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Food Politics and Obesity
Given Barkha’s recent thread on obesity, I thought I’d sum up what I’ve learned about this topic in the past few years and some of what was discussed in that thread. I’m going to try to keep this concise and on-topic, so do not consider this to be a comprehensive analysis of the very large topic of human obesity. It is, I think, a reasonable theory that will explain the bulk (sorry) of the American obesity epidemic.
It’s Just Calories, Right?
What I’ll call the standard model of obesity is the notion that being overweight is the result of eating too much—and probably exercising too little—and that obesity is effectively the result of gluttony. The corollary to this is that you can eat whatever you want, so long as you eat “in moderation.”
While it’s true that in order to gain weight you must eat more calories than you expend, and that in order to lose weight you must expend more calories than you consume—this is known as physics—it turns out that this is not a particularly helpful observation when you consider living creatures like humans. Following that advice doesn’t work very well. In fact, for the majority of people who try it, it doesn’t work at all.
In terms of science, fat people are a very difficult group to study. As we saw in the comments to Barhka’s post, one quickly gets into multiple issues. Accusations of gluttony, sloth, lack of diligence (leading to lack of compliance with diet plans), and problems with the diet plans themselves make the whole topic a sea of confounding variables. It’s very difficult to boil things down to a reasonably likely sequence of cause and effect, and the calories-in-calories-out model boils down to blaming the obese for their affliction, which I don’t think is either correct or productive.
So we’re not going to discuss fat people. We’re going to discuss fit, athletic people.
Fat Athletes
Let’s discuss Joe Friel. Joe eliminates many of the annoying variables that people run into when studying fat people:
- He’s not a glutton: most of us would be happy to have his weight problem.
- He’s not slothful: he’s been a competitive athlete for decades at this point, and exercises regularly to an extent most people could only hope to emulate.
- He’s not lacking in diligence, as it takes a great deal of diligence to be a successful coach, author, and athlete over the course of decades. It doesn’t just happen, you have to work at it, and work hard.
- And he’s certainly not lacking in knowledge about healthy diets, in fact, he wrote the book on it, originally published 10 years ago, and he has been following that diet for 21 years. (No, Mike H., this is not a post about that diet.)
In fact, Joe is a top athletic coach, with a long and successful career in triathlon. He was the coach of the American team, and wrote a book that’s considered the triathlete’s training bible. (If you’re not familiar with triathlon, it started with a race that consisted of a 2.4-mile swim, a 100-mile bicycle ride, and a marathon–26.2 miles). You can see why it’s known as the Ironman. While some folks do shorter versions, this is clearly not a group of people who are lacking for exercise.
Yet, nevertheless, he had a weight problem. He would follow the calories-in-calories out model, and lose weight during racing season. But he’d be miserable, always hungry. And then when he stopped exercising in the offseason—because you cannot keep up that level of activity year-round—he would gain weight.
He had a problem. Not any more.
“…The primary change I made was greatly reducing sugar and cutting back on fruit. I used to eat 5 to 7 servings of fruit a day. That’s roughly 600 calories of carbs from fruit, about 20 to 25% of my calories for the day….”
And as a result:
…The bottom line is that last fall I lost 8 pounds in 9 weeks by eating more fat and less carbohydrate. That was 5% of my body weight (160 pounds – at the time I was well on my way to my normal winter weight). I was never hungry. In fact, it seemed like the more fat I ate, the more weight I lost.
I learned that weight loss is not just calories in vs calories out. I used to lose weight that way. It works in the short term …
If a guy whose business it is to be fit can’t make the standard model of obesity work, who can? And Friel’s got company. The L.A. Lakers, Lindsey Vonn, Bode Miller, and Jenson Button are examples of top athletes who’ve lost weight using this approach while maintaining their competitive edge. Another top triathlon coach explains:
“Are we fated to be overfat? It’s a worldwide epidemic and it even affects many of those who workout regularly, including athletes….”
Sadly, it’s not quite this simple, although adopting a low-carb diet does work for a lot of people. In fact, in the research, it always beats every other approach it’s tested against.
