WSJ Article Says You Can Be Obese at a Normal Weight. Shocked?

[LoseWeightNYC]

On the subway this morning, I read an about a Mayo Clinic study suggesting that you can be at a “normal” weight for your height and still be considered “obese” by body fat percentage. The study went on to show that you are four times as likely to develop symptoms related to “metabolic syndrome” as someone who is at a normal weight and not obese by body fat percentage. If this surprises you, then you obviously don’t understand nutrition very well, particularly as it relates to health.

For a definition of terms, let’s define health as the absence of disease. The World Health Organization doesn’t like this definition because that means that someone born with a chronic condition is not “healthy,” but I don’t care what they think because they claim that obesity is caused by inactivity combined with diets high in saturated fat.

So how does this happen? How can you be at a normal weight but still be obese? Further, does this mean that if you just lost 50 lbs and are now at a normal weight for your height yet still have a very high percentage of body fat, you are still at a very high risk for diabetes, heart disease, etc? It’s funny because the biology of fat creation in the body is actually very well established in diabetes research, endocrinology, and various fields of animal research, and yet somehow this has not been communicated over to the obesity guys, mostly because the cause of obesity is “obvious,” it’s just about eating more calories than you burn.

To shed light on why this is not true, we need to also understand the definition of the word “cause.” According to wordnet, cause is “events that provide the generative force that is the origin of something.” Saying that eating more calories than you burn is the “cause” of obesity is like saying that eating more calories than he burns is the “cause” of a child growing taller. While eating more calories may be a necessary component of growing taller, it is actually growth hormone that is causing the growth, as well as the overeating. Likewise, obesity is driven by hormones as well, but in this case it is the hormone insulin, which is released in response to carbohydrates.

There are a number of groups in which we can observe obesity without very much eating. The Pima Indians had over 50% obesity while on government rations. In modern day Africa, obese mothers can be observed bringing their emaciated children to the hospital. On the flip side, there are a number of groups in which they eat a ridiculous amount of food, and yet do not get fat.

Back to how someone can be obese at a normal body weight. If you know anything about type 1 diabetes prior to insulin treatment, you know that people with this disease were completely unable to put on weight and would appear emaciated no matter how much they ate. They could be force fed calories and still starve to death. This is because insulin promotes fat storage. On the other end of the diabetes spectrum, people who have type 2 diabetes and get insulin treatments always put on weight while on insulin. There were a number of other diseases that were treated with insulin, and it was always associated with weight gain. John Nash, of “A Beautiful Mind” fame, was famously treated with insulin for his schizophrenia, and his weight gain on the treatment is well documented. Anorexia used to be treated with insulin, and while this is not a safe or smart thing to do, it did put weight on anorexics.

The problem with insulin is that it causes fatty acids in the blood stream to be stored as triglycerides in the adipose tissue. This storage causes a fatty acid deprivation in the rest of the cells of your body, which results in internal starvation and more eating, further elevating insulin levels and increasing the rate at which fatty acids are stored in the adipose tissue. I will restate that the science behind how this works is not up for debate, as it is accepted in multiple fields of human biology. What is up for debate (but not really) is that insulin levels get uniquely elevated from carbohydrates. If you want more information on any of this, I recommend checking out (REMOVED)

To finish off the point, you can cut calories all you want, and you might even lose weight, but if you’re not cutting carbs, your body will cannibalize your muscle tissue while holding onto that fat tissue that you’re trying to get rid of. Despite being at a normal weight, that fat tissue is still a significant risk factor. Furthermore, if you do cut carbs, your body cannot store up excess fat, no matter how much you eat.

 

[Jericho]

PS..from the article..

But Dr. Eckel and other medical experts caution that the findings need to be validated with additional research. Big epidemiological studies such as the Mayo report are useful for spotting important trends and raising hypotheses for further inquiry. But they are not necessarily reliable for prescribing specific remedies for individual patients.


