One in 10 People Frequently Experience Abdominal Pain When They Eat Meals:
Around 11% of the global population (13% of women and 9% of men) frequently experience abdominal pain when they eat meals, according to a survey on over 50,000 people. The research is being presented for the first time today at UEG Week Virtual 2021.[1]
Pain associated with eating appears to be most common in young people aged 18 to 28, with 15% affected, the research found.
Those who experienced frequent abdominal meal-related pain were also more likely to suffer from bloating, a swollen tummy, feeling too full after eating or feeling full up too quickly, constipation and diarrhoea. The same group also had more severe psychological distress and somatic symptoms (that were not gastrointestinal).
A total of 36% of the people with frequent meal-related pain reported suffered from anxiety compared with 25% in the occasional symptoms group and 18 % in those who never experienced meal-related pain. Those with frequent attacks also reported higher rates of depression (35%) compared to 24% in the occasional symptom group and 17% in the group that never had meal-related pain.
Based on the Rome Foundation Global Epidemiology study, the findings were a result of surveying 54,127 people across 26 countries online.
[...] Esther Colomier, study author and a joint PhD researcher at KU Leuven, Belgium, and the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, explained, “The take home message from this study is that people who experience meal-related abdominal pain more frequently experience other gastrointestinal symptoms and more regularly fulfil criteria for disorders of the gut brain interactions (DGBIs, formerly known as functional gut disorders), including common conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), bloating and abdominal distension.”
“They also have a higher burden of psychological and somatic symptoms, such as back pain or shortness of breath, which are associated with major distress and functioning problems. These symptoms cause distress and disruption in daily life”, she added.
Journal Reference:
Ami D. Sperber, Shrikant I. Bangdiwala, Douglas A. Drossman, et al. Worldwide Prevalence and Burden of Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders, Results of Rome Foundation Global Study - PubMed, Gastroenterology (DOI: 10.1053/j.gastro.2020.04.014)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @05:50AM (8 children)
This is God's way of telling you to eat less.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @07:07AM (6 children)
Keep it sciency d00d.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Tuesday October 05 2021, @09:45AM (5 children)
Ok, then: This is your stomach's way of telling you to eat less.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 05 2021, @03:12PM (4 children)
Patient: "Doc, it hurts when I do this."
Doc: "Well, don't do that."
Yeah, I know, no pain no gain. But in Obese States of America, no gain is a good thing!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @05:10PM (3 children)
Runaway has joined the chat, threads done nothing good will come of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @06:47PM (2 children)
You were saying, ari?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @07:50PM (1 child)
Runaway is a dumbass, and I ain't ari.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @06:47AM
Ich bin ein aristarchus. - John F. Kennedy
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @06:36PM
Yep. You don't have to eat much when you live on rocks and diesel fuel.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @05:54AM (2 children)
Everybody are different chemically. Everybody have a different bacterial composition in their stomach. Not all foods are suitable for everyone. Try to find out what your stomach reacts against and avoid that.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Opportunist on Tuesday October 05 2021, @09:48AM
Also in the news: Every 5-10 year old discovered instantly that their stomach reacts against broccoli.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @08:03AM
This is greatly overstated. We're all the same species and we all work in the same sort of way. Some people have tolerances or intolerances of particular substances, such as lactose, but these are mere exceptions to the rule.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @06:04AM (6 children)
Another garbage post.
Stop posting boomer garbage posts. Even a political bullshit post is better than this garbage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @06:10AM
Really, anxiety disorders cause a tummy ache... Call your mommy
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @06:19AM
What should we be asking our doctors about to solve this terrible condition? Is Soylent News now Old Peoples TV? Does this have something to do with the indigestion of actual submitters of real stories to SN, who have been driven away by political bias? Say it ain't so, Mighty Buzzard! Say it ain't so!
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday October 05 2021, @03:04PM (3 children)
Heh. Someone lost an argument and is jones'in for a rematch.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @04:54PM (2 children)
Are you implying an AC could win an argument?
