No link between eating dinner after 8pm, obesity in children

http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/1841.html

by devinp • 9 years ago

132 148 9 years ago

EGreg6• 9 years ago

Obesity isn't the only thing though. Skipping dinner or breakfast is a form of intermittent fasting.

I think intermittent fasting improves lifespan. It is a form of calorie restriction. People I know even do water diets to repair bones - but that may be a bit extreme.

However, this is probably not good for children. Their bodies need to grow. What we really need is to feed them healthy food instead of the processed crap found now in many stores. The explosion of sugars and HFCS in everything probably contributes to the diabetes / weight problems for kids today.

NoPiece• 9 years ago

There some evidence supporting time restricted eating (clustering your meals close together).

https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2016/03/07/intermitten...

dhimes3• 9 years ago

I tried this for 6 months with my doc. Didn't work for me at all. I actually came across the idea on the National Academy of Sciences web site.

reese_john• 9 years ago

IIRC the only studies that show that calorie restriction improves lifespan are done in animals, so you can't really extend this to humans.

EGreg6• 9 years ago

Humans are biologically so different from animals? Most such studies are done in animals first. Human trials take much longer.

Here is a much more recent study with monkeys:

http://news.wisc.edu/monkey-caloric-restriction-study-shows-...

WillPostForFood2• 9 years ago

There was a study done at USC on humans that shows an effect on humans as well as mice. I don't think there enough evidence yet on lifespan, but there is starting to be a critical mass of compelling evidence of the benefit in regards to the immune system. I haven't read the full study, just the press release...

http://news.usc.edu/82959/diet-that-mimics-fasting-appears-t...

CuriouslyC• 9 years ago

Humans might not gain much in terms of years lived from calorie restriction, but we almost certainly gain in terms of health-span, with much lower incidence of many inflammatory-linked conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, etc.

danneu• 9 years ago

Finally, an article to link to my girlfriend when she finds me eating ice cream at 3am. It's a stretch, but I'm easily convinced after 8pm.

flexie• 9 years ago

Surely you're not a child, Danneu.

penagwin• 9 years ago

He said it was a stretch :P

nocomments5• 9 years ago

meh.. in asian countries its a norm to have late dinner and go to bed after that. Doesn't make the kids fat.

igor_filippov• 9 years ago

Is this an anecdotic evidence?

EpicEng• 9 years ago

It may not be the entire picture, but certainly we have obesity stats for millions of children in Asia.

juancn• 9 years ago

Duh! A large chunk of the world eats dinner after 9pm and obesity rates are lower or the same than other countries.

erelde• 9 years ago

Spain and the south of France comes to mind as examples.

nocomments5• 9 years ago

Personally, when i arrived in the usa 8 years ago i was surprised that people eat dinner at 5:00 pm. In India,where i am from this time was meant for some light snacks and coffee/tea. So you get some light food to fuel you till you have dinner much later.

It's more of a cultural thing and no single thing is good or bad.

nmat• 9 years ago

I only remember a handful of times in my life where I ate dinner before 8pm. 20h30/21h is the usual time for dinner where I live.

ue_2• 9 years ago

For me even earlier; before I came to university it was around 19:30, and now that I'm here dinner is available from 17:00 to 19:30..

SmellTheGlove2• 9 years ago

Seriously. Southern Europe is pretty thin - and Italy, Spain, Southern France all eat late.

Oletros2• 9 years ago

Not in Northern Italy :)

I would like to know why the downvotes, my wife is from Milan and her family from a town near Bergamo and everybody I know have dinner between 19:00 and 19:30

mrcnkoba• 9 years ago

There obviously is a link between the span of eating and your weight. But it's not as big, when you eat large quantities of food.

If we are talking about obesity it means that it took years to put someone in that state. Eating 300-500 of unhealthy kcal less, by decreasing the eating span just delays the problem.

I do agree though, that the shorter eating span the better. It's called intermittent fasting and there are promising results coming out from research on that.

blowski• 9 years ago

Perhaps there's a spurious link - the kinds of families who eat after 9pm are also the kinds of families who eat too much.

