This is interesting, in part because I kind of thought the "obesity epidemic" had stopped being a thing, either in reality or political reality.
Two quick questions:
Do they use BMI for determining obesity, and if so, do they mention the equation/thresholds they use? When people mention looking at set points as a function of weight in an area, I wonder a bit about height in the area too, among other things.
Do SMTM address age? I would expect an aging area to get heavier overtime even with the same people; age and weight gain are highly correlated with most people, until about middle age.
So recall that you are reading the second thing in a series on this - I am aware they don't fully deny thermodynamics. But at the same time, they create a model where dieting basically never works; they believe set points kick in and nullify most efforts. Which is fine if it's true! But I've written at length before (poorly, mind you, but still) why I think set points are very hopeful stretches at any possible explanation besides the obvious thing you'd expect when you have more availability of higher quality food, more car ownership, and better in-home entertainment.
One thing I always try to make clear but which nobody ever really hears me on is I'm actually not one of the "if you are fat you are weak and worthless" guys. The baseline amount of willpower it takes to not eat obesity-causing amounts of food might be very high, or very dependent on lifestyle stuff where physically busier people have a much easier time, or a lot of stuff. I myself am somewhat overweight, so I'm aware it's not a simple, easy thing. I don't dislike fat people anyway, and wouldn't really care even if it was a conscious, easy choice.
But there's no reason why a lack of hatred for fat people should make me do what SMTM says, which is consider there to be a "strong moral reason" that should influence how I assess evidence, or how he presents it. *Even if I was hateful*, the facts would be what they would be in defiance of that.
On some of the other points:
1. On the wild animals thing: do you have something besides what SMTM shows? Because the only wild animals mentioned in the abstract he provides are rats (I'm mad at him for not making it more clear these are the wild animals he's talking about, but conditionally mad based on the fact that I very well could have missed something). Not that we can't talk about rats, but it's a lot more confounded than, say, a pack of wild wolves or similar.
2. I understood the Japanese thing. It's not really all that surprising to me; the diet is a ton different, and so is how you get around in Japan compared to the US. I was there for a bit under a month many years ago and lost weight while I was there, but I was also walking an enormous amount compared to what I'd do at home.
3. Some of what you are talking about is stuff I want to tackle when I do part III, looking at their actual theory. Like I could say "the set point has gone up less in cleaner-water environments" and then point to Japan or something and it's consistent with his theory, but it's also consistent with a ton of other theories regarding diet and sedentiary behavior.
That doesn't mean he's wrong, but I don't want to touch any of the "there's more obesity here in relation to lithium levels" stuff until I'm ready to spend some real time on it.
I'm going to go over 2-3 later, as stated - that's their main argument so that gets at least its own article, maybe more than one.
1. is weird. The monkeys are in captivity (which could go either way). The deer-being-fatter are attributed to harvesting pressure, which I haven't looked at all that close.
I don't think they think that dieting is impossible in the sense where if you locked a person in a closet and starved them they wouldn't lose weight - it's not to that extent. But I think it's reasonable to think they are indicating, for instance, that most of your attempts to lose weight are going to get eaten up by lipostat adjustments; that's why I quoted the "Not if your set point doesn't let you!" type language a couple places.
When I'm talking about dieting not working, I'm more talking about how I described it in the first article - people who aren't saying it's literally impossible, just claiming that it's impossible enough that basically nobody can do it. In SMTM's model, if you go on a diet you almost always lose no more than a couple pounds and then gain them back, and this is true for reasons besides food being tasty and entertainment being good.
That's not necessarily wrong, but it has to be proven. I'm hoping they do!
But yeah. My posit since the beginning is, all this could be true - it's plausible. that would be true even if they were flat-out-wrong about why every other cause was wrong. That still hasn't changed, so I'm looking forward to doing the rest of it.
J, I've been thinking about your comments for awhile and read the relevant parts of SMTM's post again. I think I agree with the argument that our lipostats are, on average, keeping us at higher set points than before. However, I don't think that SMTM's "disproving other causes" section proves what SMTM claim it proves.
