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posted by martyb on Wednesday October 04 2017, @07:34AM   Printer-friendly
from the wanting-to-be-fat-cats dept.

Obesity Was Rising as Ghana Embraced Fast Food. Then Came KFC.

Ghana, a coastal African country of more than 28 million still etched with pockets of extreme poverty, has enjoyed unprecedented national prosperity in the last decade, buoyed by offshore oil. Though the economy slowed abruptly not long ago, it is rebounding and the signs of new fortune are evident: millions moving to cities for jobs, shopping malls popping up and fast food roaring in to greet people hungry for a contemporary lifestyle.

Chief among the corporate players is KFC, and its parent company, YUM!, which have muscled northward from South Africa — where KFC has about 850 outlets and a powerful brand name — throughout sub-Saharan Africa: to Angola, Tanzania, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana and beyond. The company brings the flavors that have made it popular in the West, seasoned with an intangible: the symbolic association of fast food with rich nations.

But KFC's expansion here comes as obesity and related health problems have been surging. Public health officials see fried chicken, french fries and pizza as spurring and intensifying a global obesity epidemic that has hit hard in Ghana — one of 73 countries where obesity has at least doubled since 1980. In that period, Ghana's obesity rates have surged more than 650 percent, from less than 2 percent of the population to 13.6 percent, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, an independent research center at the University of Washington.

The U.S. had a 13% obesity rate in 1962. The CDC estimated that 36.5-37.7% of U.S. adults aged 20+ were obese in 2014 (17% of children/teenagers aged 2-19).


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  • (Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday October 04 2017, @10:54AM (14 children)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Wednesday October 04 2017, @10:54AM (#576964) Homepage Journal

    This is a bit silly. A poor country with widespread medical and nutritional problems manages to heave itself out of poverty and put an actual government in place that doesn't suffer from massive corruption. Companies can exist and grow, international investment is attractive. Living standards rise dramatically. As a result, some small portion of the population becomes obese (around 1/3 of what you have in the US).

    Anyway, we were lied to all those decades, and fatty foods (ahem, like fried chicken) are actually healthy - it's carbohydrates that lead to obesity.

    I've at least skimmed the article - I'm really not sure what the point of it is. The author is missing the forest for the trees, focusing on one tiny issue (fast-food) in the context of the massive societal changes that Ghana has undergone since Constitutional government was put in place in 1992.

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  • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday October 04 2017, @12:14PM (10 children)

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Wednesday October 04 2017, @12:14PM (#576981) Journal

    It's piling sugar carbs on top of fat which is the problem. Before that people ate bread and fats together all day long. The worst offending carbohydrates are sugars that your body loves to use as fuel and even worse when consumed with fats and other carbs (like grains.) Your body will take the lazy way out and begin burning the sugars first as the other carbs and fats require further processing. Meanwhile your stomach is packed full of solid foods containing yet more energy. In response, your body stores the excess energy in the fats and carbs as body fat for later use. Thing is, you never wind up needing that stored energy for later use because you keep consuming a surplus of fuel almost every meal.

    Best course of action: Avoid all sugars when eating a fatty or carb rich meal. Force your body to do a little work to extract the fuel from the carbs and fats. Best path of avoidance is to only drink water, non-sweet tea, or seltzer with your meals and only drink black coffee.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @01:26PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @01:26PM (#577006)

      It's not just fast food or carbs & fat. We also eat more, eat more often, and don't wait as long between meals. It's no coincidence that the increased obesity rate coincided with the availability of consumer microwave oven in the late 70's/early 80's. No one knows anymore that feeling hungry for short periods of time is not that bad of a thing.

      Anyone over 40 will remember the pre-microwave era where there were no instant ready-in-3-minutes meals. Last nights leftovers took 20-30 minutes to reheat on the stove or in the oven, and there was no point in doing that if lunch or supper would be ready in another hour, so you waited as your stomach growled until the meal was ready. If you had a snack it would be something light like an apple or veggies, not a 400 calorie pizza pocket like so many do today.

      • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday October 04 2017, @01:59PM (2 children)

        by LoRdTAW (3755) on Wednesday October 04 2017, @01:59PM (#577018) Journal

        Intake amount is certainly a factor, no doubt. But in my opinion, regardless of intake, putting sugar in of any meal or beverage makes it bad for you.

        • (Score: 2) by Hartree on Wednesday October 04 2017, @04:21PM

          by Hartree (195) on Wednesday October 04 2017, @04:21PM (#577074)

          "But in my opinion, regardless of intake, putting sugar in of any meal or beverage makes it bad for you."

          Ah. So dropping one crystal of sugar into a glass of water makes it bad for you.

          This is the philosophical basis for contagion theory based magic and homeopathy.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @05:27PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @05:27PM (#577113)

          It doesn't help, you are right. But neither does "stamping out hunger." Humans evolved to be fucking hungry. If you are never really hungry because food is everywhere and you can eat within 2 minutes of not being full, let alone being actually hungry, then that fucks things up big time. I'm starting to think that culture that promote religious fasting actually have something right.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @02:19PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @02:19PM (#577027)

      I've seen the science to the sugar problem, and it checks out. Additionally, fats are something the body requires. I've yet to see a skinny person who drinks diet soda and chows down on fat-free whatever. My natural preferences don't include a lot of carbs, anyway. I've also been becoming a skinny person over the past year.

      I've been wondering if there's something more going on. I'm thinking that people have forgotten how important it is to feel satiated. I'm thinking beyond the Puritan framework that says that satiation makes you fat. I believe the opposite: satiation makes you thin. However, and I've watched this with my roommate, who is in the third or fourth year now of a herculean struggle to lose weight without much success, I think we need to start approaching this problem as an addiction problem.

      Sugary foods are addictive, plain and simple. Even diet sodas with zero calories are bad choices because they feed the sugar addiction. While I don't believe that the science is entirely there with zero calorie sweeteners, some findings should give one pause. Yet, they are most probably "healthy" in the sense that a healthy person can consume these substances without harm.

      The reason I think an addiction framework is especially important is because somebody who is overweight needs to rethink their relation to foods. The body requires food; it's fuel that makes the body go. Food should also be satisfying to eat when the body requires more fuel, but one should not desire more fuel because it causes a satisfying feeling in the body. The body will always be satisfied with more food, and it can store as much as it needs to in the reserve fuel tank called body fat.

      Losing weight is draining the reserve fuel tank, and reframing the question of meals in the light of "what kind of fuel and how much fuel will my body require for my average day?" Also one should recognize that the body has a delay. Starving today will not make one thinner tomorrow. Overeating today will not make one fatter tomorrow. Simply focus on providing the body its nutritional needs, nothing more, nothing less.

      Because it is an addiction, the body, especially at first, will demand more and more. The body will raise those signals that say "I'm literally starving! If we do not eat, death comes within days!" Those may be ignored with sufficient mindfulness and keeping the mind's focus on the present moment (even if there is nothing else engaging in the present moment--quiet meditation helps here, focusing the mind on awareness of all the little sounds and smells that it normally filters from perception). However, also because it is an addiction, this will pass with time as the body adjusts to a more appropriate amount of food for one's level of activity.

      Additionally, people often forget that the body must expend more energy to maintain muscle than other tissues, excepting the mind. Most jobs do not involve manual labor, but the body requires some form of exercise to be healthy. I think we need to somehow encourage a culture of regular weight training, not with the goal of being buff, but with the goal of regularly lifting modest weight to keep the body fit. This should be an activity one undertakes regularly for one's own health after discarding more vain reasons.

      I am not a fan of cardio, and I've read some things that indicate that cardio can even be counterproductive to somebody hopeful of shedding body fat because it tends to activate the body's "I'm literally starving and will die in a matter of days!" alarm. One anecdote I read was about a cardio club who did cardio for three hours together every Saturday morning. Nobody lost any weight, because they all headed to IHOP afterwards, and their bodies instructed them to wolf down enough calories to replace the energy they had just released on treadmills and bikes!

      Overall, counting calories is a good idea while overcoming food addiction. However, I've never been a big fan of "calories in! calories out!" because it does not immediately lead to anything productive other than arbitrary diet restriction, which can quickly blow up in one's face if one begins malnourishing oneself chasing the "calories in!" side or overexerting oneself chasing the "calories out!" side. There has to be a more positive and productive way that works with many more people than shouting about calories in and out does.