Maybe. I have zero evidence, not even a circumstantial anecdote. But perhaps that's where theories like this come from.

AznHisoka3• 9 years ago

it may not lead to weight gain but is still healthy to eat late dinners?

If you have chronic acid reflux (GERD), eating late makes it worse (acid comes back up when you lie down after a meal)

Eating late can also lead to worse sleep as your body is spending energy digesting food rather than repairing itself.

Personally I feel much more refreshed the next day, when dinner is around 6pm and when it is the lightest meal of the day. Practical issues aside, i cant think of any health benefits eating a late dinner.

watwut2• 9 years ago

Obviously, if you feel bad after late dinner, it is healthier to eat sooner. That does not mean healthy people needs to follow the same restrictions.

FOr many of us, late dinner does not cause problems.

quickben• 9 years ago

When do you go to sleep?

amelius2• 9 years ago

Some people are advocating to have the largest meal in the morning, then a medium meal in the afternoon, and a light meal in the evening. (I could not find a good reference, it's something I've encountered several times in blogs).

Anyone here following such a regime, and does it work in controlling weight and feeling healthy?

dxbydt4• 9 years ago

It definitely works. Among the people I have looked at and modeled, supper timing is definitely correlated to weight gain. If you are interested I can link to some preliminary modeling I have done.

dpark8• 9 years ago

Some people advocate intermittent fasting. Some people advocate skipping lunch. Some people advocate advocate nearly any strategy you can imagine. The only thing that really matters is whether you eat less. Any strategy that helps you eat less will result in weight loss/control.

brandall10• 9 years ago

"The only thing that really matters is whether you eat less."

Intermittent fasting != calorie restriction - you can eat the same amount. The benefits are from entering a fat burning/low insulin state that occurs by going > 12 hours without food.

nawitus• 9 years ago

Interesting. I tend to recommend the inverse - light meals in the morning / day, and the biggest meal in the evening. I think it's psychologically easier to feel hunger during the day knowing that you'll have a large meal in the evening, than it is to possibly going to sleep feeling slightly hungry.

kolinko2• 9 years ago

For me, it's the exact opposite. I'm rarely hungry in the morning, and a larger meal in the evening helps me fall asleep easier (and is often connected with social encounters)

dxbydt4• 9 years ago

The article cites major caveats - 1. Cohort size of children eating after 8pm is much smaller than before - mostly because the kids are in bed by then ( they are looking at 4-10 year olds ) 2. Self reported Food Diaries are seldom accurate. 3. This study is the first of it's kind.

Supper timing is majorly correlated to weight gain, especially if most of the calories are from carbs. Simple rules like NCA5 or NCA6 ( no carbs after 5pm ) easily influence weight loss in teens & adults. I wouldn't try this hack with 4-10 year olds, but once you are in the teens, it is a nice simple body hack.

tormeh• 9 years ago

Well, having a period of time each day where you eat nothing should mean less calories eaten because of boredom or similar regardless of when that is.

dpark8• 9 years ago

Supper timing is majorly correlated to weight gain

Citation? This seems anecdotal and also very likely to be entangled with other variables.

dxbydt4• 9 years ago

It is anecdotal insofar as the anecdotes are from my limited cohort ( few dozen subredditors who have signed up with weightgreat.com ).

Also, you are right about the multicollinearity issues ( supper time predictor entangled with other predictors). But the overall effect is pretty significant.

There's some preliminary material here on the models used.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13630203

2. http://weightgreat.com/forecast.html

conistonwater2• 9 years ago

You first say "Self reported Food Diaries are seldom accurate" and "This study is the first of it's kind", but you then say "Supper timing is majorly correlated to weight gain". How do you know that? Isn't there a slight contradiction there? If it was correlated, you would then expect an experiment like this to find it.

dxbydt4• 9 years ago

You have a point.

Details - I build weight nodels related to food dairies. I have a few dozen redditors ( mostly from the loseit subreddit ) who have signed up. They send me their food dairy and weight everyday via the free WeightGreat.com service, and I then build models.

