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Comment by pinaceae | Hacker News Reader

other possible reasons for obesity:

- increased car ownership

- lower cost of food, allowing binging (people could not afford meat all week)

- shifting nature of work. most jobs now are done in a sitting position of some sort, hard manual labor is getting rare.

now add medicine that allows you to sustain the obese lifestyle, from statins to insulin, and you can let your body go without much consequence (for a while).

and hell, forget the soft drinks. go to any cheap place in the US and everything is sugar-glaced. Try ordering something healthy from Panda Express, etc. And even traditional stuff like Ribs - put on that sweet BBQ sauce.

combine ALL the above and you might have an explanation of rising obesity. pretty sure it is not a simple equation, it never is.

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Well fructose was a rarely part of the human diet and is converted to fat by your liver. Sugar is 50% glucose and 50% fructose. When your body get's a hit of glucose it releases insulin that tells your body not to burn fat but use up the glucose. So that fructose gets stored away. Ironically healthy fruit smoothies are exceptionally bad :D

Yes a country's transport policy has an impact. Netherlands has an obesity rate of 1.6% in boys vs 16% in the UK. So getting your kids cycling/walking to school is of massive benefit to the long-term health of your nation.

You still need to deal with the wrong type of calories being delivered into your population.

> Well fructose was a rarely part of the human diet

What is your definition of "rarely"?

smoothies

They are way better than any soft drink. Even if you pick the fruit with the most fructose/glucose percentage you still get the benefit of slower digestion due to fibers which slow digestion. Slight exaggeration, but in comparison, drinks are almost an injection of sugar into the blood-stream.

I would consider them healthy if they are ingested in appropriate quantities, without any added sugars, and along with some additional food that is rich with protein and fibers, like wheat and grains.

>Well fructose was a rarely part of the human diet

What an absolutely ridiculous statement.

Europe has essentially the same economic changes, although with subtle and probably significant differences (Plus the British and Germans are porking out to an alarming degree)

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