How Fat is Your Country?

On Apr 8, 9:06 am, "Juhana Harju" wrote:
I agree. But isn't it strange that all of these countries with comparatively
successful control of obesity have a rather high carbohydrate consumption?

It's only strange if you believe the insane bull**** about
cabohydrates being responsible for overweight and obesity.

These days, I stuff myself with carbs almost everyday until it hurts.

Yet I'm maintaining a 6% body fat level.

That's because I exercise a lot (Nearly 100 km per week running, 5
days a week weightlifting), and keep the intake of fats to a minimum.

The carbs are mostly low density, wholesome, high fibre stuff.

I don't eat any baked goods, with the exception of rye knaeckebrod
(crispbread) whose only ingredients are rye flour and salt.

If I don't take in enough carbs, I experience depletion, which
negatively impacts my training. If I were to take a break from
training, I'd reduce the carb intake somewhat, but keep the fat intake
low or even lower.

Italians eat pizza and pasta and Japanese have their white rice. On the

I do eat white rice: twice a day! It's imported from Japan.

I typically cook a dry cup, which is split three ways: lunch, dinner,
and some leftover for snacking.

There isn't a whole lot of fat in the Japanese diet. It comes from
sources like cold ocean fish (omega 3 source).

contrary U.S. with a high protein consumption has one of the highest rates
of obesity.

The typical protein source consumed by an American has at least 50%
calories from fat. That's in the meat itself, not counting the added
fats in the surrounding food.

Also, the kinds of carbs Americans eat are loaded with hidden fats.
Lots of trans fats too. Breads, cookies, crackers, corn and potato
chips, fries, you name it.

I eat a decent quantity of protein, but it's from very lean meats, low
fat dairy, and supplementation with whey protein isolate which is
largely devoid of fat.

On Sun, 8 Apr 2007 19:06:26 +0300, "Juhana Harju"
wrote:

Jim Chinnis wrote:
: "Juhana Harju" wrote in part:
:: Matti Narkia wrote:
::
::: The creator of the above page may have had some kind of agenda.
::: Better sources by far are
:::
::: WHO: Global Database on Body Mass Index
::: http://www.who.int/bmi/ (explore the various tabs on top and
::: different selections of options)
::
:: Probably accurate but not very practical site, IMHO.
::
::: IOTF.ORG: International Obesity TaskForce
::: http://www.iotf.org/database/
::
:: Do you think that there is something that could be learned from
:: Japanese, South Koreans or Italians in terms of obesity control?
:: According to this map they are the only developed countries which
:: has been successful in controlling obesity. And the Mediterranean
:: Greeks are not doing very fine - perhaps their limitless olive oil
:: consumption adds too much calories to their diet.
::
:: http://tinyurl.com/yttjoe
:
: I think some of the differences may depend a great deal on cultural
: factors. In Italy, for instance, gluttony has been considered about
: the worst "sin" of all.

I agree. But isn't it strange that all of these countries with comparatively
successful control of obesity have a rather high carbohydrate consumption?
Italians eat pizza and pasta and Japanese have their white rice. On the
contrary U.S. with a high protein consumption has one of the highest rates
of obesity.

I think that it may have more to do with cultural tradition of not
overeating vs. overeating and in some parts of the world also with the
availability or/and relative cost of food compared with earnings.
Besides, Italians are not spectacularly successful in weight control
even by European standards. As for Japanese and Koreans, in addition
to their cultural tradition of not overeating, they are also slightly
favored by a systematic error in BMI computation, which produces too
low values for short people and too high values for tall people.
Japanese are in average about 10 cm shorter than westerners and
Koreans are not much taller than Japanese. More about this bias in BMI
calculation in the article

Notes on Body Mass Index and actual national data
http://www.math.utah.edu/~korevaar/ACCESS2004/bmi.pdf

which suggests that a better equation for BMI calculation could be
something like

BMI = (weight in kgs)/(height in meters)^2.6

An excerpt:

"... A person's B.M.I. is computed by dividing their weight by
the square of their height, and then multiplying by a universal
constant. If you measure weight in kilograms, and height in
meters, this constant is the number one. Thus, the proponants
of the B.M.I index are claiming that for adults at equal risk
levels (but different heights), weight should be proportional
to the square of height. As we have discussed in class, if
people were to scale equally in all directions ("self-similar")
when they grew, volume and hence weight would scale as the cube
of height. That particular power law seems a little high, since
adults don't look like uniformly expanded versions of babies;
we seem to get relatively stretched out when we grow taller.
One might expect the best predictive power for weight as a
function of height to be somewhere between 2 and 3, if one
expected a power law at all. If there is a predictive power,
and if it is much larger than 2, then one could argue that the
body mass index might need to be modified to reflect this fact.
(In fact, when you find body mass index tables, they often
explain that you should modifiy the acceptable BMI values for
children.)

Most of us have collected several heights and weights, and
hopefully in aggregate we will have a good number of
representative measurements, from baby-sized to adult.
(Actually, I added 21 extra data points for baby size through
49 inches in height - this data came from earlier ACCESS groups
and helps give us a more balanced selection of heights.) Each
group will use this data, see if it is consistent with a power
law relating weights to heights, and decide whether the B.M.I.
power of 2 is a good choice.

