Post: #1

It premieres on the 14th in a few days. You'll be able to watch it online:

http://theweightofthenation.hbo.com/film...nsequences

Trailer:

Post: #2

Post: #3

medication for livestyle deseases is a billon dollar market. there is no interest of corporate America in healthier consumers. either people educate themselves on the matter of nutrition and lifestyle or they will stay fat consumer cows (=/= fat-consumers).

Post: #4

Any one else notice that all of the "solutions" for solving the weight problem are straight from the food & beverage industries lobbying book? http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/us_nutrition.html

Post: #5

Americans rely on convenience and make the primary flavours of their food salt, fat, and sugar.

Elsewhere in the world many cultures rely on actual herbs and spices to make their food delicious. I cooked a thai dish today from a cookbook. Sure it was high in calories and fat from the coconut milk, but the flavours were deep and complex. If you take time to enjoy that sensation food will take on a new meaning. So many people I know eat food just because they are hungry not because they even have pleasure in tasting it.

Post: #6

I generally see this as a form of social Darwinism. It's kind of like smoking in that everyone knows its unhealthy (full disclosure, i do smoke on occasion). All of these fat people know what their doing is unhealthy, the just don't have the willpower to do anything about it. Last year I graduated college and realized I was overweight, so I made the conscious decision to eat better and lose the weight. If Americans want to stay fat, let them. Its less competition for the rest of us.

Post: #7

(05-11-2012 11:54 PM)WesternCancer Wrote:  Americans rely on convenience and make the primary flavours of their food salt, fat, and sugar.

Elsewhere in the world many cultures rely on actual herbs and spices to make their food delicious. I cooked a thai dish today from a cookbook. Sure it was high in calories and fat from the coconut milk, but the flavours were deep and complex. If you take time to enjoy that sensation food will take on a new meaning. So many people I know eat food just because they are hungry not because they even have pleasure in tasting it.

There is nothing wrong with salt and fat, but there is something wrong with sugar and carbs and processed foods. So for example, within the fat category, there are some fats that your body cannot absorb or process, which tend to be processed fats.

I'm sure that in the documentary there will be quite a bit of misinformation to suggest that fat makes you fat, and even that fat from meat is bad; however, they will be glossing over the fact that not all meats are equal, and even the way that animals are fed can screw up the fats.. if you feed salmon grains it's gonna screw up the fat, same with cows.... but I frequently, say to myself, without a lot of evidence, that it is better to eat natural meat with the fat (such as a big fatty steak and don't over cook it) than it is to eat a large variety of carbs that have little to no nutritional value.

Post: #8

(07-17-2016 03:22 PM)Marcus Aurelius Wrote:  I generally see this as a form of social Darwinism. It's kind of like smoking in that everyone knows its unhealthy (full disclosure, i do smoke on occasion). All of these fat people know what their doing is unhealthy, the just don't have the willpower to do anything about it. Last year I graduated college and realized I was overweight, so I made the conscious decision to eat better and lose the weight. If Americans want to stay fat, let them. Its less competition for the rest of us.

I agree that people are generally smarter than they get credit for; however, I do believe that the amount of disinformation is overwhelming, and generally fat people make a lot of efforts to attempt to lose weight (not all fat people, of course); however, frequently people believe that they are eating healthy food (because it says "healthy" on the box), and I cannot really blame them for such disinformation. They are told similar kinds of nonsense disinformation by through advertisements, but also by their doctors and other health professionals who may have received 20 hours or less of nutritional training, and even if they receive nutritional training. Health professionals, are frequently trained with nonsense concepts such as fat makes you fat and a calorie is a calorie, including dietary practitioners.

There is a lot of money in food and medicine and insurance, and I will be surprised if the documentary goes beyond superficial claims that americans are getting facts. At least they will get some of the facts correct that americans are getting fat, but I would be willing to wager that the odds are in the 90 percentile that they are going to mislead regarding both the causes and the solutions, and they are not too likely to piss off the drug industry or the food industry through this documentary.

Post: #9

(07-17-2016 03:22 PM)Marcus Aurelius Wrote:  I generally see this as a form of social Darwinism. It's kind of like smoking in that everyone knows its unhealthy (full disclosure, i do smoke on occasion).

I would love to live in a libertarian world where we pretty much controlled our own destinies.. for better or worse.

However in this world, we have a level of socialized medicine: Business group policies, Medicade, Medicare, ACA, etc.... 5% of the people eat up over 80% of the health care costs. Morbidly obese will drain the system with their cascading health issues.

Post: #10

(07-17-2016 04:16 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  I agree that people are generally smarter than they get credit for; however, I do believe that the amount of disinformation is overwhelming, and generally fat people make a lot of efforts to attempt to lose weight (not all fat people, of course); however, frequently people believe that they are eating healthy food (because it says "healthy" on the box), and I cannot really blame them for such disinformation.