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday October 05 2021, @05:11PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Touché) by kazzie on Tuesday October 05 2021, @07:06PM
AC won out against Edison.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @07:03AM (5 children)
The "Food" (I use this term loosely) is poison.
There is no money in selling people nutritious food. You must extract the nutrients, making their body miss the actual things they need to survive and making them crave more food in return. Then you can package these actual nutrients separately as "supplements." Extract the fat, replace with partially-hydrogenated oils extracted from inedible plants. Sell the fat as cheese (or whatever else they use the fat for, it can't all be going to cheese can it?!). Undo all food fortification regiments from the last century. And if the plebs somehow survive on this, switch up the formula under "new and improved same old taste" campaign.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @02:08PM
That's really the issue more than anything else. Most people have different levels of tolerance and ability to digest various foods, that's always been the case. What's different now is that there's a ton of other stuff in there and it can be extremely difficult for people to keep track of what they're eating to figure out which things it is. Even something as simple and widely known about as lactose intolerance may or may not be obvious. If it's just a bit of bloating that doesn't really go away, you might not realize that it's lactose intolerance versus just not eating a large enough portion of food from vegetables.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 05 2021, @05:19PM
What you describe about what now passes for "food" is true.
Some of us have adapted successfully to the new food substitute stuff that now passes for "food". Others experience abdominal pains after eating.
Next: dehydrated water, just add water.
What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @08:05AM (2 children)
I was with you until you went full retard here. The dairy industry is well regulated. There is not lard in cheese. The fat in cheese is the fat that's found in milk to begin with.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday October 06 2021, @09:04AM (1 child)
Unless it's not actually cheese but "American cheese food product".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @11:39AM
I understand that many restaurants can not legally sell a "milkshake" .
Apparently, chemists, not cows, make the stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @07:05AM
Is already in progress, seems like.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Tuesday October 05 2021, @07:17AM
If it did I wouldn't be fat.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday October 05 2021, @07:35AM (9 children)
Did they cross check the types of food or ingredients?
Did they test for Coeliac disease, (genetic markers and blood test, doesn't need a scope)?
Massively under-diagnosed issue in 'western' people - and the 100% effective treatment is just 'stop eating gluten'
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @08:16AM (6 children)
Right. By which I mean wrong. If you feel bloated from "gluten", it's probably something else, like this,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FODMAP [wikipedia.org]
It's actually amusing how poor "gluten" is blamed on bad diets and used to sell 10x more expensive stuff. But hey, whatever makes people spend more on food must be a truthy!
Yeah, that.. it's quite rare and you find it out rather easily. If you have Celiac Disease in your family, then maybe. If you don't, then you don't.
https://celiac.org/about-the-foundation/featured-news/2018/08/global-prevalence-of-celiac-disease/ [celiac.org]
Oh, so about 1%. So, blaming that on the bad diet for the rest is kind of BS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @09:31AM (5 children)
I agree. Based on the summary, this immediately sounded more like "asymptomatic" and untreated Helicobacter pylori infections being more prevalent than we previously thought. Infection leads to many of the symptoms mentioned here, many with rapid onset. There are also studies which show very significant associations with both depression and anxiety.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @02:15PM (3 children)
I had that and it almost killed me. The only reason that it didn't kill me was that I eventually got my butt to the doctor's office and they tested me for it. I was down to about a half a cup of yogurt a day, and nothing else would stay down. I felt surprisingly fine other than the vomiting and once I finished that for the morning, I'd feel fine for the rest of the day. If it wasn't for the weight loss and eventually death, I probably wouldn't have bothered going to the doctor at all.
Really, when it comes to food tolerance issues, the best method is really to start logging what you're eating and how you feel afterwards. If you really have to do it, an elimination diet will pretty reliably single out the foods or ingredients that are causing the problems, but thanks to our "food" being more of a list of laboratory chemicals than food, it can be a bit of an issue.