So, it is more of take with a grain of salt. Also, I disagree with most of what you just said but I'm sure Steve will pop in and blaze thru with his knowledge and experience.

 

[San2]

'Good calories, bad calories'......things kinda lost all credibility right there. And then got worse.

 

[Jericho]

For a definition of terms, let’s define health as the absence of disease. The World Health Organization doesn’t like this definition because that means that someone born with a chronic condition is not “healthy,” but I don’t care what they think because they claim that obesity is caused by inactivity combined with diets high in saturated fat.

Why are we defining health as the absence of disease? I have no diseases. My blood pressure is perfect as is the rest of my test results. I don't have so much as a cold. However I was at 400 pounds. Guess what? Not healthy. Period. That right there is enough for me to look at what you are saying with a skeptic's view.

"The Pima Indians had over 50% obesity while on government rations."

yeah, I've had governemt rations. They are designed to be every calorie dense.

To finish off the point, you can cut calories all you want, and you might even lose weight, but if you’re not cutting carbs, your body will cannibalize your muscle tissue while holding onto that fat tissue that you’re trying to get rid of. Despite being at a normal weight, that fat tissue is still a significant risk factor. Furthermore, if you do cut carbs, your body cannot store up excess fat, no matter how much you eat.

So if I eat 10,000 calories a day in just protein for 7 days, I won't gain one pound. To say one food group is the cause of everything is recklass and harmful. I pointed out before the diet of the Japanese and the fact they, who eat rice roughly 6 times a day, are considered one of the healthiest groups of people in the world.

 

[LoseWeightNYC]

So you were 400 lbs, and you did not have a disease? Excuse me, but I haven't seen your blood tests, yet I will bet all of the money I have that you had hyperinsulinemia. That is a disease, and in fact it is the cause of pretty much all other diseases. I personally had scleroderma, which eventually resulted in a heart transplant. My sister got celiac. You should count your blessings that you got obesity and not one of the more serious diseases that you could have gotten.

By the way, how much do you weigh now?

Government rations are "calorie dense," true. But they are also calorie sparse. like 1400 a day sparse. That's below basal for anyone over like 130 or so lbs.

As for eating 10,000 calories a day of protein and fat:
1) I dare you to try, it won't be possible because you'll be too full
2) You may gain some muscle, but you will lose a lot of fat. If you're still 400 lbs, probably somewhere in the 7-10lbs a week range.

As for blaming all disease on one food group, carbohydrates are a non-essential macronutrient. Our body actually works more efficiently without any carbohydrates in the diet. This is no surprise given that for 2 million years prior to agriculture (300 generations ago) carbohydrates were nearly impossible to find and were only eaten in times of dire famine for survival. The fact that we developed the ability to process them at all was an incredible evolutionary advantage for us; our pets are not so lucky, which is why they get all of the same diseases that we get only over much shorter time frames due to the carbohydrate rich puppy chow they eat.

 

[Jericho]

you'd lose that bet. I can get the test results scanned if you want but nope, healthy as can be, full blood work and all. You have to when you go work in a war zone like I was in Iraq.

but yeah, if you think the body doesn't store fat when it has an excess of calories..then riddle me this.

I started at 396 pounds. I'm eating salads. I'm eating rice. I'm eating meat. I'm eating pastas. In fact, I was pretty much not doing what you claim. I'm at 381 in a month by reducing calories. In fact, I can promise you I eat alot of carbs.

 

[cerad]

S This is no surprise given that for 2 million years prior to agriculture (300 generations ago) carbohydrates were nearly impossible to find and were only eaten in times of dire famine for survival.

Are you seriously suggesting that fruit trees are a recent evolutionary development?

And just out of curiosity, what percentage carbs would you recommend for a healthy person of normal weight with a fairly active life style? 0%?

 

[LoseWeightNYC]

you'd lose that bet. I can get the test results scanned if you want but nope, healthy as can be, full blood work and all. You have to when you go work in a war zone like I was in Iraq.

but yeah, if you think the body doesn't store fat when it has an excess of calories..then riddle me this.

