Canadian Researchers Say Hard Thinking Leads To Big Meals

Anti-Globalism writes with an excerpt from a story at Ars Technica, according to which "a preliminary study from a group of researchers in Quebec suggest that working on a computer may have an additional impact on our waistlines: taxing mental effort appears to cause people to eat significantly more food, even though it doesn't burn many more calories than sitting around and relaxing. The publication, published in a journal called Psychosomatic Medicine, arose from a pilot study that the researchers were performing in order to determine whether a potential connection between mental effort and eating was worth following up on."

Comments

Vindication

[AKAImBatman]

First to clear up a small matter. Merely reading the summary is somewhat misleading. While the brain's actual energy usage stays consistent, the study shows that blood sugar and insulin levels varied radically during the tests. Furthermore, the subjects in the tests showed marked signs of stress, including heightened levels of cortisol in their bloodstream. Here's the relevant section:

The authors provide two potential explanations for their findings, both of which may be accurate to varying degrees. The first involves sugar metabolism. The brain is especially reliant on glucose, and the blood tests revealed that both glucose and insulin levels changed during the KBW tasks, while they gently sloped off during the relaxation. The differences weren't consistent--the two KBW tasks sent the levels in opposite directions--but the instability of the levels was large for both of them. The authors suggest that the eating may simply be an attempt to give the body the chance to stabilize blood glucose.

Their other suggestion is that people find KBW stressful. Both the survey results and blood levels of cortisol (a hormone associated with stress) indicated that the KBW tasks took a mental toll. High stress has been associated with increased eating in a variety of contexts, so the upped food intake in this study may simply reflect that.

What's particularly interesting about these results is that two things have been known for a while now. The first is that the brain's energy usage is relatively constant regardless of the task. However, it has also been clear that severe mental activity can result in signs of fatigue, exhaustion, and greater energy consumption. I personally can attest to these symptoms after several extremely challenging programming tasks. (Ever tried cobbling together an emergency replacement JSP engine inside 3 hours? That was... interesting.) Yet this is simply at odds with the scientific evidence on hand.

This study finally offers evidence to break the impasse. It is the first evidence to clearly show that there is a physiological and not merely a psychological effect from extreme mental work. I look forward to hearing the results of future studies. Perhaps a more effective diet or lifestyle can be devised to make knowledge workers more effective.

Re:Vindication

[blahplusplus]

Sedentary work + stress = overeating, who would have thunk it?

The real problem is the desire for money outweighs (pardon the pun) the desire for a sane society, i.e. exercise, etc. Having a certain amount of hours off a week for exercise/relaxation and whatnot, I was just reading something about how americans have near the least vacaton time a year compared to other industrialized nations.

I'm not surprised given the nature of our stupidity when it comes to taking care of ourselves, money first, health later.

Re:Vindication

[Anonymous Coward]

two things have been known for a while now. The first is that the brain's energy usage is relatively constant regardless of the task. However, it has also been clear that severe mental activity can result in... greater energy consumption.

So you're saying we've known "A" but also "NOT A".

What?!

I read the article but it says that people who stress out thinking more eat more. Okay, how does that "break the impasse" described above?

I happen to believe that thinking hard- programming- writing- puzzle-solving for hours on end burns way more energy as opposed to sitting on your ass watching a sitcom. It just has to, right? Yeah it probably also involves some stress which may make you hungrier, although sometimes focused thought promotes meal-skipping when you get in that zone and lose track of time and thus skip meals...

Hard thinking may lead to big meals, but at least in the US, it seems casual thinking or not thinking at all leads to big meals too.

Re:Vindication

[Venik]

Perhaps this also explains my lack of appetite :)

Re:Vindication

[Anonymous Coward]

Sedentary work + stress = overeating, who would have thunk it?

The real problem is the desire for money outweighs (pardon the pun) the desire for a sane society, i.e. exercise, etc. Having a certain amount of hours off a week for exercise/relaxation and whatnot, I was just reading something about how americans have near the least vacaton time a year compared to other industrialized nations.

I'm not surprised given the nature of our stupidity when it comes to taking care of ourselves, money first, health later.

when your health depends on your ability to make money (most other industrialized and "civilized" nations have affordable health care, you kinda get used to working yourself to death to make sure you have enough to pay personal premiums, or to make sure your employer doesn't terminate you, or to advance within a company because leaving in search of a better position means lacking healthcare for the interim.

Re:Vindication

[JamesTRexx]

Although I don't disagree with the desire for money being a real problem, it has nothing to do with the study.
Whether it's one day, or 5 days in the week, when I'm at work solving whatever problems show up on network/server/client side, I feel more hungry and eat something several times a day.
I'm much less hungry when I can relax during the day and don't have to sort out a chaos. In the past 3 weeks vacation I've eaten mostly 1 or 2 times a day and lost about 5 kgs. And I'm definitely eating a lot more healthy at work than in these weeks. I've also been a lot less active so that's no excuse either.

Re:Vindication

[TheRaven64]

I propose a third explanation. When you are thinking hard, you are exhausting neurotransmitters at a greater rate, even if you are not using more energy. Several of these require sodium to produce, which needs therefore to be consumed from food. I find that low fat crisps or rice crackers are an excellent accompaniment to thinking hard about something - this gets rid of the hunger very quickly without providing much other than salt. In contrast, high-sugar foods seem to have little effect on reducing the hunger felt, and water can make it even worse. Without knowing what food the people consumed, this study is not very valuable.

Re:Vindication

[mh1997]

The real problem is the desire for money outweighs (pardon the pun) the desire for a sane society, i.e. exercise, etc. Having a certain amount of hours off a week for exercise/relaxation and whatnot, I was just reading something about how americans have near the least vacaton time a year compared to other industrialized nations.

Then how do you explain the study "Unemployment, cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption and body weight in young British men" by SCOTT M. MONTGOMERY1, DEREK G. COOK2, MEL J. BARTLEY3 and MICHAEL E.J. WADSWORTH3? They found when british men become unemployed they get fat. Seems to me they have plenty of time to exercise.

Maybe there is something other than time off that determines if a person is willing to exercise - like desire. It is really hard for me to find the time to exercise because I don't want to. However, I can find plenty of time to play video games and watch TV on my time off.

Re:Vindication

[Thiez]

> I happen to believe that thinking hard- programming- writing- puzzle-solving for hours on end burns way more energy as opposed to sitting on your ass watching a sitcom. It just has to, right?

Depends. Maybe the difference in energy-consumption between a programming brain and a sitcom-watching brain is very small, or even insignificant. Note that while you may not feel like you're thinking much while watching that sitcom, your brain is doing all kinds of (difficult) stuff like facial recognition and speech recognition. While you are programming/writing/puzzle-solving you usually don't have to pay attention to faces and sounds.

Maybe concious activities merely feel more tiring than unconcious ones, but actually aren't.

Re:Vindication

[vertinox]

Then how do you explain the study "Unemployment, cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption and body weight in young British men" by SCOTT M. MONTGOMERY1, DEREK G. COOK2, MEL J. BARTLEY3 and MICHAEL E.J. WADSWORTH3? They found when british men become unemployed they get fat. Seems to me they have plenty of time to exercise.

Maybe they are depressed and that working isn't so stressful over there. I have something anecdotal. Even though I myself haven't had any adverse effects to my own health, I do work in a very stressful job and often have noted new employees gaining lots of weight here since working.

Re:Vindication

[D4C5CE]

However, it has also been clear that severe mental activity can result in signs of fatigue, exhaustion, and greater energy consumption. [...] It is the first evidence to clearly show that there is a physiological and not merely a psychological effect from extreme mental work. I look forward to hearing the results of future studies. Perhaps a more effective diet or lifestyle can be devised to make knowledge workers more effective.