(We’re talking obesity, remember. We can get to health in another post, although there are no negative health implications I’m aware of.)
It’s Not Just Fat Humans…
Humans are the fattest primates. We’re supposed to have some fat on us, more than a racer like Joe Friel or a bodybuilder would like for their sports. (And women are supposed to have more fat than men—sorry, ladies.) Even for Joe Friel, it’s unlikely he would have become obese eating what he was eating, as people have been eating fruit since before we were human without getting obese.
The confounder to the question we’re examining is that Americans didn’t suddenly start eating more carbohydrates and then got fat. We’ve eaten just as much carbohydrate in the past without getting fat. And there are plenty of healthy cultures around the world that eat as much or more than we do, without the obesity problem.
Courtesy Dr. Stephan Guyenet
So with apologies to Gary Taubes and his books Good Calories, Bad Calories and Why We Get Fat, it seems that carbohydrates are a necessary but not sufficient idea to explain our obesity problem.
For that, we’re going to abandon athletes altogether and move on to rats. Obesity scientists love rats, mainly because they know exactly how to make rats obese. It’s as simple as ordering D12492 from Research Diets, and feeding it to rats. Voila!
“It tastes kind of like raw cookie dough, and the rats are crazy about it.”
But again, we have a confounder.
Because it’s not just rats in obesity labs fed D12492 that are getting fat. All the rats in the labs are getting fat. And the wild rats that live in our cities. (Rural rats also, but less so.) In fact, all the animals that live with and around humans, and depend on human foods are getting fatter. One scientists sums it up:
“Perhaps this problem isn’t as simple as just energy intake and energy expenditure, which has been the prevailing message over the last 10 years.”
Which is the conclusion they’re coming to in humans:
“A recent international study fails to support the common belief that the number of calories burned in physical activity is a key factor in rising rates of obesity…. Diet is a more likely explanation than physical activity expenditure for why Chicago women weigh more than Nigerian women, Luke said….”
So much for that standard model of obesity.
So, to sum, if we’re looking for a dietary explanation for obesity, we’re looking for something that has the following attributes:
- It’s new, not found in the wild.
- It wasn’t a major part of the diet of the US in the 1920s.
- Consumption has been increasing over the years as obesity’s been increasing.
- It’s present in Research Diets’ D12492.
- And, ideally, we have a mechanism to explain how this novel food causes obesity.
As it happens, we have a candidate.
Have We All Got The Munchies?
Given that this is a conservative, family-oriented site, I’ll assume none of you know what the munchies are, and let the scientists introduce it:
“It’s one of the most well-known effects of marijuana: the powerful surge in appetite many users feel after smoking or ingesting the drug, colloquially known as “the munchies.”…
And, as that article explains, we now know exactly how this happens:
“[Marijuana] appears to give us the munchies by convincing our brains that we’re starving.”
Chemically, by directly triggering appetite.
Now if the SoCons would please resume their seats—no, it is not pot that is making us fat. Rats don’t smoke pot, for starters. But this system in our brains is named after marijuana, A.K.A. Cannabis.
(I’ve been trying to avoid geeking out, but bear with me for a moment.)
It turns out that the trigger in marijuana that activates the cannabinoid system, THC, mimics a chemical found in our brain, anandamide. Anandamide derives its name from the Hindu word ananda, which means “joy, bliss, delight“—perhaps you can see where this is going.
“Anandamide plays a role in the regulation of feeding behavior, and the neural generation of motivation and pleasure. In addition, anandamide injected directly into the forebrain reward-related brain structure nucleus accumbens enhances the pleasurable responses of rats to a rewarding sucrose taste, and enhances food intake as well.”
And sure enough:
“Independent studies in rodents and humans have shown a direct association between plasma [blood] anandamide levels and obesity.”
That’s “direct,” as in, if you inject a rat with THC or anandamide, they start eating [PDF], even if they’re full.
So all we need is some evidence that a food item that matches our 5-point list above increases anandamide levels, right?
“Dietary Linoleic Acid Elevates … Anandamide and Induces Obesity“
In mice this time, but “Bingo!” nevertheless.