From the data I have looked at, I can say supper timing is correlated to weight gain. Moreover if the supper is sourced from mostly carbs ( sugar/starch, not fiber ), weight gain is statistically significant.

matwood4• 9 years ago

Supper timing is majorly correlated to weight gain, especially if most of the calories are from carbs

Please cite study and total overall calories. I have no doubt that timing can play some minor role (just like some people have adverse reactions to certain diets), but overall calories in is going to play a much bigger role in weight than any other factor. Show me a person who is eating a calorie restricted diet, but only eating after say 8pm, and is still gaining weight. I would love to use this trick to save money on food while bulking.

What timing does help with is controlling hunger and thus limiting snacking throughout the day.

lloydde2• 9 years ago

I was a small kid and my kids are small. I've always found late dining to be uncomfortable as I'm too hungry. Thankfully, it isn't cultural in the areas of Canada and USA where I've lived.

Does anyone have any experience where adopting later dining improved happiness or health? What changes did you make? How did you adopt it?

watwut2• 9 years ago

Assuming late dinning is sinning after 20:00, we adopted it in the summer. It definitely improved hapiness, because we did not had to watch the time and could leave playground when we felt like leaving it. (Our playground even had wifi for parental hapiness. Kids were happy to be with friends.) It is safe to assume the health got better too, because we had more sun and kids had more exercise.

We adopted it by not feeling like leaving and taking food with us.

lloydde2• 9 years ago

I like that. The kids want to snack after school anyway, so a later dinner as the weather gets nicer makes a lot of sense. The tricky part might be keeping bedtime reasonable as my kids are still young.

hourislate2• 9 years ago

My opinion is the amount of time spent eating (and not when you eat) is a major contributor to lower obesity rates. When you spend more time chewing and conversing, you seem to eat less and get fuller. Typically you can't even finish your meal.

In NA we eat to quickly not giving our brain and stomach time to send the proper signals of fullness. Try it sometime, take a typically portion and spend 20 minutes not eating more than half of it. You probably won't be able to finish it.

matwood4• 9 years ago

And they are all tricks to eat less.

Reedx• 9 years ago

Obesity isn't about when you eat, it's about what you eat and how much.

ouid3• 9 years ago

How much you eat might have been related to when you eat. No one here is seriously advocating that energy is not conserved.

giarc2• 9 years ago

There was a paper published recently (within last year or two) that looked at the time between first meal and last meal of the day in mice. In general, they found that the shorter time between first and last meal had a significant correlation on weight loss. For example if the time between breakfast and dinner was 10 hours instead of 14 hours, the 10 hour mice weighed less than the 14 hour mice, even on the same diet.

I can't find the citation right now but if I do I will edit the comment.

ouid3• 9 years ago

I'm commenting to express interest in that citation, and will go looking for it myself if you don't find it.

If I had to bullshit a mechanism, I would say that, for well fed mice, activity increases with the amount of time since the last meal, so mice on the early dinner diet would be more active in the mornings before breakfast.

To test this, I would see if I could get the effect to go away by feeding mice as soon as they woke up, and then 10 or 14 hours later.

giarc2• 9 years ago

http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131%2814...

I think this is it. It even includes a nice Graphical Abstract which is kind of comical.

theparanoid• 9 years ago

Another way of saying intermittent fasting works.

projektir2• 9 years ago

For example if the time between breakfast and dinner was 10 hours instead of 14 hours, the 10 hour mice weighed less than the 14 hour mice, even on the same diet.

Doesn't this contradict calories in - calories out?

jelliclesfarm• 9 years ago

It's probably a cultural thing. In India...We ate after 8 all the time. 6.00 is when you get the last installment of caffeine..as tea or coffee. But then again, we were not allowed to come back home until after sunset. Play outside till sunset, homework time afterward, dinner and then a little walk/tv time and then off to bed. Elsewhere...Asian outdoor markets thrive until midnight. In my suburban town in America, everything is dead by 8. It's a tad depressing actually.

