In the Woody Allen movie Sleeper, scientists of the future determine that steak, cream pies, and hot fudge are good for you.
In other words, if I may quote another '70s comedy icon, everything you know is wrong.
This is especially true in the constantly evolving world of food, weight gain, and dieting. The latest news comes from a mathematician, Carson C. Chow, in a paper he gave to the American Association for the Advancement of Science and an interview with the New York Times.
Mr. Chow works for the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, specializing in obesity, which now afflicts one out of every three Americans. In fact, he notes, over the last 30 years, the weight of the average American has increased by 20 pounds. So he and a colleague, Kevin Hall, decided to look at the problem through mathematics.
Mr. Hall is a mathematical physiologist, so the two of them worked out a formula to predict what people will weigh when you factor in their body size, how many calories they consume, how much they exercise, and so on.
Before we get to their results, I just have to say this: A mathematical physiologist? There really is such a thing? In the community of nerds, of which I am a proud member, that has to be the coolest job ever. Well, maybe after astronaut.
The big headline news that came out of Mr. Chow and Mr. Hall's calculations is their answer to the question of why so many Americans (and increasingly, people worldwide) are overweight and obese. They see a direct correlation between the gain in weight and the increased production of food.
"Beginning in the 1970s, there was a change in national agricultural policy. Instead of the government paying farmers not to engage in full production, as was the practice, they were encouraged to grow as much food as they could," Mr. Chow told the Times.
At the same time, farming techniques continued to be more efficient. Farms produced more food than ever, outpacing the rate of population growth. Doing the math (they're big on math), they determined that there are now 1,000 more calories available to Americans than there were in the 1970s.
What do we do with all that extra food and all those extra calories? We eat them.
You've probably heard how much food Americans throw out these days. Everyone bemoans this huge amount of waste, but Mr. Chow points out that if we were discarding less food, we as a nation would be even heavier.
This theory can also be applied to the sense, shared by many, that the proliferation of restaurants and our increasing habit of going out to eat are also leading to our weight gain. According to Mr. Chow, the huge increase in the food supply has made restaurants cheaper. And cheaper food has led to more fast food restaurants.
But it was their other mathematical discoveries that interested me even more. Perhaps you know the theory that if you eat 3,500 fewer calories (or work off a similar amount) you will lose one pound.
According to the mathematicians, everything you know is wrong.
They found that the body changes as you gain or lose weight. Obese people gain weight faster from the same number of calories. As Mr. Chow put it, "an extra 10 calories a day puts more weight onto an obese person than on a thinner one."
They also discovered that one of the most vital factors in all diets is time. They found it takes three full years for your body to adjust to a diet; after three years, the weight you have lost will stay off -- unless you go back to eating the way you did before. Similarly, eating a lot more food or a lot less over a short period of time will not affect your weight in the long run, as long as you average the same amount of calories from one year to the next.
All diets work, they say. But for lasting results, they take some time.
Contact Daniel Neman at dneman@theblade.com or 419-724-6155.
First Published May 22, 2012, 4:00 a.m.