Why is losing weight more difficult now?

[DaveB]

I read this thread while eating a bar of chocolate...

[vetran]

I read this thread while eating all the pies...

Love MF Vetran

[unixman]

Now: Greggs/Costa on every corner. A "cup of coffee" contains 170 calories. Nobody makes their own meals, or knows/cares what they contain. Routine life contains no excercise.

Pre 1980: Almost no takeaways. Families ate together at the table. Meals made from scratch. A cup of coffee contained 30 calories. Children walked to school. Dad dug garden. Mam carried food from shops by hand. Typically.

[d000hg]

Indeed and that's really the start and end of the discussion. People seem intent on finding increasingly bizarre explanations for why as a nation we're getting fatter, when it is a pretty simple equation really: calories in - calories used = net weight gain/loss.

Now: Greggs/Costa on every corner. A "cup of coffee" contains 170 calories. Nobody makes their own meals, or knows/cares what they contain. Routine life contains no excercise.

Pre 1980: Almost no takeaways. Families ate together at the table. Meals made from scratch. A cup of coffee contained 30 calories. Children walked to school. Dad dug garden. Mam carried food from shops by hand. Typically.

I wonder if pre-1980 people were less stupid and would've read that these factors are already considered. Specifically, the "same calories" thing - they are aiming to compare like-for-like, i.e. they're saying even if you remove the effects of more calories in typical diets, obesity is still more prevalent.

We could discuss food complexity of course but I don't know how much effect that really has.

[Willapp]

I wonder if pre-1980 people were less stupid and would've read that these factors are already considered. Specifically, the "same calories" thing - they are aiming to compare like-for-like, i.e. they're saying even if you remove the effects of more calories in typical diets, obesity is still more prevalent.

We could discuss food complexity of course but I don't know how much effect that really has.

If you remove the effects of more calories then the only variable I can see is activity level and it's generally accepted that people are less active now, for a variety of reasons some of which have already been mentioned above.

If you're suggesting that some genetic factors are making people more prone to becoming obese given the same level of activity and calorie intake, then I've yet to see any credible evidence that this is the case. Until someone can provide evidence to support it, the most likely explanation is that people are less active and don't seem to care how fat they are, which for me is the more worrying trend especially when you see families out with kids that are clearly obese but the parents are fat so aren't likely to care or do anything about it.

[gables]

Now: Greggs/Costa on every corner. A "cup of coffee" contains 170 calories. Nobody makes their own meals, or knows/cares what they contain. Routine life contains no excercise.

Pre 1980: Almost no takeaways. Families ate together at the table. Meals made from scratch. A cup of coffee contained 30 calories. Children walked to school. Dad dug garden. Mam carried food from shops by hand. Typically.

Well Greggs\Costa maybe on every corner, but it's not compulsory to go into them. It is also possible to live like your pre 1980 description, my kids were born in 1995 and 1997 and what you describe is our life, although we did use the car to get to shop.

And, surely it can't technically be harder to lose weight now than it was then.

[Willapp]

And, surely it can't technically be harder to lose weight now than it was then.

It isn't harder, I think people are just less conscious of how they look or willing to accept that it takes effort to change. Although I've never been anywhere near obese (I'm a keen athlete and relatively young), I do know from personal experience how mentally addictive fatty, high sugar foods can be, and like anything your body learns to get used to what it expects to be fed.

To change your diet if it's particularly unhealthy is a bit like steering an oil tanker - you can make all the right movements on the controls but to start with your body is resistant to change and then the mental game kicks in where you get cravings for those high-impact carbs that your body knows and loves. Gradually though you can learn to live without them and like anything once a good diet becomes the norm you will find your body doesn't miss those empty calories and you feel all the better for it.

[gables]

It isn't harder, I think people are just less conscious of how they look or willing to accept that it takes effort to change. Although I've never been anywhere near obese (I'm a keen athlete and relatively young), I do know from personal experience how mentally addictive fatty, high sugar foods can be, and like anything your body learns to get used to what it expects to be fed.

To change your diet if it's particularly unhealthy is a bit like steering an oil tanker - you can make all the right movements on the controls but to start with your body is resistant to change and then the mental game kicks in where you get cravings for those high-impact carbs that your body knows and loves. Gradually though you can learn to live without them and like anything once a good diet becomes the norm you will find your body doesn't miss those empty calories and you feel all the better for it.

Yeah, I agree, it would be better not to start with the unhealthy diet in the first place and probably needs to happen when you're a kid. It did with me and with my kids we were pretty careful. I have however recently found out how easy it is to gain weight if you let your guard down, but the mirror tells a story ;-)

[yasockie]

Because netflix & chill is a thing. And that also involves pizza, beer and doritos

[OwlHoot]

You clearly didn't read the article because nowhere is that claim refuted.

If by "refuted" you didn't mean "disproved" then you're misusing the word.

Another possible reason is that there's more central heating these days and more people keep their gaffs as hot as greenhouses, whereas a cooler house possibly increases the metabolic rate simply to keep warm.

But OTOH many more people drink skimmed milk today, which I suppose is a contributory factor against weight gain (unless you also drink that vile hellishly expensive foamy coffee out of huge mugs (*) in places like Starbucks).

(*) Actually the "huge mugs" are the people that buy the stuff