To make it clear, the linoleic acid you eat is converted into anandamide in the body.
What Is Linoleic Acid?
LA, to its friends, is what’s known as an Omega-6 fat. It is primarily ingested in oils derived from seeds like soy, corn, or rapeseed (canola); but it bioaccumulates, like DDT, so you can ingest it via animals fed lots of seeds. That’s all industrially-raised pork, chicken, and turkey in the US.
Because this is far longer than I’d intended at this point, I’m going to wrap this up by going through my five-point test:
1. It’s new, not found in the wild.
High levels of LA only entered the diet after the discovery of a means to detoxify cottonseed oil, which was an industrial waste at the time. This hit the big time with the introduction of Crisco in 1911. The low levels of LA found in a natural diet do not appear to be harmful.
2. It wasn’t a major part of the diet of the US in the 1920s.
I’ll let Unilever, a major producer of foods based on seed oils explain:
“1920-1929: Unilever is formed. But during the decade the margarine market suffers declining demand as butter becomes more affordable.”
It really took off during the Depression, as it’s cheaper.
3. Consumption has been increasing over the years as obesity’s been increasing.
“We are eating a lot more vegetable oil than we were in 1970. It comes chiefly from the industrial, omega-6 rich oils such as soybean, corn and canola.”
4. It’s present in Research Diets’ D12492.
“It turns out that the diet obtains 32% of its fat from PUFA instead of the previously reported 17%. The ratio of omega-6 linoleic acid to omega-3 linolenic acid had been previously reported as 7.8 but is actually 14….”
The study I’ll link to again in point 5 seems to have been designed specifically to show that if you remove the LA from a diet like D12492, it no longer induces obesity.
5. And, ideally, we have a mechanism to explain how this novel food causes obesity.
“Dietary Linoleic Acid Elevates … Anandamide and Induces Obesity“
So What Does This Mean For ME?
This is from an email I wrote in 2010 to the researcher who produced the chart above.
“ … Once of the first things I noticed after dropping [LA] from my diet was that I was no longer craving starch and sugar. I haven’t hit the candy bowl in 3+ weeks. Didn’t feel a need to .
“It makes me wonder if there might be a mechanism linking the two … ”
I’ve been avoiding carbs and LA ever since.
To eat LA “in moderation” in America means diligently avoiding many common foods, like salad dressing, as the “moderate” amount of LA is 2/3rds to 1/8th what most of us eat. But I’ve been weight-stable ever since, regardless of exercise level, and after years of regularly putting on weight each year. And I never worry about calories.
The scientists like to say, “more study is required.” And this is true in order to prove this link. But carbohydrates and seed oils are the primary ingredients in junk food. You don’t need a PhD to figure that one out.
The biggest problem in the Modern American Diet is that much of what we eat, much of what we’re told to eat, is what our parents and grandparents understood to be junk food.
And we wonder why we’re fat.
Published in General
As suggested, reposted.
That’s was actually easy! How unlike the Ricochet post editing system!!
Wow, that is exactly what I thought: it is something in our diets that is new. I have always railed against Canola oil. I dislike the taste very much. But, does this mean I have to eat organic meat? (I wanna know because I don’t want to give the hippies any credit for anything good after all the harm they have done.) What about bacon? Olive Oil. What about coconut oil. Does one of the links have a list of foods to avoid?
Thanks very very much. I’m going to try it. You are a swell guy.
Tuck, do you eat fruit? I love fruit and would hate to give it up. Also wondering about what kinds of oils are OK.
Yes, very interesting.
Been clicking on the links with interest, Tuck.
Am beginning to think I follow this diet without meaning to. There’s a long list of food I refuse to eat (some of it supposedly healthy, like grains and fruit); and I hate most dairy products.
I am really interested in this diet change. It makes a lot of sense.
I’ve always known that the diet problem was something found in most food.
Now if only doctors and the general public could absorb this information and go on a diet refraining from making overweight people feel guilty and worthless!
I’ve bookmarked this great post and will try to read it a few times until it sinks in and I can apply it to my diet.
Tuck, you double posted… Why?
