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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – Trends in Fat Intake and Their Impacts on Body Weight and the Risk of Overweight and Obesity Among Chinese Adults

The paper highlighted this week is a pre-print from the Lancet and they wish to make it clear that such” Preprints are not peer-reviewed and should not be used for clinical decision making or reporting of research to a lay audience without indicating that it is preliminary research that has not been peer-reviewed.” OK?

Fat, being fat and obesity have become a ‘third-rail’ in much of the West. Especially the U.S and this study notes recent advice-guidelines for physicians there that have removed caps on total fat intake instead highlighting the need to consume ‘good’ fats as opposed to ‘bad’ ones.

What’s less problematic to discuss is what the impact of being overweight has on one’s general health. There’s no argument that fat people have more cardiovascular problems, diabetes and general morbidity than more svelte peers. These problems not only impact their quality of life but are a tax on health systems that must be paid for by all.

The question remains though. Can you eat good fat and not be concerned about gaining weight and being in line for the all the problems that come with this? The answer, from the Chinese study, is an unequivocal and resounding NO. Fat is fat, consume more of it and you’ll bulge [You wouldn’t think we needed scientific research to clarify this?].

Liang Wang (et. al.) from the East Tennessee State University have used data from China that involves 23,800 individuals collected from 1991~2015. Over this period the average male increased in weight by 10.1kg and the average woman by 6.3kg [!!] with the principle villain being a significant increase in the consumption of edible oil.

As this increase has been from either fried foods prepared in the home, in restaurants or the consumption of fried snacks [Many doubtless unavailable in 1991?] the cure would appear to be self-evident?

My own two pennyworth. China has the means to fix this looming public health crisis and its administration isn’t infested with special interest lobbies likely to resist campaigns to improve general health (one or two producer SOEs perhaps?). So, no doubt in time, fix it they will.

The U.S. and much of the developed West however, as the most recent fumbled response to an in-plain-sight-epidemic demonstrates, faces a much harder challenge of coordination if they too wish to bring the scourge of bad food to heel.

You can read the paper in full via the following link Fat Intake and Body Weight.

Happy Sunday, stay away from the chips!

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