75% of Americans Too Fat or Dumb to Join Army

[Coito ergo sum]

Studies have repeatedly found that there is a positive correlation between watching television and obesity. The Nurses’ Health Study (Hu et al, 2003), for example, looked at 50,000 women, ages 30-55, to see if there was a relationship between prolonged TV watching and obesity. The study found strong evidence that television viewing and obesity were definitely linked, concluding that women had a 23% increased chance of obesity for every additional 2 hours of television time they watched.

The association between TV viewing and body weight is not observed only in adults; the relationship is actually more evident in children. Bener’s 2010 study, titled “Obesity and low vision as a result of excessive Internet use and television viewing”, points out that school students who spend prolonged hours in front of television tend to be overweight or obese.

Undoubtedly, obesity and TV viewing are related. But is the relationship causal? Is the one causing the other? In other words, is the very act of watching TV causing people to become heavier? Α causal relationship of television viewing to obesity has been strongly suggested in the scientific literature. If you are interested in learning how exactly TV viewing can make you gain weight, I would urge you to read on.

Why Watching TV Could Make You Fat?
1. You Eat Junk – Food Commercials Promote Unhealthy Eating

The potential impact of advertising is phenomenal. Advertising, especially TV commercials, are so influential that there are regulations for how companies campaign during election season, what can be advertised during children’s programs, etc. The regulations are imposed because advertisements are extremely powerful in influencing people’s decisions.

If you see an advertisement on television for food, chances are it’s not going to be promoting eating spinach. Typically, within one hour of television watching you will be exposed to approximately at least 10 food and beverage commercials. Given that commercials have a great impact on people, this is a lot of food exposure.When we are constantly bombarded with images of food that aren’t good for us but oh-so-tasty, we begin to crave those foods. Those cravings turn into snacking in front of the television or going out to buy the advertised food, which means consuming calories you don’t need.

2. You Eat More – Watching TV Increases Your Energy Intake

In a study of 78 mostly female undergraduate students, eating behavior was examined in relation to television viewing. The study compared days when women ate meals while watching television to days when eating occurred without television. Interestingly, participants ate more on TV days. Specifically, on the days with television viewing, the participants ate an extra meal, which significantly increased their total daily calorie intake.

There is a reason why we have the propensity to eat more while we are watching television. TV has a way of distracting us, especially when we’re really absorbed in a good program. When we are munching and watching TV at the same time, we do not necessarily pay attention to what we are doing; overeating is common. Eating when you’re not hungry is common.

Since TV distracts us, we tend to bypass our habitual dietary restraints and keep eating. “Watching TV draws attention away from the eaten food and can stimulate food consumption”, explains professor Marion M. Hetherington of the department of psychology of Glasgow Caledonian University.

A lot of people will eat out of habit, simply because they always eat while watching TV. Sometimes people eat to occupy their hands and mouth. Whatever the reason, because we get distracted in front of the TV, we’re not consciously making decisions about the food we put into our mouths.

One particular study observed 48 women and revealed their eating habits when they ate in front of a TV. The participants were served 4 lunch meals and instructed to eat two of them in a quiet room with no TV or any other distraction. The other two meals were to be eaten in a room while watching television. Not surprisingly, women consumed 13.4% more calories in the presence of a TV.

3. You Spend Less Energy – Being a TV Couch Potato Doesn’t Burn Calories

Metabolism is the process by which your body converts the food you consume into energy. To lose weight, you must burn more calories than the amount of energy you burn, thereby creating a deficit of calories. Television viewing does not help you create this deficit. This is because television increases inactivity and lowers your metabolic rate.

Interestingly, one study showed that watching TV for one day results in burning more than 200 fewer calories than simply lying on your bed without watching TV.

Sitting or lying on the couch with your eyes fixed on a television screen doesn’t exactly burn a lot of calories. People who tend to watch a lot of TV every day usually don’t squeeze in the time to exercise. But even if you can manage to juggle your TV time with exercise, the fact remains that people tend to eat in front of the TV, and it’s that kind of unhealthy snacking that packs on the calories, and consequently contributes to weight gain.

4. You Consume More Food at Subsequent Meals

Eating isn’t just a problem while you are watching TV, but rather it can extend beyond TV viewing hours. Television viewing is associated with an increase in eating during meals that follow. One study specifically found that television watching during lunch time increases afternoon snack intake. This increases the overall daily calorie intake, which, when combined with the lower metabolic rate that results from watching TV, leads to weight gain.

According to researchers, eating more at subsequent meals after television viewing may be attributed to the distractibility caused by TV. Individuals who watch TV and eat at the same time find it hard to recall later what they ate and how much they consumed.

Women in that study ate lunch either quietly, or with a TV program on. Three hours later, they were then asked to rate how much they could recall about the lunch they had eaten. The women who watched TV while they ate their lunch were not able to recall as many details about their lunch. Memory is definitely hindered when watching television.