I often do this experiment with my linear algebra classes as
well as with the Accessors, and we have gotten powers between
2.3 and 2.7. Also, several years ago I found a national data
base at the U.S. Center for Disease Control web site. It
contained a wide variety of body measurements collected between
1976 and 1980, including national median heights and weights
for boys and girls, age 2-19. By using only the national
medians a lot of the variance has been taken out of the data,
compared to what yours will look like. The national data is
very consistent with a power law, with power = 2.6. ... "


--
Matti Narkia

Matti Narkia wrote:
: On Sun, 8 Apr 2007 19:06:26 +0300, "Juhana Harju"
: wrote:
:: Jim Chinnis wrote:
::: "Juhana Harju" wrote in part:
:::: Matti Narkia wrote:
::::
::::: The creator of the above page may have had some kind of agenda.
::::: Better sources by far are
:::::
::::: WHO: Global Database on Body Mass Index
::::: http://www.who.int/bmi/ (explore the various tabs on top and
::::: different selections of options)
::::
:::: Probably accurate but not very practical site, IMHO.
::::
::::: IOTF.ORG: International Obesity TaskForce
::::: http://www.iotf.org/database/
::::
:::: Do you think that there is something that could be learned from
:::: Japanese, South Koreans or Italians in terms of obesity control?
:::: According to this map they are the only developed countries which
:::: has been successful in controlling obesity. And the Mediterranean
:::: Greeks are not doing very fine - perhaps their limitless olive oil
:::: consumption adds too much calories to their diet.
::::
:::: http://tinyurl.com/yttjoe
:::
::: I think some of the differences may depend a great deal on cultural
::: factors. In Italy, for instance, gluttony has been considered about
::: the worst "sin" of all.
::
:: I agree. But isn't it strange that all of these countries with
:: comparatively successful control of obesity have a rather high
:: carbohydrate consumption? Italians eat pizza and pasta and Japanese
:: have their white rice. On the contrary U.S. with a high protein
:: consumption has one of the highest rates of obesity.
:
: I think that it may have more to do with cultural tradition of not
: overeating vs. overeating and in some parts of the world also with the
: availability or/and relative cost of food compared with earnings.
: Besides, Italians are not spectacularly successful in weight control
: even by European standards. As for Japanese and Koreans, in addition
: to their cultural tradition of not overeating,

I agree with this restraint they have.

: they are also slightly
: favored by a systematic error in BMI computation, which produces too
: low values for short people and too high values for tall people.
: Japanese are in average about 10 cm shorter than westerners and
: Koreans are not much taller than Japanese. More about this bias in BMI
: calculation in the article
:
: Notes on Body Mass Index and actual national data
: http://www.math.utah.edu/~korevaar/ACCESS2004/bmi.pdf
:
: which suggests that a better equation for BMI calculation could be
: something like
:
: BMI = (weight in kgs)/(height in meters)^2.6

That sure was an interesting viewpoint. I did not expect any measuring bias.

--
Juhana

On Apr 8, 12:06 pm, "Kaz Kylheku" wrote:
On Apr 8, 9:06 am, "Juhana Harju" wrote:

I agree. But isn't it strange that all of these countries with comparatively
successful control of obesity have a rather high carbohydrate consumption?

It's only strange if you believe the insane bull**** about
cabohydrates being responsible for overweight and obesity.

These days, I stuff myself with carbs almost everyday until it hurts.

Yet I'm maintaining a 6% body fat level.

That's because I exercise a lot (Nearly 100 km per week running, 5
days a week weightlifting), and keep the intake of fats to a minimum.

The carbs are mostly low density, wholesome, high fibre stuff.

I don't eat any baked goods, with the exception of rye knaeckebrod
(crispbread) whose only ingredients are rye flour and salt.

If I don't take in enough carbs, I experience depletion, which
negatively impacts my training. If I were to take a break from
training, I'd reduce the carb intake somewhat, but keep the fat intake
low or even lower.

Italians eat pizza and pasta and Japanese have their white rice. On the

I do eat white rice: twice a day! It's imported from Japan.

I typically cook a dry cup, which is split three ways: lunch, dinner,
and some leftover for snacking.

There isn't a whole lot of fat in the Japanese diet. It comes from
sources like cold ocean fish (omega 3 source).

contrary U.S. with a high protein consumption has one of the highest rates
of obesity.

The typical protein source consumed by an American has at least 50%
calories from fat. That's in the meat itself, not counting the added
fats in the surrounding food.

Also, the kinds of carbs Americans eat are loaded with hidden fats.
Lots of trans fats too. Breads, cookies, crackers, corn and potato
chips, fries, you name it.

I eat a decent quantity of protein, but it's from very lean meats, low
fat dairy, and supplementation with whey protein isolate which is
largely devoid of fat.

Right. Carbs are not the problem. Its total calories and when you
look at food, fat has the concentrated calories at 9 cal per gram,
where carbs and protein each have 4 calories per gram. I too, am thin
at 5'8" and 133 lbs. yet I eat a LOT but I eat very low fat...under 10
grams a day, moderate protein at about 50-60 grams and all the rest is
carbs. What I eat a lot of is cereals like oatmeal, farina, grits, but
also salads without dressing.....lots and lots of vegetables and a
little fruit. It helps to be vegetarian, I think, although some of the
high cal sweets are loaded with oils and sugar, so it isn't
necessarily healthy. I don't eat that kind of stuff though. dkw

On Apr 8, 10:19 am, "Juhana Harju" wrote:
Matti Narkia wrote:

: The creator of the above page may have had some kind of agenda.

According to TV news in Canada last week, 55% of Canadiansare
overweight. And we are weighed without our hockey sticks and
snowshoes.

Diva

Number of morbidly obese Americans is growing rapidly:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18036377/

Originally Posted by

Guess which country is the fattest:
http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=22776

Interesting,

It was obvious it was U.S. as in US, but I didn't think Mexico would have been listed number two?

Good luck and health to all, Mike