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Comment by ericra | Hacker News Reader

I can tell you from experience that most overweight people know a lot about nutrition and proper ways to eat. Lack of knowledge and education is not the primary issue. Many people who struggle with food issues do so because they are self-medicating for various levels of depression/anxiety/other psychological issues. It is quite difficult to break these bad eating habits without having a replacement for the temporary positive effects they create.

Articles like this are extremely annoying. Nearly every educated person knows everything this article says. It just comes across as condescending in a "I can do this, so anyone can" sort of way.

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One of the core components of exercise in losing fat isn't even increasing caloric burn.

Exercise is the best anti-depressive "drug", it's better than any anti-depressant SSRI drug.

And there's about a dozen other bonuses to getting fit. Getting people out of the house, crapping better, sleeping better, mental acuity, life extension, better quality of life for your lifespan, reduction in cancer, reduction in injury from day to day mishaps, etc.

Exactly, the caloric burn that allows you to consume more calories without trouble is just the cherry on top; it allows you to get treats without needing to restrict other important areas of nutrition.

Taking the radical approach to banning all sugar is just too restrictive and counterproductive, because the most important part is getting satisfied by what you eat.

In my opinion (and experience) people who struggle with weight tend to be bad at cooking and/or selecting the food they actually want to eat; then they feel bad and end up doing both: overeating stuff that isn't so good for health (especially if exercise isn't matched) after eating not so good food they felt they needed to eat.

Pro cyclist actually consumes pure sugar for the load of exercise they do and they are some of the lowest body fat people on earth, it would actually be problematic for them to eat too many fibrous foods since they could never digest it fast enough to meet their energy expenditure.

Completely right about knowing v doing but even the knowing gets skewed. The real problem that too much sucrose and fructose (whether added to not) is insulin overproduction.

I get annoyed when some people talk about an apple is better than a cookie because an apple has "natural" sugar as if sugar cane is synthetic. I will return to this example.

Humans only metabolize carbohydrates, protein, fat, and alcohol. In general all carbs breakdown to glucose. Complex carbs take longer to do this, so the metabolizing of it actually burns more calories, but there's also other biochemical and endocrine factors that vary by age, health, activity level, etc.

It's still true that complex carbs, usually having more micro nutrients and being slower to metabolize are better for us. Nonetheless, they all become glucose at some point (except nonsoluble fiber).

To return to the apple cookie example, though. If the cookie is made with oats, butter, and nuts, it may actually be much slower than the apple in provoking an insulin response. And if one eats the equivalent calories, the cookie provides oil and protein.

The author seems to think the gylcemic index is something inherent in a food rather than a measure of a metabolic process.

Toast with butter and brown sugar and cinnamon produces is better than just toast.

Even people who "know" don't seem to know it's not the sugar. It's the insulin.

> It's still true that complex carbs, usually having more micro nutrients and being slower to metabolize are better for us.

So your friends are correct, even if their reasoning is wrong.

> If the cookie is made with oats, butter, and nuts, it may actually be much slower than the apple in provoking an insulin response.

This claim requires evidence. My understanding is that the slower digestion preventing the insulin spike is due to the apple's sugar being embedded in the fiber.

Also, even if this claim is correct, then your friends are "only" right about practically all cookies.

> Toast with butter and brown sugar and cinnamon produces is better than just toast.

Massive citation needed.

I have a childhood condition that left me marginally disabled with a bad hip (I probably should get a replacement and I'm not 40 yet) that causes me immense pain some days. I also have life-long mental health issues. I've been 300 pounds and I've lost it via the old-fashioned way - diet and exercise. If I can find ways to make it work, then yes, I do think most anyone can. You do have to try different foods and exercises to see what works for you; every one is different, and in that regard no one can educate you; you have to figure it out for yourself.

This. Not to mention a lot of people are food-insecure and cannot access or afford healthier options.

I would not underestimate the how shortsighted people are -- most of my peers are PhD students and most of them skip meals. Anecdotally, none of my flatmates eat breakfast, and my office mates often skip lunch and/or dinner because they have a meeting. The food offered at the university is a steal for the price and how convenient it is. These people are not out of money, they are (work) sprinting.

Is skipping meals bad? Like let’s assume the worst case: someone ate like shit all 3 meals a day. Instant ramen, spam, potato chips, ice cream, whatever. And then they skip a meal and on their next one they are 1.5 meals worth of food. Is that worse?

Yes. Skipping meals can condition your body to store away more of it because it isn't sure when the next meal will come, eventually making you fatter even if you eat very little.

What does food-insecure mean?

>afford healthier options.

cheap unprocessed brown rice, dried beans, frozen branded grocery store veg is not that expensive. (some spices help as well). Lots of poor students live on that.

Of course, it can't compete with super tasty fast-food places (laced with sugar/salt).

You cannot address the American obesity epidemic without mentioning corn syrup subsidies!

Sex is the thing that humans evolved to do for exogenous dopamine (look up why the penis is shaped the way it is). Religions of old told people to deny their natural desires and instead seek dopamine from the church (we are all God’s narcissist supply). Capitalism, our modern religion, tells people to seek it out from consumption (Capitalism would fail without exogenous dopamine addictions). Humanity should just have more sex.

Bullshit sugar is self-medication for depression/anxiety/psychological issues. Besides the fact it makes all those things worse, you can get the same effect from eating sweet foods richer in fibre and nutrients, and the “dose” people are using is like treating a toothache by taking 5 Tylenol. People aren’t carefully dosing out sugar in response to adverse events, they’re indulging in mega doses all day every day.

I know people who got type 2 diabetes from sugar usage and the vast majority of them magically find the willpower to cut sugar once it’s about to kill them. Not to say their diets were wonderful afterwards but few people are so addicted to sugar they couldn’t stop if they REALLY needed to. There’s a ton of learned helplessness and people just make things that aren’t their health their priority in life unless they’re forced to because it takes so much time and energy to eat a low sugar diet that they just decide they don’t care enough.

Man I guess the majority of Americans must be anxious and depressed given they’re all eating huge quantities of sugar. I guess if we label things an illness that means we need to both accept this and pat people on the back for taking charge of their health and self-medicating.

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