Hacker News Reader

Comment by sedatk | Hacker News Reader

"We're less active" probably isn't the right answer. Members of African hunter-gatherer tribes spend the same amount of calories as an average American[1]. I think the real answer is more about dietary changes rather than lifestyle.

https://news.yale.edu/2012/08/02/hunter-gatherers-expend-sam...

View on HN

I recently learned about DDT as a potential culprit. Turns out that the grandchildren of folks who were exposed are significantly predisposed towards obesity, which would be a significant impact today. It doesn't 'cause' obesity, per se, but it's much harder for affected people to keep the weight off. Speaking as somebody who can sit on the couch eating ice cream for a month without gaining a pound, I used to think that diets were silly and vain... turns out I got lucky on the (epi)genetics.

Got a link to read about the ddt idea?

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-04-ddt-exposure-grandmot...

https://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2021/04/13/1055-...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6066343/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41366-020-0586-7

On perusal of the literature, seems that first and second generations are affected as well

I would actually guess "cigarettes".

Nicotine is an appetite suppressant.

this is fascinating, I couldn't have guessed this.

This is in the same category as: sit on the couch watching TV and you're spending almost the same amount of calories as a walking person.

Maybe it also matters how you spend those calories. Fasting helps a lot, westerners don't fast. I assume hunter tribes fast more and also have lots of short bursts of energy.

“ sit on the couch watching TV and you're spending almost the same amount of calories as a walking person.”

Some quick googling tells me that walking burns 4x as many calories as sitting. Or maybe I missed your point and you were just claiming that the stated fact is as surprising as this fact would have been had it been true?

I am off, you are right. I remembered something vague but it must have been: watching tv while eating (140 calories an hour) vs slow walking at 220 calories an hour.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com