Famous nutritionist suggests changing attitudes towards overweight: I refuse to celebrate obesity

"Today we live in the third era of human nutrition, where most of what we eat is just like food, so-called processed food. We can see the disease it has caused, the ecological impact it has had," Dr Colin Robertson, a physical activity and nutrition scientist from the UK, told LRT.lt. According to the expert, one of the seven basic principles of a healthy and happy life is quality food, which, unfortunately, we often refuse to eat nowadays, having become slaves to our taste buds.

Dr Colin Robertson has worked for the last 30 years in the field of high performance, clinical physiology, and sports medicine research. He is a strength and conditioning coach, a nutritionist of the British Dietetic Association, and a visiting professor at the University of Central Lancashire.

He has also trained athletes for the Olympic Games and prepared travelers for expeditions to Everest and the South and North Poles. He is also the founder of the UTS Live Well Foundation (supporting people recovering from cancer) and the Science and Research Director of Battle Cancer.

- At the beginning and end of your book Made to Move, you outline seven key principles for healthy living. I wonder why you singled out these rules?

- I think a big part of it is due to long life experience. I've been very lucky because I've worked from the Olympics, which people call the pinnacle of sports, where I've supported athletes who have won gold, silver, and bronze medals, and athletes who have not, to hospitals, with people who were bedridden and facing the very worst situations.

I have also traveled extensively, met people from many different cultures, and I am a scientist, a trainer, and a health professional. For 30 years, I have rotated between these things. You know, when you live like that, you pay attention, you see the challenges that people face.

So in exploring what makes for a healthy life, what makes for a fulfilling life and happiness, I came up with this list.

The most important thing is that I see a lot of unhappy people because they are always striving for more. So one of the principles in that list is: only make money if you are going to help other people.

People overcomplicate nutrition. And it is very simple - eat more of what is good for you, not what works against you, and also - move, and stay active.

If you adopt these principles - and I tell people at the beginning of the book to just do it and not read the rest of the book, just do it - I guarantee that you will live a healthier, happier, and more fulfilling life.

- Since you are very much into nutrition, what do you think is the main reason why food causes certain diseases: bad eating habits or the food itself, which is nowadays highly addictive and processed?

- It is actually both. The main problem we face in the 21st-century world is that most of what people eat is processed. We have known for a very long time that such food causes health problems, but we have not been able to identify exactly how this happens.

As science has progressed, we have found that because processed food is rich in binders, chemical stabilizers and flavour enhancers, it lacks nutrition and harms the microbiota in our digestive system. The immune system is 70% in the gut, and the microbiota is responsible for how you absorb and digest food, and we are damaging it by providing processed food.

There is a second part: processed foods stimulate our appetite, physiologically allowing us to consume more than we need.

Some people say, and I hear it a lot, that it is all right if we eat what we want, but the important thing is not to eat too much. However, it is like trying to hit the brakes and the accelerator at the same time, because processed food tells you to eat, and you are not going to eat that much. This is why people's diets often fail. And why do people who only count calories but do not take into account the quality of the food still end up with type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, various types of cancer, and metabolic syndrome?

- I think that even though many of us know that highly processed food is not a good choice, we still eat it because it is tasty. In your book, you talk about the bliss point technology, which is used in the processed food industry to turn food into something that gives us a feeling of happiness. Can you tell us more about that?

- Taste is one of our most important senses for experiencing the world around us. Evolutionarily, taste was designed to help us decide what is safe to eat and what is not. In the past, that's what we used to taste for. But now we have moved in a different direction and taste has begun to influence our emotions.

Bliss point technology is well known throughout the food technology industry. It is when you create a taste so that a person will consume, buy, and eat a product simply because they like the taste, not because they are hungry, need energy or nutrients.

Today we are driven by the senses - sight, sound, touch. But taste is so powerful and so heavily manipulated because processed food itself is not great - it is terrible.

You know, when people eat processed food, dopamine floods the brain and they enjoy the taste. But ten minutes later they say: "Oh, now I don't feel so good." And then they regret it. But the taste is so intrusive, that they go back and do it again.

- Do we become addicted?

