As we reported yesterday, overweight people don’t eat enough food … of the right kind.
Similarly, while many may assume that overweight folks are lazy and are not motivated enough, the truth is that they may be too stressed out.
Specifically, stress increases appetite.
And it is well-documented that stress causes people to crave high-fat, high-carbohydrate junk foods which pack on belly fat. For example, the National Academy of Sciences reported in 2003:
[The stress hormone cortisol] (GCs) … increase the salience of pleasurable or compulsive activities (ingesting sucrose, fat, and drugs, or wheel-running). This motivates ingestion of “comfort food.” … GCs act systemically to increase abdominal fat depots…. In stressed or depressed humans chronic stress induces either increased comfort food intake and body weight gain …. We propose that people eat comfort food in an attempt to reduce the activity in the chronic stress-response network with its attendant anxiety. These mechanisms, determined in rats, may explain some of the epidemic of obesity occurring in our society.
And while many would assume that overweight people are lazy and sleep too much, a lack of sleep actually increases obesity. For example, the Chicago Tribune reported last year:
In 1960, Americans averaged 81/2 hours of sleep a night …
Study after study showing that a lack of good quality sleep—seven to nine hours of uninterrupted slumber—is making us fat. And it’s not just overworked adults who are gaining weight. Long-term studies are finding that sleep-deprived children also are piling on the pounds.
“You’re fighting against the tide to lose weight when you’re sleep-deprived,” said Dr. Amy Aronsky, medical director of The Center for Sleep Disorders in Portland, Ore., and a board certified sleep specialist. “Good sleep is as important as a good diet and exercise when it comes to weight loss.”
***
Studies have shown that when sleep is restricted, the hormone ghrelin increases and the hormone leptin decreases. Ghrelin tells our brain that we’re hungry, while leptin tells it we’ve eaten enough.
Average leptin levels decreased 18 percent when sleep was restricted to four hours per night over two nights, according to a study published in the journal Sleep Medicine by Dr. Eve Van Cauter, Average ghrelin levels increased 28 percent when sleep was restricted.
In other words, when we don’t get enough sleep we feel hungry, even if we’ve eaten enough.
In another Van Cauter study, healthy young volunteers showed signs of prediabetes when they were restricted to four hours of sleep for six nights in a row.
The stress hormone cortisol also surges when we’re sleep-deprived. When that happens, we crave high-fat, high-carbohydrate foods (“comfort foods”) to increase our serotonin levels to calm down, said Dr. Michael Breus, author of “The Sleep Doctor’s Diet Plan.”
Other studies consistently show that adults sleeping fewer than six hours a night increase their likelihood for becoming overweight or obese — even when exercising and eating right, Decker said. Among adults ages 32 to 49, those averaging five hours of sleep were twice as likely to be obese after nine years compared with those averaging seven hours.
The news for kids is just as alarming. A study of 8,234 children (starting at age 38 weeks) found that the odds of being obese by age 7 increased 50 percent for children averaging fewer than 101/2 hours of sleep. Another study found that 58 percent of obese kids averaged fewer than eight hours of sleep, while just 11 percent of non-obese kids averaged fewer than eight hours of sleep.
In addition, numerous studies show that melatonin reduces body weight and burns fat. Our body produces melatonin when it is dark. If we don’t get enough sleep, it means the light is on too much, and our body can’t produce enough melatonin.
Finally, reducing stress and getting enough sleep gives people extra energy to exercise. On other other hand, if people are stressed out and sleep deprived, they’ll be focused on just getting through the day, and will thus be less likely to exercise.
Of course, exercise is a powerful stress-reducer and cure for insomnia … so it goes both ways.
The truth is that our entire society is stressed out, overworked, and just not taking care of ourselves. We would not need such a huge medical industry with millions of nursing positions if people actually practiced some preventative care!
I'm thinking that mine comes from beer?
actually BLOWN away by the so called smart people here who continue to want to BLAME lazy americans, or their diet choices
Wake UP
80% of supermarkets are LOADED with CHEAP, by design, harmful WHEAT or Sugar Products laced with salt, msg, and fat to fool your taste buds
please DD the wheat belly...and i'm talking to you DR KNOW IT ALL
the whole industry is filled with FRAUD...fraud people accept as truth
there is also no nutrition in these products they are unsasorbable as well if put in
wheat spikes your insuslin..which tells the brain..Stop burning your fat, start STORING the new sugar you just fed yourself
people have been DECEIVED and that is why they use a PYRAMID on the USDA RDA chart
All long term Expats who move to China, the ones from the UK, Canada and USA, all lose 20 to 70 pounds in one to two years. Australians and Europeans are not fat to begin with so they lose much less, if any.