This is important, because researchers believe that remembering what we eat has an impact on how much we eat later on. If it has been registered in our memory that we snacked a few hours ago, we will be less inclined to continue snacking later on. A good example of how memory affects eating behavior is this: an amnesiac who is offered a sequence of meals tends to overeat compared to a person with normal memory capabilities. Researchers believe that remembering the quantity of what we ate is important for portion control during subsequent meals.

http://www.hivehealthmedia.com/television-obesity/

Occam's Razor.

[Warren Dew]

I did qualify my statements with "aside from medical issues," which covers the diabetic issue you cited. That doesn't apply to the average fat person.

It was not the diabetes that caused that effect. It was the insulin - the same insulin a nondiabetic person would have created himself, just concentrated in two locations rather than uniformly spread throughout the body.

If it did apply to the average fat person, then it would have applied 30 and 50 years ago too. We were a much skinnier people too.

Maybe you were a much skinnier person 30 years ago. I'm still thin, because I actually understand how different foods cause different effects in the body.

30 years ago, full fat meat was not considered unhealthy; we emphasized a balanced diet. Today, we emphasize a high grains, high carb, highly insulinogenic diet. Thus the increase in fat.

[Coito ergo sum]

I did qualify my statements with "aside from medical issues," which covers the diabetic issue you cited. That doesn't apply to the average fat person.

It was not the diabetes that caused that effect. It was the insulin - the same insulin a nondiabetic person would have created himself, just concentrated in two locations rather than uniformly spread throughout the body.

If it did apply to the average fat person, then it would have applied 30 and 50 years ago too. We were a much skinnier people too.

Maybe you were a much skinnier person 30 years ago. I'm still thin, because I actually understand how different foods cause different effects in the body.

30 years ago, full fat meat was not considered unhealthy; we emphasized a balanced diet. Today, we emphasize a high grains, high carb, highly insulinogenic diet. Thus the increase in fat.

Once again -- today, we eat 30% more calories per day than we did then, and we do substantially less physical activity. That is why Americans are statistically fatter than they were 30 and 50 years ago.

Most of this "how different foods cause different effects" is window dressing. Look - -if you eat 3000 calories a day, in whatever combination, and you only use 2,000 calories to maintain body weight, then you're going to gain fat. It's physics, and chemistry.

[Warren Dew]

Once again -- today, we eat 30% more calories per day than we did then, and we do substantially less physical activity. That is why Americans are statistically fatter than they were 30 and 50 years ago.

Today, we eat twice as much carbohydrate as we did then, while the amount of fat and protein we eat has not increased. That is why Americans are statistically fatter than they were 30 and 50 years ago.

Most of this "how different foods cause different effects" is window dressing. Look - -if you eat 3000 calories a day, in whatever combination, and you only use 2,000 calories to maintain body weight, then you're going to gain fat. It's physics, and chemistry.

You eat food that doesn't burn itself off or pass through undigested, and I don't eat those foods. That's why your shape is rounded, and mine isn't.

[Coito ergo sum]

Once again -- today, we eat 30% more calories per day than we did then, and we do substantially less physical activity. That is why Americans are statistically fatter than they were 30 and 50 years ago.

Today, we eat twice as much carbohydrate as we did then, while the amount of fat and protein we eat has not increased. That is why Americans are statistically fatter than they were 30 and 50 years ago.

You're seriously disputing that eating 30% more calories per day, and being less active, is a cause of fat gain?

A person who eats 80% carbs and 20% fat and proteins, but takes in 2000 calories a day and uses 2000 calories a day, can't possibly gain weight. If the person takes in a caloric surplus, however, he or she will very likely gain weight.

Most of this "how different foods cause different effects" is window dressing. Look - -if you eat 3000 calories a day, in whatever combination, and you only use 2,000 calories to maintain body weight, then you're going to gain fat. It's physics, and chemistry.

You eat food that doesn't burn itself off or pass through undigested, and I don't eat those foods. That's why your shape is rounded, and mine isn't.

Mine isn't rounded. I was making jokes.

I eat fewer calories than my body uses, that's why I've been losing weight lately.

But, we'll never decide this issue. I know a lot of people who went with the low carb thing -- but, in every case, in order to keep track and understand of the relative balance of carbs, proteins and fats being taken in, they invariably wind up reducing their calories overall, and they're taking steps to be more active.

For 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate one of these sugary cakelets every three hours, instead of meals. To add variety in his steady stream of Hostess and Little Debbie snacks, Haub munched on Doritos chips, sugary cereals and Oreos, too.
His premise: That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most -- not the nutritional value of the food.
The premise held up: On his "convenience store diet," he shed 27 pounds in two months.

