Debunking the calorie myth

[MattHanson1990]

America as we all know has the highest obesity rates in the world and are still going up. The reality is that most foods in America are processed, contain a lot of artificial ingredients, and have genetically modified organisms. Combine that with the artificial exercise that Americans get from going to the gym and spending a lot of time in cars and offices. This adds recipe for the already worsening obesity epidemic. And what most Americans don't know is that they can go overseas and eat food that's natural and organic. They were conditioned to believe that all they need to lose weight is eat less calories and exercise more. This is easier said than done. Whenever I've gone to the gym, I noticed some people were still fat. And I even noticed my sister is still fat despite she exercises regularly. We have this oversimplified idea that calories are what causes people to gain weight regardless of whether the food is natural or processed. Recent studies have shown that the human body absorbs different foods in different ways regardless of how many calories they have. I am going to go into detail about how the calorie myth is debunked.

First of all, a calorie is a unit of measurement for energy, and is divided into two measurements of energy. A small calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by a degree Celsius. The kilocalorie, or the food calorie, measures how much energy it takes to heat up a kilogram of water by a 1 degree Celsius. One calorie equals approximately 4.2 joules whereas a kilocalorie is 4.2 kilojoules. To avoid confusion, the food industry capitalizes the c (it uses Calories to avoid confusion with calories).

Counting calories to determine how much weight a person will gain or lose is not effective by any means. Americans were brainwashed with the idea that all they need to do in order to lose weight is exercise more and eat less, which in simpler terms is calories in versus calories out. But this is way too oversimplified. In the first place, a calories are not created equal when it comes to the food a person eats. The study that showed calories being created equal is an outdated one and only applies to Bunsen burners. The human body is much more complex than Bunsen burners, and more recent studies have been shown to prove that calories are not created equal when it comes to food. For instance, when a person eats two thousand calories of bacon and eats the same calories of cake, the results will be different. When eating bacon, it gets broken down to amino acids and not get converted into body fat. In contrast, when eating cake, it raises a person's blood sugar, and the insulin goes through the arteries and gets converted to body fat. Junk food is junk food regardless of how many calories it has. Yet the food industry tricks Americans into buying "healthier" alternatives with fewer calories, and Americans are still getting bigger and bigger each year. It is so disheartening how the food industry still places profit over health. Other countries do not have food industries that do what the US does.

The more recent studies that have been done now prove that calories are not the same. They are created equal with a Bunsen burner, but the human body is far more complex. And yet this NEVER gets out into the mainstream media. The calories in versus calories out idea is way too oversimplified. Just go out in America and you will still see a lot of people who are becoming more and more obese each day. And go into a supermarket that is not a health food store, and you will also see that most foods are still processed and contain artificial ingredients. It is a real uphill battle to eat healthy in America these days. Food that is natural and organic is way overpriced. Americans are also forced to drive everywhere, and some suburban neighborhoods do not even have sidewalks. So this right here debunks the calorie myth. In order to actually lose weight long term, go abroad, eat food that's natural and organic, and take public transportation and walk around a lot.