So true, it is a cultural thing eating that is. I'm lucky in that my family is thin from way back. But I've been overweight due to poor eating habits. Poor eating habits, overwork, stress, plus years - will lead to obesity.
It is very hard to wrap your head around eating properly if you were not raised with it. Even if you were it is still so easy to become unhealthy because of the above mentioned pressures. And for some after age 20 or so it seems impossible to lose weight.
The modern American lifestyle makes it difficult to eat properly, trust me I know, I ate shit for years before I made some overseas trips that woke me the heck up.
I wish I could afford to eat at the salad-bar at the supermarket 3 meals per day, but it's so damn expensive is it not, to make a filling good tasting meal there.?
The key is to open up completely to different types of foods. I mean foreign foods and old American type foods as well. Small portions of rice or potatoes, chicken or fish, salad, and SOUP as a filler AND drink with the meal. No sugar drinks whatsoever.
Rice, beans, fish, chicken, small salad, 3X per day with soup. If you are severely overweight than this will require a doctors advice. But 50-80lbs, and a couple of YEARS, slow and steady wins the race.
ZeroHedgers, move out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSOhD6c786E
Do not need DHS since a 100 yard sprint will sort them out. When I was young I never seen overweight kids. Now they are over.
When I was young I never encountered illiterate kids. Now they are all over the place.
Found on the Coyote Blog (a great blog, BTW):
(http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2012/04/the-positive-result-bias.html)
This goes directly to what I have been saying on here for nearly 2 years ... that both the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry have no fucking idea whatsover what is going on with cancer and with nutrition.
And you, GW, are also a misinformation front!
The problem with medical research is the method of funding. The phd's have to go begging for funds. The funding entitys have their own agendas and expect results that fit these agendas. No acceptable results = no more funding. Money is the root of all evil as they say. Just like in politics.
Look who's talking, quack!. The big guy who works treating cancer and who doesn't know that ionizing radiation can cause cancer.
Genetically modified food is another factor. The 'new and improved' wheat producs more sugar than its old unmodified predecessor.
Sleeping disorders are very serious both for diet & for energy, and that's before taking into account the depression and/or anxiety that can be induced by it.
As for diet I can say personally while dealing with harsh sleep problems that I always eat only the amount needed to stay alive + some VERY small amount that may be extra. No pop, no chips, no snacks except cookies once every 8 weeks or less. No desire for it. The average size of a meal I eat is only 35% the size of an average restaurant-size meal.
I am by no means starving myself but I will eat less if I've used less energy. There's no other sensible way to eat: if you're not hungry because you're burning the fuel then don't eat yet.
I use CPAP, going on 6 yrs, if you snore and are 20 #s overweight, look into it.
Anyone here ever seen the grocery bill for a healthy diet? LOL. Reminds me gota get that garden tilled in the am. So I can grow green beans. And then pack them in quart jars with bacon crammed on top.
I shop smart & can get a healthy diet at $50/week. Now considering that I'm flowing dollars to gold back to dollars consider the real savings over time :D
I guess I'm lucky, in my self-emplyment, make trades work for food and haven't had to buy groceries for years.
yeah, back in Nebraska, grandma had her summer garden and canned in the fall, I remember well those winter meals with cooked string beans w/ bacon. My grandpa, one year, bought a heifer and rented land to grow it. In the fall, butchered it at a local butchers and had a standalone freezer full of good beef. Man, those were the days!
wht ya growing right now? Here in So Califor have lettuce, cabbage, beets, tomatoes are 1/2 in(early)...banksterhater growin my own...
Good that you're prepping but bad that you're in the incoming-radiation zone from Fukushima fall-out
My friends grandpa is 91 and a farmer. Well retired of course. I asked him one time about our diets and he said it was all the horseshit that they put in the foods nowaday that was the problem.
Little sleep has effects far past being tired. For instance if you have back problems I assure it will hurt much more. Etc.
I suppose when we're reduced to 90hr workweeks and have to live at the job and given 2 bowls of rice everyday we might finally get diabetes under control.
" Listen sisters...
You should wear a smile
jump for joy
just like a child
cuz big fat mamas
are back in style."
Good ol Buster Pointdexter.
I'm neither stressed and can sleep most of the day, I'm obese by choice to protest against the do-gooders in the nanny state.
fuck 'em!
