Food Politics

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This post was mentioned on Twitter by marionnestle: Genetic causes of obesity: 1%?: Recent news reports encouraged me to take a quick look at the January 2010 American… http://cli.gs/n7sUp...

Portion sizes, junk food, and soda pop are causes of overweight and obesity, but this is the dead elephant in the room:

http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/133/11/4048S/FIG7

Meat consumption skyrocketed in France the past 15-20 years and so did obesity. Meat consumption increased exponentially in Mexico the past 15 years and they now rival the United States as world leaders in both meat consumption and obesity.

Haven’t read the news report, but genetic mutation caused by environmental contaminants could significantly contribute a rapid change such as we are seeing with the obesity epidemic. This is especially true if the contaminants are present in the food we are consuming increasing amounts of, such as preservatives, trans fats, hormones/pesticides, etc. There could also be a genetic feature present in a large portion of the population that predisposes many for obesity (or for overeating perhaps, where satiety triggers are blocked) which was “turned on” in many people by environmental factors occuring in or around the 80′s. Taking in more calories (much of which is not real, natural food) and moving less may be a large part of the explanation, but the speed with which the epidemic set in doesn’t necessarily sidebar the potential genetic explanations for why we eat more, or why we hold onto more of what we eat.

I love you to death, Marion, but the simplist little “eat less move more” jingle is utterly useless for anyone with obesity. It might help people who are a few pounds overweight or gained a couple of pounds over the holidays or whatever… I truly believe that your view is skewed by your own experience.

Obviously change in diet has been one of the most important factors in a change in obesity rates. But even with the same diet, there is significant variation in obesity outcomes. So while genetics is certainly not the “cause”, it is likely to be a contributing factor.

You say 1% is not a lot? In the linked study, that 1% of BMI variance was explained by just 12 single nucleotide polymorphisms. We’ve got plenty more genes that are certainly relevant, and in total they may yet sum up to a fair amount of variance. What this does show — assuming that those are some of the most important SNPs — is that going after the genetics isn’t likely to lead to any easy ways out, owing to the small influence of individual genes.

Yes, of course obesity is largely an environmentally-created phenomenon. But why is it, if not for genetic predisposition, that one person can eat a really horrendous diet (lots of heavily processed foods) and stay thin, yet another can eat a comparatively balanced diet and become obese; why one fat person develops diabetes and high blood pressure and another fat person with the same diet is in all measurable ways (except for an arbitrary number on the scale) comparatively healthy? To ignore that reality and focus on the “fat people are just lazy pigs” ideology not only perpetuates bigotry based on misconceptions about the assumed inherent character of fat people versus thin people, it is a hindrance to the sort of research that is needed to understand what is really going on.

I don’t think many people are aware of how many extra calories they’re taking in. The industrial food machine has a lot of extra soybeans and corn, and it’s worked hard to find ways to convince the public that consuming more calories than we need is “normal”. Otherwise, how will the big agra-businesses continue to be more profitable each year?

Ugh. What Christie said!! You had me at obesity not being genetic, but lost me big time at “eat less, move more.” I think that’s very, very over-simplistic … and certainly decades of that as the conventional wisdom (along with a low-fat diet) haven’t done much to make a dent in obesity rates.

See Dr. Sarah Stein’s work. She has much the same point Christie did. “Eat less, move more” may work well for the overweight, but when you get into obesity, it is far more complicated: http://obesefromtheheart.com/

Also, check out this study from Christopher Gardner of Stanford titled The Battle of the Diets:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eREuZEdMAVo

As a 25-year vegetarian, he was a bit dismayed to find that his low-carb dieters did better than dieters following a Zone, LEARN, or Ornish diet (though he also showed many of the same challenges with people staying compliant over time on a variety of different diets).

But besides his main findings wrt low-carb diets, there were some interesting findings related to macro-nutrient composition of the diets, insulin sensitivity, and success. Well worth checking out!

