Ranee at Arabian Knits > wrote:

> Doug Freyburger > wrote:

>> Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again
>> and expecting the same results. People who push eating less and
>> exercising more suggest the same thing over and over and expect the
>> results to be different the next time. Yes, whatever eventually the
>> solution is will include something that causes less hunger and thus less
>> eating. Yes, whatever eventually the solution is will include more
>> exercise than was done before the start of the obesity epidemic. Oh
>> right, people already do that part.

> I'm not so sure about that. People sit most of the time now. They
>sit at work, they sit in their cars, they sit on the bus or train, they
>sit at home. People don't cook their own food from scratch, relying
>instead on restaurants and packaged foods which are laden with sugars,
>starches, fats and salt. They drink more calories than was ever common
>in the past. They don't work as hard on their lawns, their yards, their
>gardens (if they have those), they don't work as hard to clean house, or
>even clean as much. They have fewer children and aren't chasing after
>them. They don't work in jobs that require much in the way of physical
>exertion. Are there exceptions to these generalizations? Absolutely.
>But western society, and especially American society, does not either
>eat less or exercise more.

Yes, I agree, as I posted upthread Americans consume 157 grams of
fat per day instead of the 65 grams of fat per day the NIH is
telling them to consume. Whatever the reason for the so-called
American obesity epidemic, it is definitely not that they are following
the possibly flawed advice of consuming 65 grams of fat per day, because
they are not following it.

Doug does have a point about Einstein's truism because the data
suggests that about 70% of Americans who attempt sustained weight-loss
do not achieve it, and these individuals repeat this behavior at
at a rate of perhaps 2.5 attempts per year. It is probably not
difficult to find individuals who "go on a diet" at something
like this frequency throughout most of their adult life. This
leads to the often-quoted statistic that 90% of 95% of weight-loss
attempts fail.

Steve