FabSwingers.com forum: Why is there an increase of overweight/obese people (aka healthy living advice please)

Wellingborough

I haven't read the previous thread but here are some of my thoughts on the subject.

Energy intake (calorific) = energy expenditure (metabolic function and physical work) results in no change in weight.

Add one Mars bar per day; other snack items are available, and you will probably put on 8 lbs over one year i.e. a small increase in intake will result in a significant change in mass over a period of time.

Manufacturers are generally not interested in your health and processed foods tend to be high in fat, sugar and salt, in order to make them palatable.

Comparatively few people cook from scratch, I do, and I also exercise.

Compared to life up until the mid 1960s, most work involved physical activity and people would walk to work; cars were fairly uncommon until the very late 1960s.

We now have a largely service based workforce, sitting at desks and typing, rather than undertaking high level physical work.

Energy is very easy to ingest; a 'meal deal' in a burger restaurant can easily comprise half of your daily energy requirements, balancing that requires around 30 minutes of exercise at approximately 11 METS i.e. you're going to get sweaty.

Basically, people eat and drink an excessive number of calories and don't undertake sufficient exercise to maintain a stable body weight.

Less than around 25 minutes of hard physical exercise will deplete the glycogen (sugar) stored in the muscles; exceed the 25 minute point and you shift your metabolism to 'fat burning' as an energy source; this process continues for several hours after the exercise is completed as the muscle glycogen reserves require replenishment; it's all in your ATP.

'Glandular' problems are often used as an excuse for being overweight, these are rarely a cause but there may be subtle metabolic differences in the type of fat stored by lean and fat people.

You may be surprised to learn that the average crematorium cannot cope with the size of some of the corpses sent for disposal; they require to be sent for incineration at specialist crematoria with over-sized ovens.

Doctor Nasty