Obesity Contagious? 840
An anonymous reader writes "University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have found that certain human viruses may cause obesity, and by extension make being severely overweight a contagious condition. 'It makes people feel more comfortable to think that obesity stems from lack of control,' the lead researcher says. 'It's a big mental leap to think you can catch obesity.' But other diseases once chalked up to environmental factors, like stomach ulcers, are now known to stem from infectious agents."
People are Obese regarless of Income or Geography (Score:5, Interesting)
Everything is contagious, in the social sense (Score:5, Interesting)
There are some staggering data in there regarding the extent to which humans mimic the behavior of similar others. For example, there are statistically significant increases in the number of teenage-couples killed in car accidents among those teenage-couples who recently heard about accidents where teenage couples were killed. The increase is not observed in teenage-couples who didn't hear about the recent accidents, and is not observed among singleton teenagers or older couples who have been exposed to the news. These results have been repeated with a wide range of demographic groups, on a wide range of phenomena, and have been found to be consistent and strong. Hmm, notice a rash of mine accidents recently? Yes, I'm sure it's media focus-bias to some extent...
I really urge you to check that book out if you're interested in the instinct-level mental processes that control us without our being aware of them, or if you want to be..ah...evil?
Virus or no (Score:5, Interesting)
Despite my attempts to keep this comment civil, I'm sure some will take offense...
Re:Funny thing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:People are Obese regarless of Income or Geograp (Score:5, Interesting)
Look, the cause of obesity is really very simple: the human body (and its ancestors) evolved in environments in which food was scarce, and during that time mechanisms came into being which helped to deal with that scarcity. As a result, it has built-in mechanisms to ensure that there will be sufficient energy store for the body to use for all but the most drastic of food shortages. These mechanisms include the fat store, the tendency for fat to accumulate much more easily than it's used, and an appetite control mechanism that encourages overeating (since who knows when the next meal will become available?).
Now take the human body and put it into an environment where all the food one could ever want is easily available for the taking (all it requires is a small amount of money). What do you expect will happen?
Well, duh...the body will behave as it always has: under the assumption that while food might be plentiful now, it's not likely to be plentiful for long, so better stock up now while it can.
And thus, obesity.
And the reason obesity is so difficult to deal with, and why sustained weight loss has such a lousy track record (95%+ failure rate), is simple: to fight obesity, you have to fight your own body's instinctive drive to "save up for a rainy day".
Re:Yea right (Score:3, Interesting)
Doesnt this make us want to... (Score:3, Interesting)
this would increase the amount of discrimination cases against obese people dramatically
Re:Funny thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Contrast that with America, where many technology parks and shopping centers don't even have proper sidewalks, and where the fastest, cheapest food you can get is at McDonalds, and it's no wonder Americans are fat.
Re:Conservation of energy revoked? (Score:5, Interesting)
But eating fresh non processed foods and getting daily exercise is healthy for anyone.
Obesity in the US is becoming a public health emergency. Did you see the 6 day series in the New York Times about Type II diabetes? It showed some people who couldn't stop eating junk food, even though it would mean they would lose a foot or go blind...
Re:Funny thing (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was living in Europe, specifically Germany, people viewed someplace that took half-an-hour away as pretty long and a city 2 hours away as a "trip". It was the norm to be able to work/bike to the local grocery store 5-15 minutes away (for that mode of transport) and get what you need. For work, lots of people took the train, which also required walking.
Holland is even greater in bike usage.
Part of the reason that Europe has everything close together is that stores, restaurants, etcetera can be comfortably intermingled amoung the neighborhoods. The only thing I saw zoned "away" from other things was industrial.
In America, rural zoning tends to be much more isolationist - suburbs are islands to themselves - without a store in sight. It's quite depressing actually. It also leads to the "not being able to walk or bike anywhere" syndrome.
Re:Peter Griffin on Wisconsin (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Conservation of energy revoked? (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless you are an expert on human metabolism, you cannot possibly make such an assertion. And if you were, you wouldn't.
