Though some people tell me that calories are calories, I think our body process different types of food differently (meaning that a 500 calorie fast food burger will make you fatter than a 500 calorie from a well-balanced meal). I may be wrong.
Sort of yes, sort of no. 500 calories = 500 calories in each meal, though the nutrition content will certainly have an effect, which is why people shouldn't focus solely on calories (symptomatic, I think, of people's overall lack of health consciousness). A 500 cal burger will have a greater cholesterol and fat (especially saturated fat) content than the healthy meal. The cholesterol is bad on its own of course, but bodies are designed to store fat as they come by it, which then piles on. Some calories of particular chemicals (eg, carbohydrates) are converted into fat for easy storage (waste not, want not) if they aren't immediately used.
Some foods are more dense than others, despite having the same caloric content. Eating something that's not very filling but high in calories will still leave you feeling hungry and prone to eating another unfilling thing. Hence soft drink (or any drink) weight-gain. Liquids aren't usually especially filling, and people forget about the calories in them.
Finally, there's evidence that high-fructose corn syrup inhibits signals from the stomach telling the brain it's full, leading to over-eating. And considering that HFCS is in every possible thing you can imagine...
There's a thriving diet industry because there are so many overweight people now and diets and diety gimmicks usually fail, leading people to try multiple ones. If you are obese and have been so long enough that your body treats that as the norm, consult with a doctor and a nutritionist to develop a get-fit plan that will work best for your body and not cause it to go into starvation-mode. As for a food addiction...? Go to the grocery store and not stock up on fatty, greasy, sugary, pre-prepared foods. I rather doubt you're addicted to salads and fruit, as opposed to, say, ice cream and donuts (or pizza, or red meat, or nearly everything being sold these days).
Now, different people do have different body types, and what works for some will not be true for everyone. As I said, some people naturally have lower metabolisms. Complaining about such doesn't make it increase, however. People with some kind of honest disorder (like hypothyroidism) aren't really all that common, and certainly not to the levels visible in society today. Perhaps a few more people than that are on medications that cause weight gain (more plausible, given how many people are on some form of medication these days, it seems).
Be as defensive as you like, but that's not going to change anything. Being thin takes a lot of continuous, never-ending effort. Probably some people will never be totally slimmed-down. However, in the process of getting to their lowest achievable weight and maintaining it, they will still have greatly improved their overall health.
"We take this personal responsibility approach and say well, just exercise more and eat less, but it's much more complicated than that," Puhl said. "If it were that easy, we wouldn't have this epidemic that we have now."
Except it is that simple. You lose weight if you burn more calories than you consume (exercise more, eat less). It's only "complicated" because people don't really prioritize their health and weight: they "don't have time" to work out or cook a real meal, but they'll sit and watch TV two hours every night because it's easier. They don't plan on having to enforce a regiment of healthy nutrition on themselves, and when they do, they're "on a diet," not just eating how they're supposed to all the time. They don't expect to have to maintain the exercise and the proper eating for months and years for results, so they get burned out after 3 months of only losing a couple pounds, give up, and declare they weren't meant to be skinny (or they keep it up until they're in the shape they want, then quit because hey, they reached their goal).
And even if you do have genetics working against you-- so what? You got the short end of the metabolism stick. You can't eat as much as others without getting fat and you'll have to work harder to get it off. But if you want to be skinny, that's what you'll have to deal with.
Ugh. I can't believe someone's conflating the brain dead issue by referring to a person still having a functioning hypothalamus. That's not the part that has any of the person in it. It does all the automatic processes; there are no memories there, no personality... if everything but the brain stem regions are dead, that person is gone in every way but body.
If ever a purse might come anywhere close to being worth $800 (not counting gemstone add-ons like they do to up the price for "world's most expensive X!"), it could be one of these. I wonder how well they actually hold up... I'm sure they couldn't be for everyday usage.
And thanks to some car company's President Day sale ads, I can remember that Millard Fillmore was the first president to have a running water bath installed. :)
Actually, clothing sizes have changed since then. Unfortunately, it's now vanity sizing...if you were to try on some clothing from the 40s or 50s, you'd probably have to get a larger size than what you would wear nowadays. Marilyn Monroe-- curvy but certainly not obese-- was a size 14 back in her day, iirc.
Sort of yes, sort of no. 500 calories = 500 calories in each meal, though the nutrition content will certainly have an effect, which is why people shouldn't focus solely on calories (symptomatic, I think, of people's overall lack of health consciousness). A 500 cal burger will have a greater cholesterol and fat (especially saturated fat) content than the healthy meal. The cholesterol is bad on its own of course, but bodies are designed to store fat as they come by it, which then piles on. Some calories of particular chemicals (eg, carbohydrates) are converted into fat for easy storage (waste not, want not) if they aren't immediately used.
Some foods are more dense than others, despite having the same caloric content. Eating something that's not very filling but high in calories will still leave you feeling hungry and prone to eating another unfilling thing. Hence soft drink (or any drink) weight-gain. Liquids aren't usually especially filling, and people forget about the calories in them.
Finally, there's evidence that high-fructose corn syrup inhibits signals from the stomach telling the brain it's full, leading to over-eating. And considering that HFCS is in every possible thing you can imagine...
There's a thriving diet industry because there are so many overweight people now and diets and diety gimmicks usually fail, leading people to try multiple ones. If you are obese and have been so long enough that your body treats that as the norm, consult with a doctor and a nutritionist to develop a get-fit plan that will work best for your body and not cause it to go into starvation-mode. As for a food addiction...? Go to the grocery store and not stock up on fatty, greasy, sugary, pre-prepared foods. I rather doubt you're addicted to salads and fruit, as opposed to, say, ice cream and donuts (or pizza, or red meat, or nearly everything being sold these days).
Now, different people do have different body types, and what works for some will not be true for everyone. As I said, some people naturally have lower metabolisms. Complaining about such doesn't make it increase, however. People with some kind of honest disorder (like hypothyroidism) aren't really all that common, and certainly not to the levels visible in society today. Perhaps a few more people than that are on medications that cause weight gain (more plausible, given how many people are on some form of medication these days, it seems).
Be as defensive as you like, but that's not going to change anything. Being thin takes a lot of continuous, never-ending effort. Probably some people will never be totally slimmed-down. However, in the process of getting to their lowest achievable weight and maintaining it, they will still have greatly improved their overall health.
"We take this personal responsibility approach and say well, just exercise more and eat less, but it's much more complicated than that," Puhl said. "If it were that easy, we wouldn't have this epidemic that we have now."
Except it is that simple. You lose weight if you burn more calories than you consume (exercise more, eat less). It's only "complicated" because people don't really prioritize their health and weight: they "don't have time" to work out or cook a real meal, but they'll sit and watch TV two hours every night because it's easier. They don't plan on having to enforce a regiment of healthy nutrition on themselves, and when they do, they're "on a diet," not just eating how they're supposed to all the time. They don't expect to have to maintain the exercise and the proper eating for months and years for results, so they get burned out after 3 months of only losing a couple pounds, give up, and declare they weren't meant to be skinny (or they keep it up until they're in the shape they want, then quit because hey, they reached their goal).
And even if you do have genetics working against you-- so what? You got the short end of the metabolism stick. You can't eat as much as others without getting fat and you'll have to work harder to get it off. But if you want to be skinny, that's what you'll have to deal with.