At least they aren't blaming fat. Why can't they just go ahead and ID the carbs?

Link:
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/s...latestheadlines

Human evolution can't cope with fast food, say scientists

Calorie-packed fast food encourages over-eating and weight gain because it is out of step with human evolution, scientists have said.

They pointed out that humans are designed for conditions in which food is relatively scarce and low in energy.

But fast food from take-aways and convenience stores is typically energy dense. You do not need to eat much of it to consume a lot of calories.

The result is people accidentally over-eat without feeling particularly full.

Nutrition experts Professor Andrew Prentice and Dr Susan Jebb highlighted the problem by combining British and African diet study data with information on the ingredients in fast food.

Professor Prentice, head of the Medical Research Council's International Nutrition Group at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "We all possess a weak innate ability to recognise foods with a high energy density. We tend to assess food intake by the size of the portion, yet a fast food meal contains many more calories than a similar-sized portion of a healthy meal.

"Since the dawn of agriculture, the systems regulating human appetite have evolved for the low energy diet still being consumed in rural areas of the developing world where obesity is almost non-existent.

"Our bodies were never designed to cope with the very energy dense foods consumed in the West and this is contributing to a major rise in obesity."

The World Health Organisation estimates there are 300 million obese people worldwide.

In England, obesity rates have trebled in the past 25 years. Experts predict that by the end of the decade three in 10 UK adults will be obese.

Story filed: 06:52 Wednesday 22nd October 2003

I don't really agree with the use of the term energy dense food. Lots of energy dense food has been avalaible for most of man's history. Meat, fat and nuts are good example. In fact, it's theorized that meat was the one element that allowed us to evolve our big brains.

Well I'm not suprised that they forgot this little fact considering Susan Jebb is involved with this article. She has come around somewhat, but she is still stridently anti low-carb

Unfortunately, in the BBC report on this subject they are - see final paragraph below.


Why fast food makes you get fat
BBC News - 22 October, 2003

The nutritional make up of fast food encourages people to gorge on it unintentionally, increasing their risk of obesity, research suggests.
Experts at the Medical Research Council found most fast food is very dense in calories - you only need a small amount to bump up your calorific intake.

They found that these "energy dense" foods can fool people into consuming more calories than the body needs.

The research is published in the journal Obesity Reviews.

A typical fast food meal has a very high energy density. It is more than one and a half times higher than an average traditional British meal and two and a half times higher than a traditional African meal.

The researchers concluded that a diet high in fast foods will increase a person's risk of weight gain and obesity - even though they may feel that they are eating no more than they would if they ate an average meal.

Subconscious ability

Researcher Professor Andrew Prentice, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "We all possess a weak innate ability to recognise foods with a high energy density.

"We tend to assess food intake by the size of the portion, yet a fast food meal contains many more calories than a similar-sized portion of a healthy meal.

"Since the dawn of agriculture, the systems regulating human appetite have evolved for the low energy diet still being consumed in rural areas of the developing world where obesity is almost non-existent.

"Our bodies were never designed to cope with the very energy dense foods consumed in the West and this is contributing to a major rise in obesity."

Professor Prentice drew particular attention to the consequences of a diet high in fast foods for children.

"Children have not yet developed any of the learned dietary restraint that needs to be exerted by anyone wishing to remain slim in the modern environment.

"It's surely a stark paradox that the strategy used to achieve rapid weight gain in malnourished children in Africa - the frequent offering of energy-dense foods - has now become the norm for many overweight children in affluent societies."

Limited choice

Dr Susan Jebb, of the MRC Human Nutrition Research Centre, said: "In many outlets, the choice is so limited that it's virtually impossible to select a combination of items with even a moderate energy density.

"You'd need to eat well below the portion size offered to avoid greatly exceeding recommended energy and fat requirements.

"Fast food companies could play a major part in halting the rise in obesity if they adopted a more positive attitude to healthy eating such as providing meals of lower energy density, appropriately marketed and with point-of-sale nutrition labelling."

Dr Jebb said many supermarket ready-meals and convenience foods were also very energy dense.

"If we're going to stem the tide of obesity, it's important that we don't just swap one unhealthy meal for another.

"Research has shown time and again that to maintain a healthy weight, we need to eat foods with less fat and added sugars and to take more exercise."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3210750.stm

Food density could not be the reason. Lions and tigers eat high density food and stay slim. Pegs and cows eat low density food and they have more body fat.

I think combining fat with carbohydrate could be one cause of the problem. Breaded and fried meats, french fries and chips make the worst examples.

When we eat enough amount of carbohydrates our bodies run entirely on glucose since it is the preferred fuel and fats are stored as body fat. Remember, when carbohydrates are available, we don't turn fats into ketones as we do when we are on a low carb diet.

One more reason for obesity in the west is that people continuously attept to lose weight by reducing their calorie intake. To our bodies, fat is a precious energy reserve which must be maintained. Each low calorie diet is interpreted as a famine and each time our bodies encounter a famine, they decide to make us more energy reserve after the famine is over!

Remember too that any carbohydrate you eat that gets converted to glucose and then glycogen, but can't be stored in the liver or muscles (VERY limited storage capacity), gets converted to triglycerides which are then stored as body fat. Even a low fat diet can still make you fat if you have too many calories from carbs.
Your body doesn't allow glucose to just slosh around in your bloodstream - it has to move it out (insulin's function). The quicker the food gets converted to glucose (higher GI) the less likely it is that you are going to burn ALL those calories from that food in the time that your body's going to allow the glucose to be in your blood...
Slow release of glucose means you use up the glycogen before it gets stored as fat. (Hence low-GI stuff being better for us LCers)

Cheers!
Steven

Reading the article, I wondered if the phrase about foods that are "dense in energy" is really a code for "dense in simple carbohydrate".

I wondered the same thing...sure sounds like it to me. Weasle words.

I assume they mean high calorie per volume.

Pointing the finger at "energy-dense" foods doesn't explain the "French paradox" -- French cooking has always favored fatty ingredients, yet the French have consistently tended to less obesity than Americans and British. Try again, Ms. Jebb -- what do your sponsors at the Flour Advisory Board say about that?

If you regularly monitor this forum you get so you recognize these "experts" and their sponsors. Such as Ms Jebb and her connection to the Flour Advisory Board. If I see her name, and others, I immediately am suspicious about her motives. These people are famous for NOT HAVING READ any of Dr. Atkins books past induction. Burns me up, and they need to shut up. There are plenty of scientific studies out there now that disprove what these people are saying.