For a class project, Haub limited himself to less than 1,800 calories a day. A man of Haub's pre-dieting size usually consumes about 2,600 calories daily. So he followed a basic principle of weight loss: He consumed significantly fewer calories than he burned.
His body mass index went from 28.8, considered overweight, to 24.9, which is normal. He now weighs 174 pounds.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/tw ... index.html

[Coito ergo sum]

Calories also play the largest role in weight control. If you consume more calories than your body needs to use for energy, the left over calories will be stored on the body mostly in the form of fat (thus causing weight gain). If you consume less calories than your body needs to use, it does the opposite and uses stored body fat for energy instead (thus causing weight loss). If you consume the same number of calories that your body uses, everything evens out (thus causing weight maintenance).

http://www.acaloriecounter.com/diet-guide.php

[Gawdzilla Sama]

How dumb does one have to be to avoid getting into a job where one is quite likely to be killed, maimed, or traumatized?

In 1969 I was working in a grocery store after school. The assistant manager was a young man who weighed about 375-400 pounds. He would go into his local draft board once a year and leave with a 4-F draft rating. "See you next year!" they'd say as he left. He was quite pleased with his clever method of dodging the draft. In 1975, after they'd officially stopped draft folks, he died of heart attack.

[amused]

I'm limiting calories to around 1500 a day, and have increased my rollerblading to 15.5 miles most days, which the various calculators estimate is around 800 calories burned. So I'm running a daily calorie deficit of about 1300 calories off a 2000 normal budget. At that rate I *should* be losing 2 pounds a week using the basic math of 3500 calories per pound, but I'm closer to 1 pound in actuality.

Since I'm doing that much exercise, I am concerned about maintaining my muscles, joints and tendons, so I'm careful to keep protein relatively high. When you do that, and limit calories, the math forces you toward higher protein and lower carbs in the food you do eat. So it's not a consciously 'low carb' diet, it's just that the math puts you there by default.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Don't forget to wear your armor.

[Coito ergo sum]

I'm limiting calories to around 1500 a day, and have increased my rollerblading to 15.5 miles most days, which the various calculators estimate is around 800 calories burned. So I'm running a daily calorie deficit of about 1300 calories off a 2000 normal budget. At that rate I *should* be losing 2 pounds a week using the basic math of 3500 calories per pound, but I'm closer to 1 pound in actuality.

Since I'm doing that much exercise, I am concerned about maintaining my muscles, joints and tendons, so I'm careful to keep protein relatively high. When you do that, and limit calories, the math forces you toward higher protein and lower carbs in the food you do eat. So it's not a consciously 'low carb' diet, it's just that the math puts you there by default.

Sounds like you're knockin' it out!

You might be giving yourself too much of a caloric deficit. 500 a day is good, and you'll probably lose about a pound per week.

The key to this, though, is an accurate base line measurement. The variation in the amount of weight you calculate you should lose versus how much you are, in fact, losing, could very well be a function of your numbers being off.

Number 1, too high of a caloric deficit can reduce your metabolism, so that you're not burning as many calories per minute as you were when you were eating more. Also, as you lose weight, your calorie needs to maintain weight go down, so you should expect to see a shallowing of the curve there- - decreasing returns over time.

Sounds like you're doing great, though. If you don't have a trainer or nutritionist, I always recommend one of those. They are invaluable, and if they're qualified they can measure your calorie needs a bit more precisely.

[amused]

Yeah, I suspect I'm not accounting for all the calories that I do eat. When I weigh and measure everything, and write it all down, I'm hungry at the end of the day. When I'm lax about that, I think random calories like sugar in the coffee get into the mix and raise the actual daily total. But with the exercise I have more leeway, so I'm comfortable being comfortable and still losing the weight.

I'm in the home stretch now, with about 8 pounds to go, so I'm in that flattened curve for sure. But even small losses now are visually very evident, so that's a motivation to keep going.

[Coito ergo sum]

Awesome! I always love to hear success stories!

And, you're right, it's better to be comfortable, and a little slower, than to be really hungry. A reasonable caloric deficit and slow and steady wins the race!

Keep on doin' it! You can achieve that which you desire to achieve!

[eXcommunicate]

Is there a "safe" range of pounds per week a person should lose? Like 1-2 pounds and any more than that might be unhealthy? Serious question.

[Bella Fortuna]

I'd say two per week max, but that would take some serious deprivation and exertion, and I don't know if it's sustainable. One per week is still plenty of work/calorie-cutting but the impact is more reasonable.

[Bella Fortuna]

Yeah, I suspect I'm not accounting for all the calories that I do eat. When I weigh and measure everything, and write it all down, I'm hungry at the end of the day. When I'm lax about that, I think random calories like sugar in the coffee get into the mix and raise the actual daily total. But with the exercise I have more leeway, so I'm comfortable being comfortable and still losing the weight.

I'm in the home stretch now, with about 8 pounds to go, so I'm in that flattened curve for sure. But even small losses now are visually very evident, so that's a motivation to keep going.

This is great! Well done!

Before and after pics are required...