On the other hand, putting only low-cal food in reach of course, it should be tested whether an unforeseen weight loss program might be "if you can't make them exercise, make them think!"
E.g. whether one will become less of a couch potato if a games console with some sort of "brain trainer" is added to the TV...

Re:Vindication

[CodeBuster]

Ever tried cobbling together an emergency replacement JSP engine inside 3 hours?

I cannot imagine the circumstances. Perhaps you could elaborate on why it was necessary to reinvent the wheel in that particular case?

Re:Vindication

[Tubal-Cain]

Here's the relevant section:

Good thing I spotted this line, or else I would have been guilty of reading part of TFA.

Re:Vindication

[AKAImBatman]

Primarily because the existing one was broken. But it only showed up broken under a load. Which meant that it didn't show up until testing until a few days before deployment. Worse yet, it's not like we could replace the server at the last minute as we were already invested in the vendor's extensions. (Something which I was a vocal opponent of.)

We contacted the vendor and were promised an emergency patch. The patch arrived the day of the deployment. Testing began... and failed. The patch didn't work. But if we didn't get this new piece of the application out that day, we'd fail our contract with our partners. Effectively, we were stuck in a no-win situation. (One could easily argue that better planning would have avoided the issue, but that's neither here nor there once you're staring down the barrel.)

So my solution was to change the rules. I pulled up the vendor's meager documentation on their JSPC compiler and set to work on a replacement engine that used as much of the vendor's original code as possible. All the libraries and the compiler itself were left intact, but the key part we wanted to replace (the part that loaded JSPS pages, initiated, included, and forwarded requests) was what I focused on. In 3 hours, I did the research, the reverse engineering, and the implementation to make it happen. The code was load tested with barely a half hour to spare. An exhausting bit of work. But it saved the day. :-)

There was one minor bug fix required later that night, and I added development features like dynamic reloading the next day. The powers that be were so happy with the solution that when the vendor finally got us a working patch, no one was in any hurry to install it. I honestly don't remember if we ever replaced my jury-rigged engine or not!

Re:Vindication

[mpe]

Whether it's one day, or 5 days in the week, when I'm at work solving whatever problems show up on network/server/client side, I feel more hungry and eat something several times a day. I'm much less hungry when I can relax during the day and don't have to sort out a chaos. In the past 3 weeks vacation I've eaten mostly 1 or 2 times a day and lost about 5 kgs. And I'm definitely eating a lot more healthy at work than in these weeks. I've also been a lot less active so that's no excuse either.

Or maybe current ideas about "healthy eating" are incorrect in some ways.

Re:Vindication

[mpe]

When you are thinking hard, you are exhausting neurotransmitters at a greater rate, even if you are not using more energy. Several of these require sodium to produce, which needs therefore to be consumed from food. I find that low fat crisps or rice crackers are an excellent accompaniment to thinking hard about something - this gets rid of the hunger very quickly without providing much other than salt.

Remember it's currently fashionably to regard sodium as "bad". With KCl or even more exotic salts being used as a replacement for NaCl...

Without knowing what food the people consumed, this study is not very valuable.

This is an issue with many dietary studies.
Together with the simple fact that measuring the "energy value" of food by burning it in pure oxygen is at best an approximation and at worst a complete fiction about what the human body will do with it. i.e. testing the same mass of glucose and cellulose in a calorimeter will give you the same results. But you'd get very different results from feeding them to a human (you probably wouldn't even get the same results if you used termites, which have bacterial symbiotes which enable the digestion of cellulose.)

Re:Vindication

[mpe]

I happen to believe that thinking hard- programming- writing- puzzle-solving for hours on end burns way more energy as opposed to sitting on your ass watching a sitcom. It just has to, right? Yeah it probably also involves some stress which may make you hungrier, although sometimes focused thought promotes meal-skipping when you get in that zone and lose track of time and thus skip meals...

Or it could be that rather than "energy" what is being consumed are specific chemicals. If the food you are eating is poor in terms of either these chemicals (or chemicals the human body can use to make what it needs) then you are going to have to eat a lot to get what you need. (There may also be a mechanism involved that such a situation tricks your body into "believing" that you are being starved even if whatever you are eating is rich in lots of stuff your body dosn't actually need at the time.)

Re:Vindication

[Anonymous Coward]

heightened levels of cortisol in their bloodstream.

So the Force is strong with this one?

Re:Vindication

[Ksisanth]

As a type 1 diabetic I've long known that mental exercise is just as effective as moderate physical exercise in reducing my daily insulin requirements and driving down glucose levels, but I've never noticed any later spikes that would be expected with increased cortisol.

Re:Vindication

[TheLink]

You use more energy if you're learning something.

I got it from google :)

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=381608

Too lazy to use more energy looking for better answers ;).

Re:Vindication

[Anonymous Coward]

My uneducated father (immigrant with not even a high school diploma), works 40hours a week in a job anyone who's willing to pick up something heavy can do, and gets full health coverage for our entire family. My brother had cancer, and over the three years of treatment, we spent more on gas driving back and forth to the hospital, than from the actual treatment.

The system here isn't perfect by any means, but your post is a flat out troll, a majority of americans have more than enough free time to keep healthy and don't live for their jobs.

Re:Vindication

[CodeBuster]

An argument for Open Source if ever there was one, but thanks for taking the time to explain.

Re:Vindication

[Doctor Memory]

Ever tried cobbling together an emergency replacement JSP engine inside 3 hours?

What happened, your old one throw a rod?

On a related note, I recently determined that I could stuff an entire development system (VMware image with all tools, source, and test data) onto a USB stick. Given our ability to develop using only OSS tools and environments, we can include one of these sticks as part of our release media. That way, if an installation or upgrade goes pear-shaped because of some client quirkiness (like "Oh, BTW we have a new corporate policy: all applications must log all error and audit messages to the Windows Event Viewer [sic] -- NO EXCEPTIONS"), the installation team can code and test a fix on-site, or connect to Subversion and get a fix/patch/enhancement we developed back at the ranch.

Don't know if something like that would have helped in your particular situation ("Oh, BTW we switched all the production servers from Solaris to Windows Server 2003, but that won't affect your code because Java runs the same on both, right?"), but I've been in spots before where it would have...

Re:Vindication

[Stickerboy]

>Or maybe current ideas about "healthy eating" are incorrect in some ways.

Probably not... the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet which forms the basis of current National Institutes of Health dietary guidelines has been shown to lower blood pressure, cut the risk of having a stroke by 18% and the risk of a heart attack by 24% over a period of 24 years.

The diet consists of lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and up to 2 servings of meat a day; dairy should be low-fat or non-fat. In other words, lots of vitamins, fiber, and complex carbs. Moderate protein content, low in fat and sodium.

What does your fad diet do for you?
 

Re:Vindication

[steelfood]

Perhaps the maximum amount of energy the brain uses when thinking doesn't increase, but perhaps people who are required to think more keep up that level of energy consumption for longer periods of time, while people who spend their time not thinking only sporadically use that level of energy.

It's anecdotal, but I know that when I am glucose-deprived, I can only do quick bursts of serous thinking activity before my mind goes to mush again, while when I'm fully fueled, I can and often do sustain longer thoughts. It's like the difference between thinking one or two moves or hundreds of moves ahead in a chess game.

Re:Vindication

[witekr]

The fact that this study shows results similar to what I have been experiencing myself is interesting. I am a Type 1 Diabetic using an insulin pump, a device which continually pumps a steady (x units/hr) dosage of insulin to me throughout the day but does not automatically react to changes in my blood sugar like a working pancreas would. Since I keep a lifestyle which maintains my sugar levels at the most stable level possible, I have the opportunity to see how various things affect my blood glucose levels, making them deviate from their controlled state. I have been finding that intense brainstorming sessions and work meetings where I am very active always cause my blood sugar levels to plummet. Despite the fact that I am doing no physical exercise at the time, mental effort seems to eat up a lot of sugar. Low blood sugar increases appetite, and perhaps this is why people eat more when they think hard.