I started at 396 pounds. I'm eating salads. I'm eating rice. I'm eating meat. I'm eating pastas. In fact, I was pretty much not doing what you claim. I'm at 381 in a month by reducing calories. In fact, I can promise you I eat alot of carbs.

So you've been losing weight for a month and now you're the expert? Alright. Talk to me when you level out at 350lbs 6 months from now. By the way, how's your hunger level? Did I mention that my clients are never hungry? They crave certain foods, but it's more of an itch than actual hunger that they were used to experiencing.

And I call BS on your insulin levels. Chances are they weren't even measured because doctors don't really care, and it's not possible to be that obese with normal insulin levels. By the way, obesity is a disease...

 

[LoseWeightNYC]

Are you seriously suggesting that fruit trees are a recent evolutionary development?

And just out of curiosity, what percentage carbs would you recommend for a healthy person of normal weight with a fairly active life style? 0%?

Fruits the way that they are now are man made, genetically bred to be extra sweet and palatable. An apple untouched by man is incredibly bitter and unpalatable. Lierre Keith talks a great deal about this in "The Vegetarian Myth."

As far as someone who is healthy at a normal weight with a fairly active lifestyle, I would still recommend 0 carbs to optimize health and prevent long term diseases such as cancer and heart disease, but I myself don't follow that because I do enjoy indulging every once in a while. I usually do this right after my workouts to refill glycogen stores, and sometimes for a bit before I go into my 36 hour pre-workout fast. That said, as time has gone on I've started to indulge less and less because of how it makes me feel the next day. Also, my taste buds have changed quite a bit.

 

[Jericho]

Talking to a guy who researches, learns and examines the facts is all I am. I've never said I was an expert..you did. If you convince me, and I do keep an open mind, then I agree. My experience is what I talk about. The science is what I talk about. Your advice goes against the many successes here.

Obesity is a condition, not a disease. But ok I'll let you say it was a disease so that your statement about healthy is disease free is fact. And tell you what, when I get home, I'll get my last bloodwork (and they checked because I am 400 pounds and they was checking for other causes that the fact that I ate too many calories)

You still haven't said anythign about how the Japanese and their rice heavy diet being listed as one of the healthiest people in the world. They are cause it's moderation, not the rice, that does it.


PS: I don't get hungry..not real hunger. The hunger I feel is cause of emotional eating, something I am working on controlling. When I have hunger pains..I EAT. I eat real food in a real way. I eat smartly.

 

[KaraCooks]

Fruits the way that they are now are man made, genetically bred to be extra sweet and palatable. An apple untouched by man is incredibly bitter and unpalatable.

Taht's a bit of an exaggeration. It's hyperbole that causes problems ... let's stick to facts, ok. Many of our fruits and veg have been bred to be larger, last longer in shipping, etc. - often to the detriment of flavor and some nutrition. But that doesn't mean that "untouched" fruits are "bitter and unpalatable". They are often smaller, tarter, less sweet - but certainly not unpalatable. And yes, I've eaten apples from untouched trees (in the sense of artificially bred) when I lived overseas.

I would still recommend 0 carbs to optimize health and prevent long term diseases

Ridiculous. There's no such thing as a 0 carb diet. Unless you plan to eat nothing but meat, you're going to have carbs in your diet.

 

[cerad]

Fruits the way that they are now are man made, genetically bred to be extra sweet and palatable. An apple untouched by man is incredibly bitter and unpalatable. Lierre Keith talks a great deal about this in "The Vegetarian Myth."

I get it. This is a joke thread. Sometime I'm very slow to pick up on things.

So what are your views on fluoride in the water? Communist plot or something cooked up by the UN?

 

[Harold14370]

That WSJ article doesn't mention carbs, so it doesn't actually support anything you've written. It actually suggests doing exercise to improve your body fat percentage. Radical concept, I know.
For every research article you find supporting low carb, I'll bet I can find another supporting the health benefits of whole grains and fruit.
Wild raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries are pretty darn good.
Even if what you say is true about not getting hungry on a low carb diet, I'm not gonna do it. I like fruits and whole grains, so I'd rather just keep counting calories.

