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Coca-Cola To Fund Research That Shifts Blame For Obesity Away From Bad Diets
An anonymous reader writes: The NY Times reports that Coca-Cola is teaming up with influential scientists to support research into fighting obesity through other means than improving diet. They've provided funding to a new nonprofit called the Global Energy Balance Network. Its president said, "Most of the focus in the popular media and in the scientific press is, 'Oh they're eating too much, eating too much, eating too much' — blaming fast food, blaming sugary drinks and so on. And there's really virtually no compelling evidence that that, in fact, is the cause." Health experts say it's an attempt by Coca-cola to deflect criticism of the sugary drinks that are the lifeblood of its business. "This clash over the science of obesity comes in a period of rising efforts to tax sugary drinks, remove them from schools and stop companies from marketing them to children. In the last two decades, consumption of full-calorie sodas by the average American has dropped by 25 percent."
Without changes to diet or doing any exercise I think your options are pretty much limited to violating the laws of thermodynamics.
Just cut out as much of the processed sugar and other junk foods as possible and go walking for 30 minutes every day. The notion that you have to eat completely healthy and spend hours in the gym doing intense workouts is a pretty big misconception. Not eating crap foods and getting a small amount of exercise every day is enough to have a significant effect. That won't turn you into Mr. Universe, but it will improve your overall health by a lot.
This is nothing more than a pre-emptive strike against the rising war on sugar. The tobacco companies did the same thing for years, despite the science being pretty fucking conclusive since at least the 1950s. But big money buys big influence, and allows companies to essentially peddle poisons for decades.
Yes, calories are required for survival. But there's a helluva lot better source of calories than what amounts to a flavored sugar syrup in a carbonated water solution.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Limit your calories per day say 2000 and go for a 30 Min walk or bike ride. You can easily lose 20LB in 4 months. Besides who wouldn’t want to have great cardio and not get winded when picking up a trash can.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
If I understand it correctly, the body reacts to some artificial sweeteners similarly to how it reacts to actual sugar though, so being sugar-free doesn't necessarily mean that the body won't experience some of the same results from overconsumption of sugar.
You're right that weight loss is generally a matter of expending calories in as-great or greater a quantity than one consumes them. Soft drink companies seem to be in a do-or-die effort to convince us that their products, often some of the biggest single contributors of calories and sugar to our diets, aren't the problem, when all of the anecdotal evidence that I've seen indicates that simply dropping the soda without making any other lifestyle changes (ie, diet, exercise level, etc) actually causes weight loss. I've experienced it myself in switching from Mountain Dew to coffee, I lost about ten pounds without doing anything else.
We've taken things that were treats and turned them into regular consumption and are surprised that we're having problems, and these companies can't afford for us to relegate these products back to where they belong, as occasional treats.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Coke and Pepsi have been around well over a hundred years.
100 years ago coca cola contained actual cocaine, it probably did promote weight loss
Not surprising, making one good choice (avoiding sugared soft drinks) isn't enough to make a good diet, just like one bad choice doesn't make a bad diet. You could lose weight on the "Coke Diet" by consuming nothing but 10 servings of Coca-Cola every day.
It's simple math - calories in and calories out. There are "good foods" and "bad foods", but the effect of which food you eat makes less of a difference than how much food you eat on weight loss. Effect on overall health is a different story. A person on the "Coke Diet" above would almost certainly lose weight, but they would almost certainly suffer health problems if they stuck to it for too long. A lot of people give "healthy eating" advice as "weight loss" advice and vice-versa.
The real problem is the "Silver Bullet" mentality. The soft drink industry didn't cause this problem all by themselves and telling people to stop drinking Coke isn't going to do any more good than telling people to eat less fat did over the past forty years. If people used the low fat campaign to buy Twizzlers (a low fat snack), then the no soda campaign will produce equally horrible outcomes.