Re:Vindication

[MrKaos]

The diet consists of lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and up to 2 servings of meat a day; dairy should be low-fat or non-fat. In other words, lots of vitamins, fiber, and complex carbs. Moderate protein content, low in fat and sodium.

That's basically my diet, I eat loads of fruit though about 6-10 peices a day. I was trying to work out why I crave sweet stuff like fruit all the time, now I know why. I avoid sugar, salt and give processed food a big miss. I like to work out because there is nothing worse than having a tired brain but a body that won't sleep.

Re:Vindication

[Lord Flipper]

The system here isn't perfect by any means

First, I want to say that I hope your brother made a full return to health and is doing well, and secondly, that I assume you are very proud of your father. Working people have been the backbone of all civilizations that ever amounted to anything.

But, you know, there are some 'cracks' in our system. I acquired a disease in Canada, from tainted blood, 15 years ago, and now that I have been back home in the States for 7 years, the virus went deadly on me. Through a bankruptcy of a company I worked for in Florida, and an extended period of serious unemployment in Upstate New York, I found myself having to shut down a new company of my own, in order to be clearly poor enough to qualify for Medical Assistance here in Minneapolis.

On the one hand, I am very grateful that the State has found a way to cover my chemotherapy. I'm indebted to them for that. But I should have been able to get some sort of affordable coverage AND continue to work. But that wasn't possible in NY, and furthermore, they wanted me to sue my ex-wife, who is 20 years separated, and the mother of my daughter, or NY State would turn me down. Which they did, twice. Minnesota, on the other hand, said my wife was in the clear as long as there was no joint property.

So, here I am, on very heavy chemo, living on $203 and $162 of food support, per month. It is tough, my friend, I kid you not. I am actually entitled to a payout, in a settlement of a class action, from the funds set up by the Canadian Red Cross, but need a lawyer to do the deal. I missed two payouts (the last being in 2004) already, due to my misreading of the days of qualification. I had thought it was from 1986 to 1990, but, in fact, it was from before 1986, or after 1990. I got my disease in the Vic, in Montreal, during 18 operations and 5 weeks in ICU, from December '92 to March '93.

The disease has been undetectable for four months now, but I still have 5 months of Interferon/Ribavirin to deal with yet. I consider myself very fortunate. But, in all honesty, I see room for improvement in the system, itself.

Re:Vindication

[Half-pint HAL]

His post isn't a flat out troll.

I work for a multinational, and when any one of us from outside the US is seconded to our Texas offices, the guys are amazed at the amount of time we're out of the office. "Another vacation?!?"

Now, if your uneducated father had lost his job just before your brother was diagnosed... well, it doesn't bear thinking about, does it?

Your system isn't completely broken by any means, but I certainly wouldn't want to live under it.

HAL.

Re:Vindication

[indifferent children]

I wasn't entirely certain how to read this. Are you saying that when someone from outside the US is working at your Texas facility, that the Texans are surprised at how much time-off the foreign employees get? That would match my experience.

Re:Vindication

[Half-pint HAL]

Yes -- that's exactly it.

Re:Vindication

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps a more effective diet or lifestyle can be devised to make knowledge workers more effective.

its already been done. in fact, it was done well over 10 years ago. more recently, though, the harvard medical center's joslin diabetes center picked up on the research and changed their dietary recommendations to match this diet.

http://www.joslin.org/Files/Nutrition_ClinGuide.pdf

a mediterranean diet similar to joslin's recommended diet recently showed an 83% reduction in the incidence of type II diabetes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7426326.stm

the premise of this diet is to eat to keep your insulin response within a reasonable zone and to keep your omega 6 and long chain omega 3 fatty acids in balance so that your body stops producing excess cellular inflammation.

i've been doing it for 14 months and i can say the best 14 months of my life have been the last 14 months of my life. i'm in my 40s and i full well expect to be faster within 12 months than i was when i ran cross country at 17 and stronger than when i lifted weights when i was 20. after hating running my whole life, i now enjoy running to push my body to its limits (check out pose and chi running). i'm already leaner in my 40s than i've ever been in my life - and my 6 pack abs are actually filling in over time. this is true even though i'm focused on gaining lean muscle mass well above leaning out. my immune system fucntions much better (17+ months and counting without calling in due a cold and my bad allergies disappeared).

some famous athletes that have been on the somewhat commercial version of the diet now recommended by joslin diabetes center include dara torres (missed olympic gold by 1/100 of a second at the age of 41), valentina vezzali (won fencing gold in beijin as a 38 year old - simply amazing because reaction times are critical) and the world's leading olympic medal winner up until phelps recently passed her - jenny thompson.

another famous person on the somewhat commercialized version of this diet is manuel uribe - he's lost almost 450 lbs in 2.75 year after weighing 1235 lbs. his blood pressure, resting pulse rate and triglyceride values are likely better than yours.

anyway, its that good. food is a drug, though, and most people are so addicted that they won't try something new for even a couple days.

if you invest the time, it will pay off in ways you can't now imagine.

I'm sorry...

[Anonymous Coward]

But obesity is, by and large a problem of your own making. Attempting to justify it through these means is kind of ridiculous. Don't eat more than you burn.

Yeah, I guess thinking might cause calorie burn which can lead to hunger, but that does not justify eating crap while at a computer and wondering why you're fat.

I am an exception

[Slur]

Long hours computing causes me to forget food... and sleep... and water... and stretching... but interestingly, not sex! Perhaps there's a study I could take part in?

On the other hand, I'm a vegan, so maybe I'm immune. I don't ever crave cheese or animal fats, having not eaten any of either for many years.

Re:I am an exception

[EdZ]

I eat mainly meat-based meals ("Vegetables? that's not food, that's what food EATS!"), but I can honestly say I've never craved animal fats.

Re:I am an exception

[Vetrik]

Long hours computing causes me to forget food... and sleep... and water... and stretching... but interestingly, not sex! Perhaps there's a study I could take part in?

On the other hand, I'm a vegan, so maybe I'm immune. I don't ever crave cheese or animal fats, having not eaten any of either for many years.

No, maybe you are just an idiot... You know that phrase "Stop and smell the roses"? Try that sometime.

Re:I am an exception

[the_womble]

Long hours computing causes me to forget food... and sleep... and water... and stretching... but interestingly, not sex!

1. So at least you get some exercise
2. Are your long hours computing surfing for porn?

Re:I am an exception

[thhamm]

On the other hand, I'm a vegan, so maybe I'm immune.

I'm a level 5 vegan -- I won't eat anything that casts a shadow!

Re:I am an exception

[catmistake]

Does lack of sleep actually energize you? Makes you more lucid with a hit on judgement? The less you eat, the more energy you have? Have you been very sad more than 3 times in the last year? Be very careful, and if you find yourself running down the street naked as the Son of God, try Lithium or any of the new mood stablisers.

Re:I am an exception

[TeknoHog]

Me too... I don't think we are unique snowflakes here. The traditional geek stereotype for decades has been skin and bones, with the fat pizza-and-coke eating kind a relatively new phenomenon.

Re:I am an exception

[Dannkape]

I'm a level 5 vegan -- I won't eat anything that casts a shadow!

Time to start a farm in Antarctica during the winter, or in a dark cellar.

Re:I am an exception

[Anonymous Coward]

MMMMMMM, Animal fats, mmmmmmm, (slobber)

Re:I am an exception

[Adam Hazzlebank]

Vegan: Someone who slaughters and kills fruits, and vegetables.

Re:I am an exception

[Antique Geekmeister]

Really? Have you ever seen portraits of Ben Franklin? Now, _there_ is an archetypal geek. The man _invented_ public libraries, and bi-focal glasses for us older geeks.

