Michael Buerk. Is obesity a disease?

@monica in my defence that carbs/leptin/insulin/sugar/diabetes explanation was terrible!

Edit: I DO believe that there is a link between carbs, sugar, leptin, insulin, diabetes and obesity. It's been medically proven, pretty much.

It does not mean that an otherwise healthy person who eats carbs as part of a healthy diet will become diabetic or obese. All of us will have been brought up on a diet of carbs in the form of potatoes, bread etc and not necessarily become obese. Thing is, we would have eaten everything in moderation.

The obesity - as - a - disease argument hinges on a way of eating carbs that is most definitely NOT in moderation. The cycle kicks in when people overconsume carbs - particularly the refined carbs. Their systems become overloaded and can't cope, setting up the insulin response (insert science-y bit here). Hunger becomes insatiable, resulting in - yes - yet more overeating!

It explains why people who are already obese can eat loads more, becoming even more obese. The eating is said to be uncontrollable due to the changes in the body. (This is the bit I could never understand).

So - on that basis - obesity CAN be classed as a disease, either in its own right or as a consequence of the insulin/ carb response in the body (it has a name which I can't remember off the top of my head).

I agree with Pinkquartz..we are far too judgmental nowadays, and label everyone, and everything

many overweight people have mental problems, mind you I think we all have mental problems

Some people are over weight through choice , but some people are over weight because of health problems . Who are we to fat shame , this just make people with weight problems feel even worst about themselves . Try having a little compassion .

As one dangerously over weight person said to me " An alcoholic can stop drinking, a drug addict can stop taking the drugs, a gambler can cease gambling but an obese person cannot stop eating". Its a hard problem to solve and as someone who needs to lose a few pounds I can understand their dilemma.

we seem to have deviated from the thread and started to get into fat blaming.

I found the article interesting in that far from being a drain on resources the people who in societies eyes are bringing the system down are, in fact, doing the opposite.

The logical conclusion is that if we want to save the NHS and our social system we need to encourage our population to get fat or smoke themselves to an early grave.

The thin, fit folk will have to fall on their swords when they get to 90??

riverwalk, you are assuming that everybody eats a diet full of sugar and fat and cannot resist eating more.

I'm not assuming any such thing.

riverwalk, you are assuming that everybody eats a diet full of sugar and fat and cannot resist eating more.

Offered a short bread finger, I will usually stop at 0, because I will say 'Thanks, but no thanks' and I cannot remember when I last ate any chocolate, or any other sweets, Easter? I am not exceptional in this. A lot of people have similar diets.

I am so fed up with this lazy simplistic thinking: That if you are fat it is because you deceive yourself about how much you really eat and are always eating sweets and biscuits - and are probably bone idle as well.

I am sure that there may be people this does apply to, but this lazy labelling of every overweight person in this way, does not help those whose problems do not have those causes. As I have said before, obesity is a multi-factorial problem. There have always been obese people, even when most people were slimmer than now.

There is more to obesity than what you eat.

My dear sister has always said you don’t go to bed weighing 10 stones and wake up weighing 20! It creeps which is easily felt in clothes so when the waistband feels tight, cut down immediately. I’ve had UAT for years and I have such a sweet tooth too so I have to exercise self control and-guess what!-it works! ?

I think, looking at the wider picture, individuals have been encouraged to lose track of what is normal as far as food is concerned.

Portion sizes have increased dramatically over recent decades. Commercial food production and presentation hides the “bad” stuff. Cereals promoted as healthy because they do not have added sugar contain sugars none the less and the portion size recommended is tiny in today's expectations. In articles about changing portion sizes over the years we have become accustomed to much larger portions than the 50's or 60's to the extent that its hard for people to recognize that what is on their plate is probably double what their parents and grandparent ate.

Fruit juices and smoothies are promoted but contain tons of sugar. Snacking on sweet fruits is seen as a good choice.

Manufactures play to our busy lifestyle and promote high fat, high sugar ready meals and convenience food. Maybe we should say no, but it takes a strong will to study every tin or package for the content when we shop.

Ultimately we are all responsible for what goes into our mouths. But lets look at the bigger picture here as well. If advertising of food products wasn't effective, manufactures wouldn't do it

I follow a low-carb diet in general but to be honest it all depends on how much you eat.

Whatever was eaten in the past, lack of physical labour, new food types available in the past decades haven't changed our metabolism or introduced a new disease, it's simply that people eat too much now that it's relatively cheap and available 24/7.

As has been said, people seriously underestimate how much they do actually eat so they put their obesity down to genes/medical issues.

100g bar of Cadburys is over 500 calories
100g bar of Green & blacks is over 600 calories

A shortbread finger is about 100 calories! And how many people stop at one?

Carbs are essentially sugar, which act on the body in such a way as to create a cycle of insatiable hunger.

Are you sure? Go back in history and most people's diets were primarily carbohydrate, meat was a luxury and alternatives limited. There is no evidence that the population before the 19th century had an obesity problem.