Mikeb85• 9 years ago

I think it's weather related. In most countries that have late night outdoor markets, temperatures are unbearably hot during the day, and comfortably warm at night.

In much of North America, half the year is only tolerably warm during the day.

seanmcdirmid• 9 years ago

They thrive past midnight. Especially in more southern locales in the summer, when it isn't even reasonable outside until after 8. Changsha, Guangzhou, Wuhan, etc....

balladeer2• 9 years ago

Another Indian here. I don't know if, ever, I have had dinner before 8 in my entire life here or maybe not even before 9pm. I mean I am sure I would have a couple of times but I just can't remember. Dinner for us meant the thing you do before you sleep.

ZanyProgrammer• 9 years ago

I'm curious-everyone who is doing the contrarian "But I never eat before 8pm/whatever"-where do you live? Also its a bit of a straw man to make 5pm your early eating time-I usually eat between 6 and 7-is that abnormally early? I also tend to get to work earlier and leave earlier as well.

Oletros2• 9 years ago

I live in Spain and we have dinner at 20:00, almost all my friends and family have dinner between 21:00 and 22:00.

My Italian family have dinner at 19:00

foxfired• 9 years ago

I think the problem is not really about eating late, but more of eating a large meal and going to bed right away.

I don't know about it making you gain weight, but I know I wake up tired and my heart rate tracker shows it being much higher then usual.

iopq3• 9 years ago

Still not a problem. Whatever makes you eat the least will let you control your weight. For some people, it might be not eating before bed, for others it may not matter.

soufron• 9 years ago

Who eats before 8pm ?!? O_o

What kind of country are they talking about?

cderwin• 9 years ago

Presumably America? Almost everyone I know regularly eats dinner between 5:30 and 7:30.

ashark• 9 years ago

Young kids need ~11-12 hrs of sleep a night. They have to get up at about 7:00AM (because WE have to get up then) so bedtime is fixed at 7ish. Bedtime routine takes 30-45 minutes. We don't want to have a separate dinner for the kids. Plus we need kid-free time to keep the house in something resembling order. So of course we have early (~5:30) dinner.

How do families in 7:00-9:00 dinner start time countries handle this?

Mc_Big_G• 9 years ago

Why is it so hard for us to accept that obesity is due to overeating? Also, the myth that exercise is the key to losing weight won't die.

hourislate2• 9 years ago

Because the cause of obesity is not that simple to diagnose. There are many factors that contribute to obesity. Over eating is just one.

But I do agree with you that exercise has little to do with losing weight and can be counter productive when trying to lose weight.

Coding_Cat• 9 years ago

Well, overeating is maybe simplified too much but it can be reduced mostly to "wrong eating". Perhaps not overeating in absolute volume but overeating of effetcive calories. There might be metabolic difference between people leading to different eating patterns working for different people, sure. But if you are obese in virtually all cases it is simply a matter of changing your diet (even for the cases that have an independent medical cause such as a thyroid disease). And in most cases the fix is to simply eat less callories in general by eating less and/or healthier alternatives.

And exercise does help you lose body fat, unless you start eating extra to compensate for the exercise as most people vastly overestimate how much calories you actually burn working out. And of course power-training that helps you build muscle mass can increase your weight but that does not mean that it is bad for you. If you're going to the gym regularlly anyway during your diet just measure your body-composition to track your effective weight. (not sure how accurate that is though).

DanBC• 9 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them.

smhost2• 9 years ago

I have a friend who eats 3000~4000 kcals with no exercise and he is as thin as a stick. I have another friend who is a complete couch potato and eats junk food all day with no exercise, and he looks like a gym rat.

I think a lot of the magical thinking surrounding weight loss is because there's no one-size-fits-all solution, so people make up patterns in their heads and believe them to be true.

matwood4• 9 years ago

I have a friend who eats 3000~4000 kcals

Does he keep a detailed food log? I have power lifted and worked out for over a decade now. Every single skinny person who has asked for my help to gain weight has told me exactly what you said above, "I eat 3-4k day and just can't seem to get any bigger." As soon as I put them on a food log we find out that nope, they are barely crossing 2k calories and are like most people who severely under/over estimate how much they eat.