One of the unfortunate bits about all the hysteria surrounding gluten tolerance is that if you're not actually intolerant, or at least sensitive, it can distract from whatever is actually causing the problem. I've got no issue with products being gluten-free, but it's a bit comical to see things being listed as gluten-free that should never have had any to begin with. I take that to mean that they may have been sharing facilities with gluten containing products previously, or they tested it to market to the gluten-free customers.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday October 05 2021, @02:30PM (1 child)
It's not comical at all. If I eat the standard oatmeal, I get sick, because as you said, it's made in the same facility that processes wheat. Eat the GF oatmeal and I'm fine.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @03:52PM
What makes you think I was joking, I would have starved to death if it weren't for modern antibiotics. There's a ton of people out there that think they're gluten intolerant, when it's actually a different type of food intolerance and removing gluten from the diet only works if gluten was the thing that was causing the issue in the first place. There are definitely people out there that need to cut it out, but it's usually not the culprit for most people. It's why elimination diets and testing exist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @07:46PM
Speaking from experience, and from experience of some relatives and friends, elimination diets are difficult. When you're extraordinarily lucky, cutting out a food will change how you feel within days. But depending upon the person and the problem, sometimes they need to skip something for weeks before it has an impact.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @06:07PM
i believe "Helicobacter pylori" is actually a war waged by ants on human-kind. especial the really small kind that can make their homes in tiny cracks in and around the kitchen.
it's to small to see with the naked eye, but before they head out they put a sprayer with concentrated "Helicobacter pylori" colonies in their tool belt ... it gets sprayed everywhere.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday October 05 2021, @01:34PM (1 child)
Based on the summary, I'd guess it was psychosomatic. Of course, the main alternative is that feeling pain when you eat causes you to be stressed and anxious, so that's plausible too.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @02:22PM
Cramping and constipation absolutely can be psychosomatic, there's a lot of people out there that experience anxiety via their intestines. But, some chemicals do affect both the brain and the function of the gut. For example, sugar is particularly problematic because of the way it fuels gut bacteria and messes with your hormones. There's also a bunch of nerves going back and forth between the gut and the brain.
I'd personally look to figure out what food is most closely associated with the discomfort first, unless it's bad enough to warrant medical attention now. In most cases, the doctor is going to want to know what foods seem to make it worse anyways.
(Score: 2) by Username on Tuesday October 05 2021, @07:55AM (8 children)
Do we have to lockdown until they come up with a vaccine for it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @08:07AM (2 children)
For the boomers.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday October 05 2021, @03:01PM (1 child)
I definitely read too many Tom Clancy novels as a kid. When I see this, I just think of submarines.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 05 2021, @03:17PM
👍
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 05 2021, @01:10PM
Only if the really old people are dying from it.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @02:37PM
> ...lockdown ...
What, stomach aches are contagious now? Oh noes!
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday October 05 2021, @03:08PM
Was the lockdown so unjust it can legitimately used in a quip like this? That question is worth 4.55+ million.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 05 2021, @05:23PM (1 child)
The abdominal pain after eating does not appear to be contagious. So no need.
COVID-19 is contagious.
Apparently stupidity is contagious. Facebook is an excellent growth medium for it as well as infection vector.
What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kazzie on Tuesday October 05 2021, @07:08PM
Maybe mis-configured BGP routers are an auto-immune response to Facebook?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ledow on Tuesday October 05 2021, @12:20PM (9 children)
A general rule that I had to literally introduce with an ex- of mine with severe problems:
- If it hurts, something is wrong.
- If it's persistent, regular, related to an activity you need to do something about it.
Pain's a warning signal. Sometimes there's no obvious reason, sometimes it's fleeting, etc. but anything that recurs is a problem.
About the only exception I can think of is period pain, but even there it shouldn't be debilitating.
My ex had a severe genetic symptoms which results in her joints having no collagen - so everything rubs like hell, wears down, hurts constantly, things dislocate, it means she could hardly walk at times.