- Yes, it is indeed an addiction. But you cannot be addicted to real food. Nobody has ever been addicted to carrots, broccoli, or cabbage. However, highly processed food is seriously addictive.

- All scientists agree that added sugars have a negative impact on our health. However, I would like to talk about the natural sugars found in fruits and vegetables. Is it a healthier alternative to added sugar? I think it is important to talk about this because there are more and more people who are either giving up not only added sugar, but also natural sugar, or who are starting to consume enormous amounts of fruit.

- Fruit and vegetables contain what is known as intrinsic sugars, i.e. naturally occurring sugars that are bound up with fiber. Fiber is a wonderful thing. All the bacteria in your gut thrive on fiber. Fiber also plays another role in the formation of stool, making bowel movements much more regular and healthy.

I would like to mention one more thing. Natural sugars are not only associated with fiber but are also found in products that are rich in vitamins and fluids. For example, if you take a bite of an apple, a pear, or a melon, which is 70% water, you will get both vitamins and fluids.

Natural sugar is therefore not to be confused with refined, processed white sugar, which has no fiber, no vitamins, no nutrients, and is toxic to the blood.

This sugar gives us empty calories - zero nutritional value - and thus promotes conditions such as type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and mental health problems.

However, there is another aspect to your question - if natural sugars are harmless, should we limit ourselves when eating fruits?

My answer is that you can eat tons of leafy vegetables: spinach, kale, broccoli, but also carrots, legumes, celery, etc.

As for fruit, I recommend 2-3 fruits a day and prefer berries such as blueberries and raspberries, which are high in nutrients.

- What about fruit juices? I've heard that it's not recommended to drink a lot of juice either. However, many people think the opposite and prefer juices as an alternative to fruit or vegetables.

- You can drink smoothies, but if you make them at home, you should make sure that the consistency is thick and the fruits, vegetables, and berries that you are whipping have not become too mushy.

I do not suggest juicing vegetables and fruit. When they are made, the natural sugars are separated from the fiber. Of course, the fruit vitamins and water remain in the juice, but what happens when you drink it? It is digested very quickly, so you lose half the nutrients, and it also releases sugar and turns a lot of those internal sugars into external sugars - they behave like white sugar.

- I would also like to touch on the subject of alternative sweeteners. I have noticed that more and more food companies are replacing added sugars with artificial or natural sweeteners (such as stevia). Is this truly a healthier alternative to added sugar?

- The industry started doing this because it had to respond to criticism about empty calories. The manufacturers said: "We've taught everyone to like sweet things, so now we have to figure out how to make food sweet without added calories." So they started using things like stevia, which has no calories but is very sweet.

But the mistake the manufacturers made was that they thought the problem of added sugar was just calories.

Research over the last 3-4 years has shown that it is not that simple. Since the oral microbiota is directly linked to the gut bacteria, when the taste of sweetness appears in the mouth, it sends a message to the gut that food is on its way. But it does not come. And this in itself increases the levels of a hormone we call ghrelin - the hunger hormone.

So now we realize that those alternative sweeteners are still causing our insulin to rise too much, they are still linked to the lack of control of the glycaemic index (which shows how quickly each food affects the glucose level in the blood), and they are still damaging the gut microbiota. And then the fourth part, which is the worst for some people, is that they increase appetite. Imagine eating a diet food because you are trying to consume fewer calories, and it actually encourages you to eat more food and thus consume more calories.

- Some people who eat a lot of sweets justify it by saying that they can do this because they do a lot of mental and physical work or because they have a very good metabolism. Can these claims be backed up by any scientific evidence?

- In fact, this is not just an excuse, it is the mythological self-awareness of the modern world.

The point is that there is no such thing as a fast or slow metabolism. I am now teaching this to my students, and it was one of the first physiology lessons I learned a long time ago, during my studies. We all have a fairly stable metabolic rate and it doesn't depend on whether you are exercising or sitting.

Many anthropological studies have been done on how the last indigenous tribes lived. They were hunters and gatherers, so they were active throughout the day. It has been found that their average metabolism is the same as ours, living in the city and working in an office. This is due to metabolic compensation - the fitter a person is, the more efficient their biological processes are, such as lower blood pressure, but then they use up more energy, for example, in their endocrine or immune systems. For a less active person, it can be the other way around.

