Toastmasters Speech 2

This is a bit more of an outline of a speech I struggled with. However, in the end it came together well.

*sip*
Mmmmmmm... I just love my diet sodas. They’re a nice, sweet treat that I don’t have to feel guilty about. Simple, easy, and... A good choice when you have sweet tooth and don’t want to chow down on a candy bar. But now we keep hearing that a scientific study PROVED that diet soda makes you fat!

Mister Toastmaster, fellow toastmasters, and honored guests.... This is the story of how to lie with science.How to lie with science
a. Study - There was indeed a very interesting study done that raised some interesting points about how artificial sweeteners may interact with the body. This study tested the way rats body composition changed after eating artificial or natural sweeteners for several weeks.
b. there are a number of problems taking data from a study on rats and trying to apply it to people. Including the more complicated factors influencing food intake in humans.
c. plenty of studies have shown that artificial sweetners HELP humans lose weight.
d. You have to be really careful over interpreting scientific studies. The media is horrible about it.
2. In the particular study, 27 rats were fed plain, low-fat yogurt. One group was fed the yogurt unsweetened. A second group’s yogurt was sweetened with glucose, and the third group ate yogurt sweetened with saccharine. The rats were fed the yogurt six days a week for five weeks. At the end of those weeks, all the rats were weighed and measured. And they discovered that the rats who had eaten the saccharine yogurt had indeed gained more weight, and had a higher percentage of body fat. .... .... Well there you have it... diet soda makes you fat. Except.. This does raise the question of how you get from rats and saccharine sweetened yogurt to humans and diet soda.
a. Problem one: this study was conducted on ONLY 27 rats. Since there were 3 groups, that’s just seven rats in each group. In other words.. The entire diet soda industry is being condemned based on weight gain in seven rats.
b. Problem two: the artificial sweetner used was saccharine. Most sodas are sweetened with aspartame. Saccharine is not at all commonly used anymore.
c. The “real” sweetner used in the study was glucose, not sucrose or high-fructose corn syrup. Glucose is one of the simplest forms of a sugar, and is the sugar that circulates in the blood. Sucrose is what we know as table sugar, and is significantly sweeter than glucose. High-fructose corn syrup is a modified sugar sweeter and cheaper to produce than sucrose and has become the most common sugar found in most processed foods.
d. So.. What did this study prove? This study proved that RATS fed food sweetened with SACCHARINE consumed more calories and gained more weight than RATS fed food sweetened with GLUCOSE. Nowhere in there is there a mention of humans, aspartame, sucrose, or high-fructose corn syrup.
3. But, surely we can extrapolate from the study to human behavior.. Right? The idea being advanced makes a certain amount of sense. Basically, when the taste buds taste something sweet, the body expects to receieve a large number of calories. When it doesn’t receive, you want to go looking for them. Ok..... except....
a. Humans don’t regulate our calorie consumption - unless you make the deliberate choice to do so - human regulate their food consumption by volume, which is why most diets encourage you to eat lots of fiber and salads and fruits and veggies - low calorie, high volume.
b. I like to think I’m smarter than a rat. In other words, if I’m suddenly filled with a craving for a high-calorie food.. I don’t HAVE to go eat it. I can say.. Ya know..I don’t think I will get a giant turtle sundae from Rusties, I don’t think I will eat an entire sara lee cheesecake, I don’t think I will get a Super Sonic Cheeseburger, #2, no onions, with extra cheese, add bacon. I can, and do, decide to go eat a nice salad or a steam some green beans. Why? I’m smarter than a rat.
c. However, I am prey to certain social and environmental factors that a rat living in an a cage in a lab typically isn’t. So, one Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Easter... I’m likely to consume a lot more calories than is good for me. And in the spring, the possibility that SOMEONE might see my pasty white thighs is enough to encourage me right back to that salad.
4. plenty of studies have shown that artificial sweetners HELP humans lose weight.
a. One of the most recent studies showed that Splenda - an artificial sweetner - helped children lose weight
b. There haven’t been any studies anywhere showing that artificial sweeteners cause weight gain in humans.
5. It’s really important to look at the information offered when someone says “hey.. There was study that proved that....”
a. I can produce.. Year after year... correlations between ice cream sales and violence. When ice creams sales go up... so does violence. Does ice cream cause violence? Noooooo.... high temperatures lead to short tempers. And... high temperatures provoke ice cream sales. Meaning? There is no cause and effect.
b. A recent study showed that if you have an overweight friend, you’re more liekly to be overweight. An episode of Boston Legal jumped on this study to raise the absurd suggestion that obesity is contagious. Well.. I suppose that is one interpretation. Another is that people tend to enjoy spending time with people who have similar interests and activity levels. In other words.... If my fit, healthy friend invites me to a do a half-marathon with her next weekend, and my extra-fluffy friend invites me to go to the chocolate festival with her instead... well... When I’m a pound and a half heavier two weeks from now.. It’s not because I spent too much time too close to my plump friend. It will be because of the pounds of chocolate I consumed.
6. So... does diet soda make you fat?
a. The study certainly could be used to suggest that, but
b. Humans aren’t rats, and don’t make their food choices the same way rats do.
c. That contridicts common sense and other scientific information.
d. Sounds to me like the media maybe had a bit of a slow news day, and decided to over interpret some data.
7. So... is it maybe a little bit of a stretch to go from rats eating saccharine sweetened yogurt to “Diet soda makes you fat?” yes.. I think it is.

This speech won "best speaker"