      Having a healthy, strong body is its own reward. Unlike all those other things that asshole say are "for your own good" that don't really bring one any improvement, a healthy body is simply better and more comfortable to live in.

      I guess this post went on long, but I just wanted to mention my biggest pet peeve of all. Every time I see a magazine or advertisement for a clinic with some bold claim like "lose 20 lbs in 1 week!" I always figure they must be advertising some way of initiating spontaneous human combustion, because I do not know how else the body can release that much energy (3500 kcal/lb) in such a short amount of time without bursting into flames. Feel the burn I guess!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @08:28AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @08:28AM (#577359)

        https://doi.org/10.1001%2Fjama.1933.02740440032009 [doi.org] "In low, or therapeutic, doses, the metabolism may be increased 50 per cent or more over considerable periods of time without unpleasant symptoms or toxicity."

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @04:13PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @04:13PM (#577069)

      It's curious how you think nutrition is so simple and most people are dummies. I've had a low BMI forever, and used to eat a lot of carbs, but switched to more fat lately. And I mix plenty of whole milk into my coffee, because I prefer the taste. As someone who doesn't have particularly good self-discipline, I suspect genetics play a large role, and many people will be driven toward obesity due to biology. Its a sensible urge for a world where food was scarce until recently.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday October 04 2017, @04:26PM

        by LoRdTAW (3755) on Wednesday October 04 2017, @04:26PM (#577079) Journal

        It's curious how you think nutrition is so simple and most people are dummies.

        * In this case it's as simple as: "don't eat low quality mass manufactured fast food on a weekly basis" and "soda is bad for you"
        * Yes. Most people are dummies.
        * BMI is a useless metric.
        * There are different types of carbs. Notice how I said people ate carbs and fat together before modern fast food. The carb that is problematic is sugar. Up until a hundred years or so ago, sugar was a novelty and treat. Now it's added to everything.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @07:17PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @07:17PM (#577139)

        When you have an over-simplified world view, everyone is an idiot for not seeing it as clearly as you. Five or ten years from now he'll be proselytizing on the latest "obvious" dietary fix for the plain, stupid folk, which will turn out to be different than the "obvious" issues today, which are different than the obvious issues from yesterday. Your problem is that you are too dense to see that it is all about the fats. Or the carbs. Or the anti-oxidants. Fish oil! It is because we eat too little fish oil! I'm betting on amino acids. We're consuming too many , or too few, I don't know, but I'll let you know in 5 to 10 years when it is noticed that some isolated restricted diet society is thin and we over extrapolate on what they're eating.

        So even though you are obviously too thick to see this, you are correct that the predominant factor in health is the individual biochemistry [metro.co.uk].

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @09:57PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @09:57PM (#577664)
        My personal perspective is that genetics is a huge part. Also, age is highly significant (middle age changes everything).
  • (Score: 1) by HighOrbit on Wednesday October 04 2017, @03:09PM (2 children)

    by HighOrbit (3320) on Wednesday October 04 2017, @03:09PM (#577050)

    You've hit the nail on the head. It's not caused by fast food per se, it is the drastic economic and societal changes in the lifestyle. Before development and modernity, in every society in the world people lived subsistence lifestyles where the challenge was to get enough calories to survive while also doing at least 12 hours daily of heavy physical labor. Now in just a few generations, they have a massive caloric surplus while doing no more than 8 hours labor and often no physical labor or exercise at all. Even if they maintained the same traditional or rustic diet and were never introduced to KFC or any other fast food, rising rates of obesity would be inevitable.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @05:27PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @05:27PM (#577112)

      Well, Japan is also very rich, and they are not fat.. so there might be more to it than that..

      • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 04 2017, @07:15PM

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday October 04 2017, @07:15PM (#577137) Journal

        The portions are much smaller, and the cuisine is far less fatty.

        Obesity is rising in Japan, too, though, and there it too is linked to Western chains like Mr Donuts and MakuDonarudozu (McDonald's).

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