Comment by Fricken | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Fricken | Hacker News Reader

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The Dutch have the lowest obesity rates in the developed world, at 8%, and 35% of their trips are taken by bicycle. Is that just a coincidence? I mean,technically, sure, you got to eat less than you burn to lose weight, but observably, people who regularly get moderate exercise as an ongoing practice tend to have their weight under control.

I had one winter where I didn't cycle and I gained 15 pounds before I even noticed. It took a little under a month to lose, which I did by eating less, but I also got back on the bike. That's the only time I've gained weight, and losing it wasn't some special act of will or anything, I decided to do it and I did it.

The rest of my family is sedentary, and fat. They're always talking about how they've got to lose weight but they're intimidated by it and they never stick with their diet plans for long. They don't have the intimate relationship with their metabolism that someone who excercise daily has.

This is another case of correlation != causation. The lifestyles that people choose to lead can heavily affect their dietary choices. A sedentary couch lord is more likely to binge on pizza than a daily bike commuter, perhaps.

This is why nutritional studies in the past need to be taken with a grain of salt. We all know from studies that too much red meat can have deleterious consequences on your health. But what we don't know is what type of lifestyles these participants led. Did they also eat junk food while rapaciously devouring heaps of sugar and soda on the side?

We're not working in a strict lab environment here so there are lots of variables that we can't possibly account for.

The Dutch presumably also eat a Dutch diet so it's going to be tricky to disentangle. For what it's worth, the French rank right behind the Netherlands in obesity rate but I wouldn't say most people are very physically active.

My own experience and studies I have seen show that exercise leads to some early weight loss but then plateaus quickly. To lose further, diet has to be involved.

> The Dutch have the lowest obesity rates in the developed world, at 8%

Source? According to [1], obesity rate in NL is 19.8%, with some other European countries being lower.

[1] https://renewbariatrics.com/obesity-rank-by-countries/

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