America has a problem. How much bigger will we get?

[amaysngrace]

So why do these uninvolved fit people have such an investment in talking about fat people?

 

People attack other people for their weaknesses. Right or wrong that's how it is.

[Mr Scorpio]

Obesity is a sign of poverty.

Mississippi has the highest poverty rate as well as the highest obesity rate. The same money will get you 500 calories of healthy food or 3000 calories of carbs.

 

Yes and no. I can't speak for people who have children (picky-eaters) to feed. I eat five or six healthy meals a day, and none of them cost me more than $2 per. It just makes planning, preparation, and will.

 

It's cheaper and it's because the big majority of the subsidies go to the wheat, corn and soy industry while a much smaller percentage goes to dairy, stock and produce so those foods cost much more per calorie.

 

This I agree with.

[kaylan]

Originally Posted by Mme. Chaucer

So why do these uninvolved fit people have such an investment in talking about fat people?

I have an investment in wanting people to lead healthy and fuller lives. Im concerned about my parents and my best friends parents, not living long enough to see their grandchildren.

[Taramere]

I have an investment in wanting people to lead healthy and fuller lives. Im concerned about my parents and my best friends parents, not living long enough to see their grandchildren.

 

Are they overweight?

[kaylan]

Are they overweight?

The 4 of them are all very overweight.

[EasyHeart]

The real problem with weight in America is that it is unequally distributed. What we need is the government to redistribute the fat from obese people to thin people.

 

WHY WON'T SKINNY PEOPLE CARRY THEIR FAIR SHARE???

[fortyninethousand322]

Oh, and we could stop subsidizing corn and beef, maybe try lettuce and tomatoes...

 

What about not subsidizing anything?

[soccerrprp]

Interesting conversation. I am currently planning a long-term study on Organic and non-organic foods and whether the environmental impact from one or the other is ACTUALLY better or worse. I'm also investigating the nutritional advantages between the two and why so-called organic foods are SO much more expensive. I am currently looking at FDA, USDA labeling and definitions requirements and looking and comparing foods bought in Whole foods vs. Kroger vs. Walmart to compare and delve into the origins of the ingredients of the products.

 

I definitely believe income has much to do with weight management. Trying to buy anything "organic", fresh, w/o artificial preservatives, etc. is considerably more expensive. Considerably.

 

Have a background in molecular biology and spent a couple of years in a food analytical lab. The things you wouldn't guess is in your food...

 

Anyway, good topic of discussion.

[kaylan]

We live in a country where most people are overworked and making less than a living wage.

 

Burgers cost a dollar at McDonald's, a salad cost five.

 

That about high lights what the problem is...

 

When this country goes back to an economy where a one income house hold can afford to not only buy good ingredients, but actually have a parent in the home to put them together into a meal we won't have so many obese folk!

 

Oh, and we could stop subsidizing corn and beef, maybe try lettuce and tomatoes...

Why cant they go to the supermarket and buy good food? Its cheap and filling. Most of the country is middle class and makes a living wage but dont feed themselves properly.

 

My best friends family eats home cooked meals every day. Their grandma is the matriarch and makes sure theres always cooked food. But they still have way to big portions and not the best diet.

 

Theres too little personal responsibility.

[Mr Scorpio]

Honestly, I eat pretty healthy off of 100$ a week. Lots of healthy, nourishing foods that can cost a 1$ a piece.. So if you're the type to waste a good 2-4$ every other day on a bottle of soda and some candy or a bag of chips like I used to, it seriously adds up and could've been saved and spent weekly on healthier choices. I don't know if poverty is really the problem.

 

Exactly. Where I'm at, a bag of brown rice is about $3.49 for name brand and a dollar cheaperf otherwise. Six cans of beans at $0.89 per. One box of pasta at $1.00 on sale. $2.49 for lactose/sugar-free almond milk. Maybe $15 on produce. $2.99 for a pound of ground chicken. $2.99 for a bag of pre-cooked shrimp. Pita-bread for $1.50. Eggs are around $2 per dozen I think. A bag of frozen-chicken breast is $5.50 on sale. Bags of tilapia on sale 2-for-$5. 8oz bricks of cheese at $1.79 per. Hot sauce is $0.79.

 

Throw in stuff I don't purchase every week like olive oil, tahinni, soy sauce, spices, soap, deodorant, shampoo, etc. I'm out the door each week for around $50.

 

Notice what wasn't on that list? Cookies, chips, crackers, large cuts of meat, or things that have been prepared for me (TV dinners, pre-shredded cheese, pre-made pasta sauce with HFCS), etc.

 

Granted, if I were with children/spouse who couldn't tolerate eating the same thing five times over three days, it would all be much trickier. But being single? It's rather easy.

[soccerrprp]

Why cant they go to the supermarket and buy good food? Its cheap and filling. Most of the country is middle class and makes a living wage but dont feed themselves properly.

 

My best friends family eats home cooked meals every day. Their grandma is the matriarch and makes sure theres always cooked food. But they still have way to big portions and not the best diet.