AznHisoka3• 9 years ago

those 2 scenarios are a big reason why people should focus more on general health vs appearance/weight loss.

its likely the couch potatoe is unhealthy inside even though he looks fit on the outside.

on the other side, if someone is overweight (albeit not very obese) but overall eats a healthy diet, it shouldnt be that worrisome.

dchmiel• 9 years ago

I don't like to think about my caloric intake (energy input) in relation to what other people's caloric intake is. It's starting from a reference point that doesn't serve me reliably and becomes very easy to say things such as, I like to eat or have a slow metabolism compared to someone else. But if you think about it, what other people can eat and not gain weight shouldn't matter to you one bit. What happens to you when you eat and how much you eat should matter. For example, it's like comparing your fuel efficiency in relation to another vehicle. (Your metabolism) Let's say that you are a small Smart car and the other vehicle is an F-150 pick up truck. Of course these two vehicles have different energy requirements to move the same distance therefore you don't put the same amount of energy (gasoline) in both vehicles otherwise eventually the Smart car will be overflowing with gasoline since isn't burning enough. So someone with a fast metabolism would be like the F-150 truck and someone with the slow metabolism would be like the Smart car. To think that the two should have the same fuel requirement seems silly whereas people always have an example of someone who can eat more and still stay slim. Maybe they are a truck internally and just need a lot more fuel than you or I but it doesn't mean we should eat similarly to them.

People just need help to find what works for them and for a majority of people who don't have hormone imbalances starting with energy in = energy used personally is going to get them very far in their weight control and just generally understanding what happens to their bodies in relation to food intake. We focus too much on anything but energy intake (this food is a super food, and this is healthy and that isn't). I'm not saying they are not important but if you want to make quick health improvements to a large group of people, starting from energy input to output is more effective.

I used to not be able to put on mass (hard gainer). What I found was that I wasn't eating as much as I thought and really to gain muscle mass and not just mass you then need to not only be in a caloric surplus you need to look a level deeper at your macros and increase your protein in take. If it fits your macros diet would get you close to a body that you are happy with as long as you tweak your macros to what you want to accomplish.

Also, healthy foods do have merit with their micros but again if you don't have hormone issues you can eat what is untraditional considered unhealthy foods, such as McDonalds, and not put on weight or even lose weight as long as you control for caloric intake. The hard part with unhealthy foods is controlling your calories. It is really easy to eat your daily total calories in one or two meals eating unhealthy foods (McDonalds in this example) than eating vegetables and healthier proteins and carbs (lean meats and whole grains). The Supersize me guy didn't get fat because he ate McDonalds he got fat because he ate sooo many calories. Fat Head was a bit of a rebuttal showing what happens when you try to control for calories more. Athletes are known to eat a lot of calories and don't become obese but again it's about getting your energy equation to balance or off balanced in the way you'd like. (caloric surplus to gain weight and a caloric deficit to loss weight)

There will be a lot of nuance in how everyone's bodies will respond and yes watching some metrics other than weight, like blood pressure and cholesterol , will be important in our health. Starting from a high level of just understand OUR personal energy needs and then working from there will give people a lot of benefit and make discussions easier. Because I hear so often from people that what I'm eating is unhealthy when in reality I'm within my caloric intake and within my macro makeup. Just because you eat a homemade cookie or a homemade cake doesn't make it healthier than my Snickers Bar (ooh I love Snickers). And it is so much easier to keep track of my calories when eating a Snickers bar than something homemade. It really is so easy to overeat on those treats especially during the holidays because you have no idea what the person used to bake those.