But she kept fighting through it and not making a fuss and making the whole thing worse and crippling herself and living in chronic pain for 30 years.
Until I pointed out that it's NOT NORMAL to be in constant pain. Then we got her a new doctor, who helped diagnose her condition, who sent her to a specialist, and she got the medications she needs and knows what to avoid so that she might still be able to walk in later life.
Pain is a warning signal - and as these correlations show, it means there's something wrong with your digestive system, etc. That may not be crippling, serious, etc. but it *is* related. And living in pain is miserable, especially if nobody else has it, and that's when the depression etc. sets in.
Listen to your body. Get something done about it. Don't take no for an answer.
Oh, and live in a country with free healthcare because the other kind are far too primitive for modern living.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 05 2021, @01:17PM (5 children)
You are right: pain is a warning signal, and if you have a treatable condition pain is a clear sign to get the condition treated.
On the other hand: there are a great many untreatable conditions - not just too expensive for the free healthcare countries to roll out to everyone, actually untreatable regardless of how much money you throw at it. Then there are the unfortunate circumstances when your condition might be treatable, but the cost of treatment is beyond your means. If this seems cold and callous, consider treatments which require 10 other human beings to labor constantly - whether that be in direct therapeutic work, or remotely through research and development and production of treatment devices and drugs. If you lack the means to support those 10 other human beings, do you still expect them to work constantly to alleviate your pain? And when your condition affects 20% of the population, what do we do then? But, this digression has a point: there are times when "working through the pain" is entirely appropriate, enables the sufferer to have a full and fulfilling life even in the presence of chronic pain, and reduces the common comorbitities of depression and atrophies.
Unfortunately: work through the pain is overused, and over-glamorized in our society. It is done too much and too often by people who would be better off to get the condition treated. Better for themselves and better for the people around them.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday October 06 2021, @09:08AM (1 child)
In the U.S. a sprained ankle might meet that criterion.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 06 2021, @10:40AM
Just don't be poor. /$
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @01:39PM
"If you lack the means to support those 10 other human beings, do you still expect them to work constantly to alleviate your pain?"
Yes. Virtually every hospital visit could be stated in those terms. The primary reason insurance exists is an expectation of lacking means. The reason insurance is _profitable_ is there exists a probability that most people who lack the means also lack the need and much of the risk. So, a person who chronically has need but not means can still be supported by insurance precisely because there are so very few of them being supported by so very many.
Of course, when you include such insurance into the equation, that person does in fact have the means, you'd just prefer they didn't.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Thursday October 07 2021, @12:12PM (1 child)
State-run health services often cost only half to a third as that of the US system, and they cater for just about any condition whatsoever (not purely cosmetic, though, unless it's because of an injury).
Because when the state service is THE way to obtain healthcare, health insurance becomes the preserve of only a select few, and if you want to sell your drug / treatment to the state they simply won't pay the huge cost, they'll obtain a generic instead. And they can literally just ignore your patents if they so wish, so it's best not to piss them off with inflated prices.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday October 07 2021, @01:22PM
No argument, the US system is beyond the pale, and fading ever faster into a white-hole singularity.
However, regardless of the method of reimbursement chosen, the question remains: what percentage of GDP are you willing to commit to healthcare? If that's 20%, fine, but... that also means that: on average, you can only expect to receive ~70 person-days of health care on average, and that includes weekends and vacation days taking you down to 40 "work" days, 20% G&A overhead (in a really good system, more like 60% in the US reimbursement process) taking you back to 32, and your average worker isn't productive for more than about 6 hours a day, really, so that nets you a sum total of less than 200 person-hours of medical care per year on average. Someone with a chronic condition can easily consume that and more, even without going to a medical office, just in the production and delivery of their medications and support devices.