I have always eaten a lot of carbohydrates without ever suffering from insatiable hunger (except as a child, when I was as skinny as a beanstick). Except in the aftermath of the menopause, I have never been overweight. I always understood that it wasn't the carbohydrates that did the damage but all the sugar and fat that was usually eaten with them (frying potatoes, butter and jam on bread, sugar and fat in cakes and biscuits.)

I always understood that it was not the carbohydrates

I really do not think there is a carbohydrate

I think the carbs/insulin/leptin debate is the most compelling for explaining the obesity "epidemic".

Carbs are essentially sugar, which act on the body in such a way as to create a cycle of insatiable hunger.

So diabetes is both the cause and symptom of obesity.

That's a terrible explanation but at least explains why obesity is classed as a "disease".

There is some evidence that some people are genetically pre-disposed to obesity - the most extreme example is some of the Pacific islanders. The theory is that people with a "thrifty" gene stored fat more easily and metabolised it slowly. It gave them an advantage during the long sea voyages when these people were colonising the islands - "survival of the fittest". Nowadays of course it's a big problem there. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5069069/

In the rest of the world, people with the "thrifty" gene had an advantage in times of famine, but nowadays with abundant food it's an obvious disadvantage. At a recent wedding I noticed various members of an extended family. Most were more or less normal weight, but a few stood out as obese. One had a mother who was always heavy, but her siblings were not. Another had parents who were both slim, but had 2 very obese uncles. In these cases it would probably not be eating habits of the family, but something genetic.

In my own case, I could eat a lot when younger and not put on weight, but then found I had overactive thyroid. This caused my metabolism to run faster than normal - opposite to underactive. My resting heart-rate was always over 80, so even when sleeping I was burning more energy than a normal person. After eventual removal of thyroid I put on a little weight, but appetite was reduced so it wasn't too bad.

There seem to be multiple reasons for the obesity epidemic, but in my opinion, genetics plays some part.

This explains it quite well.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080204212858.htm

Agree with MissAdventure that the people who "eat what they like" dont necessarily over eat.

They may enjoy a big slice of cake at lunch, but not graze between meals.
Or they may graze a lot, but only have light meals
Or they will enjoy 3 courses with gusto on a night out, but they wont have had lunch.

It is well researched that people are terrible at guessing their intake

I'm confused by that article as well. Do obese people just die without ever having health issues?

Slim and fit people might live longer but until they need a doctor for whatever reason they haven't been costing the NHS a penny and they probably contribute more through National Insurance.

Why is there a type 2 diabetes epidemic?

Because the healthy ones live longer, Sparklefizz. And the older you are the more health care you need. It's pretty obvious really.

^Tim Worstall of the Adam Smith Institute has called warnings of the obesity crisis poses an NHS funding crisis as “nonsense on stilts” Having us all slim... would cost the NHS very much more money than the current level of topers, smokers and lard buckets does.
His words.... not mine^

Why? How would it do that?

I read the article in the Times today. Apparently there is scientific evidence to support his claim that the obese, smokers and topers(?) actually save the country money by dying earlier.

Healthy people are the costliest.

Tim Worstall of the Adam Smith Institute has called warnings of the obesity crisis poses an NHS funding crisis as “nonsense on stilts” Having us all slim... would cost the NHS very much more money than the current level of topers, smokers and lard buckets does.
His words.... not mine

The people I know who can eat what they like don't tend to eat anywhere near as much as greedy people like me.

Some people are just naturally thin.

My dear mother had a sweet tooth (which I did not inherit) and had an amazing metabolism which meant she could eat as much as she liked and never put on a pound. She prided herself on maintaining exactly the same weight (apart from during her pregnancies) from the age of 15 til 96.

Unfortunately I did not inherit her wonderful metabolism. I only have to look at food and I'm sudden;y fatter.

My Mum was lovely. She did occasionally comment that it would be nice if I was thinner, but she was not judgemental.

Unfortunately there are some folk with my Mum's fortunate metabolism who simply do not understand how difficult it is for the rest of us. Perhaps Michael Buerk is one of them.

Flexiblefriend

That sounds so awful, what a lot to cope with. If I were in your shoes, I think my weight would be the least of my concerns

It’s an argument that just goes around and around, I’m definitely fatter than I’d like to be, but after a lifetime of dieting, I’ve given it up, I consider I eat fairly healthily, but if I fancy a bowl of ice cream, or a piece of cake, I’ll have it

I’m sure certain illnesses and conditions contribute to weight gain, but basically I feel if you eat too much you’ll get fat

yeah and some of us don't have good days where we can walk to the end of the drive and back. In my dreams. That's why I use a wheelchair. Not so others can take the piss or talk over my head but because standing up let alone attempting to walk makes me scream in pain. On top of that get up from the sofa without help is impossible, so it's not just my legs it's also my shoulders, elbows and hands that cause excruciating pain. I have to be helped into bed and once in can't move without help. Walk a mile in my shoes, it'll be the furthest those shoes have been in years. Gawd some people really do live in their tiny little bubble and cant even see out of it. Thing is I'm actually a happy little soul, I've accepted my life has changed beyond recognition and my world is now very tiny but hey I don't whinge and whine I just try to make others consider how fortunate they are if only they could see past their own shortsightedness.