Monday, June 22, 2009

fat - the new muscle

Overweight people may be killing themselves, but I can’t help wonder if it will lead to better lives in the future. Will people adapt to high sugar diets, maybe better utilize the energy to strengthen themselves? All the added weight would logically lead to strengthened support structures (bones and muscles). Of course this relies on things like natural selection such, which may not really apply to humans anymore.

44 comments:

  1. I think people will just die off from horrible health problems. I really don’t see that getting any better. Maybe we’ll invent better ways to let people eat horribly while maintaining their health. Better liposuction and fat-burning-pill technology. Stuff that not only fights the bulge but also kills cancer.

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  2. I think we will just get better at “curing” fatness. Rather than prescribe diet and exercise I think it will just be a simple pill that rids us of excess fat and carbohydrates. It’s kinda sad really.

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  3. Or this obesity epidemic is nature’s way of curbing an overpopulated society?

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  4. This is the reason we have technology

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  5. Well I’m busy giving myself cancer jugging down my energy drink with aspartame…

    Cancer or Diabetes, which is better =P.

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  6. The problem with natural selection is the most superstitious and least intelligent mate the most, which slows down our evolution, both physically and technologically. I don’t think we will evolve much more naturally, due to ethical reasons. But we could evolve ourselves through technology, such as genetic modification.

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  7. Both kill you slowly, but Diabetes prevents you from eating sugar.

    I think it’s a pretty easy conclusion.

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  8. So that we may eat in excess, while other countries starve, all the while living our own lives as if eating twice as much as healthy is perfectly fine. :(

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  9. Obesity is nature’s way of curbing a lazy population that doesn’t have to work for its food. Starvation is nature’s way to deal with the lazy ones who must work for food. And for the unlazy who just can’t get food.

    People just suck at taking care of themselves. In every way.

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  10. Isn’t the average food intake in the USA somewhere around 5-6k calories a day? I thought I saw that somewhere.

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  11. Isn’t the average food intake in the USA somewhere around 5-6k calories a day? I thought I saw that somewhere.

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  12. I’m not sure how you would manage 6k calories in a day unless you are a professional athlete. That has to be too high.

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  13. If that is the average then a large number of people must be eating 8-9k, wtf.

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  14. Fastfood for all your meals. McDonalds for breakfast, a foot-long from Subway with a large soda and cookies, Carls Jr. for dinner with another large soda, large fries..

    Maybe a bowl of ice cream for dessert.

    Adds up.

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  15. Then you have anorexics though, which will bring the average down because they have negative calorie intake

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  16. What counts as negative calorie intake?

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  17. If I remember correctly Celery is one food that has negative calorie intake (takes more calories to digest than it contains).

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  18. Eating foods that burn more calories than they give… like celery and other vegetables

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  19. Ah. I was off. It’s 3770 as of 2003.

    http://www.fao.org/statistics/yearbook/vol_1_2/pdf/United-States-of-America.pdf

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  20. I should eat more celery.

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  21. Adam - That sounds delicious. Fattening and unhealthy but delicious. Also, a negative calorie intake is how you lose weight, you burn more than you eat. When it’s a serious difference in calories it’s called starving.

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  22. I never saw Star Wars.

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  23. I don’t think its quite that simple, your body makes decisions to store or not store food as fat based on a number of things. You don’t just automatically store every unused calorie.

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  24. Eat more soup, it fills you up. It’s a myth that drinking water will fill you up a meals, your body will actually process water differently. However, watery dishes (i.e. soup) must still be digested like solid food.

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  25. Even then, you’re looking at maybe 800-1000 calories for mcdonalds breakfast, 1000 for your subway thing, 1700 for carls with a massive burger and large fries and drink.. hmm I guess that would put you around 3700. If you went home and drank 3 sodas there’s another 450 calories, maybe some snacks for another 500-700 calories. You would be up to around 5k.

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  26. What is the fao?

    I saw this quote and didn’t want to go off them…

    “This number is much greater than many other sources, for example the American Cancer Society, which lists it (as of 2000) at 2618 for men and 1877 for women.”

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  27. FAO’s is based off of food production and trade, I’d assume. Cancer society probably goes off questionnaires. Beats me, everyone’s going to get a different value.



    But whoever did the math on what I said earlier and came to 5k.. Yeah. I’d believe 3770 more than 2618, given how drastically overweight we are as a society, and how fast calories from soda and fast food add up

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  28. You must have missed the part where he was quoting armageddon

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  29. A footlong cold-cut trio from Subway is 880 calories, a 32 oz Pepsi is 416 calories, add in two chocolate chip cookies for another 440 calories.. And you get to 1736 calories for lunch.



    Grab a couple Egg McMuffins (299 each) and a McDonald’s hashbrowns (147) for breakfast, and you get 745 calories.



    Make dinner a double quarter pounder with cheese (734), a large fries (487), and another 32 oz drink (416), and you get another 1637 calories.



    A couple 12oz cans of Coke throughout the day, 132 calories each.



    Maybe a single-serving (1.75oz) bag of Doritos, 245 calories..



    Altogether that comes to 4627? 3700 is a totally reasonable average. :)

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  30. This is really assuming that half the population eats like this every day…. I’m not saying it’s impossible to reach the number in a day

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  31. After 1 meal of fast food in a day I feel sick and don’t really want to eat anymore. I doubt I could do it 3 times.

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  32. Actually a footlong cold cut combo is 840 calories. Argument voided.

    *flips down shades*

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  33. You don’t have to assume half the country does. In order for the 3700 to seem too high you need to assume half the country eats the correct amount or less, and that I have a harder time doing.

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  34. If they cut breakfast, and went to medium drinks, medium fries, and cut out the cookies and snacks/soda they would be at around: 2455



    If they went to diet pepsi they would be at: 1915…

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  35. Ah. I couldn’t find the 12”, so I just doubled the 6”’s 440.

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  36. And 25% of Americans skip breakfast every day…



    I wonder how many people skip lunches and dinners… I know it’s not uncommon for me to only have 1 meal a day =/

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  37. I simply cannot eat that much food in a day without feeling monstrously uncomfortable.



    Soda is probably the worst thing.

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  38. 6" Cold Cut Combo 250 420 150 17.0 6.0 0.5 60 1590 48 5 6 21 10 30 15 20



    You are a noob.

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  39. Take it you’re getting this from Subway’s website?



    I wasn’t, silly me.

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  40. Someone is looking at a difference chart.



    Also I can barely eat a footlong, why would I want two cookies and a giant coke… jeesh

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  41. Adam just makes up numbers… luckily he was close

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  42. I’ve eaten a foot long and 3 cookies, but hell I can’t eat dinner after that.

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  43. A foot long is too much for me

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  44. You would be surprised what you can eat in a day if you are not paying attention. Keep a food log for a few weeks and you might be surprised. I actually ate just about or less than my estimated RMR (around 2000 calories).

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