First, SMTM recognizes an increase in average caloric intake of 400 calories per day. That is a huge amount. One estimate they gave was something like 2000ish calories on average going up to 2390 or so calories. That's a near-25% daily increase. That's huge. (Side point: I am not sure how this comports with your statement that "because even people who eat the same diet with the same activity level as their ancestors weigh more." Even if your statement is true, it is academic/hypothetical--it doesn't deal with the facts on the ground, which are that the average person is eating the equivalent of an extra McDonald's McDouble every day of their lives. I would expect 5 figures' worth of McDonald's McDoubles to have *some effect* over the course of one's life, compared to the counterfactual of zero extra McD's McD's.)
Second, if we take for granted that our lipostats are keeping our weights higher than they used to (which I believe SMTM endorses), I don't think it's a stretch to place causation for this higher level at the feet of [eating 400 more calories per day on average over the course of decades]. As a layperson, I don't understand the biochemistry of it all, but there are all kinds of instances where the human body "recalibrates" or "adapts" by arriving at a new equilibrium point based on chronic exposure to new stimuli. For instance, I think I have read that chronic SSRI use can permanently change how the brain reacts to serotonin. Hedonic adaptation might be another example of this.
Given these two points, I don't think you need lithium or another chemical to explain the lipostat change. We ate more, which gave us higher set-points, which makes it harder to lose weight. SMTM tries to refute something like this argument by saying that people who have lost weight on diets often return to their earlier weights. But all this argument does is acknowledge there is a set point at that higher weight that is hard to overcome. It doesn't prove that [something other than higher caloric consumption--and consequent adaptation to it] is the cause for the set point.
But why did we eat more in the first place? I don't think it's a stretch to say that people like tasty food. A species evolved to find cheap and easy sources of calories, and that has been naturally selected for those most able to store those extra calories of fact, seems likely to start storing more fat when higher quantities of more tasty, higher-calorie food becomes available.
I'm perfectly willing to concede something like "More willpower is required to maintain a healthy weight now than used to be required." But I don't think you need lithium to explain the change. People naturally ate more when more became available (because they are evolved to gather and store energy), and then their systems adapted to it. And now it's harder to lose weight.
Where "binge" = CI, "purge" = CO, and "compelled" = willpower.
(In all seriousness, I need to keep studying ACH. I absolutely do not have a good-enough grasp on the subject matter, as you keep illustrating. I'm interested to see RC's next installment on this. Hopefully I'll learn something.)
Thanks for taking the time to go through this exercise with me, J.
Are lipostat and "set point" the same thing? I'm having trouble with the idea that lipostat is "quite complex" yet the "set point" is so easy to isolate that you can get an average of everyone's set point not only across millions of people but also across time.
This is what I thought you were saying. As I read your argument, you are saying we prove that set points have gone up by showing that average weight has gone up, therefore set points have gone up. By this logic, we can say that anything is causing weight to go up. E.g., weight has gone up, therefore black magic caused weight to go up. I'm just wondering what I'm missing.
Not so much for you alone but also for anyone reading this: that's sort of what these first two entries have been about.
Everything I've handled so far has been the *deductive* part of SMTM's argument. It's the part where they say "listen, I know it seems like people might just eat more and exercise less for a lot of reasons, but *it's not those reasons*. It's lithium, and we will strengthen our argument for lithium by pointing out it's not these other things".
When I say they can't just *asssume* those things are false, it's for good reason: they know they can't, and that's why they have the deductive section of their argument. Most of these things explain the obesity epidemic just as well *assuming they are true*; they need to show they aren't and eliminate them from play before "let's assume it's lithium" can be a strong component of their argument.
That's why I'm so rough on them there - this is important, but they don't do (I feel) a good job at it. Now, it's entirely possible I'll move on to the point where they argue for lithium directly and say "here's our data, here's our observed biological processes interacting with lithium, here's everything that's in support of lithium being true that isn't just pointing out that other explanations aren't true" and find it's really sound and strong. But as far as the deductive part goes, I think they failed so you really hope the rest of it ends up holding up to scrutiny.
This is interesting, in part because I kind of thought the "obesity epidemic" had stopped being a thing, either in reality or political reality.