Re:I am an exception

[Anonymous Coward]

Long hours computing causes me to forget food... and sleep... and water... and stretching... but interestingly, not sex!

I hear that's normal for nerds ... they'll forget what they've eaten, whether they've slept, but they can always remember the one time in their life when they actually had sex. (Sadly the same is not true for their partner.)

Re:I am an exception

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at Woz and Jobs... the two have coexisted for quite a while.

Re:I am an exception

[Onan]

The traditional geek stereotype for decades has been skin and bones, with the fat pizza-and-coke eating kind a relatively new phenomenon.

That's because being moderately fat used to be a healthy and attractive trait. So the geek stereotype was the opposite of that: the scrawny weakling.

These days being thin is suddenly fashionable, so the stereotype of the geek changed to be the converse of the new desirable trait.

Neither of these has anything to do with actual changes in geeks' or non-geeks' bodies. Just the whims of fashion.

Re:I am an exception

[Anonymous Coward]

Long hours computing causes me to forget food ... I'm a vegan

If all I had to eat was vegan food, I'd try to forget it too. ;)

Re:I am an exception

[Anonymous Coward]

Obvious mutants are usually discarded as outliers in studies of this sort.

Re:I am an exception

[n dot l]

I won't eat anything that casts a shadow!

What the fuck do you eat then? Vampiric lettuce?!

Re:I am an exception

[whopub]

Long hours computing causes me to forget food... and sleep... and water... and stretching... but interestingly, not sex!

Well, if you ever manage to overcome that monumental hurdle between thinking about sex and actually getting some, you'll see that you'll end up exausted, hungry, thursty and really sleepy.

Hell, if done right, even the 'stretching' bit you mention will be taken care of.

Forgeting about everything except sex while in front of a computer makes sense. Sex is the reason we're at it for those long hours anyway, so there's no point in forgeting what we're actually there for. Gotta stay focused, right?

Personally I'm glad there's a correlation between great appetite and heavy thinking, because either I fuck a lot or I'm just a genius!

Re:I am an exception

[steelfood]

Only if you're a woman. You're still expected to be wide if you're a man, just above the waist instead of at it.

Re:I am an exception

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, I'm a vegan, so maybe I'm immune.

I'm a level 5 vegan -- I won't eat anything that casts a shadow!

What! Where's Vega. I've been in WoW for some time, and I've never met anybody from there?

Re:I am an exception

[Half-pint HAL]

Why oh why can't we mod "+1 Troll"...?

Re:I am an exception

[Anonymous Coward]

I can honestly say I've never craved animal fats.

Never craved animal fats? Never craved chocolate? Ice-cream? Don't even like butter on your corn cob?

I don't believe you.

perhaps

[n3tcat]

... the body thinks that due to the mental taxation, that the overall body has been taxed in the same way, and therefore is tricked into expecting that the body will require food. maybe when the body exercises or performs physically intensive tasks, it creates the same signals in the brain that thinking hard does. I didn't have time to RTFA so maybe they said that already.

Re:perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more likely that the body has evolved to consume large amounts of calories after deep thought so that you can execute the plans you were mentally simulating.

Re:perhaps

[irtza]

come now, you had time to RTFA, but you didn't want to. Now, I am not making any accusations because I too "didn't have time" to RTFA, but apparently we both have time to post. You know, posting first def gives more chances for glory. If yours was an already stated thought then hey, you didn't read thearticle, but if you are right... well then. insight and more importantly, insight without help. of course, when you have nothing, or don't feel like putting forth anything, you can always go for funny. It works well for the self-esteem.

Weight a minute!

[Wowsers]

I am a _little_ from ideal weight because sometimes coding is mentally exhaustive that I don't feel like doing exercise. However, when stuck into a particular computer task which I want to get out of the way, I don't feel like eating and don't miss food, just need to have a (non soft drink) drink.

"Anti-Globalism"

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to say it irks me when I see stories submitted from "anti-globalism" not because I have any particular opinion on the story. It's the motives of "anti-globalism" for making the submissions to slashdot that seem suspect of trying to shuffle readers to their website to push their agenda and ideology. Slashdot readers should know that corrupt.org is affiliated with nazi.org, hitler.org, nsbm.org and generally promotes fascist and nationalist politics.

Re:"Anti-Globalism"

[Anonymous Coward]

In this case "The way to tackle obesity is to stop dangerous independent thought!"?

Re:"Anti-Globalism"

[Collapsing Empire]

You have a choice not to read their website, and people are free to form their own opinions. They don't need to be babied when reading certain ideologies (what, are you afraid that people are going to turn into Nazis after reading Corrupt.org?).

Does it also bother you that Corrupt supports black nationalism, Tibetan nationalism, and Jewish nationalism (in the tradition of Rabbi Mier Kahane)? Oh wait, its only bad when whites try to assert their ethnic identity.

Please try paying more attention in the future.

Re:"Anti-Globalism"

[Eli Gottlieb]

Well Kahanism certainly worries the fuck out of *me*.

Re:"Anti-Globalism"

[Anonymous Coward]

So I guess you're another one of those braindead antisemites or self-hating Jews.

Which is it?

Re:"Anti-Globalism"

[Eli Gottlieb]

Troll! TROOOOOLLLL in the dungeons!

Re:"Anti-Globalism"

[ThatFunkyMunki]

Oh yes, clearly, because he is against the nationalist politics of some rabbi, he is antisemitic, or a Jew who has distanced himself from his Jewish identity.

Did you interrupt your wife-beating session to write that post?

No healthy choices, just vended carbs and pop.

[jimmydevice]

That, and setting on your ass all day.

consistent

[leomekenkamp]

Seems consistent with what I found happened to my body when I changed my eating habits. I now eat only fruit in the morning and after that I eat bread, but only when I feel a bit hungry. As soon as the hunger is over I stop eating. I do not get my 3 meals a day, it is more like 5 or 6 very small meals and one regular one for diner. I now fit the same jeans as 19 years ago (501, 31" / 34") and I feel better during the day; no more cravings.

I have got a hunch that eating small meals keeps one's insulin and glucose levels more constant than eating big meals.

Re:consistent

[darthdavid]

I seem to recall a study somewhere that confirmed the effectiveness of your method. I shall endeavor to find it...

Re:consistent

[StarfishOne]

"I have got a hunch that eating small meals keeps one's insulin and glucose levels more constant than eating big meals."

Not to state that you have it, but it sounds like the eating pattern (many small vs. fewer big meals) is fairly similar to what is recommended for people who have hypoglycemia.

Re:consistent

[gazpatcho]

You may be correct
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieting#The_impact_of_meal_frequency

Re:consistent

[TheStonepedo]

19 year old jeans are now called "vintage" and wearing old stuff is stylish. Well played, sir.

Re:consistent

[Anonymous Coward]

This however does not allow you to enjoy your meal. Given how food is second best pleasure after sex, and you are reading slashdot, you are missing the best two things in life.

Re:consistent

[Kirkoff]

That diet is actually the eating pattern that doctors recommend to most patients in general if they can possibly do it. By eating many small meals, you will generally eat the same amount of calories (give or take) but your metabolism will be much higher. If you eat 20% more calories with that kind of diet, you will probably still lose weight.

It is just hard to get in to the habit without over eating.

Re:consistent

[Snuhwolf]

Working or playing on the computer definitely has an effect on blood sugar levels. After a recent diagnosis of typeII diabetes I found that playing a FPS will bring my blood glucose levels down more than a bike ride of the same duration.

Aww damn

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that mean I have to choose between 'yo momma so fat' and 'yo momma so dumb' jokes now? 'Yo momma so fat she got a Nobel prize for thinking so hard' just doesn't have the same ring to it.

I think...