 

Theres too little personal responsibility.

 

Let us not dismiss the power of economics and convenience and of course, culture. Large portions is a very Western (American) thing.

 

I'm in Texas and you know what they say about Texas, right? Well, the food portions and the number of restaurants per capita also applies.

[Taramere]

The 4 of them are all very overweight.

 

Right. It's understandable why you have such a concern about the issue then. It's terrible when people you care about are harming their health and you feel unable to do anything about it.

[xxoo]

People eat for a lot of reasons other than intaking calories and nutrition. People eat for pleasure.

 

Food is, of course, innately pleasurable. Sugar and fat feel so good to eat. And these foods are so readily available, in ways that they formerly were not. And, for many people, food seems to be the greatest pleasure they have.

 

That's why the solution, to me, is not as simple as restricting calories. People don't stick to that, because they crave their pleasure. A better solution is to add pleasure somewhere to offset the lost pleasure. This is easy for the person who genuinely loves fitness (me, the op, many others on this thread). But what pleasure do we offer, for example, the middle-ager, burning the candle on both ends, supporting both aging parents and teenage children, working, martyring, who just looks forward to the pleasures of restaurant meals and a few beers? It would take some considerable lifestyle adjustment to decrease the dependence on food for pleasure.

 

America has a lot of materially well off, emotionally not so happy people. When we fix that problem, we may fix the obesity problem.

Edited March 25, 2013 by xxoo

[fortyninethousand322]

I left this in my thread, but I'll leave it here too. It's an article hypothesizing why people are getting fat nowadays. The gist of it is the difference between glucose and fructose. Consumption of the latter is causing the problem. Or so the article says.

 

Obesity Issues | Alternative Explanation for Why People Get Fat

[FitChick]

Maybe it's the fructose. Or maybe it's because fat people are drinking a six pack of soda with fructose per day. Drink iced tea like my parents did. We were too poor to buy soda. Soda was for birthday parties. So was cake. We never had it the rest of the year.

 

People eat too much.

[Mme. Chaucer]

mmmm. Cake.

[Imported]

Why cant they go to the supermarket and buy good food? Its cheap and filling. Most of the country is middle class and makes a living wage but dont feed themselves properly.

 

......

 

Theres too little personal responsibility.

 

You don't even have to do that. The last time I was overweight was many many years ago. I was also low on cash most of the time. 2 whoppers $2 a day from Burger King was what I lived on. I did that for like 3 or 4 months. Every day, I go get 2 whoppers, cut them in half, eat a half and save the rest for later. For a while, it felt like I was starving, then that feeling passed. I couldn't faulter and overeat.....cause I couldn't afford it. No choice in the matter. It got to a point where I couldn't even finish the second whopper and felt completely full on just one whopper a day. I lost a crap ton of weight. I wasn't even working out at the time, but people kept on asking me what diet and workout was I doing? I was doing the broke man diet.

 

The food, I didn't even look at it as something to enjoy. I just ingested it for my body to feed off it....like taking a pill or something. I got down to where one whopper was almost too much to eat in a whole day because sometimes I forgot to eat the other half.

 

When things started picking up for me, I never allowed myself to regain the weight. I also started walking everywhere (nice to live in a metropolis) instead of driving. Lost even more weight. Then I started lifting again and packing on muscle. Then I really figured out how I wanted to shape my body and scaled back on the muscles.

[Emilia]

I definitely believe income has much to do with weight management. Trying to buy anything "organic", fresh, w/o artificial preservatives, etc. is considerably more expensive. Considerably.

 

I can't comment on the US only the UK and it isn't the case here.

 

I don't buy organic but I buy basic ingredients that need cooking. I live on my own and I go to Tesco to buy potatoes, carrots, other greens, garlick, pasta, rice (brown or white), apples, seasoning, herbs, honey, etc. A lot of them can be bought as their own label. Tesco sells their own label potatoes as £0.86 (probably USD1?) for 1 kgs (or 2.2lbs). There are vegetables on special offer all the time. As well as mushrooms.

 

The only thing I spend money on is meat because I like mine ethically produced. Tesco also sell their own label meat (fresh meat, not pre-cooked) for next to nothing.

 

What do I see around me when I go shopping: people buy grated cheese (more expensive than buying it as a lump), buying chopped up onions rather than whole, buying monster packets of crisps, cakes, pizza, lasagne and other processed food. They buy chips rather than chop up cheap potatoes and making it themselves. They buy salt and sugar loaden food that fills your stomach for short periods only but what doesn't require a lot of preparation.

 

My food bill - admittedly I don't have kids but then again I live on a single income - is next to nothing because everything can be bought in the UK cheaply except for quality meat. You don't have to eat organically to eat well but you do have to learn how to cook.

[Emilia]

mmmm. Cake.

 

I love cake too and I like baking. There is nothing wrong with eating treats in moderation. Overeating and sedentary lifestyle cause obesity though.

[Taramere]

I can't comment on the US only the UK and it isn't the case here.