Two quick questions:
Do they use BMI for determining obesity, and if so, do they mention the equation/thresholds they use? When people mention looking at set points as a function of weight in an area, I wonder a bit about height in the area too, among other things.
Do SMTM address age? I would expect an aging area to get heavier overtime even with the same people; age and weight gain are highly correlated with most people, until about middle age.
So recall that you are reading the second thing in a series on this - I am aware they don't fully deny thermodynamics. But at the same time, they create a model where dieting basically never works; they believe set points kick in and nullify most efforts. Which is fine if it's true! But I've written at length before (poorly, mind you, but still) why I think set points are very hopeful stretches at any possible explanation besides the obvious thing you'd expect when you have more availability of higher quality food, more car ownership, and better in-home entertainment.
One thing I always try to make clear but which nobody ever really hears me on is I'm actually not one of the "if you are fat you are weak and worthless" guys. The baseline amount of willpower it takes to not eat obesity-causing amounts of food might be very high, or very dependent on lifestyle stuff where physically busier people have a much easier time, or a lot of stuff. I myself am somewhat overweight, so I'm aware it's not a simple, easy thing. I don't dislike fat people anyway, and wouldn't really care even if it was a conscious, easy choice.
But there's no reason why a lack of hatred for fat people should make me do what SMTM says, which is consider there to be a "strong moral reason" that should influence how I assess evidence, or how he presents it. *Even if I was hateful*, the facts would be what they would be in defiance of that.
On some of the other points:
1. On the wild animals thing: do you have something besides what SMTM shows? Because the only wild animals mentioned in the abstract he provides are rats (I'm mad at him for not making it more clear these are the wild animals he's talking about, but conditionally mad based on the fact that I very well could have missed something). Not that we can't talk about rats, but it's a lot more confounded than, say, a pack of wild wolves or similar.
2. I understood the Japanese thing. It's not really all that surprising to me; the diet is a ton different, and so is how you get around in Japan compared to the US. I was there for a bit under a month many years ago and lost weight while I was there, but I was also walking an enormous amount compared to what I'd do at home.
3. Some of what you are talking about is stuff I want to tackle when I do part III, looking at their actual theory. Like I could say "the set point has gone up less in cleaner-water environments" and then point to Japan or something and it's consistent with his theory, but it's also consistent with a ton of other theories regarding diet and sedentiary behavior.
That doesn't mean he's wrong, but I don't want to touch any of the "there's more obesity here in relation to lithium levels" stuff until I'm ready to spend some real time on it.
I'm going to go over 2-3 later, as stated - that's their main argument so that gets at least its own article, maybe more than one.
1. is weird. The monkeys are in captivity (which could go either way). The deer-being-fatter are attributed to harvesting pressure, which I haven't looked at all that close.
I don't think they think that dieting is impossible in the sense where if you locked a person in a closet and starved them they wouldn't lose weight - it's not to that extent. But I think it's reasonable to think they are indicating, for instance, that most of your attempts to lose weight are going to get eaten up by lipostat adjustments; that's why I quoted the "Not if your set point doesn't let you!" type language a couple places.
When I'm talking about dieting not working, I'm more talking about how I described it in the first article - people who aren't saying it's literally impossible, just claiming that it's impossible enough that basically nobody can do it. In SMTM's model, if you go on a diet you almost always lose no more than a couple pounds and then gain them back, and this is true for reasons besides food being tasty and entertainment being good.
That's not necessarily wrong, but it has to be proven. I'm hoping they do!
But yeah. My posit since the beginning is, all this could be true - it's plausible. that would be true even if they were flat-out-wrong about why every other cause was wrong. That still hasn't changed, so I'm looking forward to doing the rest of it.
J, I've been thinking about your comments for awhile and read the relevant parts of SMTM's post again. I think I agree with the argument that our lipostats are, on average, keeping us at higher set points than before. However, I don't think that SMTM's "disproving other causes" section proves what SMTM claim it proves.