[Anonymous Coward]

therefore I am fat

Now I get it

[hyades1]

I always knew I was brighter than everybody else. Now my love of between-meal snacks is explained, as well. Truly, this is a banner day in Canadian research!

If only they could somehow tie in above-average masculine endowment (if you get my drift), good looks and, of course, modest demeanor, my presence on Earth would finally be explained.

I await the expected shower of acclaim with my usual blend of aplomb and unpretentious good grace. And appropriate willingness to seek cover from a shower of more tangible (and less agreeable) expressions of esteem.

"I think, therefore I'm fat."

[bugeaterr]

"I think, therefore I'm fat."

And whenever I'm at a restaurant, I order a la Descartes.

Re:"I think, therefore I'm fat."

[barocco]

So what kind of thought makes one develop hunger for insects?

Re:"I think, therefore I'm fat."

[Kuroji]

Des Cartes walks into a bar and orders himself a drink. The bartender says to him, "Do you want a refill?" Des Cartes replies, "I think not." And he disappears into a puff of smoke.

Re:"I think, therefore I'm fat."

[Centurix]

Why do I NEVER have mod points when I need them? Thanks, my day is much better...

Re:"I think, therefore I'm fat."

[Kuroji]

Probably for the same reason that I apparently haven't had any mod points since July.

Re:"I think, therefore I'm fat."

[Anonymous Coward]

And since your post is Funny, you will probably not get any better karma from it either. ;-)

I knew it

[dancingmad]

I'm not fat, I'm just smart.

Maybe it's just me....

[Anonymous Coward]

but I call total bullshit. How do you correlate "working on a computer" with "mental effort"? Absolute rubbish.

The reason computer-dwellers eat so much is basically a combination of boredom, stress, and just the way of life of our kind. As far as I'm concerned, it has nothing to do with brain usage. Computers are like TV... when you watch TV, you munch on food because there's NOTHING ELSE TO DO! I think it's pretty common that sitting on your ass leads to needing to find something to do while sitting on one's ass. And popping food into the mouth is the easiest and most comforting thing to do. Either that, or you smoke.

So no offense, but determining that people who sit on their asses equals people using their brains equals eating is the biggest excuse since sliced bread.

Hrm, speaking of sliced bread... it's time for a sandwich!

Re:Maybe it's just me....

[Cillian]

Um. I'm sorry. Having just RTFA, it's just just working on a computer, they specifically used a mentally challenging task which just happened to be on a computer. Still, not your fault. Just another case of, somewhat bad summary. Title and conclusion is spot on, though.

Re:Maybe it's just me....

[SirLurksAlot]

but I call total bullshit. How do you correlate "working on a computer" with "mental effort"? Absolute rubbish.

Ok, I'm fairly certain that you're just trolling here, but I'll bite.

First, I'm guessing that you probably don't work in IT. I do, and I can attest that when I'm sitting in front of the computer at work I'm not just doing nothing (95% of the time, the other 5% is spent here or checking my mail or RSS feeds), I'm busy working on whatever problem is at hand. Despite what you might believe, writing code is HARD. It definitely falls under the category of "mentally taxing." It's not like sitting in front of the idiot box and just soaking in whatever crap happens to be on at the time. Even when it looks like I'm just sitting there staring at the screen in a zombie-like state I'm actually turning the problem over in my head, trying to determine the best way to solve it.

As far as eating as something to do when one is "sitting one's ass" is concerned I personally don't eat just to pass the time. I would go so far as to say that this is true for most people. I eat when I'm hungry, and work (mental or physical) makes me hungry. Also I tend to think better after a reasonable meal (I avoid pasta, rice, or anything carb-heavy or I'll just want to sleep), and I've learned to recognize when my brain is not performing as well as it should due to hunger. Most of the time by the end of the day I'm close to mental exhaustion and my wife will be the first to tell you that I'm not fit for conversation until after dinner.

The bottom line here is that anyone who equates working at a computer all day and watching TV has obviously never had to do it for a living.

Re:Maybe it's just me....

[Perf]

The bottom line here is that anyone who equates working at a computer all day and watching TV has obviously never had to do it for a living.

GP is obviously a Pointy Haired Boss -- the "patriotic" type who outsources IT work.

BTW, there is more than one type of IT. Programming is generally more taxing than support. Although support has its moments.

Re:Maybe it's just me....

[SirLurksAlot]

BTW, there is more than one type of IT. Programming is generally more taxing than support. Although support has its moments.

Oh yeah, I know "IT" is a pretty broad term. Honestly I had just woken up and, you know, I hadn't eaten yet ;-)

Re:Yo Mama So Fat...

[Nymz]

'Yo momma so fat she got a Nobel prize for thinking so hard'

Yo mama so fat she can verify the latest Mersenne prime number just by thinking about it.

Alternative theory

[Anonymous Coward]

So, they have given some _female_ students alternative some relaxation or complicated work, and then provide them with an unlimited buffet.

My personal guess would be that the students, having performed hard work, would allow themselves to eat more from the unlimited buffet.
They would probably feel they have earned it.

So THAT explains the average weight

[antifoidulus]

of an American Gladiators viewer. Its the show that really does make you think!

Never

[barocco]

Never attribute to malnutrition that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

So if I understand this right...

[ignavus]

So if I understand this right and thinking people put on weight, then thoughtless people should lose weight.

I'll go around being rude to other people and when they complain, I will tell them it is my special thoughtless diet.

The good news is, I didn't have to think very hard to work this one out. I can feel those pounds coming off already!

Stress

[Anonymous Coward]

Working in front of a computer may be causing a lot of stress, especially if your work is rushed because of deadlines. So you already don't have a lot of time to eat well, you're stressed out, and your job requires you to remain immobile for long periods of time. I'd be surprised if the kind of work you do has much to do with it.

5'9" (175cm) and 130lb (59kg)
I walk about a mile a day, but other than that no exercise. I eat a lot and work in front of a computer doing mentally challenging tasks--sometimes I actually get work done too.

Re:Stress

[Anonymous Coward]

5'9" (175cm) and 130lb (59kg)

I hope you're a woman or under your 20s because otherwise you would be pretty emaciated-looking.

I'm not fat

[reboot246]

I'm a thinker!

Fat Chance

[Anonymous Coward]

Sucpiciously convenient, that a bunch of guys who do nothing all day, but sit around thinking, suddenly has the perfect excuse to be fat, is it not?

We all have mortgages to pay

[Colin Smith]

Auto financing, credit card bills etc.

Oh wait...

A debt based monetary system may have an adverse effect on those living within it?

 

Re:We all have mortgages to pay

[vertinox]

A debt based monetary system may have an adverse effect on those living within it?

The other day I was looking for investment opportunities and came across Prosper.com which is a P2P lending company which you give to micro invest in people's loans. Reading some of the stories of why these people need loans started to make me laugh and then start to die inside a little bit after realizing that America is full of these people who just don't know how to deal with financial responsibility. One guy on there was asking for a $5,000 loan in order to buy stocks. That's the most retarded thing I can think of that you can do with a loan besides go to Las Vegas with it.

Sadly, our society cannot function without credit because its there in the first place. Because we can have mortgages and car loans, the demand for housing and cars increase which of course leads to higher prices which means the chance of getting. This is most likley tied into the situation we have with Freddie and Fannie now and the housing fiasco.

The only solution I can think of is to actually focus on long term solutions is get a house that is close enough public transportation which you intend to pay off in 30 years and then keep it in the family so that future generations don't have to put up with this crap.

I think the majority of our societal problems is related to ignorance towards what we need and what we want and the issues that puts on everyone else. Personally, I don't really care that other people took out loans they couldn't pay back, but when it starts to affect my life because of the national economic situation then it becomes bothersome.

Then again, I suppose I should start living off of other people's ignorance and bid on their loans.