So, there's the question: at what point do you cut off care? Young people require far less than 200 hours of attention per year, children may get 20 or so for regular checkups. Mid-life varies from near zero to chronic users of the system who already push 200+ hours in care of their various conditions. Later stage life? Proper care of frail/elderly runs 400+ hours a year and more. How long are we going to sustain our elderly in a frail / care intensive state? That's a major question, and one I think the recent pandemic exposed many people's views where some would much rather they just die and pass on their inheritance to the living rather than spend it all on sustained medical care. Almost nobody says that out loud, but what other conclusion is there from anti-mask mandates?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @01:30PM
Stomach discomfort runs in my family, and part of the issue is that sometimes it takes months before removing a trigger food has a positive impact. That makes it difficult and frustrating to figure out what you shouldn't eat.
If you have an immediate severe reaction to something it's easy to figure out. I get diarrhea from lactose and peanuts, it reliably happens within two days of eating them, so I avoid them. I have a friend with Crohn's disease (a serious digestive problem), and it took her years to figure out that dairy but not lactose was one of her triggers. She needs to be dairy free for about a month to stop getting periodic stomach aches and diarrhea. She had cut dairy out of her diet many times over the years in case it was a trigger, but when she didn't feel better after a week or two she started eating it again. She finally cut it out for a month, and it then noticed a difference.
Plus, of course, you can be sensitive to more than one food. If beef and spinach cause you problems, and you cut out beef for a month but not spinach or spinach for a month but not beef, then you won't feel better and you'll never figure out that you're sensitive to both.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @03:55PM (1 child)
That's a common problem. In addition to that, there's a bunch of people out there that don't properly register pain. I'll look down and see that I'm bleeding and have no idea why. Sure, at that point, I can clean and bandage it, but it would have been nice to be able to do so when I cut myself.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 06 2021, @06:56AM
There's a flip side to that coin. There are people who are incapacitated with the least bit of pain. Stub a toe, bark a shin, bang a hip on a counter top, and they just wither, curl up, and cry. A little pin prick leaves them miserable for the rest of the day.
Can't count the times that I've finished my day up, undressed for the shower, and discovered cuts, nicks, minor burns, bruises, sometimes huge bruises covering a thigh - and wonder when, where, and how that happened. I'd much rather be at this end of the spectrum, than the other.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @01:46PM (9 children)
In the US, the Food and Drug Administration recommends 25 grams of dietary fiber per adult per day. Depending upon what research you read, scientists seem to think that our hunter-gatherer ancestors routinely had more than 80 grams of fiber per day.
So a lot of people have chronic constipation, which can contribute to stomach discomfort, without realizing it. You still poop every day or even a few times a day, but instead of having food from the last 24 hours working its way through your digestive system you have food from the last 48, or 72, or even 96 hours. I dealt with this a lot as a kid - Ramen noodles, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, pasta, and Cheerios were the bulk of my diet because they're dirt cheap per calorie and my parents couldn't afford more. Fruits and veggies were a rarity. I had stomach aches most days of the week. Now as an adult with a good income, more than half my diet by weight is produce. I'm still a fat fuck but I get 30-40 grams of fiber a day and my stomach almost never bothers me. When it does bother me, it's usually because I didn't eat enough produce in the previous week. Two or three days of extra high fiber meals and a few big trips to the bathroom later, I feel fine again.