First, SMTM recognizes an increase in average caloric intake of 400 calories per day. That is a huge amount. One estimate they gave was something like 2000ish calories on average going up to 2390 or so calories. That's a near-25% daily increase. That's huge. (Side point: I am not sure how this comports with your statement that "because even people who eat the same diet with the same activity level as their ancestors weigh more." Even if your statement is true, it is academic/hypothetical--it doesn't deal with the facts on the ground, which are that the average person is eating the equivalent of an extra McDonald's McDouble every day of their lives. I would expect 5 figures' worth of McDonald's McDoubles to have *some effect* over the course of one's life, compared to the counterfactual of zero extra McD's McD's.)
Second, if we take for granted that our lipostats are keeping our weights higher than they used to (which I believe SMTM endorses), I don't think it's a stretch to place causation for this higher level at the feet of [eating 400 more calories per day on average over the course of decades]. As a layperson, I don't understand the biochemistry of it all, but there are all kinds of instances where the human body "recalibrates" or "adapts" by arriving at a new equilibrium point based on chronic exposure to new stimuli. For instance, I think I have read that chronic SSRI use can permanently change how the brain reacts to serotonin. Hedonic adaptation might be another example of this.
Given these two points, I don't think you need lithium or another chemical to explain the lipostat change. We ate more, which gave us higher set-points, which makes it harder to lose weight. SMTM tries to refute something like this argument by saying that people who have lost weight on diets often return to their earlier weights. But all this argument does is acknowledge there is a set point at that higher weight that is hard to overcome. It doesn't prove that [something other than higher caloric consumption--and consequent adaptation to it] is the cause for the set point.
But why did we eat more in the first place? I don't think it's a stretch to say that people like tasty food. A species evolved to find cheap and easy sources of calories, and that has been naturally selected for those most able to store those extra calories of fact, seems likely to start storing more fat when higher quantities of more tasty, higher-calorie food becomes available.
I'm perfectly willing to concede something like "More willpower is required to maintain a healthy weight now than used to be required." But I don't think you need lithium to explain the change. People naturally ate more when more became available (because they are evolved to gather and store energy), and then their systems adapted to it. And now it's harder to lose weight.
Where "binge" = CI, "purge" = CO, and "compelled" = willpower.
(In all seriousness, I need to keep studying ACH. I absolutely do not have a good-enough grasp on the subject matter, as you keep illustrating. I'm interested to see RC's next installment on this. Hopefully I'll learn something.)
Thanks for taking the time to go through this exercise with me, J.
(I was reminded of it while reading yesterday's installment of The Wonderland Rules.)
Are lipostat and "set point" the same thing? I'm having trouble with the idea that lipostat is "quite complex" yet the "set point" is so easy to isolate that you can get an average of everyone's set point not only across millions of people but also across time.
This is what I thought you were saying. As I read your argument, you are saying we prove that set points have gone up by showing that average weight has gone up, therefore set points have gone up. By this logic, we can say that anything is causing weight to go up. E.g., weight has gone up, therefore black magic caused weight to go up. I'm just wondering what I'm missing.
Not so much for you alone but also for anyone reading this: that's sort of what these first two entries have been about.
Everything I've handled so far has been the *deductive* part of SMTM's argument. It's the part where they say "listen, I know it seems like people might just eat more and exercise less for a lot of reasons, but *it's not those reasons*. It's lithium, and we will strengthen our argument for lithium by pointing out it's not these other things".
When I say they can't just *asssume* those things are false, it's for good reason: they know they can't, and that's why they have the deductive section of their argument. Most of these things explain the obesity epidemic just as well *assuming they are true*; they need to show they aren't and eliminate them from play before "let's assume it's lithium" can be a strong component of their argument.
That's why I'm so rough on them there - this is important, but they don't do (I feel) a good job at it. Now, it's entirely possible I'll move on to the point where they argue for lithium directly and say "here's our data, here's our observed biological processes interacting with lithium, here's everything that's in support of lithium being true that isn't just pointing out that other explanations aren't true" and find it's really sound and strong. But as far as the deductive part goes, I think they failed so you really hope the rest of it ends up holding up to scrutiny.
I did, but it was awhile ago. Thanks for clarifying.