Re:We all have mortgages to pay

[CodeBuster]

One guy on there was asking for a $5,000 loan in order to buy stocks. That's the most retarded thing I can think of that you can do with a loan besides go to Las Vegas with it.

Sigh...it is very tiresome to hear the same wrong headed myths about investment == gambling that have been circulating for years and gaining currency among the younger generations. Although it is possible to approach investment as a form of gambling, doing no research and simply purchasing shares or options in a randomly selected entity for example, most people that I know who actually do invest their money do not approach investing in that way. The investing == gambling argument is most frequently mentioned, at least in my experience, by those who do not save very much of their own money and are looking to rationalize their overspending by suggesting that those of us who save and invest our money, in stocks perhaps, are no better than gamblers. As for borrowing money to invest in stocks, this is done all of the time by professional fund managers (it is called leverage) in order to boost returns on a good investment opportunity so it is not 'retarded' per se, although it is unusual for an individual investor to borrow such a small sum of money to invest (it would be far better for him to save up $5,000 of his own money and then start his investing career with that instead).

Personally, I don't really care that other people took out loans they couldn't pay back, but when it starts to affect my life because of the national economic situation then it becomes bothersome.

I share your frustration on that count, truly I do, but the alternatives are probably worse (i.e. the gold standard) overall. The problem, at least in my opinion which is shared by Ron Paul who has shaped and brought it to the public attention, is that the politicization of the money supply and its management has led to the present situation. In theory, a well managed fiat money system can have almost all of the benefits of a gold standard without some of the hard limits on growth, although in practice the results have been somewhat mixed since then end of the 1970s. The government, in my opinion, has no business interfering in the housing market either by granting tax deductions on mortgage interest OR (even worse) backing loans with taxpayer money. I hope that everyone learns a clear lesson from the present Fannie and Freddie fiasco (a small recession might be just the thing to shock everyone back to reality...the proverbial bucket of cold water). These entities should be absorbed by the federal government, disolved, and NO new loans should be issued and in fact the existing loans should be sold into the private market. If people want a loan for any reason, whether to buy a car or a house or whatever else, then they can enter the private credit market and pay the market rate. Why should taxpayers, many of whom cannot afford to buy a home, subsidize the loans of those who want home mortgages (which is essentially what Fanny and Freddie have been doing all of these years)? Government interference in the markets is at the root of almost all of our present economic problems and we would all be much better off if government butted out and returned to its proper and constitutionally mandated roles.

Re:We all have mortgages to pay

[vertinox]

Sigh...it is very tiresome to hear the same wrong headed myths about investment == gambling that have been circulating for years and gaining currency among the younger generations.

While I don't believe gambling is equal to investing either, I just had the impression that this particular person was going to blow it all on penny stocks or into a risky businesses he had no good knowledge off. Secondly which I should have explained, he was getting a three year loan at 24% which is pushing it real hard if he was going to invest in something secure like a SP500 ETF index.

There is nothing wrong in taking a margin account with your broker at say 7.9% and then investing it into a corporate bond that gives 9% or a growth stock that will give 10%+.

I was just trying to imply that borrowing money at high interest to invest in the stock market without a good plan is a bad idea because there is the possibility that if you invest poorly that you'll loose the investment and still owe money.

And yes fund managers do generally leverage all the time with borrowed money but they generally know what they are doing (well some of the time) and tend to diversify to reduce risk.

But yeah I agree pretty much on your second statement.

Re:We all have mortgages to pay

[linzeal]

Why? The only thing you really need to borrow for is a house. If you can't pay cash for your food, lifestyle and gas from month to month you need to look at what you are consuming and a make a change. Some weeks I eat peanut butter sandwiches for every lunch (7 dollars for the whole week of lunches) but I have not had a credit card bill I have not paid off in full at the end of the month in 4 years. Do you really need to spend 10-30 dollars a day at lunch that is 300-900 a month, do you really need to drive to work because my commute at 5 dollars a day is 1/5th the price I would pay for parking and gas and does your kid, you or your significant other really need another whiz-bang gadget?

Re:We all have mortgages to pay

[Belial6]

The stock market certainly is gambling. It is just a game that has historically had an average payout over 100%. It is always disheartening when I hear people claiming that the stock market isn't gambling. It is the same feeling I got when people would tell me that buying investment housing wasn't gambling. Saying that good investors do their research before buying stock certainly does not change whether stocks are a gamble or not. EVERY decent blackjack player does their research on every hand. They certainly don't just bet without looking at their cards.

The stack market MAY be a good bet, but it is definitely gambling.

Re:We all have mortgages to pay

[CodeBuster]

I probably shouldn't, but I will bite:

Suppose that I make you a loan so that you can start a basket weaving business and the business profits and you pay back the loan with interest. Is that gambling? Certainly not. You needed money to get started producing goods which added to the total amount of value produced by the economy. Now what if instead of asking for the principle to be repaid with interest at a future time I asked instead for a share of the ownership of the basket weaving business (with a proportionate share in profits, business decisions, losses, and other aspects of the business). Is this gambling? Certainly not. I am simply taking a share of the business as compensation for fronting some of the capital in a productive activity (i.e. the business). I will grant you that both of these activities involve risks (i.e. the business might fail and you might default on your loan or I might lose my equity position because the business has entered liquidation), but not every activity that involves risk is logically equivalent to gambling. The stock market is basically the same as the above example (with hundreds of thousands of companies engaged not just in basket weaving but millions of other productive economic activities). The difference between the stock market, a place where equity stakes in productive businesses (or potentially productive anyway) are bought and sold, and gambling is that gambling is NOT productive in that it results in no additional goods or service (other than perhaps entertainment, but many people gamble way more than could reasonably be construed as merely for entertainment) entering the economy. It merely transfers existing wealth from one person or organization to another without producing anything of substantial value in the process. It is at best properly categorized as an entertainment business and at worst a complete waste of time. As I have stated above, while it is possible to approach investing as gambling, it is NOT in all circumstances the equivalent of gambling.

For a more comprehensive introduction to the common stock market myths, including stock market == gambling, might I suggest the following article?

Re:We all have mortgages to pay

[Belial6]

You seem to be confused about how the stock market works, and what causes a stock to have value. Your description of the stock market is the naive description given to school children. Even then, Yes, if you give me money to start a business in hopes of getting more money back, you are gambling. Many people have lost money that way, just as many have lost money playing blackjack. In fact Casino's have had to change the rules of blackjack because a good player could consistently make money playing single deck blackjack. Do you not call blackjack gambling? Even if it is single deck, no special rules, blackjack?

Your link is totally unhelpful, as the first "Myth" is totally wrong, both in it's description of the stock market, as well as it's description of more recognized forms of gambling. It uses the same simplistic, false description of stocks that you did. It makes the statement "As companies compete, they increase productivity and develop products that can make our lives better.". We know that in very many cases, this is simply false. The whole premise of it's argument relies that that false statement to be true. It also states that "Gambling, on the contrary, is a zero-sum game. It merely takes money from a loser and gives it to a winner. No value is ever created.". This is also false in practice. Since most 'gambling' is done in casinos, there are thousands of jobs created. People get paid to be there. Those people take that money and buy goods and services from companies and other people. That gives those companies and people more capital to produce more goods and services. It just does it without borrowing money.

The housing crash is a perfect example of what happens when people forget that 'investments' are often gambling. The stock market is no different, and while there might not be as many people losing their shirts in the stock market, there are certainly a lot of people who have lost money. The primary difference between the stock market and multi-deck blackjack is that the stock market has traditionally had a greater than 100% payout. I say multi-deck because, again, in single deck, no special rules blackjack, a skilled player is going to do better than in the stock market.

