Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Hannibal]

want to change people's weight? Change insurance. Give rewards in terms of lower deductibles for healthy habits like walking. Impact people's wallets and they'll change. Right now, there is no difference in most insurance plans between a person who eats healthier and a person who eats poorly.

Good luck with that.

The best that you could ever accomplish is adjusting people's rates based on their body fat percentage. The moral outrage over this would be huge.

[The Oracle]

Because it's really stupid.

[CGVT]

It ain't as simple as calories in/calories out.

[ame]https://youtu.be/qEuIlQONcHw[/ame]

[Hannibal]

It ain't as simple as calories in/calories out.

It pretty much is. If you are fat, then you eat less and exercise more, and lose weight at a reasonable pace so that your body doesn't overcompensate and shut down or start to burn muscle.

People like this are fat because they eat too much.

[CGVT]

Did you watch the video?

I didn't think so.

There is much more to it.

I'll leave it at that. Next subject.

[Hannibal]

There are slides within the presentation titled "eating less doesn't work". Anyone who unironically makes a presentation with this sentence has zero credibility and should be laughed off of the stage. Not only does eating less work (I have done it before, as have many other people), but you can predict with a decent amount of accuracy how much weight you will lose each week by tracking calories in and estimating calories out.

[CGVT]

So you didn't watch the video, you just skimmed through it looking to find things to support your preconceived notion.

OK. Move along. Nothing to see here.

[iam416]

Re Oracle's genetic point or something...I'm currently "overweight" per BMI calculator. Meanwhile, my aerobic fitness is stupid high.

If I wanted to get down to normal -- barely -- I have to, as my wife puts it -- look like a holocaust survivor. It's a weight I can't realistically maintain. And insurance folks would ding me for it under Entropy's idea!

Also, I've found expending lots of energy has reduced my weight. I'd say my diet held steady and my caloric exercise burn went sky high and off came 30-40 pounds. But, that's probably crazy talk.

[The Oracle]

BMI is the most idiotic measurement I've ever seen in any field. Can't believe it still gets any respect. My "normal" weight is like 170lbs...I'm not in great shape at the moment, but not terrible and I'd have to cut 40 lbs. Don't know how I'd begin to get there without losing every ounce of muscle on me.

My point, though, was using % body fat for insurance purposes. I can't even...

[Hannibal]

Because it's really stupid.

Not really. If other people ultimately have to pay for your health care then you should eventually expect them to try and penalize you for negative factors that you can control.

[The Oracle]

Again, genetics....REALLY stupid. And not ever happening, so have fun trying to be the moral police here.

[Hannibal]

It's not being the moral police. When somebody insures you, they are paying for something that goes wrong with you. It's not crazy for them to want to evaluate how much of a risk you are by examining your risk factors and penalizing you for negative factors like being Charlie Weis.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Warnings are irrelevant, IMO. Hanni would then argue that if there's any cost then that cost outweighs zero benefit.......

So then it follows that you'd argue that the government's rule in reducing the amount of cigarette smoking through "warnings" have had no public health benefit and they are irrelevant.

You would be wrong so, I doubt you'll purse that.

I have a hard time brooking arguments about low cost food supplies. I can't stand noxious, elitist "farm-to-table" or anti-GMO policy positions that would significantly increase the cost of food in this country and decrease availability. And what's more, these are mostly "progressives" making these arguments that would very directly and very surely negatively impact poor folks........

Man, I totally agree with you here but that's going down another path and on a tangent to the question (I think) that is at l hand.

To wit ...... does FDA food labeling rules that make the companies tell consumers how much added sugar is in the products they are putting on the shelf serve a public health purpose and will it do any good?

The kind of sugar we are talking about here - refined sugar - is a simple carbohydrate that is metabolized quickly compared to complex carbohydrates and that which is not used gets stored as fat ...... that would be the Krebb's Cycle. It's been around for about a century and hasn't been shown to be wrong in that time frame.

Next, to conclude that refined sugar is bad, it has to be scientifically linked to obesity (being fat) which is linked to diabetes which is linked to heart disease, I can go on. The consumption of refined sugar, just like smoking cigarettes has been linked to disease. Don't make me go down this road. It's worth pointing out that as late as the early 90s, there were those in the tobacco industry still saying there is no link between cigarette smoking and disease.

I'd argue that asking companies to tell consumers how much added sugar is in their products has the potential to improve public health much like warning people about the dangers of smoking did.

There are some pretty impressive public health statistics that tell us that warning people about the dangers of cigarette smoking has reduced the incidence of mortality and morbidity from pulmonary disease and reduced the costs of care overall for lung cancer and it's related co-morbidities.

Certainly, its not a slam dunk that making companies tell us how much of that shit they're putting in our food is going to reduce the health care burden of dealing with the diseases directly linked to its consumptions. However, it's a start and, in this case, I'll come to the defense of government here in promoting the public welfare.

[Hannibal]

It's totally going to work this time you guys...

[froot loops]

Any person who has ever counted calories knows how key it is to have readable labels and accurate numbers. One of the best requirements has been the addition of calories posted at restaurants. That was a big hole. It also shows the futility of trying to diet and eating at restaurants.

Moving more maybe helps a little, but that is doubtful. It is really eat a lot less.