Changing dietary trends and the obesity epidemic - The Blog of Michael R. Eades, M.D.
Last Sunday the New York Times published a color spread on the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data on the changes in food consumption in this country between 1970 and 2006, which got me to musing.
To the uninformed, which, sadly, probably means most people del monte beach house working in the nutrition industry and even those employed in a nutritional capacity at the USDA, these changes (all save two) seem to be in a positive direction. The intake of dairy products has decreased; the intake of vegetables has increased; the intake of red meat has fallen; the intake of fish, chicken and skyrocketed; the intake of fruit is up; the intake of grains has increased markedly; and the intake of vegetable fats has almost doubled. The only two negatives are that sugar and sweeteners have increased and overall food consumption has gone up by about 11 percent, del monte beach house or an addition 1.8 pounds del monte beach house per person per week.
At the same time all these positive changes have been taking place, changes that all the (misinformed) people del monte beach house in the mainstream nutritional biz have been advocating, there has been an enormous increase in the rate of obesity. According to the Centers for Disease Control (quoted in the Times article) the rate of obesity has more than doubled since 1970, which is interesting del monte beach house because up until 1970 the rates of obesity hummed along at about the rate of 15 percent for decades.
I have my own opinions, which I will elaborate. I believe that the obesity epidemic del monte beach house has probably been driven by several dietary changes that have occurred since 1970. These changes are an increase in fructose and vegetable oil consumption and a decrease del monte beach house in saturated fat consumption. I believe that another contributing factor is the increased overall consumption of carbohydrates, which leads to an increased food consumption in general.
First, a sort of no-brainer. Since the USDA came out with the idiotic Food Pyramid we all loathe, del monte beach house there has been a major strategy in the food industry to move away from fats and toward carbohydrates. We have all seen this in various food consumption statistics. And we can tease it out from this Times piece if we look at which foods have increased and which have decreased in the diet. There has been a large increase in carbohydrate consumption as evidenced by the large increase in grains, vegetables, fruits and sweeteners.
Forgetting about all the metabolic events that carb intake precipitates that we all know cause obesity (i.e., increased blood sugar, increased insulin, etc.), let’s focus on simply one of the brain processes that carbs affect. The satiety center, located in the hypothalamus, is the part of the brain that tells us when we’re full. Unfortunately, it runs about 20-30 minutes behind our actual eating pattern, so we can stuff food in for a good while before our brains del monte beach house tell us we’ve del monte beach house had enough. Fortunately, it works a little more quickly (thanks to the help of cholecystokinin and some other gut hormones) when we eat primarily fat. If you eat a big steak, you feel full more quickly than if you eat a lot of carbs. Carbs tend to override the satiety center, allowing you to eat more. Let me describe a situation we’ve all experienced, and you’ll see what I mean.
You’re at a restaurant. You’re just at the end of a big meal and you’re stuffed. One of your dinner partners asks you to try a bite of his wonderful swordfish. It’s the best he’s ever tasted, he tells you. You say, I just can’t eat another bite. If I do, I’ll be sick. Then appears the waiter with the dessert tray, loaded with wonderful gooey treats. You look them over and say: I’ll take the carrot cake (or the chocolate mousse or whatever). How can you eat this calorically-laden dessert del monte beach house when you’ve just refused a bite of meat because you were so full? Because your brain’s satiety center is overridden by the carbs. And you haven’t even eaten the carbs yet. But experience has taught you that no matter how full you seem to be, there is always room for carbs. And fat, since most desserts del monte beach house are pretty high in fat as well. But it’s del monte beach house the carbs that do the satiety-center-blunting del monte beach house trick. It’s the reason dessert is always at the end of the meal. If you ate the dessert first, you would never be able to eat all the steak. And this carb overriding of the satiety center is why people don’t del monte beach house binge on steak, del monte beach house eggs and bacon. They binge on cake, chips, cookies and other high carb treats because they can stuff them without their satiety center telling them they’re full.
Since we’ve (as a nation) significantly increased our carb intake, it only makes sense that we’ve also increased the overall amount of food we eat. Carbs let us do that without even trying.