 

[Jericho]

I get it. This is a joke thread. Sometime I'm very slow to pick up on things.

So what are your views on fluoride in the water? Communist plot or something cooked up by the UN?

Let's not get into name calling. Debate the idea, not the person.

 

[Holly88]

I'm not going to say low carb diets are unhealthy as there have been short term studies showing they reduce LDL and increase HDL with greater success than 'traditional' food pyramid low cal diets.

HOWEVER! I'm also not going to say that everyone should suddenly stop eating bread and pasta. For a few reasons: there isn't long term evidence on the effectiveness of low carb diets (whether you term effectiveness by body fat percentage, triglyceride levels, weight loss, sustainability or whatever else you want to throw in there) but also because, as already mentioned, not everyone wants to give up high GI fruits and bread etc etc and why should they when there's many examples of people out there, ie many athletes, who are at the peak of fitness and health and eat plenty of carbohydrates. Of course, you could also give the example of inuits who eat high protein and fat diets who also demonstrate low levels of heart disease etc.

Basically, there's so many diets out there (japanese, mediterranean, inuit, etc etc) eaten by populations that are regarded by epidemiological standards as having lower levels of disease but the whole point here is that this information is epidemiological, not physiological, and in most of these circumstances we still cannot pinpoint why exactly one population might be 'healthy' whilst a polar opposite diet in another population might result in just the same low rates of disease... Just going to show that there's no one answer and that there's no need for us all to do anything but make our own choice and try to achieve a balance that suits ourselves!

I, personally, just want to live my life relatively healthily but also not spend my time quibbling over what macronutrient I should be cutting out this week because of some psuedo nutritional 'science'. Afterall, there's so much we cannot control and so many diseases that have a larger genetic component than environmental.

PS I'm not sure why you're arguing about insulin by saying that diabetics lose weight without it... they also get ketoacidosis and die without it, doesn't mean I'm going to be cutting out my pancreas any time soon. Sure, insulin has huge role in blood sugar levels but removing carbohydrates is NOT the only way of stabilising blood sugars, it's just a drastic one.

 

[Jericho]

Fruits the way that they are now are man made, genetically bred to be extra sweet and palatable. An apple untouched by man is incredibly bitter and unpalatable.

This goes against nature. Fruits are made to carry seeds. Fruits (in either sense of the word) are the means by which many plants disseminate seeds. Most edible fruits, in particular, were evolved by plants in order to exploit animals as a means for seed dispersal; and many animals have become dependent on fruits as a source of food.

The sweet flesh of many fruits is "deliberately" appealing to animals, so that the seeds held within are eaten and "unwittingly" carried away and deposited at a distance from the parent. Likewise, the nutritious, oily kernels of nuts are appealing to rodents (such as squirrels) who hoard them in the soil in order to avoid starving during the winter, thus giving those seeds that remain uneaten the chance to germinate and grow into a new plant away from their parent.

(thanks wiki for the wording but the facts are correct. To say untouched fruits are unappealing is false)

 

[Holly88]

One last thing - it's a loose argument, not grounded in any data, but I'd like to point out that MILLIONS bought atkins and subsequent low carb diet books... Are millions thin, healthy and happy? Nope, as with any diet, the success rate is poor. So much of the sucess of any 'diet' is grounded in sustainability. Could I personally spend the rest of my life refraining from anything sweet or carby? Nope!

You can state as much physiology etc as you want but it's whether it works for the individual and can be put into practise that really gives weight (no pun intended) to any theory.

 

[KaraCooks]

I agree wtih Holly, above.

Any diet that recommends you eliminate an entire category of macronutrients is suspect, in my book. Any trainer who recommends the same ... is equally suspect.

Cutting out whole food groups is not a healthy or reasonable way to eat. It is as much of an "eating disorder" as any other.