What you overlook is that human beings are animals, and hence complex biochemical factories, not simple heat engines. If you know how much petrol a car engine of a given capacity burns in a given time, you know how much energy it produces, right? (Even this is only broadly true). But animals are very inefficient converters of energy. I forget how much of the energy we use gets "wasted" as heat, but it's a large fraction. (Just as well, or we'd die of hypothermia). Other energy goes into running various chemical reactions, not all of which are necessarily indispensable or even useful.
As soon as you think about if for a few seconds, it's clear that the body has a lot of discretion in just how it uses the 200 calories you get from, say, eating a bun. These viruses could jam the "make fat" control hard over against the end stop.
Maybe you think it is fine for one person to eat 2900 calories a day, do little exercise, and stay thin; while another person eats 2000 calories, walks six miles and gains weight. But how is the second person going to control their weight in the long run? The only practical way we have of controlling calorie intake is our appetite. Have you ever tried measuring your exact calorie intake while eating a normal diet? It's far from easy. Moreover, how are people to know how much they should be eating, if it's 2000 for one person and 3000 for someone else of similar size, shape, and exercise habits? We can't all become dietary scientists, walking about with computers and clipboards, weighing every bite of food we eat.
Re:Yea right (Score:3, Interesting)
both good points. Sleep is always overlooked! Although the only real way to lose weight is eat less + exercise more, as someone who was once heavy then lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off it became clear that there isn't a linear relationship between effort and results.
At least for me there were certain "weight plateaus" where it took longer to lose 5 lbs than at other times. Conversely, once in a plateau it was relatively easy to stay there as it required a certain amount of effort to gain weight. This so-called virus perhaps affects the body in a similar fashion, but if such a virus exists my interest would be why do some people have it but not others? What is the transmission vector?
There's an great website by John Walker (founder of Autodesk) called The Hackers Diet [fourmilab.ch] that explores the nature of weight from a chemical/engineering perspective. Also provides a series of Excel spreadsheets to monitor weight loss/gain
Taught early -- in daycare? (Score:5, Interesting)
We got immediate "feedback" from the staff about "cutting" his intake. I had to explain to them that it was actually a net increase for daytime feeding (16 vs. 12 oz) and his overall intake was actually up by 4 oz. They politely disagreed and we said we'd change it back if problems arose. After a week it was a non-issue.
After thinking about it, I realized what the real issue was -- the staff liked to feed him more frequently and we believed they were actually using the feeding as a way to soothe him; the feeding times for the bottles varied quite a bit. By cutting him to two bottles a day, they were "losing" a soothing option.
It was then that I started thinking about the staff; all of them would qualify as overweight, three of them would probably qualify as obese and one of them probably is pushing the morbidly obese standard.
I started wondering if the childhood obesity phenomenon couldn't partly be traced to daycare; at an early age, if given the opportunity, the staff will use food the way they probably use it themselves -- as a way to soothe and manage anxiety.
I'm probably stretching this a lot, but it doesn't seem entirely unrealistic. Kids in increasingly large numbers since the 1970s have been put into daycares, and they've been subjected to food as a behavior modifier -- soothing babies, calming toddlers, and so on. The fact that daycare providers are, by and large, at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder probably also means that the kids are being subjected to the caregivers own poor habits as well.
I know there are other influences (TV, advertising, parental disregard, etc), but I do wonder if bad food choices in daycare doesn't lay the groundwork for a fairly deep-seated set of food/emotion connections that play out as the child gets older and has more opportunity to make their own food choices.
Re:People are Obese regarless of Income or Geograp (Score:4, Interesting)
Bushmen do get to walk around a bit more. They're more akin to modern people that would have to walk to the corner grocery on a daily basis. Bushmen still tend to setup camp where the food is. They're not going to waste calories going too and fro when they can just move their hovels over to the next grove or whatnot.
Re:Obesity comes from a simple condition... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Peter Griffin on Wisconsin (Score:1, Interesting)
-Benjamin Franklin
Re:Funny thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Funny thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Where I live I feel like I'm in the minority of people at a healthy weight. In NYC, I'm the norm. But then, there are many restuarants in the city with healthy food that tastes good (we ate at an amazing vegan place this weekend, Angelica Kitchen. It's on 12th St between 1st and 2nd Ave. Worth the wait if there is one!)
Re:Conservation of energy revoked? (Score:2, Interesting)
You see, you have to earn a great body. There is absolutely no substitute. And it takes time to see significant results.