I'm not saying this is the problem every time. I have a vegan family member that consumes twice as much fiber as I do, and is thin, and still has lots of stomach issues. Her frequent stomach pain was worse when she had meat and fish, so being vegan helps. But it's not a full solution. She also has celiac disease and only eats gluten free foods.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Tuesday October 05 2021, @02:43PM (6 children)
Our hunter-gatherer ancestors also died when they're 40. I don't think they are any kind of role model for us.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @06:12PM
They died early mainly due to accident, childhood mortality and childbirth. There's not much reason to believe that they were being killed due to what they ate, any more than we are and probably less so. Pretty much as far back in time as we can go, the adults who avoided accidents or pregnancy, lived about as long as we do. Same goes for our closest relatives, many of the great apes have life spans that are closer to ours than that 40 year number.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @09:37PM (4 children)
I didn't mean to hold them up as a model in any respect, or idealize anything about their lifestyle or longevity. My point was that it seems - at a guess - likely that we evolved to have a much higher fiber intake than the modern diet provides.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Tuesday October 05 2021, @10:15PM (3 children)
We evolved to live long enough to propagate. Like any animal. Any time beyond that is essentially a waste of resources. At least from an evolutionary point of view.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @11:49PM
Defying nature is only natural.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @03:20AM (1 child)
Not really. Longer-lived social animals can contribute to the group well past their reproductive years. Granny who falls and can't get up will probably be left on a mountain somewhere, but Granny who looks after the kids and cooks will be loved as long there's enough food.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday October 06 2021, @01:45PM
That may be so, but cooking wasn't part of evolution. If anything, it's part of civilization, and civilization is pretty much the opposite of evolution.
So yes, civilization makes old people a lot more useful, but without, we can do without.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @08:08AM (1 child)
Veggies are cheaper than mac and cheese. Your parents were simply lazy fools.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @08:04PM
Aldi has the cheapest groceries near me. 750 calories of generic mac'n'cheese: $0.39. 3200 calories of pasta: $1.25. 1200 calories of knock-off cheerios: $1.29. 4500 calories of Ramen: $2.55. Head of lettuce: 54 calories, $1.39. Large zucchini: 52 calories, $0.85. 3 apples: 218 calories, $1.75. 1 pound of strawberries: 144 calories, $2.75. 1 pound of carrots: 186 calories, $1.06. Those are today's prices.
So if you're trying to meet a kid's dietary energy needs on a poverty budget, cheap processed garbage is 10 times as cost effective as produce. And you have to use the gas to get to the grocery store less often, because the processed stuff can sit in a cabinet until hell freezes over. You just need to get milk at a gas station from time to time.
But thanks for thinking that every person feeding their kids processed food instead of produce is bad at math.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 05 2021, @04:30PM (4 children)
There is a well-known 20 minute delay between when you eat and when your brain registers it. That makes it easy to eat more than you need to feel full. Some food cultures emphasize eating slowly because meals are a social occasion to be enjoyed, but it could also play a role in why obesity isn't such a problem in those places.
Of course, what you eat matters, too. What you should eat, unfortunately, varies as much as we do. You have to experiment and possibly consult nutritionists to find out what works for your body. Generally, if we want to avoid the abdominal pain that accompanies overeating, we need to eat less, but to maintain proper nutrition we should favor nutrient-dense foods (the so-called "super foods" are examples, but far from the only ones) over those that are empty calories. I find that nutrient rich foods taste better and make me feel better, but your mileage may vary.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @02:18PM (1 child)
For me it is particular types of foods ingredients. Most of it is not debilitating just 'hmm feel kinda crappy now'
If it has HFCS in it and I have a good amount I have a decent chance of getting some sort of acid reflux. If it is just regular sugar I can eat tons of that (I dont, because well weight...). Water is what I try to stick to.
If it has some sort of fish or shellfish in it. I will probably be 'sick' about 20-30 mins after I eat it. But not I so bad as I can not do anything. I just feel crappy.
It is not debilitating. Just annoying. So I just avoid those foods. Not all food allergies are some 'one thing'. If you have one it can be very mild (like mine) all the way up to call a doctor. It also takes time to figure out what the hell it can be especially if you have more than one thing that makes you feel like crap.
Over eating can be a cause but sometimes it is just an allergy.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 08 2021, @03:39AM
That's an apt example. Fish and shellfish--shrimp in particular--are often recommended as better sources of protein than beef, pork, or chicken. But if those make you sick, then better to eat the "unhealthy" steak.