Peradine• 9 years ago

Basic thermodynamics:

If inputs > outputs, there is net energy storage (as fat or protein)

If inputs < outputs, there is net energy deficit (lost from fat and protein)

Inputs = food and drink consumed

Outputs = Basal metabolic rate (BMR) + energy used for activity + energy lost in urine and faeces

Faeces caloric content varies between 50-350 kcal / day, urine 91–117 kcal / day [1]

Basal metabolic rate is primarily decided by fat-free mass, mass, and age, 26% of BMR is not defined by these parameters. Mean BMR is 1500 kcal/day, and 26% of this represents a variability of 1305-1695 kcal per day.[2]

(350-50) + (117-91) + (1695-1305) = 716 kcal

Therefore two people of identical age, fat-free mass and mass who consume identical caloric intake and perform identical exercise will have, at most, a variance of 716 kcal / day in their energy expenditure from the variance in urinary and faecal caloric loss and BMR

[1]: Rose C, Parker A, Jefferson B, Cartmell E. The Characterization of Feces and Urine: A Review of the Literature to Inform Advanced Treatment Technology. Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology. 2015;45(17):1827-1879. doi:10.1080/10643389.2014.1000761. Section 3.2.5 and Section 3.6.4

[2] Factors influencing variation in basal metabolic rate include fat-free mass, fat mass, age, and circulating thyroxine but not sex, circulating leptin, or triiodothyronine. Johnstone AM, Murison SD, Duncan JS, Rance KA, Speakman JR. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005 Nov;82(5):941-8.

kmm2• 9 years ago

Unless your friends suffers from extreme malabsorption (which would manifest in serious and constant digestive distress), that is just obviously wrong. If the energy is not leaving his body, it has to be either stored or burned up. And you can't burn 4000 kcals on a small frame, he'd be hot to the touch. People taking DNP [0] to lose weight boost their metabolism by way less than that, and that already leads to serious side effects

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,4-Dinitrophenol

maxxxxx• 9 years ago

How old are the guys? I used to not be able to put on weight until I was 35. Then this changed quickly. I am still keeping my weight but I have to be careful.

sambeau• 9 years ago

Do they fidget? Under lab conditions people who seem to do no exercise but consume lots of calories without putting on weight are found to never actually keep still—they fidget and their legs vibrate.

Obese people usually display the opposite: they sit very still.

I often wonder how much obesity is a result of telling young children to keep still and stop fidgeting.

superbaconman• 9 years ago

It's not even overeating. For example people who eat their daily calorie budget within 6 hours temd to lose weight. Intermittent fasting is great for your body. It promotes burning fat and building muscle, but no seems to know or talk about it.

nommm-nommm• 9 years ago

IF gets talked about quite a lot, actually. There's so many different types of interment fasting so it's kinda hard to generalize too much.

I only eat one time a day (dinner) and I'm fatter than ever. It's pretty natural for me to do that and I certainly eat less than than when I worried about trying to eat lunch. But I'm still fat and gaining despite the fact I watch my diet now, unlike when I was thin.

paulpauper• 9 years ago

I read that diets can make things worse by altering metabolism . Metabolism slows when on a diet, but when the diet is over metabolism remains slow, so it becomes very easy to regain the weight and then some.

bluecalm5• 9 years ago

Citation? From what I've seen (for example the biggest loser study) metabolism doesn't slow down when people restrict calories. Yes - they need less after a while but that's because they weigh less. It's almost exactly what those BMR equations would predict.

kmm2• 9 years ago

The evidence for this adaptive thermogenesis is scant and inconclusive. Even if it were true, we're talking about a difference of 100 kcal/day, which doesn't mean one can eat significantly less.

It doesn't make sense that our bodies would be capable of doing this. Evolutionary, if our bodies could do the same tasks for a lower energy expenditure, we'd all do that. But you simply can't keep a body at 37.5°C for half the calories

scholia• 9 years ago

Possibly this article, or one based on it?

After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weig...

Quote:

It has to do with resting metabolism, which determines how many calories a person burns when at rest. When the show began, the contestants, though hugely overweight, had normal metabolisms for their size, meaning they were burning a normal number of calories for people of their weight. When it ended, their metabolisms had slowed radically and their bodies were not burning enough calories to maintain their thinner sizes.

no_wave• 9 years ago

It has more to do with appetite. Fat produces a hormone called leptin, which suppresses appetite. You evaluate the quantity you eat very differently depending on your appetite. A meal that makes me very full at 190 pounds will barely satiate me at 165.

