New Year's Resolutions - Put Down That Apple And Back Away Slowly

Glenn notes the arrival of the new book by Gary Taubes, Why We Get Fat (And What To Do About It).

Which reminds us - the NY Times had a fascinating review of that book a few days back.

Let me pull out two snippets:

But all that aside, Mr. Taubes proceeds to stand the received wisdom about diet and exercise on its head in a particularly intriguing and readable synthesis.

We’ve got the whole thing backward, he argues. The overweight are not lazy hogs who eat too much and exercise too little. The thin are not virtuous and disciplined. Rather, all of us are fulfilling a fixed biological mandate, just as growing children are. Our bodies have a nonnegotiable agenda, and our behavior evolves to make that agenda happen, he writes: “Eating in moderation and being physically active (literally, having the energy to exercise) are not evidence of moral rectitude. Rather, they’re the metabolic benefits of a body that’s programmed to remain lean.”

In other words, you don’t haul your body off that couch and out to the gym; your body hauls you.

Meanwhile, “those who get fat do so because of the way their fat happens to be regulated,” Mr. Taubes writes. “A conspicuous consequence of this regulation is to cause the eating behavior (gluttony) and the physical inactivity (sloth) that we so readily assume are the actual causes.”

The actual causes, he argues, with a great deal of observational and experimental data to support his points, are the array of regulatory enzymes and hormones that move fuel, in the form of fat and sugar molecules, in and out of storage depots around the body.

And here is an intriguing analogy:

Mr. Taubes draws an analogy to cigarette smoking: Not every long-term smoker gets lung cancer — in fact, only a minority do — but among people with lung cancer, smoking is by far the most common cause. “In a world without cigarettes, lung cancer would be a rare disease, as it once was,” he writes. “In a world without carbohydrate-rich diets, obesity would be a rare condition as well.”

To which I say, hmm.

MORE:  This is a wildly complicated topic, as Mr. Taubes explains in a 2002 article linked on the front page of his blog ("What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?"):

Scientists are still arguing about fat, despite a century of research, because the regulation of appetite and weight in the human body happens to be almost inconceivably complex, and the experimental tools we have to study it are still remarkably inadequate. This combination leaves researchers in an awkward position. To study the entire physiological system involves feeding real food to real human subjects for months or years on end, which is prohibitively expensive, ethically questionable (if you're trying to measure the effects of foods that might cause heart disease) and virtually impossible to do in any kind of rigorously controlled scientific manner. But if researchers seek to study something less costly and more controllable, they end up studying experimental situations so oversimplified that their results may have nothing to do with reality. This then leads to a research literature so vast that it's possible to find at least some published research to support virtually any theory.

Indeed.  Mr. Taubes seems like a very smart guy trying to sort and solve several jigsaw puzzles that have been scrambled together.  However, one ought to scan through this rebuttal to his 2002 article - he attracted critics who claimed he oversimplified their views and presented them out of context.

This particular criticism ought to be testable against evidence:

CLAIM #4: We’re fat because we ate a low-fat diet.
TRUTH: We never ate a low-fat diet.

“At the very moment that the government started telling Americans to eat
less fat, we got fatter,” says Taubes. “We ate more fat-free carbohydrates,
which, in turn, made us hungrier and then heavier.”

It’s hard to believe this claim passed the laugh test at The Times.

...Taubes argues that in the late 1970s, health authorities started telling Americans to cut back on fat, and that we did. Wrong.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, added fats (oils, shortening, lard, and beef tallow) have gone up steadily since the late 1970s (see “Hardly a Low-Fat Diet”). Total fats (which include the fat in meats, cheese, and other foods) have also gone up, though not as steadily.

So how can Taubes write that “the major trends in American diets, according to USDA agricultural economist Judith Putnam, have been a decrease in the percentage of fat calories and a ‘greatly increased consumption of carbohydrates’”?  The key is the word “percentage.”  The percentage of fat calories in our diets declined because, while we ate more fat calories, we ate even more carbohydrate calories.

Should be checkable.

AND HAVING TRIED TO CHECK:  Here is a 2002 USDA/ERS study on trends in US food consumption from 1985 to 2000:

A big jump in average calorie intake between 1985 and 2000 without a corresponding increase in the level of physical activity (calorie expenditure) is the prime factor behind America’s soaring rates of obesity and Type 2 diabetes.

Taubes would have a coronary reading that, since it is classic of the "The restaurant is more crowded becasue more people walked in than walked out" genre.  Pressing on:

ERS’s loss-adjusted annual per capita food supply series (adjusted for spoilage, cooking losses, plate waste, and other food losses accumulated throughout the marketing system and the home) suggests that average daily calorie consumption in 2000 was 12 percent, or roughly 300 calories, above the 1985 level (fig. 1). Of that 300-calorie increase, grains (mainly refined grains) accounted for 46 percent; added fats, 24 percent; added sugars, 23 percent; fruits and vegetables, 8 percent; and the meat and dairy groups together, declined by 1 percent.

So the 300 "extra" calories came roughly 78% from carbs (sugar, grains, fruits and veggies), 24% from fat, and -1% from protein.  Which is what Taubes has been saying - we are eating more carbs and getting fat.

 

Comments

[(Another) Barbara]

Or if GCBC is too daunting (although it won't be for JOM readers), you can also order Tom Naughton's documentary "Fat Head," through Netflix or very reasonably priced on Amazon. It explains via very clever animation how insulin works and why carbs make us fat, and it is also hilarious. It also reveals the follow-the-money politics behind the government's food pyramid and its promotion of products that are the very worst for us.

[Bill in AZ sez it's time for Zero to resign]

I had typed out "(Another) Barbara", then decided I wasn't sure. Thanks again :)

[Jim Ryan]

Thanks, Bill.

[Army of Davids]

Supply Sider,

I saw China had the top OECD scores on math and science (US in the bottom 3rd). I always question snapshot rankings.

I don't claim to have answers. But I do see huge problems in the public education K-12. And the unions seem to fight any kind of reform at every step.

I tend to agree w/ your philosophies....I think Mississippi might be the perfect state to target.

[caro]

I wonder why Haley Barbour is has not been on top of this.

Barb,I think I will get the book,too. Remember to click the Amazon link on the top right,everyone.

[boris]

AoD, pretty sure "Supply Sider" is a mock right winger alias of the troll from Assclownistan. If so then any sense the posts made was either accident or snark.

[memomachine]

Hmmmm.

Blame the "Food Pyramid" the US government worked up in the 1970's.

Treehugger liberals got their hands on that and things have gone downhill from there.