We have definitely increased our intake of fructose since 1970. I used the figur
Last Sunday the New York Times published a color spread on the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data on the changes in food consumption in this country between 1970 and 2006, which got me to musing.
To the uninformed, which, sadly, probably means most people del monte beach house working in the nutrition industry and even those employed in a nutritional capacity at the USDA, these changes (all save two) seem to be in a positive direction. The intake of dairy products has decreased; the intake of vegetables has increased; the intake of red meat has fallen; the intake of fish, chicken and skyrocketed; the intake of fruit is up; the intake of grains has increased markedly; and the intake of vegetable fats has almost doubled. The only two negatives are that sugar and sweeteners have increased and overall food consumption has gone up by about 11 percent, del monte beach house or an addition 1.8 pounds del monte beach house per person per week.
At the same time all these positive changes have been taking place, changes that all the (misinformed) people del monte beach house in the mainstream nutritional biz have been advocating, there has been an enormous increase in the rate of obesity. According to the Centers for Disease Control (quoted in the Times article) the rate of obesity has more than doubled since 1970, which is interesting del monte beach house because up until 1970 the rates of obesity hummed along at about the rate of 15 percent for decades.
I have my own opinions, which I will elaborate. I believe that the obesity epidemic del monte beach house has probably been driven by several dietary changes that have occurred since 1970. These changes are an increase in fructose and vegetable oil consumption and a decrease del monte beach house in saturated fat consumption. I believe that another contributing factor is the increased overall consumption of carbohydrates, which leads to an increased food consumption in general.
First, a sort of no-brainer. Since the USDA came out with the idiotic Food Pyramid we all loathe, del monte beach house there has been a major strategy in the food industry to move away from fats and toward carbohydrates. We have all seen this in various food consumption statistics. And we can tease it out from this Times piece if we look at which foods have increased and which have decreased in the diet. There has been a large increase in carbohydrate consumption as evidenced by the large increase in grains, vegetables, fruits and sweeteners.
Forgetting about all the metabolic events that carb intake precipitates that we all know cause obesity (i.e., increased blood sugar, increased insulin, etc.), let’s focus on simply one of the brain processes that carbs affect. The satiety center, located in the hypothalamus, is the part of the brain that tells us when we’re full. Unfortunately, it runs about 20-30 minutes behind our actual eating pattern, so we can stuff food in for a good while before our brains del monte beach house tell us we’ve del monte beach house had enough. Fortunately, it works a little more quickly (thanks to the help of cholecystokinin and some other gut hormones) when we eat primarily fat. If you eat a big steak, you feel full more quickly than if you eat a lot of carbs. Carbs tend to override the satiety center, allowing you to eat more. Let me describe a situation we’ve all experienced, and you’ll see what I mean.
You’re at a restaurant. You’re just at the end of a big meal and you’re stuffed. One of your dinner partners asks you to try a bite of his wonderful swordfish. It’s the best he’s ever tasted, he tells you. You say, I just can’t eat another bite. If I do, I’ll be sick. Then appears the waiter with the dessert tray, loaded with wonderful gooey treats. You look them over and say: I’ll take the carrot cake (or the chocolate mousse or whatever). How can you eat this calorically-laden dessert del monte beach house when you’ve just refused a bite of meat because you were so full? Because your brain’s satiety center is overridden by the carbs. And you haven’t even eaten the carbs yet. But experience has taught you that no matter how full you seem to be, there is always room for carbs. And fat, since most desserts del monte beach house are pretty high in fat as well. But it’s del monte beach house the carbs that do the satiety-center-blunting del monte beach house trick. It’s the reason dessert is always at the end of the meal. If you ate the dessert first, you would never be able to eat all the steak. And this carb overriding of the satiety center is why people don’t del monte beach house binge on steak, del monte beach house eggs and bacon. They binge on cake, chips, cookies and other high carb treats because they can stuff them without their satiety center telling them they’re full.
Since we’ve (as a nation) significantly increased our carb intake, it only makes sense that we’ve also increased the overall amount of food we eat. Carbs let us do that without even trying.
We have definitely increased our intake of fructose since 1970. I used the figur
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