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Comment by rsynnott | Hacker News Reader

I've only ever visited San Francisco in the US, and the first time I was there I was slightly surprised that in terms of obesity it seemed pretty similar to Dublin (which wouldn't be the thinnest city around, but is middle of the road European). Then I flew back via O'Hare, and really saw the difference when waiting for the transfer; quite dramatic levels of obesity.

I wonder how much of it is just down to urban Americans walking places, and rural and suburban Americans less so.

I did also notice that there was added sugar in virtually _everything_.

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It’s all diet. I visited Nashville a couple of years ago and everything on the menu was fried or just terrible for you.

Most of weight is diet. Exercise helps a tiny amount but is more for your cardiovascular health and strength. Running for an hour burns far fewer calories than half of a muffin.

> running for an hour burns far fewer calories than in half a muffin

As a guy who runs pretty hard and weighs over 200 lbs, I burn nearly 1000 calories in an hour of running (~11km distance). I've tried a few different models to estimate this and they all more or less agree.

A lightweight person jogging at low intensity for an hour, maybe.

Exercise is certainly helpful once you start getting close to your ideal caloric intake. If at rest you'd burn ~2000 cal/day, and you're consuming ~2300 cal/day, then exercising for one hour, three days a week can certainly make a difference.

Most people that are actually overweight though, have a much higher surplus in their caloric intake. Strenuous exercise like running over 10km isn't possible for many of these folks... and even if it were, it certainly wouldn't be possible every day. Cutting out the 600cal breakfast sandwich in the morning or the 200cal soda every day at lunch will have a bigger impact for most folks and is a lot more feasible.

Yeah, eating less is probably the most important thing for people who want to lose weight. Not going to dispute that.

Just wanted to address the exaggeration/overgeneralization in GP comment.

> I burn nearly 1000 calories in an hour of running (~12km distance).

You get a lot more calories than you can physically burn in one day. A donut can be something like 500 kcal. Skipping on snacks is more much effective than exercising no matter how you look at it.

For losing weight, yes.

However AFAIK fit and moderately overweight is better for your health than unfit and skinny.

It's a thread about people being overweight. We are not talking about other benefits here.

> you get a lot more calories than you can physically burn in one day.

I don't know if I do, since my weight has been pretty constant for a few years. But I'm sure some people do. Are most people in a state of constantly increasing weight?

Use an elliptical and it will show you exactly how many calories per minute you can burn.

For reference, Olympic athletes only manage to burn 30 calories per minutes at their best. I would put most people’s capacity at 10 to 15 calories per minute sustained.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/sports/olympics/cross-cou...

A Burger King Whopper with cheese, for example, has 710 calories. You would need to run 10km. Running and exercise is worthless. Don't eat the Whopper. Cancel the gym membership. Workouts cause calorie cravings - and most Americans will just eat processed garbage [ or unless you are super healthy - then you drink the "Mocha Mojo" from jamba juice 680 calories ].

> running and exercise is worthless

A bold claim indeed.

Not everyone who exercises is trying to lose weight.

It's a discussion about weight, so in context, that statement is completely valid.

Diet is the biggest part of it, no question, but calories are misleading. The number of calories you burn by running for an hour doesn't take into consideration the increase in metabolism that will follow for up to 48 hours or the calories that will be burned in the future by the extra muscle you build even while at rest.

Input into the system is a big factor, but to maximize fat loss you also have to induce the system into expending prioritized fuel sources before it saps into fat reserves. And exercise probably induces that during but also after exercise too.

It's always 'diet' in a first order sense. The interesting question is why all the mechanisms broke that prevent diets from looking like this at a social level.

I agree it is diet, I disagree that it "fried foods" that are the source

High Fructose based drinks like Soda, Mass produced Tea's, etc combined with decades of government "education" around the high carb diet is the main source of the Mid Wests Obesity problem

When you are drinking 1500-2000 calories a day, and eating mainly pasta / potato heavy meals that is going to kill your weight.

Fried Chicken is not the problem...

That's a good callout. The prevalence of sugar in the American diet is pretty insane.

Fried food doesn't help either ...

There are probably multiple factors, walking more and fewer time sitting in cars is quite possibly one of them. Urban areas also have more young people.

The added sugar in the US is a shame. Just this year, the nutritional labels are mandated to show added sugars in products now. I hope that helps.

> walking more

I remember how much everyone has to do some (or a lot) of walking in London, New York, and other cities where you use public transport to get around.

I suspect that daily walking makes a huge difference.

Would showing added lead in baby formula help?

Kind of shocked how in the US an issue that is obviously a health issue is treated as a personal failing.

If you want sugar in your food you're free to add some after the fact, or buy it from a non-food store. Warning people that all the food they have access to is poison is not a solution to anything.

> Warning people that all the food they have access to is poison is not a solution to anything.

It sounds like you are suggesting all food in American grocery stores is equally bad when it comes to sugar. Perhaps I misunderstood you, as that is obviously absurd. While I do wish there were more healthy options, I can assure you that the mainstream grocery stores (Ralph's, Safeway, etc) contain many products with low or no sugar.

Empowering people to make better decisions is actually one of the best things we can do. What is your alternative proposal?

I read nutrition labels, looking at the sugar content. I eagerly await the requirement to list the amount of added sugar, as it will inform my food purchases.

> While I do wish there were more healthy options, I can assure you that the mainstream grocery stores (Ralph's, Safeway, etc) contain many products with low or no sugar.

What struck me as weird was the sugar in products where I'd never have expected to find it in the first place. In particular bread (most non-absurdly-expensive brands seemed to have added sugar, which would not normally be the case here).

In fact, an Irish court recently ruled that Subway 'bread' wasn't actually bread at all (important for VAT purposes here); too much added sugar.

I'm sure it is _possible_ to get food that doesn't have added sugar in the US, but it does seem to be the default to add sugar in some quite weird places.

Edit: One way to regulate this, less draconian than actually banning added sugar, would be to regulate naming (for instance, banning sale of a bread-like product with added sugar as bread).

>What is your alternative proposal?

Ban over the counter sale of processed food, the same way heroin stopped being sold as Mr. Jims Magical Cure All.

It's not like banning additives that have proven detrimental to health is a radical new idea. We have killed hundreds of industries that killed people before, most of them in much smaller numbers than the food industrial complex.

>Empowering people to make better decisions is actually one of the best things we can do.

Looking at the state of the US, it really isn't. Taking advice from Americans on food is like taking bathing advice from Catholics in 900AD.

What's the definition of processed food?

I think most people will think your proposal is very extreme.

>I think most people will think your proposal is very extreme.

As would most heroin addicts in 1890.

When 73% of your country is losing between 5 and 20 years of life expectancy drastic measures are in order.

We force people to wear seatbelts. We don't let them buy some drugs. We can make certain food illegal.

Post stomach cancer, I can't eat sugar without becoming ill. So I stopped. Regular fruits are now very sweet, and a chocolate bar is inedible.

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