Why do we get fat

Chapter 5 Why Are You So Fat? (2)
It is quite possible that the type of food is the culprit of obesity.Everything the Pima ate had come to follow the "white man's recipe," as Herdlica said.This may be the crux of the problem. The diet of the Pima in 1900 was characterized—qualitatively, not quantitatively—similar to the diet we eat a century later.

In fact, after 1850, six trading posts opened on the Pima Reserve.As anthropologist Henry Dobyns tells us, the Pima bought sugar, coffee, and canned goods from trading posts.These foods have replaced the traditional diet of the Pima people since white people settled their lands.Also, most of the supplies the government distributes to the reserve are white flour and a lot of sugar—at least a lot for the Pima people a century ago.As I will show throughout the book, these are likely to be key factors in obesity.

If only the Pima could prove that people who suffer from both poverty and obesity do exist, we can dismiss them as a special case—this eyewitness’s testimony is inconsistent with others’.But, as I said, there are too many of them.There is ample evidence that high levels of obesity do exist among the extremely poor.The Pima were only leaders in a procession of witnesses whose testimony was never heard.They can prove that when you are poor, work hard, and don't even have enough to eat, you can also be fat.Let's first look at what they said.

Twenty-five years after Russell and Herdlica visited Pima, two researchers from the University of Chicago studied another Native American tribe, the Sioux of South Dakota's Crow Creek Reservation.The Sioux lived in "uninhabitable" shacks, typically with four to eight family members per room.Many homes are unpiped and have no running water. 25% of children live in houses without any bathrooms. There are 40 children in 15 families, and they live mainly on bread and coffee.Their poverty is almost beyond our present imagination.

However, obesity rates among the Sioux are comparable to those seen today in an epidemic of obesity: 40 percent of adult women, 25 percent of men, and 10 percent of children on the reserve could be called obese, according to the University of Chicago report. obesity.That's enough evidence that what Herdelika calls "incredibly lazy" sanctuary life contributes to obesity, but the researchers also noticed another fact about these Sioux: 20 percent of adult women, 25 percent of men And 25% of children are quite thin.The reserve's diet, largely derived from government supplies, lacks calories, protein, and essential vitamins and minerals.The impact of these dietary deficiencies is hard to ignore: "Despite the paucity of relevant data, no casual observer could fail to notice the prevalence of tooth decay, bowed legs, eye disease, and blindness in these families."

Today's authorities consider the combination of obesity and malnutrition (calorie deficiency) in the same population to be a new phenomenon, but it is not. 80 years ago there were people who were obese and malnourished at the same time.This situation is so important that we need to look into it further.

Let's look at a few more examples:
1951 - Italy: Naples

Ancel Keys, a nutritionist at the University of Minnesota, traveled to Naples to study the diet and health of Neapolitans.It was this nutritionist who succeeded in convincing us that the fat we eat and the cholesterol in our blood trigger a heart attack.

“Napolitans generally had no problems with their nutritional status,” he later wrote. “Napolitans generally ate lean meat once or twice a week, hardly anyone knew about butter, and no one drank milk except coffee creamer and baby formula. Go to work breakfast is usually half a loaf of baguette stuffed with roasted lettuce or spinach. They eat pasta every day, usually with some bread without sauce, and 25% of their calories come from eating olive oil and wine. No evidence Shows that Neapolitans are undernourished, but working-class women are fat."

What Keith doesn't say is that the vast majority of Neapolitans at that time were extremely poor.The Neapolitans were so traumatized by World War II that in the later stages of the war, it was ubiquitous to see many housewives becoming sexual objects for Allied soldiers in order to provide for their families.A postwar parliamentary inquiry painted southern Italy as essentially a Third World country.There is little meat available on the market, resulting in less meat being consumed, and malnutrition is widespread.It wasn't until the late 20s, long after Keith's visit, that post-war reconstruction efforts showed significant progress.

Another noteworthy fact is that Keith's description of the Neapolitan diet is very similar to the Mediterranean diet diet that has become all the rage these days, even down to the abundance of olive oil and wine.Michael Pollan's recommended granny diet in "In Defense of Food" is also very similar: "Eat not much, and mainly plant foods." These people must not eat much.A 1951 survey ranked Italy and Greece as the least-fed countries in Europe—2400 calories per person per day, compared with 3800 in the United States at the time.However, "working-class women do get fat".Women who have to work hard to earn a living gain weight, not rich women.

1954 - Leather Horse (Second Time)
Researchers from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs measured the weight and height of Pima children and reported that more than half of the children, both sexes, were obese by age 11.Living conditions in the Gila River Reserve were described as "pervasive poverty".

1959 - South Carolina: Charleston
美国黑人中，18%的男性和30%的女性为肥胖人群。家庭人员每周的现金收入从9美元到53美元不等，相当于今天的每周65美元到390美元。

1960 - South Africa: Durban
Among Zulus, 40% of adult women are obese. For women around 40 years old, the average weight is about 79 kg.Typically, women are about 9kg heavier and about 10cm shorter than men, but that doesn't mean they eat better.The researchers also pointed out that obesity is usually accompanied by many signs of nutritional disorders.

1961 - South Pacific: Nauru
A local doctor described the situation candidly: "By European standards, everyone here is seriously overweight after puberty."

1961-1963 - West Indies: Trinidad

A group of American nutritionists reported that malnutrition was a serious problem among the islanders, as was obesity. One in three women over the age of 25 is obese.The women's average daily calorie intake was estimated to be less than 2000 calories, less than the minimum recommended by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations for a healthy diet at the time.

1963 - Chile

Obesity has been described as a major nutritional problem among Chilean adults. 22% of military personnel and 32% of white-collar workers are obese. Among factory workers, 35% of men and 39% of women are obese.The situation of these workers is most critical because most of their jobs require heavy physical labor.

1964-1965 - South Africa: Johannesburg

Researchers from the South African Institute of Medical Research conducted a survey on Bantu urban retirees over the age of 60. The description "poorest Bantu elderly" means that they are the poorest of the extreme poor.The average weight of women in this group was about 75 kg, and 30% of them were seriously overweight.The average weight of "poor white women" is also said to be 75kg.

1965 - South Carolina

Twenty-nine percent of Cherokee Nation adults on the Quila Reservation are obese.

1969 - Ghana

(End of this chapter)