For some people "too much" food might be just enough to nourish them. It's not widely reported, but lots of dieting fat people die and/or suffer severe health problems from malnutrition every year. Still fat, yet starved of required nutrients.
We've tried bullying fat people to "quit eating so much and go for a walk" for decades now. Results have not been stellar. Maybe we ought to try something else. Maybe it might be worth a shot to afford them the dignity of any other human beings, and find ways to help them get thinner.
Find ways to help them get thinner? It's not rocket surgery. It's as simple as watching your daily caloric intake, ensuring that it's just below your maintenance level, starting some sort of training program, and sticking with it day in, day out. You don't need to go on the Atkins diet, or ABS, or Southbeatch, or any other fad diet. They overcomplicate things. If you're body's not getting enough calories for the activities it does in a day from the food you eat, then it will look elsewhere for that energy, primarily metabolically expensive muscle tissue and fat reserves. Proper diet, specifically high protein, moderate carbs, and fats (yes, fats), will yield the best results. Have a slow metabolism? Eat every 2-3 hours! No, not full sized meals, rather, figure out your total allotted calories in a day, divide that between 6-8 meals and voila!
It's not like fat people want to be fat. You can't even make the case that the pleasures of eating and relaxation (or avoiding the discomfort of working out and going hungry) are more important to them than their health and appearance. There are people who are suicidal over their weight, and willing to endure painful, dangerous, ill-advised medical procedures to correct it.
No, of course they don't want to be fat, they just don't want to put in the work to make it go away. Everyone wants an easy way out, something they can do 5 minutes a day, every other day, and get the body of their favorite superstar. Sorry, bud, but it doesn't work like that. The pleasures of eating and relaxation may not be as important to them as their health, however the thought of having to "work out" and "diet" are enough to cause them to not pursue their desire. Also, I'd put money down that they're willing to endure painful medical procedures precisely because they want a quick fix.
In spite of how much the results of studies like this might displease the "personal responsibility uber alles" crowd, I'm glad studies like this are being done. If there really does turn out to be a viral cause, discovery of it is cause for celebration.
Why? So we can have another excuse for our condition? "I'm not fat, I'm big boned!" "I'm not fat! It's my family's genetics!" "I'm not fat! I have a disease!" Come on, this is going to sound harsh, but if you're constantly saying these things, get off your ass and get on a treadmill. Trust me, you can change.
Here's one of the most inspiration transformations I've ever seen. His name is Louis Dormon. He went to weighing well over 250 pounds with a high fat percentage, and dropped down to a ripped 16
Re:Conservation of energy revoked? (Score:2, Interesting)
I will entertain the thought that I might just "be lucky enough not to experience the overpowering food cravings," but there is more to it than that.
Now, I have always been on the opposite end of this spectrum. I played a lot of sports when I was younger, I hiked, I spent all day every day outside. I was always active. I had a MAD appetite for food, but my metabolism was so fast that I couldn't put on any weight, even when I would each huge amounts of fatty foods.
Throughout highschool I got jobs, as well as more homework. I didn't play on the school sports teams anymore. I started working with computers (read: sitting around a lot more). Work was busy, so I would only have time to get food quickly (McDonalds, Harveys, etc). In 1 year of doing this, I gained 60lbs. Now... it is fairly logical to assume that if I continued to do that, I would gain more weight the next year, more the year after, etc. I wasn't necessarily eating a lot more (I ate a lot to begin with though), but I was doing FAR less activity. I was now becoming obese. I actually had a spare tire, whereas before I had an 8-pack.
I had metabolism tests regularly, and my body was going through a major change. It would speed up very quickly - almost dangerously. It would then slow way down - again, almost dangerously.
I went to college a lot bigger than I had ever been before. My mind didn't really catch up though. I still thought I was pretty skinny because I had been used to it for my entire life. It took awhile for me to catch on that my weight really was getting out of hand. College can pretty a pretty big party, as I'm sure 1 or 2 Slashdotters may have experienced, so it can be a big hassle to eat healthy. I didn't. I gained more weight until I was about 210lbs.. 6'2". It was a fatty 210lbs.