Re:We all have mortgages to pay

[CodeBuster]

You seem to be confused about how the stock market works

Not really, I was simply trying to strip out all extraneous details from the discussion. You obviously aren't going to be convinced by me or probably anyone else that the stock market is not gambling. So be it, but let me ask you this: what exactly are you planning to do with any wealth (assuming that you believe that it is possible to accumulate wealth, since you also seem to doubt the existence of economic growth and the traditional definition(s) of wealth) that you manage to save? If you don't trust the stock market then why would you trust any other sort of investment (i.e. bonds, private equity, real estate)? What are you going to do? Stuff your cash in a mattress? Bury gold bricks in your backyard? Banks turn around and invest your deposits, which according to you is gambling, so why would you want someone else to be gambling your money for you?

Do you not call blackjack gambling?

Of course blackjack is gambling, but did you not read the linked article? The difference between gambling and investing is that gambling has ZERO chance of creating new wealth. I had previously conceded that gambling could conceivably provide entertainment as a service, but it does not and cannot create new wealth, it can only redistribute existing wealth. A zero-sum activity like the one just described that involves risk is gambling in the purest sense of the word, but investments distinguish themselves, even though they also involve risk of loss, due to the possibility that they can create new wealth which indirectly improves the lives of everyone living in that economy (quality of life at least in a material sense is roughly proportional to the amount of goods and services produced per person in an economy). Those facts are really not disputable, almost every economist that you could find anywhere would be substantially in agreement with those statements.

"Gambling, on the contrary, is a zero-sum game. It merely takes money from a loser and gives it to a winner. No value is ever created.". This is also false in practice. Since most 'gambling' is done in casinos, there are thousands of jobs created.

The jobs are created as part of the service of providing entertainment to the customers. That is really the only redeeming feature of Casinos, they can provide entertainment in some cases which is obviously a service that people are willing to pay for in the economy. Entertainment can provide satisfaction in the form of utility (the technical term economists use to describe happiness), but it does not create wealth. The casino employees are paid with existing wealth that has been transferred from the gamblers to the casino and then partially used to pay the employees but no new wealth is created in the process, it is merely transferred between parties.

The housing crash is a perfect example of what happens when people forget that 'investments' are often gambling.

It is an example of what can happen when people approach investments as they would a casino table game where no amount of skill can affect the outcome (I know that there are casino games were skill matters, but most people either don't know or practice those skills or are not nearly as good as they think they are. There are professionals who make their living in Vegas taking money from well healed but ignorant tourists at the poker tables for example) and how governments (who control the money supply) can make things worse by running a reckless loose money policy. It is also an example of greed on the part of unscrupulous professionals (appraisers and others) in the mortgage industry committing fraud.

I suppose that our disagreement stems primarily from a disagreement over the definition of gambl

Re:We all have mortgages to pay

[Half-pint HAL]

I shouldn't bite either, but here goes.

What's your gamble of choice? In my family it was always horses.

Suppose that I make you a loan so that you can start a basket weaving business and the business profits and you pay back the loan with interest. Is that gambling? Certainly not.

In this case, you are the stable owner, not the punter, so of course it's not gambling.

When my grandpa wanted to put a bet on, he would study the form, check the weather reports and add in a pinch of "hunch". That was gambling.

When you trade in stocks (assuming you're a small investor and that you don't buy in at IPO) you are not making any material change to the business -- you are not in control. You're gambling, but working from a form book like my grandpa did.

HAL.

Re:We all have mortgages to pay

[Half-pint HAL]

but investments distinguish themselves, even though they also involve risk of loss, due to the possibility that they can create new wealth which indirectly improves the lives of everyone living in that economy (quality of life at least in a material sense is roughly proportional to the amount of goods and services produced per person in an economy). Those facts are really not disputable, almost every economist that you could find anywhere would be substantially in agreement with those statements.

Shenanigans!

"Stocks" is not a synonym for investment.

If I buy shares at an initial offering, I am "investing" in the company. This has the opportunity of creating new wealth (if such a thing is truly possible).

If I buy shares on the stock market, this money does not go into the company. It does not alter the material state of the company or its bank balance.

If I do not alter the material state of the company, I cannot be creating anything .

HAL.

Stand back...

[Inf0phreak]

Stand back, I'm going to try SCIENCE! ... After dinner...

Yeah...

[oldhack]

... like, whatever. Fat asses.

Re:Yeah...

[oldhack]

Some fat ass modded me troll with quickness. Stressful comment, eh. Keep piling up, fat ass.

Re:Yeah...

[oldhack]

Damn, again? Oh well, it's your fat ass.

Re:Yeah...

[slimjim8094]

Well that's very raunchy and shocking...

Re:Yeah...

[oldhack]

Apparently enough to cause karma-dump. ;-)

Thinking USA?

[forestbrooke]

So, FDA estimates that soon 40% of US will be thinking hard?! (http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/maps/ )

Re:Yo Mama So Fat...

[mikiN]

Just imagine a Beowulf cluster of her and her sisters jumping into a swimming pool and you have a (camel-)TOE using String Theory, cup size D-Branes and lots of quantum gravity to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity, all demonstrated by a spectacular Big Bang (erhm Splash).

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Excuses excuses!

[TheJerbear79]

Sweet! Now I have a new excuse for being pudgy AND taking that last donut!

Anecdotal evidence...

[GrahamCox]

I know then when I'm really working on challenging programming, I get hungry - very hungry. But when I'm just doing routine stuff that isn't all that taxing I don't. So that would tend to suggest that "hard thinking" requires more fuel. I snack a lot when I'm coding - calorie-wise it must be heading for the 3000-4000 a day mark and some of it's non-too healthy. Yeah, yeah, just another morbidly obese coder you may be thinking. Well, no. I weigh 70kg and always have and probably always will. No matter what I do my weight is a constant. At 6ft tall that makes me pretty skinny. I seem to have a gene for some sort of metabolic homoeostasis - if I eat a lot more, it just speeds up to compensate and vice versa, so my weight stays pinned at 70kg. I have no idea if that's really what's going on but my siblings are the same.

Re:Anecdotal evidence...

[gr8dude]

Hmm, I noticed the same kind of phenomenon in myself; my mass is pretty much constant regardless of food consumption, mental effort or amount of exercise.

I've went through a period of more eating, then more exercising (badminton, cycling, football, long walks, carrying heavy stuff). But the only way to get heavier is to put on my backpack with all the tech and books in it... :-)

How can a person gain weight when this happens? I am aware of the fact that my mass does not correspond to my age and height (~54kg at a height of 1.75m); mass has been constant since I started paying attention to it (about 5 years ago).

I'm quite skinny

[4D6963]

That's what sucks about being too smart, there's hardly anything that makes you think hard.

SHENANIGANS!

[Vertana]

Throw some hot pockets my way and I'm good. Despite the misconception of 'lazy' people working on computers... I don't think I've ever met an overweight IT.

Re:SHENANIGANS!

[ThePhilips]

Since when IT became "knowledge based work"???

In our company IT is engaged in three major activities: spilling coffee on servers, checking cables and answering "NO" to all questions. None of that requires any "knowledge".

Re:SHENANIGANS!

[ColdWetDog]

answering "NO" to all questions.

You do realize that IT encompasses more than just Dell 'technical' support, do you not?

AC is as incorrect as he is anonymous

[burnitdown]

Slashdot readers should know that corrupt.org is affiliated with nazi.org, hitler.org, nsbm.org and generally promotes fascist and nationalist politics.

No, they're not.

We're on a free speech ISP that is able to host us by hosting others, including a raft of porn and extreme political sites of both leftist and rightist stripe.

You fail at internet pathology 101 ;)

math + programming = snacking

[mbius]

I noticed myself doing this a few years ago. I feel it's not hunger so much as a craving for distraction. Like my brain saying a queue is full and needs to process. It happens when I'm thinking hard and don't want to be -- in a jam, not on a roll.