@Max – click on the other post. The answer is there and should be of interest to you.
Oh, I hadn’t seen that post, because Tuck actually triple posted.
In the future, if anyone has trouble with a post, you can email me at max@ricochet.com and I’ll take care of it for you.
Tuck, very interesting. I’ve stayed well away from this subject so far because I know no one wants to hear from the woman who eats whatever she feels like, never gives it a second thought, and never gains weight. Mentioning that fact just isn’t the Express Train to popularity, anywhere, and it’s clearly helpful to no one of whom that’s not true. I’ve always just assumed it was down to luck — and certainly not to any kind of discipline or moral superiority, because I exercise neither over what I eat, that’s for sure.
But on reading this, I began to wonder whether it might be attributable to two things: First, for reasons entirely unrelated to health or weight, I don’t eat chicken or meat, which seem to be high on the list of LA foods. Second, I’ve mostly lived in countries where the local diet is very low in those foods. Maybe it’s as simple as that?
Sure sounds worth thinking about, to me.
My heart goes out to people who struggle with this — it’s obviously a source of great frustration to them.
Tuck,
This is very interesting, but I am a bit confused about what foods to avoid other than vegetable oils (and those things fried with it). I thought I understood you to be saying that meat contain LA, bu low levels of it. Are meats a problem, then? Are “free range” meats any different in LA levels?
Hello Tuck! I’m thrilled that your post appears to be on the main feed. So thrilled that the fact that I’m one of the few (perhaps the only) person who actually read it while it was in the draft/member-feed/posting limbo, and who bothered to comment on it when it was in that state, and that my comment seems to have disappeared for ever, as though it never was:
BOTHERS ME NOT AT ALL . . . .
Or, perhaps I am just as dumb as a bag of hammers, and my comment is floating around in cyberspace somewhere, and that’s OK . . . nevertheless, . . .
A thoughtful and useful post, as your name is “Tuck” and (as I commented before, that means “Food,” HAHAHA) nevertheless, I give to you, courtesy of the folks at Powerline, an excellent commentary on the value of food, which about sums up my own opinion on this matter.
Yes. I think I’ll have a cheeseburger. Pass the fries.
Great post Tuck!
Tuck, Thanks for putting in the time and effort to write this essay. I think it is clear after seeing the comments in the essay you referenced above, it was seriously needed here at Ricochet.
If we look at the statistics on the give and take of Nutritional Advice, what I find is that people can be placed somewhere on a linear spectrum between 0 (doesn’t effect me) and 100 (is the primary cause)
the Uneffectable population has been lecturing the suffering population about how undisciplined they are – how they’re behaving badly – and how they’re sabotaging themselves. For the Uneffectable Lecturers (sans Claire) I have but an appendage to offer in reply. I hate you all, my life was a living hell listening to the fit, and musclebound.
My reading of the research on ghrelin and insulin tells a different tale. Some people can’t move more – eat less for fitness. Not all Biochemical options are on the table for everybody in sufficient capacity to follow the FDA Food Pyramid and not get fat.
Some people need to be allowed to rely on fat when carbs are a failed source of energy.
This (one-size-fits-all/whatever-works) advice paradox is really a awful place to be. It’s where I spent six months running and lifting weights daily [under threat of separation from the military] getting fatter, and not understanding why.
This little nugget of truth deserves applause and accolades from those of us who could use the help.
Kudos, Tuck. Spread the word.
I am immediately skeptical of any approach to obesity that tries to correlate the rise in obesity to a rise in dietary Chemical X. Nearly everything can be shoehorned into that formulation. Obesity is too multifactorial to attribute to any specific dietary intervention. You can find studies to support or refute nearly any dietary theory.
If I recall correctly, (and I don’t have the reference in front of me) long term dietary recall studies spanning decades have shown that the average American takes in 300 cal per day more than pre-1970, and expends about 150 calories less per day. So the average American has has a +450 calories swing per day. That adds up to weight gain.
This calories in calories out model is utterly defunct.
You are not what you eat. You are what your body does with what you eat.