Second year of college I straightend up. I jogged a bit, rode my mountain bike again, and was eating better food (I wasn't in residence any more). My weight quickly dropped down to around 185lbs, which is where it is today.
I can see fluctuations in my weight happen very quickly. If I am very inactive and eat a bunch of crap, I will easily gain 5 lbs. If I straighten out, I have more energy and my weight is around 185lbs.
Now... everything I have said so far is pretty much common sense - or so I believe. Pretty much everyone I know that is a larger person grew up not playing around and being active, but sitting inside and hanging out with the TV/video games/food. Perhaps thats what their parents did, and so they see life as chilling out doing nothing when your not busy. Perhaps they didn't eat healthy when they were young, and so that's just what their comfortable with. They talk about being active, but they're not. They have stories about how they used to be active, but they are from years earlier. My larger friends do eat a lot more crap than my thinner friends, but they also have WAY LESS exercise as well.
This is where being obese gets very difficult. This is where "will power" steps in. For an obese person, going out and playing volleyball isn't fun. It isn't fun because it seems like hard work. You can't just go out and jump around having a good time because your breathing heavily 30 seconds into the game, and you just want to sit down. Your sweating twice as much as everyone else around you, so you stand out. Its much more fun to go sit down and have a chilidog.
It seems to me that your body really does what your mind wants it to do. You ignore activity for a long time, and start to enjoy fatty foods, and your mind creates this body that make its pleasurable for these activities. After you cross a certain threshold, it is very difficult to change back because you have to WORK to change. Someone who is mildy out of shape (like myself), wouldn't find it hard to go for a bike ride - it might even be fun. If I was 100 lbs overweight and hadn't taken a walk further than my driveway in
Re:Conservation of energy revoked? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is also what is leading nutrition experts to question the portayal of obesity in and of itself as a health risk. It's just not the case that being over a certain weight means you are at risk for disease, it's an indicator that you will want to monitor certain things perhaps, but at the end of the day, skinny or fat, if you binge on sugar, you are at risk for diabetes.
Re:Yea right (Score:1, Interesting)
the marketing of the zone diet attempts to keep insulin within a zone by balancing macronutrients - protein, carbs and fat. the amount of food eaten is based upon lean body mass and exercise level.
the argument for why two folks can eat the same amount of food and one can end up fat and the other skinny is that their body's insulin response is different.
excess insulin will cause one's body to convert and store glucose (from carbs) as fat. if one doesn't over produce insulin then one has less of a problem here.
same food, different results.
i can't verify the science and i have no doubt some of the claims are unsupported hype (yet others are very well supported).
all i know is the diet works for me - more energy, better moods, not hungry, weight loss and better cardiovascular health. i'm not sure why it works, but the insulin production theme seems to be reasonable, imho.
Re:nope (Score:2, Interesting)
I've had chronic pain since I was ten and at times I have been given various opiates. One of my more recent experiences was with oxycontin, after taking one pill twice daily for four days and then stopping, it was like having the flu for a week and a half. If I for one minute allowed myself to believe that the stuffed up feeling and the dizziness and nausea wasn't temporary or that going back to the oxycontin when I didn't currently need it to bear the pain would lead to an even worse withdrawal feeling, I would have been back on the opiates instantly.
So saying hey fatty lay off the twinky or hey junkie drop the needle or hey Alchy McAlcherson knock off the firewater is really not a helpful sentiment. It just leads to the targeted person feeling victimised and retreating into their habit in most cases. Advocating a cold turkey approach comes off as exactly that to them.
McD menus are different as well (Score:1, Interesting)
Here, you will be able to get one (1) standarn size menu at McD (in France it is called "Best of..." in Sweden simply "Meny". Same stuff). You can replace the fries with a salad if you wish. You can replace the soda with a bottle of water as well. If you pay 50 cent extra you will get a larger coke and fries (or water/salad).
When I visited the US I could choose between "Large", "Extra Large" or "Extra Extra Large". No salad instead of fries (maybe that has changed now?). Other customers seem to take my small menu (a "Large" one, no extras) as a curiosity. Most of them had full trays of food on them. A XXL menu + huge coke + huge fries + extra burger(s).
