The Fat Trap

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Nasty ****, those ads are, for people who really could use some time not being beaten down.
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I swear, nastiness to the overweight is one of the last bastions of allegedly acceptable prejudice, that it's somehow fun and hip and amusing to be mean to people.

...The ads are about public policy and social costs - everything else that's been tried over the last several decades has failed, and policymakers (and actuaries!) finally got desperate; I really doubt anyone involved with that ad deliberately set out to beat down anybody! But solely blaming the individual for eating whatever made him so fat - and that's a subtle point - does overlap with public policy, esp. when costs are involved:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/01/philosophy?fsrc=nlw%7Cnewe%7C1-13-2012%7Cnew_on_the_economist
[quote]....some brain modules don't communicate well and may conflict with each other. One module in your brain wants to be fit; a different one wants to drink that soda. Taking as a given for the moment that we have a public interest in people being fit, it may make sense to have social institutions work collectively with the modules in everyone's brains that want to be fit, rather than depending on each individual to resolve the contest between their get-fit module and their drink-soda module. ......... But like psychoanalysis, neuroscience's challenge to the idea that individuals are coherent subjects who make their decisions consciously and can be held responsible for them tends to shift the way one thinks about society and politics. In many cases, it's not only unfair to hold individuals accountable for the actions of the modules in their heads, it's also completely counterproductive, while solutions pursued at either a neuropsychological-pharmacological level or at a social level would be the effective ones.

The whole thing smells to me like something that was passed by committee and thrown out there without actually testing it with its target audience. ......

Myth: Calories Counting Is All That Matters for Weight Management and Health

We might like to believe that calories-in-equals-calories-out is a sufficient weight loss theory, but that means we have to accept our bodies are pretty simple. While consuming fewer calories can certainly have an impact, not all foods have the same impact once we stuff them down our throats. If you want to think about it in a very simple way, consider the difference between a candy bar and a cucumber (in equal caloric amounts). They taste different, they consist of different nutritional elements, and are not the same thing. It doesn't make sense that they'd be used by your body in the same way.

The problem with the idea of calories being the only necessary metric is that we think of a calorie as a physical thing. Calories are just a means of measuring heat, and they weren't initially a term used in reference to food. A calorie, according to Wikipedia, "approximates the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius." Basically, calories are a measurement and not something your body uses for fuel. What your body does use is what it finds in the foods and liquids it digests. If you put crap in your body, you're not going to be better off just because of a low-calorie rating.

Many people contest this idea because of nutrition Professor Mark Haub's twinkie diet, in which he ate a low calorie diet that consisted of about two-thirds junk food, but there are a few things to note here. This is the sole study of one person and is not indicative everyone. Even Haub questions his own findings:

What does that mean? Does that mean I'm healthier? Or does it mean how we define health from a biology standpoint, that we're missing something?

Haub also reduced his intake by about 800 calories per day, which is a very significant amount. There is no question that our caloric intake plays a role in the way we store and lose fat (as this study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows), but simply counting calories does not provide the full pictures. The way your body processes sugar is an excellent example of how different foods yield different results. Dr. Michael Eades points to two studies—the Ancel Keys starvation experiment and the John Yudkin study—that each tested two low-calorie diets with different nutrient compositions. The Keys study had higher amounts of carbohydrates and lower amounts of fat. The Yudkin study had the opposite. The results of the studies, however, yielded very different results. The Yudkin study ended with healthy men whereas the Keys study did not.

Futhermore, registered dietitian Kari Hartel outlines how different nutrients are processed by your body. For example, she notes that "[f]iber isn't fully digested by your body, so this nutrient contributes health benefits without adding significant calories to your diet." Additionally, "[y]our body burns more calories digesting and metabolizing protein than it does digesting other nutrients. Protein slows the time it takes for food to move from your stomach to your intestines, helping you feel full longer."

While the idea that health can come from eating a magic number of calories each day is nice, the reality is that foods and your body are more complex. Although a significant calorie reduction is an effective means of losing weight, it is not the only factor. Your current weight, the weight you want to lose, the nutritional balance of your diet, the calories you burn and muscles you build through exercise, and the amount of time you're sedentary each day are all elements that play into your health and potential for fat loss. Cutting significant amounts of calories may be a significant short-term weight management strategy, but paying attention to other factors will yield better results for your overall health.