If you asked 190 pounds me how many calories a meal was I'd usually give a higher number than 165 pounds me. Variation in comfortable resting weights likely has more to do with different satiation points than the number of calories burnt by an individual.

overgard4• 9 years ago

This kind of attitude is just FUD -- nothing can be learned from adopting your point of view, because you're convinced the problem is "solved" and not worth discussing, yet your assertion is not proven.

Also even basic metabolic science disproves your claim. If your immune system attacks your pancreas and damages your ability to produce insulin you will lose weight even if you stuff your face constantly, and if you inject insulin you will have trouble burning fat even when you have low glucose levels.

What I don't understand is why people cling to this weirdly puritanical belief obesity is purely the sin of gluttony when its clear scientifically that weight gain and loss are controlled by hormones

horsecaptin• 9 years ago

Perhaps it is from overeating the things that make you fat? :).

We should all figure out what works best for our lifestyles and bodies.

strken• 9 years ago

its clear scientifically that weight gain and loss are controlled by hormones

Is this clear, though? Many people can manage their weight by increasing or decreasing food intake.

It seems more likely that under normal circumstances weight can be easily managed, but other factors can force someone in either direction. Thus Alice doesn't understand why Bob is overweight and Charlie is underweight, because whenever Alice gets chubby or skinny she can easily get back in the normal range. For Alice, staying in shape is so easy that obesity really would be a sign of gluttony and being underweight would be a sign of mental illness, while for Bob and Charlie getting in shape would first require removing environmental factors.

It feels like there are a lot of Alices and a lot of Bobs that both argue with each other as though their own experience applies equally to everyone, which probably isn't true.

bluecalm5• 9 years ago

My view is that you are wrong and your attitude represents the problem we have.

We already know that weight gain is caused by eating too much. This was shown in countless studies (where the amount eaten was actually monitored and not self-reported). The studies also show quite small variations in metabolism among individuals (https://examine.com/nutrition/does-metabolism-vary-between-t...)

If we accepted this information and stop pussyfooting about the issue we could take real steps to solve the problem. There are two major areas which could be improved: access to information and education.

In my view the most important things to have are:

-mandatory calorie information on any food sold, in case of fresh produce they should at least be available online, everything else should be labelled, especially in restaurants/food stands

-educating children about counting calories, estimating calorie needs, direct cause/effect relation between amounts eaten and weight loss/gain, strategies to track food intake, health and mental health risk of gaining weight etc.

Obesity is a big problem, especially for young people. Your health suffers, your self-esteem and mental health suffer, you become a burden to other people in your life who need to take care of you or interact with you in many situations. If you become obese and you never tracked your food intake it's a huge failure of education system, it's like getting scurvy because you didn't know you need Vitamin C to prevent it.

ue_2• 9 years ago

Also, the myth that exercise is the key to losing weight won't die.

As someone who's on the verge of being overweight, what is the key to losing weight? This seems like a very curious proposition.

Steer• 9 years ago

I think the point OP is trying to make is that it is very easy to eat in excess (calorie-wise) to what you are burning by training since physical activity will often make you crave more food. Doing some kind of training is obviously good for you, but you will not necessarily lose weight if you don't restrict your caloric intake.

Just like intelligence differs, your ability to gain or lose weight is not the same as other peoples'. In my experience it is not fair, but on the other hand, what is?

I would recommend something like the slow carb diet (Tim Ferriss), but anything that restrict your intake of calories and that you feel you can sustain over a long period of time is good.

WA• 9 years ago

what is the key to losing weight?

Easy win: No sugary drinks. Juice is as unhealthy as coke. If you want something with flavor, drink tea (without sugar).

For most people, it's to understand this: Carbohydrates make you gain weight. Not the fat in food.

