything processed. In India you often see kids eat raw instant noodles as snacks.
What is about fast food that increases waist lines? Is it just the fact that its cheap so people consume more? At the end of the day its just calories right? So do people tend to over eat when it comes to fast food?
No humans are not perfect calorie burning machines, we are aerobic organisms you can start by learning about the krebs cycle.
Fast food is generally high calories and low in nutrients. Research the links between fast food and inflammation and then inflammation and obesity. Also important are the Links between fast food/high carb food, insulin and obesity.
Just look at the diets we know are linked to health and longevity (Mediterranean and historical Okinawan/Japanese diets). You will find low calorie/nutrient and vitamin rich foods; anti-inflammatory foods; anti-oxidant foods; anti-toxin foods (and before people come out of the woodwork to claim anti-toxin foods are a myth, think about foods that promote healthy functioning of the liver/kidneys). You will also find a general lack of fried foods, refined flour/gluten, refined white sugar, preservatives/additives, BPA like toxins, grain fed meat (of course these are all found in fast food and are inflammatory).
Let's take India for example. So 2380 calories a day. The big Mac will constitute nearly 50% of calories in a meal.
Then people do have other meals too - breakfast, lunch and snacks. That means the calorie count is near to 3k calories. So a 700 calories or 30% in excess to average calories consumed.
If this happens for say only for weekends ie 8 days in a month. That is 5600 calories in excess. Without any exercise this is going to hit hard on the waist line and weight.
But there is nothing special about that McDonalds food. In India, you can buy street food which is way more caloric that a Big Mac. Fried starchy food, loads of cheese, salty sauces. And they are just as addictive as the McDonalds stuff... probably more addictive given how awesome and flavorful some of them are.
The meal was taken as a reference only. All three things you mentioned would mostly still go into the category of fast foods. So let me clarify, fast food is not a copyright trademark of McDonalds or KFC. It refers to general moving away from a properly prepared meal to using processed and easy to prepare meals.
I think they chose food that is cheap to buy, easy to consume and that everybody will like (for some measure of ‘everybody’ and ‘like’)
That food happens to have a high ratio between number of calories and how full it makes you feel.
That, in turn, allowed them to make servings larger. If a Big Mac or a soda would give you the same ‘I have eaten’ feedback as, say, raw vegetables, Macdonald’s would never have considered making servings that large (customers not finishing their meal makes the meal look bad in US culture)
So uh... sugar, fat, and salt are extremely addictive. Fast food also doesn't make you feel full like proper food does, so not only do you crave it, but you never quite get enough.
Yes, at the end of the day it's just calories, but they're addictive, empty calories. Quality and type of food matters. 1,000 calories of Big Mac is not 1,000 calories of fruits and vegetables.
That combo is demonstrably more addictive than many of the other stuff you mention. People are literally eating themselves to death, just wishing they could stop and can't, and get withdrawal symptoms when they try.
No they don't get significant physical withdrawal symptoms. Let's stop the hyperbole. Many people have quit overeating on their own. It's nowhere near alcohol where the withdrawal symptoms can literally kill.
Could availability and ease of purchase of alcohol play a role here ?
Alcohol has plenty of calories e.g. beer and wine.
Used to be you didn’t have it as readily available at a corner store.
It's sad there are still many (including in this thread) who minimize the role of fast food outlets in raising obesity rates by appealing to some moralized and frankly religious notion of "personal responsibility."
What the science tells us is that if you put people in different environments, they will behave differently. Especially when the reward is designed to be as compelling as possible.
Obesity is one of the greatest epidemics in the world today. There is no reason why anyone should have to compete against thousands of food scientists trying to tear down their willpower as a matter of daily course. Their failure to do so is in no way a failure of "personal responsibility." It is a failure of the designers of their world to be on their side in the first place. To assert otherwise is not only cruelly ideological, but utterly unscientific.
The fact that in an experiment people changed their behavior based on environmental cues does not disprove the notion of personal responsibility. If you think you have disproven personal responsibility, then you have disproven free will. And if you have disproven free will, then who is your comment trying to convince?
That being said, the truth of this particular matter lies somewhere in the middle. It's personal responsibility and it's exploitation on the part of the fast food chains. Saying it's all one or all the other is equally wrong.
>To assert otherwise is not only cruelly ideological, but utterly unscientific.
Your argument is: Obese people need saving, we should pass laws to limit their choices so that they're not so obese. Do you have any evidence that obese people want their choices taken away from them? Should people not have the right to make choices about how their body is?
Claiming that you don't think the government should be in the business of controlling what people do to their own bodies is consistent with being pro drug-use decriminalization/(anti prohibition), pro euthanasia rights, pro abortion rights.
What 'bad' behaviors do you have that the government should tell you how to live your life?
Every one's a victim, eh? Let's just make all "fast food" illegal.
does that include subway and Jimmy John's? What about Chipotle? How about pizza? Or Chinese takeout? What about Applebee's? Their burgers are pretty bad for you. Also we'd probably have to include kfc. Actually any place that sells deep fried chicken.
So I guess we should just outlaw all restaurants because people have no agency and can't make their own decisions.
/S
But on a serious note, there are healthy people in America that exist within the same environment that you are blaming obesity on and that face the same societal pressures. Explain to me their magic that prevents them from being obese.
Obesity rates have gone up dramatically to the point that the majority of the population is considered obese,obviously the part that isn't obese is a statistical outlier, and not the norm.
Ghana, a coastal African country of more than 28 million still etched with pockets of extreme poverty
Ugh New York times.
On the issue of obesity however, like someone has already addressed in the thread, has more to do with individual choices than the availability of fast food joints. There have been arguments about people who frequent Macs or KFC everyday of their lives, and have managed to stay fit/in shape(Though not an argument for overall good health).
My favorite recent hypothesis for the obesity epidemic is the increase in snacking [1]. It seems very easy to believe that highly preserved snacks are becoming more available in these countries at the same time as fast food does.
[1]: https://www.vox.com/2015/2/17/8051367/obesity-snacks