Don't worry if you have a heart problem or a bleeding goiter or any problem for that matter.
Highly trained health technicians will risk life & limb --sparing no expense. All to save you and then nurse your appetite back to full strength so you can resume your fight against humanity.
You are not alone sir.
yes, I did suffer from gout a few years back, I attribute that to drinking too much tea, when I stopped it went away, eventually. Eating hamburger everyday, just had a big bowl of pasta Napoli w/ hamburger, probably going to hit up my local pizza joint for the "Monday Night Special".
Drinking some shots of bourbon.
oh, and at least 2 diet cokes a day.
Haven't been to a dr for over a decade. When my symptons of heart attach, diabetes, kidney/liver failure, I will just suffer the best I can without causing harm to taxpayers.
Dude if what you are saying is true, you are doing yourself a world of harm.
I respect your freedom of choice 100%, so I would never lift a finger to force you to do what you don't want to do. But let me tell you I am weeping at the thought of your purposefully self-destructive, suicidal ? crusade to destroy yourself?
And then send you a bill for $1.5 million. Anyone that's every been in a hospital and taken a good look at nurses can see they're the biggest bunch of hypocrits around. In fact I just took my dad to the doctor and the doctors assistant came in, probably around 325lbs i'd guess, tells my dad to go on a diet. Dad's not very big. On the way out I view the employee picure wall and there she is at the company picnic showing off a cheeseburger the size of my fucking dog.
Trust me........90% of the people are in it for the money. Which reminds me.......for profit healthcare is one of the most evil things on the planet.
yeah, hospital staff get a discount on their cafeteria food. Perhaps GW is right in the regard of stress and lack of sleep for the health services industry.
GW is right in all these obesity articles he is publishing. You who are arguing against it are sticking your heads in the sand. I've been reading research about obesity for years, and GW is giving that knowlege to you now in short order. Geez, why are you arguing against science?
Science also says that lazy people who don't exercise and eat too much are fat. Why are you guys arguing against science?
Having a *few* extra pounds is a sound evolutionary strategy. If you're generally fit and, say, 40 lbs. overweight, you've got 60 days of emergency calories with you, as long as you have plenty of water to drink. All of the Type Alpha A professional urbanites with their hot yoga and cold spinning and walnut and arugula salads would drop dead after a week without food, that is, if they aren't eaten themselves (with bottled BBQ sauce and some nice cooked greens)
If you are 40 lbs overweight and its not massive thighs and glutes (mebbe not glutes) OK - and core strength that weight is going to end up as broken down knees and lower back, back surgeries and pain .. Oh- almost forgot- and type II diabetes.
And 40 pounds of overwieght good luck outrunning the zombies after your ammo runs out
Your so-called emergency calories will only nourish the above mentioned zombies
American here. 64 years old, 6'4"/190, and wear the same 34'W jeans I wore 40 years ago.
What a load of shit GW.
Most of the lard ass Americans out there are fat fucks because:
They eat too much shit food, sit on their fat asses indulging themselves watching TV or playing with the latest electronic toys. And worse, their fat fucking spawn are learning the same bad habits.
It's all about discipline and self discipline.
Blaming stress for your fat fucking lard ass is really pathetic...like stress is something new in people's lives.
Please!!!
To Hairball48, Asshole here 64 years old, 6-4 190lbs, ego as big as his head...
There, fixed it for ya. You can thank me later.
How people nourish themselves has everything to do with culture and education.
Countries with a high level of education and solid cultural values have low numbers of obese people.
The USA is #1 in obese people because education is at a very low level, solid cultural values hardly exist.
The worst is that there is no sense of community so people fail to see that a sea of fat slobs will pull the country down, quite literally.
To stop this epidemic is in the interest of all Americans, but you seem to prefer to sit behind the door with a gun waiting for all hell to break loose.
Idiots.
I guess Ethiopia and Somalia must have the highest levels of education and cultural values
no, there must be something else, I'm quite convinced
out of my extended family, all travelers of the USA lose weight while touring and report that they don't find anything that has a taste
those who stay gain weight like mad and are constantly hungry - feeding them here when the visit (I like to cook) is a bit like feeding starved puppies
I'm starting to think there might be a problem of lack of nutrients in the standard foods, perhaps some vitamins or so - though lack of walking (minimum one hour per day) might be an add-on issue
there is something else...
i posted it before
read or DD the WHEAT BELLY BOOK
wheat is making people in the US eat 400 more calories a day
it spikes your insulin more than any other sugar
wheat is GMO'd to make pepole fat in america and that is why its PUSHED as being the go to food..its criminal
Bingo! A lack of nutrients. Obesity in the world seems to be proportional to the amount of pre-packaged food, drinks and medicines imported from American companies. Yes, don't count out big pharma's role. Also the fewer trips to the vet with your dog, the better the overall health of the dog. But look on the bright side, bad health is good for the economy...so they're really doing us a favor.
its the processed wheat diet and processed corn diet... and the lack of real nutrition/minerals in peoles food
your brain is constantly searching for everything its not getting
that is the BINGO
Relax hairball. Your response to this shock piece is what generates hits for GW. Hits = $$$$$$.