 

I don't buy organic but I buy basic ingredients that need cooking. I live on my own and I go to Tesco to buy potatoes, carrots, other greens, garlick, pasta, rice (brown or white), apples, seasoning, herbs, honey, etc. A lot of them can be bought as their own label. Tesco sells their own label potatoes as £0.86 (probably USD1?) for 1 kgs (or 2.2lbs). There are vegetables on special offer all the time. As well as mushrooms.

 

The only thing I spend money on is meat because I like mine ethically produced. Tesco also sell their own label meat (fresh meat, not pre-cooked) for next to nothing.

 

What do I see around me when I go shopping: people buy grated cheese (more expensive than buying it as a lump), buying chopped up onions rather than whole, buying monster packets of crisps, cakes, pizza, lasagne and other processed food. They buy chips rather than chop up cheap potatoes and making it themselves. They buy salt and sugar loaden food that fills your stomach for short periods only but what doesn't require a lot of preparation.

 

My food bill - admittedly I don't have kids but then again I live on a single income - is next to nothing because everything can be bought in the UK cheaply except for quality meat. You don't have to eat organically to eat well but you do have to learn how to cook.

 

Then there's things you can grow yourself. My parents have a fantastic garden in which my dad grows peas, potatoes, lettuce, broad beans, carrots, beetroot, onions, radishes etc. Tomatoes and cucumbers in the greenhouse. I don't have a garden, but I can still grow things on a window sill. Sprouting beans is a very cheap way of getting the main ingredient for a stir fry....and last year I had this mammoth red chilli plant. I bought it from Sainsbury's, not very optimistically, and was astonished by just how much it produced.

 

When I'm looking at local property, it disappoints me how few gardens out there are used for growing produce. All that potential, covered over in "low maintenance" gravel and concrete. I saw a picture of the house we lived in when I was a kid, recently. When we had it, the back garden had vegetable plots running alongside both the right and left wall - along with apple trees, pear trees and plum trees. There was some lawn, and then at the front two smallish plots - one for me, one for my brother. Those were for us to grow things in. My dad was always out in the garden, leaning against the wall chatting to the guy next door who was also growing things. On the other side, an old lady who had all sorts of fruit growing in her garden.

 

Now, all three gardens are just lawn, gravel and concrete. The fruit trees long since chopped down. I find that really sad. If and when I ever have my own garden, it's going to be a productive one.

[Emilia]

 

Now, all three gardens are just lawn, gravel and concrete. The fruit trees long since chopped down. I find that really sad. If and when I ever have my own garden, it's going to be a productive one.

 

I grew up in a family that had produce and I hated weeding! I'd be one of those with the mature trees and plants in the garden. I remember still the hot sun beating down on my back in the middle of the summer bending down pulling out the bloody weed. Traumatised for life

[Taramere]

I grew up in a family that had produce and I hated weeding! I'd be one of those with the mature trees and plants in the garden. I remember still the hot sun beating down on my back in the middle of the summer bending down pulling out the bloody weed. Traumatised for life

 

I really enjoyed weeding! I liked the sense of accomplishment I got from it. I think that's a thing about gardening generally. It gives people a sense of purpose and accomplishment. I always used to get excited when I had planted something and the first shoots started to show.

[Emilia]

I really enjoyed weeding! I liked the sense of accomplishment I got from it. I think that's a thing about gardening generally. It gives people a sense of purpose and accomplishment. I always used to get excited when I had planted something and the first shoots started to show.

 

I like digging and replanting, even larger plants. I'd probably have a green house for strawberries and tomatoes though.

[Taramere]

I like digging and replanting, even larger plants. I'd probably have a green house for strawberries and tomatoes though.

 

I think the old fashioned thing of people having allotments was a great idea. There's a field full of allotments where I live, but obviously not enough for everybody who would want them. Maybe it would be a way for small farmers to make some cash. Rent out a field to a whole load of people who like gardening but don't have a garden so that they can create their own little gardens. That would help address the problem of fruit, veg and salad being too expensive for a lot of people.

 

Plus the exercise from gardening! I bet people were in fantastic shape in the UK during the war - with rationing, every spare inch of the garden having to be used productively etc.

Edited March 26, 2013 by Taramere

[Emilia]

I think the old fashioned thing of people having allotments was a great idea. There's a field full of allotments where I live, but obviously not enough for everybody who would want them. Maybe it would be a way for small farmers to make some cash. Rent out a field to a whole load of people who like gardening but don't have a garden so that they can create their own little gardens. That would help address the problem of fruit, veg and salad being too expensive for a lot of people.

 

This is how I grew up. On my father's and mother's side the families had gardens, on my stepfather's side they had a large alotment and a vineyard. Have some very romantic memories from childhood.

 

My mum now lives in a flat but she still has a couple of country cottages with gardens, one of them is very beautiful and cultivated. I have a roof terrace but don't grow anything. Maybe should put up a green house on my roof terrace - I'm only semi-joking