It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s

Re:It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s by vegetablepotpie on Sunday July 11, 2021 @06:43PM (#27805074)

To summarize, populations who diet and exercise, the same amount as populations in the 80s, are heavier. No one knows why, but some possibilities are

- increases in chemicals in the environment

- increased prescription drug use

- increases in animal product consumption

- changes in the human gut biome

- proliferation of artificial sweeteners

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Re:It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s by throwawayboise on Sunday July 11, 2021 @10:19PM (#27806256)

Deliberate exercise is one thing, but maybe people today are more sedentary when they aren't exercising. It's my impression that physical activity required at many jobs is lower today than it was then.

Following through to the actual study, it appears to have considered "leisure time physical activity" but maybe not workplace physical activity.

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Re:It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s by tfigment on Sunday July 11, 2021 @11:53PM (#27806834)

Pontzer's book Burn seems to indicate exercise is good for health but not weight loss. Energy usage in the body is complicated but diet seems to be more important than exercise if I understand it correctly.

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Re:It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s by thatguy0900 on Monday July 12, 2021 @12:30AM (#27807063)

Exercise also frankly just doesn't burn many calories. It only really takes two candy bars to undo two hours at the gym, calorie wise.

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Re:It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s by hindsightbias on Sunday July 11, 2021 @08:42PM (#27805752)

High-fructose corn syrup causes characteristics of obesity in rats: increased body weight, body fat and triglyceride levels

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3522469/

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Re:It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s by nradov on Monday July 12, 2021 @01:54AM (#27807486)

Another possibility is that the data is just wrong. Subject reported data on diet and exercise is notoriously inaccurate.

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Re:It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s by opless on Monday July 12, 2021 @07:24AM (#27809172)

This. Absolutely this.

A good friend used to lament about the data they were entering was of very poor quality.

However the skews were somehow magically understood by the consumers of the data or maybe overall the day averaged out over time.

Data cleansing is a thing no?

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Re:It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s by hulitu on Monday July 12, 2021 @08:13AM (#27809470)

> To summarize, populations who diet and exercise, the same amount as populations in the 80s, are heavier. No one knows why, but some possibilities are

Sugar. I have a very hard time finding edible chocolate. It is all sugar and cocoa. Want to buy some canned vegetables ? They contain sugar (why ?). Bread seems to contain more and more sugar. Want to buy semiprocessed food ? It has a lot of sugar. Want to buy some juice ? 10 -20 g of sugar per 100 ml. It is just crazy.

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Re:It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s by rrauenza on Monday July 12, 2021 @01:04AM (#27807211)

Surprised they didn’t mention smoking. Nicotine is an appetite suppressant.

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Re:It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s by everybodyknows on Sunday July 11, 2021 @09:06PM (#27805875)

From USA National Institute of Health:

“Artificial sweeteners appear to change the host microbiome, lead to decreased satiety, and alter glucose homeostasis, and are associated with increased caloric consumption and weight gain.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29159583/

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Re:It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s by eventreduce1 on Sunday July 11, 2021 @07:59PM (#27805548)

- Exercise today often means only weightlifting.

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Re:It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s by nzmsv on Sunday July 11, 2021 @08:29PM (#27805679)

Somebody didn't read the article

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Re:It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s by mhh__ on Sunday July 11, 2021 @09:46PM (#27806097)

[Citation needed], and besides weightlifting is fine

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