Pizzas are different as well. In the US you will get a pizza that is very large, contain mostly dough and cheese and it cost about $20 (for a two person pizza). You pay through your nose for something extra on it. You eat the pizza with "pizza bread" (pizza dough with pizza cheese). The soda is usually free.
In Sweden, the standard pizza (for one person) cost between $3.50-7 depending on what you want on it. Normally you will have cheese, ham, mushrooms, vegetables and some other ingredient on it. You get a free salad with your pizza as well but the soda will be additional cost.
To sum up about the burger/pizza topic that I have noted during my travels:
In the US it is normal to eat more with less ingredients.
In europe it is normal to eat less with more ingredients.
P.S. On a side note, I had the best mexican dinner *ever* when I was in the US. Simply delicious!
Re:nope (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, Alcoholics Anonymous has an over all going rate of exactly the same as those going cold turkey... it's somewhere around 5%. It's the same for smoking also.
Fact is that every addiction is hard to get off of, but whether "help" is supplied or not, the quitting rates are the same over time.
So, the issue becomes, we can't just tell fatties to lay off the donuts, because they won't, even though they may know they should. They could "stop" cold turkey, and try and fix it, but this leads to a "defficiency" that they try and account for the next time they stop quitting. Same as with alcoholics. Eventually, this cycle brings it self out so that they're binging hard, and having a rollercoaster of effects because of it.
My issue here is that we tell people to get a doctors advice before going on a diet, because the cause of the weight may not be within their control (a virus that would cause a store of fat regardless of their intake) or something entirely unhealthy for them (a 90lb 16 year old going "Look at my pot belly, I'm a fat little pig.")
In either of those cases, a doctors input is invaluable. In some/most cases though, it's entirely possible that just "quitting" "cold turkey" would work as well as anything else, the person "just" has to muster the willpower to to break the addiction.
Re:Rubbish food is expensive (Score:3, Interesting)
And sourcing "good" lettuce these days is becoming increasingly difficult. Between the regular covering in pesticides and endocrine disruptors during growing, to the cleaning/bleaching in chlorine when it is harvested, to being sold in those "ready picked" plastic salad bags which mean it is devoid of almost all nutritional content by the time it hits your plate.... it's a fun game a the supermarket when you actually feel like taking the time to try and keep the diet as health as possible (especially so if you AREN'T a vegetarian as meat products are some of the most bastardised).
If you're so inclined and feel like an interesting read about why diet, health, and the economy have been so drastically affected by food over the past 50 years "Not on the label" by Felicity Lawrence is an excellent read.
Re:Conservation of energy revoked? (Score:4, Interesting)
Bzzzt wrong answer. The stressed excutive with an ulcer can be cured.
See: http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/2005/pre
You see, those guys proved that the prevailing 'wisdom' about ulcers related to stress and lifestyle were FALSE. That in most ulcer cases, there was a bacteria causing the ulcers to arize. Getting rid of the bacteria actually cured the ulcers. The Type A with an ulcer needs nothing more than medicine to cure their condition - A career change is not necessary.
But you provided a great example of how hard society holds onto its stereotypes for certain conditions.
Nowhere in my posts did I insuate that obesity was purely a disease, that has a cure and that better diet and exercise aren't good things. But in light of what was learned about ulcers, shouldn't scientists sometimes challenge the conventional wisdom? Who knows, someday maybe the people studying links between obesity and viruses might earn a nobel prize!
Re:Conservation of energy revoked? (Score:3, Interesting)
[puts on pro dog breeder hat] Dogs, as a species, are pretty good at self-regulating their intake *provided they get enough protein and fat*. Put a normal dog on a low-fat or low-protein diet, and it will be hungry all the time, and will gobble everything it can get hold of. Put the same dog on a high-fat (animal or veg. fat, NOT chicken fat), high-protein, MEAT-based diet (chicken will NOT do), feed it free-choice, and it will quickly adjust to eating only as much as it needs... and if obese, will even lose weight.
Humans are not much different. Which is why a modified Atkins diet is the easiest and most effective for most folks -- just eat a normal balanced diet, all in reasonable quantities, but cut your carb intake in half.
Yes, some people (and dogs) have a faulty appetite regulation mechanism, but we're talking about biologically normal/typical specimens here.