Re: Let's theorise...

On Thu, 31 Jan 2008, LILBiggie <UKBiggie@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>I am a big woman and it's never been a problem for me, never really
>suffered for it physically or emtionally, and I'm by no means looking
>to change myself to make society a little more 'comfortable' with me.
>As you may have seen from my previous posts, I run BBW club nights for
>a living in the UK (amongst other things), so I'm celebrating,
>definitely not hating.

Buffet night?

>
>However....one of my ex-boyfriends, shocked by just how little I eat
>in a day,

So your "ex-boyfriend" is with you 24/7 to observe your eating habits?

> well, it seemed to get his mind racing. Being a powerlifter
>and having an interest in 'body mechanics' he theorised that excess
>weight in women might actually be linked to their oestrogen levels,
>and I'm wondering if there have been any studies done to disprove
>this?
>
>What do you think?

There have been studies that show obese people underestimate their calorie
consumption. See two below.

Underreporting of food intake in obese "small eaters".

Fricker J, Baelde D, Igoin-Apfelbaum L, Huet JM, Apfelbaum M
Inserm U 286-Human Nutrition, Medical School Xavier Bichat, Paris, France.

Thirty sedentary and stable weight obese women were classified as small,
normal or large eaters depending on their report of 24 h energy intake (EI)
through a dietary history questionnaire. For each subject, resting
metabolic rate (RMR) was assessed through indirect calorimetry, physical
activity through a self-administered questionnaire and psychological
evaluation through psychometric tests. Neither RMR nor indices of physical
activity were different between the three groups; however for small eaters,
RMR was higher than reported EI (p < 0.001). Thus, the low EI reported by
obese small eaters reflected an underreporting of food intake. Psychometric
evaluation was not different between normal and large eaters. Small eaters
exhibited a better perception of food size than normal or large eaters, and
no difference in tests assessing memory or attention; their score (2.8 +/-
1.3) in a nutritional dissimulation test was higher (p = 0.015) than that
of normal (1.0 +/- 0.7) or large eaters (1.5 +/- 0.09). This suggests that
underreporting in obese small eaters might be due to specific nutritional
concealment; because small eaters reported a low intake particularly in
foods which are often perceived as unhealthy (fats, sugars, extra-prandial
consumption), they probably reported what, in their opinion, they should
have eaten, instead of what they did eat.


N Engl J Med 1992 Dec 31;327(27):1893-1898

Discrepancy between self-reported and actual caloric intake and exercise in
obese subjects.

Lichtman SW, Pisarska K, Berman ER, Pestone M, Dowling H, Offenbacher E,
Weisel H, Heshka S, Matthews DE, Heymsfield SB.

Department of Medicine, St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, Columbia
University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY.

BACKGROUND AND METHODS. Some obese subjects repeatedly fail to lose weight
even though they report restricting their caloric intake to less than 1200
kcal per day. We studied two explanations for this apparent resistance to
diet--low total energy expenditure and underreporting of caloric intake--in
224 consecutive obese subjects presenting for treatment. Group 1 consisted
of nine women and one man with a history of diet resistance in whom we
evaluated total energy expenditure and its main thermogenic components and
actual energy intake for 14 days by indirect calorimetry and analysis of
body composition. Group 2, subgroups of which served as controls in the
various evaluations, consisted of 67 women and 13 men with no history of
diet resistance. RESULTS. Total energy expenditure and resting metabolic
rate in the subjects with diet resistance (group 1) were within 5 percent
of the predicted values for body composition, and there was no significant
difference between groups 1 and 2 in the thermic effects of food and
exercise. Low energy expenditure was thus excluded as a mechanism of
self-reported diet resistance. In contrast, the subjects in group
1underreported their actual food intake by an average (+/- SD) of 47 +/- 16
percent and overreported their physical activity by 51 +/- 75 percent.
Although the subjects in group 1 had no distinct psychopathologic
characteristics, they perceived a genetic cause for their obesity, used
thyroid medication at a high frequency, and described their eating behavior
as relatively normal (all P < 0.05 as compared with group 2). CONCLUSIONS.
The failure of some obese subjects to lose weight while eating a diet they
report as low in calories is due to an energy intake substantially higher
than reported and an overestimation of physical activity, not to an
abnormality in thermogenesis.

On Thu, 31 Jan 2008, Jeff wrote:

> There have been studies that show obese people underestimate their calorie
> consumption. See two below.

I read your first "study" that you posted... The "problem" is that all
they did was compare a self answered questionnaire with the person's
metabolism.

> Thus, the low EI reported by
> obese small eaters reflected an underreporting of food intake.

But no report was given about following them around on the second day to
compare actual consumption with reported consumption. As such, it does
nothing to address the original question. I didn't bother reading the
second study, since I figured it was more of the same.