I can't judge the science behind it, maybe others can comment. My first thought is that what the study shows is that we humans are pretty adept at deceiving ourselves and so self-reporting in studies is problematic.
"Scientists at the Medical Research Council have found that eating more sugar is associated with obesity. Although this may seem obvious, previous studies, which relied on self-reporting of diet, had not shown that this was the case. But researchers from the Medical Research Council and University of Cambridge looking into the links between diet and cancer have developed a new way of objectively measuring sugar consumption. This is important in establishing the cause of the UK’s epidemic of obesity: lack of exercise or over-eating."
Sugar is a big factor in my battle with my weight. My normal eating habits are pretty healthy most of the time. My doctor had a hard time believing this and thought I must be decieving myself.
However I do have a sweet tooth and love sweets, biscuits and chocolate. When I replace my snacks with fruit, I lose weight. Simple really.
The information in the blurb said that there was a difference between what people ate and what they reported they ate, specifically sugar and vitamin C, and that the obese people were more likely to misreport what they ate. It doesn't seem to say anything about what other foods and in what amounts the people studied ate, or about medications that affect metabolism. It doesn't say that every person who is obese got that way strictly from eating too much sugar. I'd be curious to know what the sucrose/fructose in the urine tests comes only from sugar or from other simple carbs as well.
Other studies have shown that most people underestimate the amount of food and alcohol they consume. That doesn't mean everyone does, and you must be one of those lucky folks that has the ability to accurately assess your intake of food and alcohol!
Not for me. x/ I became fat from eating too many things like potato chips, pizza, fried chicken, macaroni & cheese, etc etc etc.. I like sugar but rarely had too many sugary items.
I also wonder if they asked the subjects what they ate and in what quatities or asked them to estimate their calories. I also wonder if they interviewed the subjects, or asked them to submit anonymous questionaires about their diet. And if they used interviewers, who were the inteviewers.
I think it is very easy to underestimate what you are eating, when you do a lot of grazing or nonmindful eating. Though I also think sometimes people assume that a fat person is "in denial," when the fact is they might be intentionally or unintentionally deceptive in response to an interviewer, because they don't want the interviewer to judge them. Who is the interviewer? Someone older, younger, thinner, fatter, opposite sex or same sex? Someone the interviewee will percieve as attractive or not? This could impact how honest people are willing to be to an interviewere. Someone who is thin or of average weight, may have less reason to be deceptive in such cases.
I always told my doctor, when I was younger and healthy, "I'm healthy as a horse, and I eat like one too." I knew I ate too much, and it was from "real food," rather than sweets and junk food. It's still possible though that I was eating more sugar than thinner people, because I ate more food overall, and sugar is hidden in so many savory dishes (barbecue sauces, oriental stir fry sauces, spaghetti sauces, salad dressings....)
Too many of these studies are so narrow in scope it's hard to learn anything useful.
I would like to have more info about this test. Without knowing how this urine test works, I am puzzled, becuase as far as I know we convert starches into sugars before any evidence of our consumption shows up in our pee. But I've been wrong before!!!!!!!!
I thought of that too, but they were testing for sucrose and fructose, rather than glucose. Sucrose is table sugar, and fructose is fruit sugar. Starches are broken down by the body into glucose.
There's so many unanswered questions in a report like this. Colleen raised many of them! I don't know much about how accurate their measurement of sugar is, but I believe there has been other research noting how all kinds of people underestimate their food intake. So I wouldn't be surprised to find that the results are true, based on other research.
Finally, just because a study found that obese people eat more sugar than normal people doesn't mean that applies to every single obese and normal weight person. It's just describing a trend or an average.
obese folks eat more sugar
So naturally there would be MORE sugar intake.