I've caught myself muttering and pacing with a bag of chips. There's a Pavlovian absurdity to it. Haven't managed "hear bell: prove lemma" yet.

It's not the sort of thing people can research, but it seems directly analogous to smoking cannabis and getting the munchies.

Depends on the person

[Alomex]

taxing mental effort appears to cause people to eat significantly more food, even though it doesn't burn many more calories than sitting around and relaxing.

For the average person mental tasks do not significantly increase the consumption of energy, however there is a correlation between IQ and amount of energy that can be brought to bear. Moreover, thinking dramatically increases the consumption of glucose by the brain, so feeling hungry after thinking might be a reasonable response from the body to request replenishment of basic sugars.

Simple test

[Anonymous Coward]

This doesn't pass the smell test. While in the literature it has been repeatedly reported that thinking does not seem to increase the consumption of energy by the brain, all evidence points to the contrary.

First glucose consumption by the brain goes dramatically up and proportional to the intelligence of the person. Second, during critical low energy times brain function is "slowed down" by the body's autonomic response (low oxygen, low food, cold temperature). Third, simple body temperature readings reflect the increase of glucose consumption. In fact this technique is used to measure which parts of the brain deal with which specific inputs. Fourth, a good thinker will respond to a problem as if it were under physical attack, with a host of secondary responses such as starving the outer body of blood. These responses have a short term damaging impact on the body and can require nutrients to be repaired, which is why one feels physically tired after thinking.

Hormones

[francisstp]

The apparent paradox is solved when we think in terms of hormonal response.

We don't overeat because we've expanded more energy, but because hormone levels, especially insulin, have changed in the blood. So the increased mental activity might have had no effect on calories expanded but it did have a significant influence on cortisol and insulin.

Tiny study

[francisstp]

Don't get too excited over this study. There were only 14 participants, all university students so not even slightly representative of the general population. Maybe for them doing heavy mental work was associated with stress more than it would for a cashier or a janitor, and relaxing was really uncommon. Some might have been there for the free buffet because they are too poor to afford real food, etc. With n = 14 there's just no meaningful conclusion you can reach.

Re:Tiny study

[ColdWetDog]

With n = 14 there's just no meaningful conclusion you can reach.

Wrong. You can state that "more research is needed". Then you write a new grant with n=20. In a decade or so, after a dozen papers, you might approach something like statistical significance. Then you can retire.

Of course...

[drsmall17]

Of course. Haven't you ever played chess while eating lunch? You consume your food without realizing it, causing you to eat more. The mental challenge of chess causes you to think which in turn calls for more food.

Big_Fat_bullshit!

[V!NCENT]

If I am sitting behind my PC I sometimes do not smoke, drink and eat for 6 hours straight. It's not that I'm addicted to computers, but my brain is too occupied with a set of pixels that it forgets about everything else (hence why I am running all kinds of social apps on my pc).

Because I am not doing anything physically behind my pc my appetite isn't that large either.

If fat is such a big deal then do physical exercises (sport, skateboarding, jogging).

If health is also important than eat healthy instead of going to the [insert favorite junkfood restaurant here]...

Loosing weight by eating less is not going to work. It is better to eat much (preferably also healthy) stuff (replace you Coca Cola bottles with Coca Cola Zero or Pepsi max or whatever you like) and engage in physical demanding activities.

Diets do NOT work!!!

Re:Big_Fat_bullshit!

[omaha]

Complete and total agreement about intake and exercise. Diets in general are pure b.s. In my opinion, the amount of processing food goes through is inversely related to it being healthy. If you want to change your diet focus on that.

Foods/drinks packaged and promoted as No Fat/Low Fat are some of the most unhealthy food ever. Drop the pop and pick up Tea. I prefer iced. Finally, mind your sodium intake. It will take 2-3 months to retrain your pallet. But as a society we consume dramatically too much sodium. If you doubt me, just keep track of the sodium in the food you eat and drink -- you will be shocked. More processing == more sodium.

Re:Big_Fat_bullshit!

[V!NCENT]

Coca Cola Zero is only 'unhealthy' when you drink about 2L of it in a day. Sweeteners cause diarrhea, but that's all.

Mind the tea too. Take bastard sugar instead of regular sugar. Normal sugar makes your insulin levels rise, which is going to result in more fat, but it takes two hours for the insulin to disappear, so you'll get hungry for more sugar, so your insulin levels are rising higher and higher, making you even more hungry for sugar, etc, etc. That is where the "Once I start eating [sugar food] I just can't stop" comes from. Bastard sugar stays in your blood for allmost the entire day, so you aren't getting even more hungry.
But that's not all... When you are drinking sugar than your kidney gets 'upset' from all the sugar and wants it 'cleaned', which means you'll get thirsty so you can 'wash it away' with water. But instead of drinking water, most people drink sugarwater (soda or tea with regular sugar), etc, etc.

Munchies?

[fahrbot-bot]

No. I have NOT been smoking pot; I've been thinking - a lot.
Now give back the chips.

And that explains why Frys...

[Abies Bracteata]

...sells more junk food than your average supermarket!

Re:And that explains why Frys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Whadya expect with a name like Frys.

Biased sample... lame.

[MacDork]

So, I just read the article (weird right?) and it says:

with only 14 students enrolled, they actually discovered a statistically significant effect of what they call "knowledge-based work" (KBW), and so were able to publish even their initial efforts.

The workers recruited from the female student population of Laval University, selecting for individuals with a normal body mass and eating habits. Tests were administered at a set point in the menstrual cycle to control for its effect on diet.

14(!) women are eating more under stress. Wow, I'm shocked.... Have these people ever heard of sampling bias? This is more of an anecdote than news.

In Summary...

[LinuxGeek]

Cogito, ergo sum fames.

Translated:
I think, therefore I am hungry.

Sensous meals?

[jlowery]

Okay, who else first read this as "Canadian Researchers Stay Hard..."?

In my experience..

[Anonymous Coward]

I always considered this to be a know fact, i was aware that the brain utilized glucose at a constant rate, however in my personal experience any prolonged period of mental exertion leads to hunger and lethargy, common sense. However rather interestingly i have found that the intensity of my work regardless (to an extent) of time does indeed affect the amount i eat and my appetite.

Top a good meal with a quality power nap every couple of hours and your into a winning cycle.

Re:Yo Mama So Fat...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yo mamma so fat she can do all of the necessary calculations, longhand, with a permanent marker on her skin.

I am not so sure

[hesaigo999ca]

I think they missed a very important part of why they eat, not because they NEED the food, but because they need the break and rest from the exertion. Follow me if you will down this dark road...
I am a programmer, I tend to eat a lot more when I am delving into uncharted territories...so as to
give my mind a break and also enjoy something that maybe counters the negative affects of not getting something to work right away. You get the symbolism for eating you feelings, well in the same way, I eat my senses.I am not fat ...yet...I train like an sob in the gym and actually do still burn a lot of calories playing drums at home, but when I get on a project that requires new thought patterns or
changing the way i think to get through....it rises he stress levels, and therefor gives no immediate return for my work. I turn to food to calm me down, between snacks and meals i can stay stress free so to speak. I know a lot of people where I work are the same...we all have deadlines creeping up, we decide to go out for lunch together and take an extra 30 minutes because we got desserts or went to a buffet....when we come back we have escaped for a mere 1-2 hours from the drudgery of coding and a little more stress free, we can return with a clear head ready for more...
if you only take a small break to eat a little meal, and then what can you do for the rest of your meal...everyone else is gone, this means you stay at your computer, and might as well keep programming, guess what...you didn't relieve any stress. You might get more if you take a little longer lunch enjoy more food with friends and lose yourself in your meal to come back a more positive and productive force.....wow that was a mouth full ( no pun intended)