This ties into the conversation we had in another thread (Keto diet):

On my Facebook I have a friend who went mostly vegan. I get tagged on all sorts of posts about how meat will give you all sorts of diseases and will cause the earth to turn into an overheated poised sphere of death in x many years or so. Then there are lots of posts about the joy and health of living on a 100% plant based diet.

The stuff she has posted (minus the planet killing crap) is pretty much the same spiel I got as a kid in public school health classes (this was before Vegan was even a term). Today in my city, the public school have 'Meatless Mondays' and a private nursery school instituted mandatory vegan meals.

Three years ago, my health improved dramatically when I cut waay back on sugar / carbs and added more animal protein and fat to my diet (always ate a lot of green veggies). I have the blood work and the weight loss to prove it.

The government's food period and veganism are both full of high carb crap.

Post: #11

(07-17-2016 06:15 PM)Hell_Is_Like_Newark Wrote:  

(07-17-2016 04:16 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  I agree that people are generally smarter than they get credit for; however, I do believe that the amount of disinformation is overwhelming, and generally fat people make a lot of efforts to attempt to lose weight (not all fat people, of course); however, frequently people believe that they are eating healthy food (because it says "healthy" on the box), and I cannot really blame them for such disinformation.

This ties into the conversation we had in another thread (Keto diet):

Yes, exactly. Here's the link to that thread, and hopefully you will be able to elaborate more in that thread(I think that there were still a few outstanding discussion points).

(07-17-2016 06:15 PM)Hell_Is_Like_Newark Wrote:  On my Facebook I have a friend who went mostly vegan. I get tagged on all sorts of posts about how meat will give you all sorts of diseases and will cause the earth to turn into an overheated poised sphere of death in x many years or so. Then there are lots of posts about the joy and health of living on a 100% plant based diet.

Actually, I think that is a more specific example of the point that I am attempting to make.

We do not have too many vegans in RVF, but I am sure there are a few. In any event, I cannot really bash vegans for some of the ideological component and even the seeming good intentions to be less cruel to animals and to improve sustainability of the planet...

But in the end, even though these various vegan plots sound fine and dandy, they are quite dangerous to the health of men (and women).

Maybe I sound like some kind of extremist, but they are fucking wrong in a lot of ways in terms of which kinds of foods are more nutritious and even how the body absorbs nutrition.

I do believe that there are some people who are more tolerant of plants and maybe their bodies can better absorb nutrition without as many negative health effects, but the most nutritious foods are organ meats and fats, and better if the animals were raised in natural environments. So for example a chicken is much more nutritious if it is eating bugs, grass and digging through shit for maggots than if it is eating grains - even though chickens can eat both, but their fat is gonna get screwed up if they are eating too many grains and not enough bugs and grass.

(07-17-2016 06:15 PM)Hell_Is_Like_Newark Wrote:  The stuff she has posted (minus the planet killing crap) is pretty much the same spiel I got as a kid in public school health classes (this was before Vegan was even a term). Today in my city, the public school have 'Meatless Mondays' and a private nursery school instituted mandatory vegan meals.

Yeah some of this has gotten a bit ridiculous in schools in terms of attempting to control kids who bring lunches (not all schools monitor this), and providing vending machines with junk food and low fat milk. Your body recognizes low fat milk almost the same as a soda.

(07-17-2016 06:15 PM)Hell_Is_Like_Newark Wrote:  Three years ago, my health improved dramatically when I cut waay back on sugar / carbs and added more animal protein and fat to my diet (always ate a lot of green veggies). I have the blood work and the weight loss to prove it.

Probably leafy greens are o.k., and I am pretty sure that the nutrients in a lot of vegetables will digest better with fat, whether butter or animal fat or coconut oil.

(07-17-2016 06:15 PM)Hell_Is_Like_Newark Wrote:  The government's food period and veganism are both full of high carb crap.

Well, the food pyramid has turned to a food plate, and I think that the pyramid was a little bit better than the plate, but even the pyramid was incomplete and maybe should have been inversed, meaning fat and meat should be on the bottom (the base) and grains and sugars (to the extent that they have any nutrition at all) on the top (the narrow part).

Post: #12

(07-17-2016 06:08 PM)Hell_Is_Like_Newark Wrote:  

(07-17-2016 03:22 PM)Marcus Aurelius Wrote:  I generally see this as a form of social Darwinism. It's kind of like smoking in that everyone knows its unhealthy (full disclosure, i do smoke on occasion).

I would love to live in a libertarian world where we pretty much controlled our own destinies.. for better or worse.

However in this world, we have a level of socialized medicine: Business group policies, Medicade, Medicare, ACA, etc.... 5% of the people eat up over 80% of the health care costs. Morbidly obese will drain the system with their cascading health issues.

I'm not sure if libertarianism is the answer, but there is some issue to which government is allowing big money to control food, medicine and insurance. Probably, it would be better to have broad access to health care by everyone in order that they are able to engage in preventative measures, but yeah, the american system is all screwed up because of money incentives, yet I don't think the solution is to wipe it all out even though we do likely need major changes that allow proper science.. but no one is going to fund sunshine and natural foods..

