Comment by koeselitz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by koeselitz | Hacker News Reader

"Well, what do people do when there is extra food around? They eat it! This, of course, is a tremendously controversial idea. However, the model shows that increase in food more than explains the increase in weight."

This doesn't actually follow logically. I know Mr Chow is implying that there's a lot of data that this interview obviously doesn't present, but there are serious problems with this thesis on the face of it. For one thing, if obesity correlates directly with the availability of food, then the most obese people ought to be those to whom food is most available. But the rich in our society are proportionally not as obese as those who face periodic food shortages; and low-income children are proportionally shown to be at much higher risk of suffering from obesity. [1]

Not only that, but the statement that food production has simply gone up and therefore food prices have simply gone down is incredibly... simplistic. There have been arguments for years [2] about what food prices have gone down or up and how that may or may not have affected obesity.

I want to believe that there's data behind this fellow's claims, but I can't help but feel as though, no matter what the data is, summarizing it in the way he does is deceptive.

[1] http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?volume=303&issu...

[2] For example, http://www.good.is/post/the-inconvenient-truth-about-cheap-f...

This may not be exactly on subject, but "Well, what do people do when there is extra food around? They eat it!" is something that has been observed in several consumer-focused studies. I do not remember whether it was Pespsi or Coca-Cola, but one of them found that the consumption of their drink would increase significantly when they sold 2L bottles instead of 1.5L ones. When a 2L bottle is bought, consumers would simply drink it just as fast as a 1.5L, which gives credence to the above point. This was a fantastic way to increase their business. This has been observed among several consumer products companies, in different categories: a bigger packaging leads to higher consumption.

It is not too far-fetched to think the same could apply for Food. It's probably best to ask the question to people working for food products companies such as Nestle or Danone, where I expect a number of researches must have been conducted.

I, too, am skeptical of that thesis. However one plausible way of thinking about it may be that because food prices are so low (for certain foods, at least), restaurants can increase portion sizes without incurring a very high penalty. If people are attracted to higher portion sizes, then those restaurants would continue to do so, resulting in fat people. I can think of a couple of reasons that people would like larger portion sizes: a) it improves the value-proposition ($x amount of food for just $y dollars), and b) it is satisfying to feel full.

Your point about the rich is an interesting one. A conceivable explanation for this could be that higher-end restaurants tend to have a different value-proposition than lower-end ones: instead of focusing on quantity, they focus on quality.

Finally, I think the point you bring up about the summary being misleading is a good one. Reporters are generally not known for accuracy when reporting on scientific matters.

The rich can afford to eat at restaurants with routines that simulate a robust meal without truly ingesting too many calories, and because it's healthy to do so, this is precisely what the rich do. This is why portions are so tiny at gourmet restaurants so the middle class balks at them as a total rip-off. In a sense you pay to be given pomp and circumstance and less food!

Theories like this fail to take into account that the children of rich people don't get fat, even if they are poor themselves. Consider, grad students, interns, artists, etc, none of whom can afford to eat at gourmet restaurants.

With a degustation you'll probably have quite a few courses. 9, 10 maybe more. Maybe matching wines.

If you are just fine dining you will get larger portions but will still go starter, entree, main course, dessert.

The portions are small because you cannot eat that much. The prices are high because at a good restaurant they are serving food that is hard to make and they do it well.

A lot of fine food can be very rich. So I am not sure about not ingesting too many calories. Perhaps relative to eating an entire pizza on my own. But not to eating a regular balanced meal.

I think the more interesting theory (Gary Taubes's I believe) is that most of us have the causation backwards. People are eating 'all this food we have' because they are obese, not that their obesity is caused because they ate all that food.

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