@Luke
I agree that it is more than calories in/out. Humans are not bomb calorimeters. Food quality counts too. There seems to be a big variability in carbohydrate tolerance. But you can’t ignore the basic in/out equation.
I have heard similar things, like burger joints used to use beef tallow to fry french fries but now they use vegetable oils. Where is the list?
Now, what’s going on here? Tuck dumps this revolutionary idea on us and folds up camp. Where did he go?
WE WANT ANSWERS, DAMMIT!
(Sorry to raise my voice. It’s Tuck’s fault.)
LOL. Tuck’s alerts to email doesn’t seem to be working anymore. I hadn’t seen any of these comments to this post, and just assumed it went under without a ripple…
Happy to see that’s not the case.
You don’t have to eat organic meat.
Lots of olive oil is adulterated with seed oils like canola, that whole market is pretty corrupt, maybe as bad as the honey market. My trick for olive oil is to put it in the fridge. The good fats solidify, the polyunsaturated fats don’t. I pour the liquid part off. If your “olive oil” doesn’t solidify, it’s not olive oil.
Bacon is the same issue. The best way to determine how good your bacon is is to keep the grease. If it’s solid, or at least reasonably solid at room temperature, it’s good. If it’s got a lot of liquid in it, I wouldn’t buy that brand again.
But the main thing is avoiding the oils, you’re not going to get that much LA from eating meat, so don’t go vegan….
Yes, I eat fruit. Eat whole fruit, just don’t eat nothing but fruit. Fruit juices are equivalent to soda on a sugar basis, if you have a weight issue that’s a good thing to watch.
What oils are OK? Butter. ;)
Olive oil and avocado oil doin’t have much LA. See the comment above about the problems with olive oils.
I don’t use much olive oil any more, mostly for salad dressing.
You know what they say: better lucky than smart. :)
Yes, living outside the US is a big plus. Chicken and meat aren’t really high LA foods, it’s mostly the seed oils.
Only the US subsidizes grains to the extent where it’s a major animal feed. This is why US eggs yolks are pale yellow and insipid, and eggs in other countries are orange and delicious. US chickens are mostly fed grains.
Pigs, chickens, and humans concentrate LA, based on how much they’re fed. If you’re eating a lot of it, you’ll contain a lot of it.
Cattle does not concentrate LA, interestingly, although it causes other issues.
So your best bet is beef.
“Free range” generally is just a marketing term. Ideally you want “grass-fed”, for beef, and “pastured” for chicken and eggs and pork.
Ideally. But the main thing is to avoid consuming the oils, that’s how we really wind up eating far too much LA.
If you can’t find or afford meats like the above, just be sure to eat sardines, mackerel, or wild-caught (not farmed!) salmon on regular basis. The omega-3 fats they contain are essential, and are actually driven out of the body by excess LA.
A note to the editors. I get what you’re trying to do hear, but this sentence no longer makes sense in the context of the post.
“So we’re not going to discuss fat people” achieves your goal, and still makes sense.
All of this is nice and true, but not helpful. The facts are as I’ve laid out: obesity and the diseases of civilization follow a certain dietary pattern, and leave wreckage behind them. There’s an enormous amount of scientific and medical literature making this point.
You’re point about it being too multifactorial is just a mistake. Talk to doctors who practice bariatric medicine about which approach works. Ask yourself why the doctor who is president of the American Society of Bariatric Physicians wrote the book he did, and why he was elected president of that organization.
So if I find a paper that advocates the earth being the center of the universe, does that invalidate all of astronomy and physics? You need to critically analyze papers to determine credibility, not toss them all out..
Actually, you can ignore the in/out equation. No species regulates weight by counting calories.
Human weight regulation is a homeostatic system when it’s working correctly. You no more need to count calories than you do to count moles of oxygen in order for respiration to work correctly.
Fixed it. Thanks for letting me know.
Ideally, you want a result to be replicated.
“Soybean Oil Is More Obesogenic and Diabetogenic than Coconut Oil and Fructose in Mouse”
The obvious thing to note here is that all four diets contained the same amount of calories, but produced different levels of obesity. For folks who are still under the impression that calories are driving the obesity epidemic….