Even worse is, you could love the taste of salmon and scallops, so you might still eat them despite the risks. There is no single roadmap, and nutrition science, at this point in history, is no help.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 07 2021, @12:10AM (1 child)
Slow eating is partly a function of free time. If you've got two jobs, or one job and a long commute, you're going to scarf down meals in a hurry. If you work a thirty hour week and have a two hour break for lunch and a nap each day, you're going to eat slowly.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 08 2021, @03:43AM
That is true. It is difficult to practice slow cuisine in America. Here it might be more practical to try multiple snacks throughout the day taken during short breaks. You have to plan that, though, because our vending machines do not favor healthy options.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @06:52PM (4 children)
This used to be me. Growing up, I would frequently get bloated, gassy, and intense waves of abdominal pain after eating, usually dinner. It was bad to the point that I would lie face-first on a couch for 10-15 minutes, which I found was the best way to ease through the most intense pain until I could function again. This got me in trouble frequently for shirking my chores, which involved cleaning up the dining room and doing the dishes ... but it helped me cope. I also often had diarrhea, which usually signaled the end of that session of GI pain, maybe an hour after eating. Keep in mind, I was a scrawny kid, skinny as a pole, moderately active (I had friends, we rode bikes, climbed trees, did normal kid stuff), and we ate relatively healthy food: venison, beef, fruit & veggies, had our own garden, etc. Didn't do much processed sugar or candy either - my mother saw to that!
We were lower-middle class, just above working poor, no insurance to speak of - so going to a doc wasn't an option. I just lived with it from about the age of 9-10 through about 15, then it started to become less frequent. A few years later, as a young adult, it started happening more often again. I can blame this on definitely eating junk food -- if I ate healthy, it would be less often but wouldn't go completely away.
Then, I started working out. HIIT (crossfit mostly) for 20-40 minutes per day. Later on I would run (not jog!) 2-3 miles per day at a ~6.5 minute pace. And when I exercised, I found my stomach became iron: I could eat anything I wanted, as much as I wanted, zero gastrointenstinal side effects. When I slacked off on workouts, I could coast for a week or two, but inevitably the GI side effects would start coming back. Stomach-aches and diarrhea again. But if I went back to high-intensity workouts, it was like flipping a switch: GI side effects were gone in a day. It's been more-or-less consistent like that for the past dozen years.
So my advice: exercise! Turns out it helps in all sorts of ways.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @07:54PM
Sounds like you might have a physical issue with your intestines that keeps food from moving through properly and intense workouts cause enough contractions to accelerate the process. People with allergies and sensitivies can not solve their problems with exercise, though if they are lacking exercise it would likely help.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @09:47PM (2 children)
I mentioned this up-thread, but my problem was constipation. If you're not getting enough fiber, instead of having 1-2 days' worth of meals moving through your digestive system you can have 2-5, or more. You'll still poop, maybe even more than once per day, but you'll have tiredness and frequent stomach aches. When I get into that state, two or three weeks of a high produce diet fixes it, and it stays fixed until I backslide on my diet.
Of course, the exercise is good for you no matter what. But if you're too sick or too busy to work out, boost your produce intake. I have four kids and my wife and one of my daughters have serious medical problems, so aside from a few pushups and squats here and there I don't get to exercise as I would like.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @03:30AM (1 child)
Humans didn't evolve to just eat a lot of fibrous foods, they also did a lot of walking. Sedentary cultures are a recent phenomenon. It's not hard to see a link between proper digestion and exercise as well as fiber, but given the large range of human diets without epidemic-level gastrointestinal issues, not hard to assume that fiber doesn't matter for everyone, and that exercise is likely to be more universal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @08:06PM
We're both just speculating, but as long as gastrointestinal issues don't kill you, they wouldn't stop you from living long enough to reproduce. Sedentary lifestyles are an invention of recent civilization, but even low fiber diets are only 10,000 years old - that's not long on an evolutionary scale.
(Score: 2) by Rich26189 on Tuesday October 05 2021, @06:54PM
I want to see the "Doc Schmidt" video on this.