The AMA has classified obesity as a disease. With the move from private insurance to
universal government sponsored health care in the US it seems inevitable to me
that the definition of disease will devolve to include anything that remotely
resembles a health issues. Which, being
covered by the ACA, is then (by definition) a public issue.
I predict that under the guise of protecting us (the citizen
flock) a crisis mentality will be generated in Washington that will insists on government
sponsored research to identify the health benefits or effects of almost everything.
Currently the NIH spends over 1B annually to study the cause and
health effects of obesity. I am pretty
sure weight gain is caused by putting too much food in your face. I suspect the obesity studies are merely the
tip of the silliness health studies to come that will protect us from “disease”.
This is a really interesting book:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Controversial-Science/dp/1400033462
It blames the western-diseases (diabetes, cancer, heart disease, etc) and obesity on the insulin response to the food one eats. There are obese people out there who are literally starving while eating the low fat (and therefore high carbohydrate) diet and still putting on weight.
He argues that weight gain and loss is not nearly so simple as calories in - calories out. The high carbohydrates causes a high insulin response which tells the body to deposit the sugars in the bloodstream as fat. The nutrients carried in the blood stream get deposited as fat before they can be used to provide nutrients for the body. Thus, person gets higher fat deposits and 'starves' at the same time.
Here is an interesting video (by Dr. Robert Lustig, Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, in the Division of Endocrinology Director of the Weight Assessment) which addresses obesity and is somewhat parallel to the above book and which also says weight gain is not a matter of calories in - calories out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM&feature=youtu.be
It says that the reason why weight gain is not calories in - calories out is because not a calorie is not a calorie (not all calories are equal). Calories from sugars and processed carbohydrates are far worse.
In the movie Apollo 13 the Houston crew quickly realized that the secret to getting the spacecraft back to earth safely was to balance the energy used on the spacecraft with the energy available on the spacecraft. My theory is that weight gain/loss is all about energy (calories).
DeleteMinus the nasty details here is how I see calories and the human body.
1. All food has calories and an individual consumes a certain number of calories per day. Let’s call that “Daily Calorie Intake” or DCI
2. To digest food and access the calories in food requires the expenditure of calories. Let’s call that “Calories to Digest” of CTD.
3. In varying degrees foods have calories that the human body cannot digest and use. Most calories in sugar and carbs are easily accessible while those in celery and lettuce are not. Let’s call the calories the human body cannot access “Inaccessible Calories” or ICs.
4. Let’s say that the calories a person expends per day is the “Daily Calories Used” or DCU”
So here is my formula: A = DCI-CTD-ICs-DCU
If “A” is positive the body will attempt to store a portion of the excess energy (calories) as fat. If “A” is negative the body must (no exceptions) consume itself or die.