BTW, Lustig’s Sugar: The Bitter Truth is also well worth the watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

He focuses on how fructose (from both HFCS and other added sugars) is likely responsible for a lot of metabolic syndrome factors. There’s also some interesting connections between fructose and leptin which I hope will be explored more.

As Michael Pollan says in Food Rules, “What an extraordinary achievement for a civilization: to have developed the one diet that reliably makes people sick!”

I thought that was because sometime in the late 80s or early 90s the NIH changed BMI cutoffs to be in line with WHO numbers, which automatically made like several million people go from healthy to overweight overnight.

BMI isn’t an indicator of health. There are plenty of “obese” people who eat healthy diets and exercise daily, and plenty of “normal” people on starvation diets who will probably suffer from long term heart problems as a result.

Obviously Taco Bell has the answer to all the obesity problems if we believe their latest ad campaign.

In “The End of Overeating” by David Kessler, MD, he describes two different types of people–those who stop eating palatable food when they are full and those who don’t. We all know that some people eat things regularly that others would quickly make others obese.

I think there is more work to be done with genetics and neurology (brain chemistry) before the verdict is in. This doesn’t mean that I don’t acknowledge the changes since the 1980′s that caused whatever it is to explode, but I also know that I see and know people who eat more and exercise less than I do who maintain a healthy weight while I struggle every day to keep off the weight I lost through drastic calorie restriction.

Genetics might not be as much of the problem as previously thought, but science has yet to address why some people find it so very hard to take off weight, especially women.

I have struggled with obesity my entire life. I do eat a balanced diet and exercise regularly. The doctors will barely address the symptom let alone try to find an underlying cause.

This study is just more blah blah blah but not real answers.

[...] Source [...]

I worry that one of the unfortunate outcomes of this study will be for society to put more blame on individuals instead of changing our obesogenic environment. (Observe: “Suck it Fatties”.) We will never be able to turn the obesity crisis around without changing our entire environment, from the way food is manufactured and served, to the way our communities and work, home, and school environments are designed, to obesogenic chemicals like some pesticides, products used to make plastics, and so forth.

I am a bit surprised, since evolution and survival of the fittest favors being able to store energy and use it slowly, which was necessary when food supplies were scarce. I also am surprised because it seems so many different things can happen at the genetic level to cause someone to have obesity – from appetite hormones not working properly, to metabolism not working properly, to serotonin levels being out of whack.

[...] I only have access to the abstract (booooo) but the conclusion, which Marion Nestle talks about in this post, is that the different gene variants associated with increased bmi only account for about 1% of [...]

Food Inc., I believe, proposes corn fed beef (to promote growth) contributes to personal growth in the form of obesity. Its only a piece of the puzzle I recognize. Add Dr. Lustig’s “Sugar the Bitter Truth” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM, over consumption of sugar another piece of the puzzle. But as with me portion size convicts. We need to change our society’s mindset about food and movement. Make cars less attractive, put in sidewalks, increase funds for pedestrian and bicycle friendly transportation. How else can we change the way we think about food? Get it out of the workspace, stop all day grazing, and stop gifting co-workers with baked goods. I work in health care and need tools to fight my toxic work environment! Being obnoxious isn’t working.

There’s also an interesting book called “Refuse to Regain” by Dr. Barbara Berkeley. Her research shows that the body functions very differently for people who have been overweight/obese and have lost weight. Certain foods become much more damaging.

Marcia, thanks for the pointer. If it weren’t for the rise in obesity of younger and younger kids, I would think dieting was a major factor in the increasing rates of obesity.

Of course, they may both be involved. The scariest stuff right now is the research coming out about what happens prenatally that may predispose one to overweight/obesity later in life.

It has nothing to do with calories or meat. It is entirely due to an increase in carbohydrates. Never in our history have carbohydrates been so readily available, particularly neolithic grains.