I mean how much can they make on getting you to eat eggs rather than the shit in a box that fakes being an egg (egg beaters.. hahahaha.. what crap)

Post: #13

In response to the movie "Supersize Me" there was a paleo-inspired movie titled "Fat Head"; the main guy decides to lose weight on a pure fast food diet, and it provides a fair bit of information on digestion, fats, etc. It was probably better than the HBO documentary will be:

Post: #14

(07-19-2016 09:56 AM)Aurini Wrote:  In response to the movie "Supersize Me" there was a paleo-inspired movie titled "Fat Head"; the main guy decides to lose weight on a pure fast food diet, and it provides a fair bit of information on digestion, fats, etc. It was probably better than the HBO documentary will be:

That 17 minute clip outlines very well and very much in a nutshell our precarious and misleading diet situation.

Like you said Aurini, I would really be surprised if the HBO special comes anywhere close to the level of truth in this 17 minute clip.

Actually regarding its discussion of good and bad cholesterol (towards the beginning), and it's pretty much assertion that such good/bad cholesterol framing is distractive nonsense, I understand that any of us can get caught into these kinds of frameworks... including yours truly.

Sometimes it is difficult to remove yourself from such framework because even the video goes back on its nonsense claim to give a bit of credibility to good and bad cholesterol - even when the overall theme seems to be that cholesterol serves as a rescuer and a preventer of inflammation rather than a cause of inflammation - and surely our incidents of inflammation can go up from a variety of toxic and/or abusive factors (smoking, drinking, bad diet, chemical disruptors, lack of sleep, over exercise, etc).. Anyhow, sometimes I also consider that yeah even the "good guys" (aka cholesterol) could become damaged and overwhelmed in a variety of circumstances in which guys may be abusing themselves through their life practices that are causing overwork of cholesterol because of excessive inflammation and maybe even the cholesterol could become disrupted (and disruptive of good health) in such circumstances.

Post: #15

Cheers for pointing out the Fat Head documentary. Really great.

Some thoughts:

Fat Head is heavy on facts. Fat Head is thin on flashy animations and beautiful presentations.
Supersize Me turned out to be thin on the facts, but it was a well-presented and edited movie.

Fat Head's maker is a programmer and former stand-up comedian. He's coming from a numbers/scientific angle. As such, he has a snide and humorous disregard for bullshit and did great due diligence.

Spurlock earned a degree in film-making from college. I don't doubt he did diligence before making his movie, but use of sources is questionable and he obviously focused on what gets movie-goers off: Drama, outrageous claims, overnight transformations. Without explaining the real nitty-gritty behind how he became so bloated during production of his movie (eating 5000 calories a day without highlighting the dietary outrageousness of that number in a guy who's not a bodybuilder or elite athlete).

Love how in the end of Fat Head, the guy goes on a paleo/LCHF diet, feels great and shocks his doctor in the health check-up. Just to disprove Spurlock and the then-current dietary recommendations of US government.

Post: #16

This was aired in 2012 - you can find the four parts on Youtube.

Post: #17

(07-21-2016 06:12 PM)HighSpeed_LowDrag Wrote:  This was aired in 2012 - you can find the four parts on Youtube.

Thanks for the links and references, HSLD.

Is anyone brave enough to want to watch 4 hours to verify if there is any salvageable information contained therein?

If they did this documentary previously, does that mean that they are likely going to do something very similar to what they had already done, and will they assert that they learned anything in the past 4 years?

Certainly the FDA has not learned too much in their movement from the food pyramid to the food plate.. and their nonsense recommendations to eat a little of everything including processed carbs (the ones that say "healthy" on the box, of course).


Recall that the mainstream talking points tend to want t blame the patient and to suggest flatly that folks are lazy and they are eating too much... therefore, the solution is to exercise more and to eat less...

Maybe even some RVF guys believe that dogma, which was pretty well rebutted by Gary Taubes in "Good Calories, Bad Calories," and the more user-friendly rendition of "Why we get fat, and what to do about it"

Post: #18

This blog here completely debunks all of the myths about American obesity, such as "it's cheaper to be fat than to eat healthy" and whatnot:

http://efficiencyiseverything.com/calori...ar-list-2/

Staples like rice, pasta, peanut butter, eggs, lentils, olive oil, etc rank as some of the cheapest foods by calorie; pretty much everything you buy in a box or as fast food is far more expensive per calorie. Not to mention paying for sugary sodas when you can just drink water for free.

I assume that a lot of people are just to lazy to even boil water and throw in some rice or noodles.

The people who make the claim "it's cheaper to be fat than eat healthy" are using a dishonest comparison anyway - they're comparing buying generic processed foods and snacks with buying "all natural" or "organic" foods, but a person doesn't have to buy organic foods just to not "be fat" of course - at bare minimum they just have to eat less of what they already eat.