If your child is fat then simple: you are a bad parent!

[beorhthelm]

A high protien low/carb diet will keep weight off more effectively than a high carb diet even if the calorie content is identical. Google "thermic effect of food" and "metabolic pathways of macronutrients"

agree with the "not all calories are the same" point, this is taking the idea too far, or hides a lot of stuff that's focused on fitness junkies/body builders etc. if the thermic effect is essentially that you burn more digesting the high protein food, you just increased your calories requirement, so its self-fulfilling. to consume the same amount of calories from protein you need to eat a lot of it. that's the idea of the high carb diets, fill up on non-carb. everyone i know who's tried it tends to have low energy as a result. it works for body builders who are taking a lot of carbs on as well, so they need to balance differently right? but they are burning calories like nobody business, so their diets dont really apply to others.

 

[dazzer6666]

This is bang on. When I worked regularly in London I would walk ten minutes to and from the station and that would be my only exercise. I would then sit on a train looking at my ipad or a book, sit at my desk drinking coffee and being fed an almost daily supply of donuts before having a huge lunch, sitting down again and getting the train home. Once home I'd have a big meal or, if working late, a takeaway at the station and reward myself with a bottle of wine on most nights too. Guess what? I ended up fat.

I've lost two and a half stone. While I have worked from home more I still travel to meetings in London every now and again and to see clients. The weight loss has come because I put exercise in to my day (running or stretching / cross training) but also because I cut down my food intake and said no to the wine and donuts more often than I said yes. All self control and lifestyle change.

'snap'.....

I also know that I could easily slip back into bad habits. I have days when willpower goes completely and I eat far too much crap. It wouldn't take much for these days to turn into weeks and months - the temptation and opportunity is always there. Discovering running in my mid 30s probably saved me from an early heart attack. Even when injured, I keep the discipline of going to the gym, so the odd day of falling off the wagon isn't a disaster. Still important to have a balance and not be a food Nazi about it.

 

[dazzer6666]

As you might know I am a sceptic, I have put on weight lost weight, been extremely fit and strong and more recently less so, I always have a look at current fads and I note they have begun to try and delete the word 'diet' out of their newly created pseudo science that will ensure we now only need to follow this latest craze to stay healthy, fit and within the current preferred range of weight, the magic bullet usually nearly always being metabolism and some magical non absorption aspect.

Its been going on for generations, usually to be debunked soon after.

As an aside why currently is there such an anti carbohydrate brigade, it might be worth remembering rice and bread the new enemies of food fascists have sustained whole civilisations and still do, I assume we are just too spoilt by our food choices.

Anyway, I didnt google your requested search words, I went for NHS instead and it seems its still an eating issue

For me, 'anti carbohydrate' is too strong. It's more about the massive amount of refined carbs consumed which I think is the primary cause of obesity. Balanced, healthy diet will contain carbs.....

 

[beorhthelm]

For me, 'anti carbohydrate' is too strong.

i don think it is when bread and pasta gets beaten upon, when its been the staple for so many centuries. people seem to forget the diet of just a couple of generations ago wasn't much more than bread, dripping, cheese and a couple Lbs of potatoes and veg a week.

 

[Billy the Fish]

i don think it is when bread and pasta gets beaten upon, when its been the staple for so many centuries. people seem to forget the diet of just a couple of generations ago wasn't much more than bread, dripping, cheese and a couple Lbs of potatoes and veg a week.

The difference is, I think, that past generations didn't have access to those things in huge quantities and they were far more active with more manual jobs. You can see this in other parts of the world, I was in Marrakech recently and didn't see any fat locals. I think [MENTION=27279]dazzer6666[/MENTION] has it right with the comments about refined carbs, until recently they would barely register in most people's diets and now they are added to absolutely everything.

 

[dazzer6666]

This explains it quite well. The old staples are typically unrefined......it's the nutritional quality, and quantity (both in terms of % of modern diet, and portion size) of this stuff that's the issue.

http://www.fitday.com/fitness-artic...ween-unrefined-and-refined-carbohydrates.html

 

[Mattywerewolf]

IMHO far more about the sugar than the carbs. Italians for generations have been healthy. The latest generation think fast food and fizzy drinks are 'cool' and have been the first significantly obese generation in Italian history. Hence the reason i support Jamie Oliver in his bid for a Sugar tax

 

[dazzer6666]

IMHO far more about the sugar than the carbs. Italians for generations have been healthy. The latest generation think fast food and fizzy drinks are 'cool' and have been the first significantly obese generation in Italian history. Hence the reason i support Jamie Oliver in his bid for a Sugar tax

Sugars are carbs......certainly included in any comments about refined carbs. The amount in some 'energy' drinks is horrendous....

 

[beorhthelm]

The difference is, I think, that past generations didn't have access to those things in huge quantities and they were far more active with more manual jobs.

my contention is that they did have access and consumed a great deal of them. "refined carbs " is covering non-wholemeal wheat and that's been around for a couple of centuries, sifting flour to remove the wheat germ to extend shelf life of the flour, and sugar wasn't a rarity early last century. certainly people working the fields and mines, or just getting about were more active. as they probably are in Marrakech. so that goes back to simple calorie counting, in vs out, being the main change in the past generation.

found a reference... read Road to Wigan Pier chapter 6, where Orwell reports a family buys 2 stone of flour a week. thats 12 kg! in that chapter he highlights the well meaning middle classes telling other people how to eat, somethings never change.