However, the only way you can really affect your metabolism is to have more muscle mass, because muscle costs energy.

- And what about brain work? It is said that this organ wastes a lot of energy.

- Yes, of course, the brain can use a lot of energy, but they do it really efficiently. The brain is like an energy-saving light bulb. For example, right now, when we are talking, it uses up about 40-50 calories per hour. And when I'm writing a book or when I'm working on analyzing data from a study, that doesn't change.

We think that they are wasting much more energy because we are experiencing what is called cognitive fatigue. This happens when we use the brain a lot. This can lead to headaches and the eyes can look heavy.

Don't confuse this with walking or running uphill and the energy used by muscles.

As I said, the brain is very efficient, but we need to give it enough water. There is even a phrase: "Drink while you think". So if you are working and have to think a lot, you should have plenty of water.

In addition, 60% of the brain is made up of fat, and 20-25% of this fat is DHA, which is one of the marine-derived omega-3 fatty acids. So if you really want to think sharper and feel more alert, make sure you have omega-3s - eat tuna, salmon, anchovies, mackerel, etc.

But you certainly don't need to sit down with a packet of biscuits and eat a lot of sugar while you work out.

- One thing that caught my attention in your book was the slight criticism you made of the body positivity movement. You say that 'the sooner people realize that obesity is a serious health problem, the sooner we can take over the issue from those who have turned it into an aesthetic debate'. However, it seems to me that it is important to bear in mind the genetic factor - the fact that some people do indeed tend to gain weight more easily and find it much harder to lose it. So do they not have the right to have the same life as everyone else? What do you think about this?

- For some people, obesity is a disease caused by an inappropriate lifestyle, but it is still a disease. But for others, and this is a smaller percentage of people, they do have a genetic predisposition, so they are even more influenced by their lifestyle. And we should take this really seriously.

I want people to forgive me for saying this, but if you were born with type 1 diabetes, you have to manage it. Of course, you will take medication, and insulin, but lifestyle is also an important component here - you have to shape it accordingly.

I do not think that anyone should be ashamed of their body. I do not think that anyone should ever be insulted for anything. I think that a mentality of goodwill should always come first, but I refuse to celebrate obesity because it sends the wrong message.

We have people who are literally demonstrating obesity and saying: "You have to accept me like this." I will accept you as you are as a person. If it is your musical work, your art, your acting, your journalism - whatever you do, I will accept all these things. But when it comes to obesity, I would rather just try to help you because I know for a fact that you will be happier and have a better quality of life if we can improve this situation.

- I would like to talk to you a little bit about the future of human nutrition. Some scientists say that for humanity to survive, more and more of us will have to start eating vegetarian. How do you feel about vegetarian diets? Could we give up meat altogether?

- I think we are at a really critical point in our history, because there are 8 billion of us on the planet, and intensive agriculture and dairy farming are causing enormous problems.

However, the problem is not really red meat. After all, most of the crops we grow are actually intended to feed the animals that we support, because they pump the highly processed food industry. And then what is left goes into the supermarkets. This is a huge ecological problem.

Although I am not a vegetarian myself, I am a huge supporter of a plant-based diet - I believe that the majority of the food we consume should be plant-based products.

Too many people, especially in the UK and Ireland, say: "I'm having chicken for dinner tonight." And then they choose potatoes next to it, and then they might put peas or something else next to it. So you end up with a very simple, predictable diet.

However, it would be a good idea to start at the other end, asking what vegetables I am going to eat tonight. This could be parsnips, carrots, spinach, for example. So we have already started with the perfect nutritional components that will provide us with fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Then we can decide what to add to the plate: shall we choose couscous or some kind of protein?

And now the main question is - could we survive without meat? I think yes if we look at it as just another type of protein. Then we could replace it with eggs because that is the most complete protein we can get. I think we could create a global system of ethical and organic egg production. That is not a problem. It is definitely achievable.

Author of the article
Elizabet Beržanskytė, LRT.lt

Colin Robertson/ E. Blaževič / LRT photo