Apparently they are fat because they don't swear enough.
Curse your way to a 34 inch waist! FUCK YEAH!
Thin people often give themselves credit for their thin weight, and blame others for their obesity. You're so disciplined hairball. You are amazing.
Do you think words on a blog represent Absolute Truth ?
For all you know, hairball is 5' 5" and weighs 290 lbs.
"
For all you know, hairball is 5' 5" and weighs 290 lbs." You'd like that to be true, wouldn't you? :)
There is no way for me(or anyone) to "prove" anything on a blog. So that is true. However, what **I **look like doesn't change a couple facts:
1. Americans eat too much and much of what they eat is unhealthy.
2. Americans do not exercise nearly enough.
Those two facts result in the fat fucks waddling around today wearing size 3 and 4X clothing!! ...sizes which were virtually UNKNOWN when I was growing up.
Hairball, Jim beat me to it- for a medic, you sure have poor use of communication skills. Are you an MD, RN, or the janitor? I can't tell by your "writing skills". I lean towards the last since you show no empathy (no, not the same as sympathy) towards thos you come in contact with. I'm sure pushing that broom gives you lots of exercise...
unless you have medical reasons for being morbidly obese, you are on the losing side of this issue.
Future doctors get their first dose of cynicsm during med school when they hear that half of health issues would disappear if Americans used some common sense
Doubtless you also blame all the obese often diabetic children for having a lack of will power.
Never mind the barrage of junk food advertising aimed at children.
Never mind factory farming and agribusiness for limiting the availabilty of nutritious foods not laden with growth hormones and pesticides.
Never mind the many schools that, despite the obesity epidemic, habituate/addict children to fats and sugars by having soda and candy vending machines in the school to raise money for ...
Never mind the school cafeterias which serve less-than-healthful foods because that is all they allegedly can afford in the short-term, notwithstanding the long-term heath issues.
In fact, blame the children for being stressed out from living in a crime-ridden ghetto and attending a crappy, crime-ridden school.
Also blame the children for "choosing" "unfit" parents who don't spend enough money and time for proper diets.
Don't forget to blame the children for growing up into adults with incipient, if not already present health problems.
And finally, blame the children, well, for not being just like you think you would be in the same circumstances.
Nevermind the children's parents for buying them junk food. Nevermind the adults who gorge themselves and don't exercise
Nevermind the battleships at the Chinese buffet docking at the pizza section to load (yes, pizza section) to load up on plate 7 with their 300 lb displacement sister-ship (spouse) Never mind the middle aged bloated human-dumplings loading up shopping carts at Walmart and any grocery store really, loading up with multiple cases of diet and not diet (who cares which is worse when both are poison?) sodas under frozen pizzas, ready-made processed Soy based poison dinners, packages of Doritoes (people eat there when they are already fat???? Yes they do!) never mind they are already fat but exercise NOT and stuff their faces with the most unhealthy food imaginable ... it must be down to stress and the advertizers on TV.
/I tried to be original but I see I just repeated what you said bro, guess you have to watch your weight as a Chpendale macho dancer
I'm not amazing. I just have a little common sense and discipline when it comes to some of the basic things in life. Like eating reasonably healthy food and getting a fair amount of exercise.
I worked in pediatric health care for 28 years. Childhood diabetes has become close to epidemic in America. It disgusted me to see "mothers" pop the top on a can of soda(and not the diet version) and fill a baby bottle with it...right there in the hospital. MILK was available as was formula. Time and again I watched this sort of crap. So don't expect sympathy from me.
I live where I can, and do, snowshoe, hike, and backpack in rugged mountain country. That sort of exercise is part of what helps me stay healthy. I highly recommend it to you couch potatoes. Same for your kids.
Get out of the fucking house and away from all that crap food and electronic shit that's destroying your lives. Good healthy food and exercise will do more to relieve all that "stress" than any drug will.
:)