Great article I have always wondered about this, because we always hear people say as an excuse “Oh it’s hereditary/genetics” Just like the obese vegetarian that does eat junk food. Now I would like to read statistics on thyroid gland, cause I hear a lot of the people say “Oh it’s a thyroid gland problem”

Great work. I re-posted it on our blog miltonious.wordpress.com. Keep up the great work.

what do you think of the new bloomberg salt reduction politics?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/business/11salt.html?hp

a nutritionist once told me that iodized salt is bad because it takes vital minerals out of the body, but sea salt actually contains minerals that are missing in processed food diets. is that accurate?

Someone mentioned genetic mutation. However, genes don’t need to be mutated to act differently. Only a small portion of our DNA actually manufacturers protein. The largest part of our DNA is made up on non-protein producing “switches”. These switches turn proteing-producing DNA sequences to turn on and off at different times for different reasons. Different reasons might be
1) Timing variations eg. during the 2nd-5th weeks of fetal development, or shortly after birth, or at puberty, etc.
2) Internal variations eg. stress related cortisol release could influence switch (thus gene) activity (positively or negatively)
3) Environmental variations, eg BPA may be influencing switch activity (and/or potentially mutating the gene)

So our ability to be obese is inherent in everyone’s genes, but some people’s switches might be activated more easily, some by Influence A, others by Influence B, others by both, others not influenced at all.

Changes in our environment or diet can be directly or indirectly changing our genes WITHOUT mutating them.

it could be the extra food people eat that have caused the obesity epidemic, but another, just as probable consideration is the type of calories we consume in excess.
Guess what, it usually seems to be starches, sugars, carbs, ect… think frosted flakes with skimmilkfor breakfast along side a big glass of pasturized OJ. sugar,sugar and more… then for lunch perhaps some fast food that includes plenty of white bread products, and maybe a carrot or some low-fat hfcs-laden yogurt for a snack. dinner might be some sort of factory-farmed meat with a starchy veggie like a white potato.

I don’t know about anone else, but my body seems to have a sort of natural set-point that it returns to fairly easily. I can gain weight while I’m on vacation, for instance, or over the holidays, but as soon as I return to my regular way of life, I go back to where I was pretty quickly. I suspect most of us are like that, and unfortunately we can trick our bodies into “setting” at an unhealthy weight. I think that’s one reason it’s so difficult for folks struggling with obesity, and also why some people find that last 5 or 10 lbs. so hard to shed. However, I also think that diet and exercise are the only options for re-setting that mechanism– though I suspect that folks with serious weight problems would need to get the help of a specialist because of how difficult that is.

Agree with Cathy Richards re genetics.
Epigenetic changes occur rapidly in response to environmental change, and are heritable (your kids get the change too). I would be very surprised if some of the new chemicals our bodies are now exposed to (obesogens, endocrine disruptors, pesticides etc) are not inducing epigenetic changes that are responsible for some of the big changes in population health that we have seen in the past 30 years (obesity, allergies, asthma, adhd etc)

micha- actually, i have read stats that say mexican soda consumption rivals the usa, whichof course increases obesity issues.

Christine Keith:

I agree with you. Marion is good with politics and soundbites. But she doesn’t work with obese patients. She has no track record in treating obese people.

‘Eat less, move more’ is a nice bumper sticker, but just shows her simplistic view of the issue.

It’s like saying, if you want to be taller, just increase your height. Duh.

She continually reduces the ‘obesity’ problem to a psychological issue. Fat people have no will power. They are lazy pigs. They are fooled by food labels. (Marion, lean and thin, is not.)

If you want to be thin — like Marion, presumably — you just need more will power. Thin people have more will power. Thin people exercise more and don’t eat so much. Thin people have control.

Of course, Marion doesn’s work with obese people. She types stuff on a blog.

Obesity is simply a matter of over consumption. Nothing more. Genetics decides where the fat is stored.