Somewhat hard to implement, but with significant results: Cut sugar entirely from your diet. This automatically results in much healthier eating, because you have to check ingredients on everything this way.

chris_7• 9 years ago

Eat fewer calories than you expend. Most of your expenditure is BMR + walking around, exercise doesn't add that much (unless you're at Olympic-swimmer levels).

tomjen3• 9 years ago

Eating less calories than you take in: measure your food accurately and keep a food log, then stay under the computed target for the day.

It works every time, it is just hard to keep up with if you aren't motivated. I know it works though, it help me shred 25kg.

dgfgfdagasdfgfa• 9 years ago

Because you can't describe metabolic needs with an implicit, seemingly obvious(!?) limit to how many calories you need of which types.

dclowd9901• 9 years ago

You're right and you're wrong. The problem is we don't even know what "overeating" is yet on an individual basis. Some people can pack away thousands of calories a day, not do a lick of exercise, and be fine. Others (like me) have to severely restrain their eating (to say less than 1500 calories a day) to prevent weight gain.

Once we figure out how to accurately measure basic metabolic process, we'll have gone a long way toward figuring out this woeful conundrum.

an_account2• 9 years ago

It doesn't take long to figure out for yourself... Start tracking calories and also weight, and then slowly adjust daily caloric intake until you stop changing weight.

kinkrtyavimoodh• 9 years ago

"Some people can pack away thousands of calories a day and be fine"

They are almost certainly not packing thousands of calories a day, everyday. Most of these people who you see eating a lot occasionally probably have very controlled and disciplined diets most of the time (whether that control comes easily to them or with great struggle is a different matter).

But it is simply not true that you can eat at significant net caloric surplus _regularly_ without gaining weight.

kolinko2• 9 years ago

The question is what causes overeating. With some people it's obviously bad habits, but we also know that thyroid problems, anxiety, adhd and other brain issues can cause overeating.

dxhdr2• 9 years ago

accept that obesity is due to overeating?

That's a tautology, the question is why. What causes overeating and why do some people have great difficulty with it?

It's clearly not as simple as thinking to yourself, "I'd like to eat just enough today such that I don't overeat." Why are some bodies able to regulate caloric intake and others aren't?

an_account2• 9 years ago

Addiction. Mental willpower. Emotional connections to food.

If you can't start tracking calories and reducing intake yourself, then you should probably seek professional help. One issue is that many people don't see it as a health or lifestyle problem, and make endless excuses for why they can't possibly lose weight, ignoring advice from medical professionals.

angry_octet• 9 years ago

"The lead author of the study, Dr Gerda Pot, is a Visiting Lecturer in the Diabetes and Nutritional Sciences Division and is also based at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She said: ‘The findings of our study are surprising. We expected to find an association between eating later and being more likely to be overweight but actually found that this was not the case. This may be due to the limited number of children consuming their evening meal after 8pm in this cohort."

So the study is far too small to have the power to come to surprising conclusions, and should probably be retracted.

Also, Science Bulletin has very annoying popovers that will drive the audience away.

jjawssd• 9 years ago

When do you eat dinner?

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niels_olson• 9 years ago

Unfortunately, some people are going to read this wrong. For example: I know some folks who have "second dinner" after 8 pm. Their children are definitively obese, and I can see them citing this study as a reason to keep eating "a meal called dinner" after 8 pm.

sandworm101• 9 years ago

When else are they going to eat?

I was once a serios competative swimmer (think top 100 in the US). If i ate between school at say 4pm and training at 5, that dinner would have been floating down the lanes. After 8pm was the only option. (Same for breakfast. Eat after training, on way to school.) Properly active kids eat when they can. Nobody should skip exercise or other activity for the sake of some silly 1950s eating schedual.

balladeer2• 9 years ago

So the last time I had put on weight (an accident -> was bedridden for long) I decided to fix my food intake along with running and sports. One advice I received from a dietician was that have dinner at least 2 hours before you go to bed and I followed it. I don't know whether it was other things that worked too or only others worked but I felt a clear difference in my fitness, sleep pattern ("very" uninterrupted), digestion, and mood when I woke up the next morning.

On a side note, when I was S Korea - dinner happened at 5pm and I could never get used to it :-)

No link between eating dinner after 8pm, obesity in children

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