Our bodies are best designed to work when they receive nutrients from a variety of sources. Yes, we've learned a lot about individual nutrients and individual macros, but we are still a long way away from understanding how all of these elements work together. There are new discoveries being made every day - and old theories are being found to have some major flaws, just because we didn't know enough at the time to understand.

Anyone who states absolutes about macros and food groups is promoting something - maybe themselves, maybe a product, who knows. But it's not health.

 

[LoseWeightNYC]

@Holly I made a distinction between type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. Type 1 diabetics are the ones that starve to death without insulin. They can be brought to a healthy weight with insulin. Type 2 diabetics are the ones that gain weight when put on insulin.

To your point about Atkins, many bought the book, but how many tried it? Atkins published the book after success with over 10,000 patients. The fact that he had them eating vegetables didn't help either. The vegetables make people hungrier and make compliance more difficult.

@Jericho I am calling myself an expert. People pay me money to help them lose weight and keep it off. As much as $50 a pound to be exact.

As to your point about the seeds being appealing to animals, it doesn't really hold up. Let's take an apple. Have you ever tried planting an apple seed? Apples are the seed. If you eat the apple and plant the seed, it won't grow.

As for the Japanese I didn't think it was worth mentioning for a number of reasons. First, the Japanese are still quite fat in many instances. They may not be as fat as us, but they are fat and have the same diseases. Second, they are healthIER, but that doesn't make them all that healthy when compared with americans and italians and french etc. Third, if you look at what sumo wrestlers eat, it's a thick carb soup called chankonabe.

@KaraCooks I actually do recommend an all meat (grass fed) diet. Vegetables are useless "food" totally void of nutrition that make you hungrier. Now for a person who's healthy, you have to take quality of life into the equation, so once someone's fit we work out a regimen that works for them, but as long as they eat few enough carbs for their body to stay in ketosis they are going to be fine.

Our bodies actually are not designed to work on a "variety of sources," they are designed to work optimally on meat and fat, in ketosis. There's an enormous body of science that proves this to be the case, and I know hundreds of people who would agree with this statement anecdotally from personal experience.

Every vitamin and mineral that you need can be gotten in the optimal quantity that you need it from grass fed meats. Vihjalmur Stefansson proved this beyond a reasonable doubt in the 1920s. Carbohydrates deplete these vitamins and minerals, which is how people get vitamin deficiency diseases.

 

[Jericho]

@Jericho I am calling myself an expert. People pay me money to help them lose weight and keep it off. As much as $50 a pound to be exact.

As to your point about the seeds being appealing to animals, it doesn't really hold up. Let's take an apple. Have you ever tried planting an apple seed? Apples are the seed. If you eat the apple and plant the seed, it won't grow.

As for the Japanese I didn't think it was worth mentioning for a number of reasons. First, the Japanese are still quite fat in many instances. They may not be as fat as us, but they are fat and have the same diseases. Second, they are healthIER, but that doesn't make them all that healthy when compared with americans and italians and french etc. Third, if you look at what sumo wrestlers eat, it's a thick carb soup called chankonabe.

Ok, still remaining polite here. First off..50 bucks a pound! Talk about a riffoff..but just because you charge money for something doesn't make you an expert.

Oh..and are you really saying that I'm wrong about nature and why fruit are as they are? Really? If you plant apple seeds, with the right soil conditions and all, YES an apple tree grows. That's how they grow. How would you explain trees in the wild? You don't see whole apples falling into holes in the earth. Sorry, you are flat wrong on this one. Out and out wrong.

Oh and course there are some overweight japanese, every country has people who are overweight. Diseases are not bound by countrylines. And are you actually using the small number of people who do Sumo as fact that the Japanese diet is not as good as what you plan?

As for a list

BBC News | HEALTH | <BR>

This is in 2000. I doubt there is such a huge change in the numbers..especially the USA which is heavier than ever.



I'm sorry but your statements aren't holding up too well.