What are your thoughts on obesity?

Look at this: http://www.vegetarian-nutrition.info/nu ... besity.php

obesity is a problem that needs to be fixed because its actually got to a point where people have their avators as fat men llifting doughnuts to "get in shape"

HAHAHA.....What an influence.

Obesity is not simply an American thing but countries such as China has seen a doubling in obese people in the last 10 or was it 20 years, dunno. Hey, everyone has a right to be fat, just don't expect me to foot their medical bills.

Yes, we often forget that calling obesity a problem and disease can be very offensive. However, it must at the same time examined as a negative force acting upon us. Its a touchy subject...and people are becoming ignorant to it...

i love how fat people get mad and blame mcdonald's for making them fat. yeah, like mcdonalds forced them in the store and shoved that big mac extra value meal down their pieholes! how about some self control people! maybe if you could control yourself, not eat mcdonalds every day and exercise, you wouldn't be 400 pounds! makes me sick

I eat a mcdonalods once in awhile and i'm not over weight but yes people need to learn when to stop and how much is too much.

ALthough I do think obesity is a problem that should be taken seriously, I couldnt agree more with your posts. Its today's society though. Everybody always wants to blame something....Fat people-Mcdonalds....Columbine-Maryln Manson....Kids killing each other-T.V......The list goes on....

yeah, i get so mad when fat people sue restaurants for "making them fat" GET OFF YOUR ASSES AND EXERCISE!! MIX IN A FEW SALADS AND MAYBE YOU'D LOSE WEIGHT!! IT'S NOT MCDONALDS FAULT, IT'S YOUR FAULT FOR BEING TOO LAZY AND HAVING NO WILL POWER AND SELF CONTROL!!

lol sorry, didn't mean to rant, i just get upset by this issue lol

Even America's

SEALIFE


Is Obese :o

naaaa, that's just a really small human being

In my observation, it is due to two things:

America stopping smoking. Most people I have ever known who stopped smoking gained weight, and America leads the developed world in kicking the habit.

The car society. Walking is the foundation of exercise and weight control, and in America you are actively discouraged to walk, in most suburban areas you would be seen as insane if you walked a few blocks to the grocery store or something similar.

Obesity is not an easy thing to deal with, and is not as simple as most people make it out to be. In many cases it is genetic. And it is not just McDonalds, bad eating is a part of almost everything you eat at the supermarket. McDonalds is just an accellerated part of this. You want people to eat salads? Do you know that a LOT of the salads out there are some of the worst things you can eat? Otherwise you have people jumping on every diet bandwagon and nobody knows where to turn.

You know why?

Because we talk big about "getting America in to shape" but nobody is addressing the serious medical side of the issue. Nobody wants to give the overweight free vouchers for doctors visits, for nutritionalist visits. Nobody wants to know that "eating healthy" also requires a great deal more money than the average American has to spend on a meal.

It is easier to make a snide comment about "putting the fork down!" and leaving it at that, basking in (for the most part). It's very easy to make a comment about an aspect of life that you can just ignore 10 minutes later.

I myself am overweight. I still function, I eat okay, but I also have to live, and I would almost sell my soul to not have the problems. I really wish it was as easy as "putting the fork down", which I've done, and is no problem, or "excersize! excersize! excersize!". But you try to do $3 or so lunches, eat healthy, work a full schedual for no money, try to afford the time and money it takes to stay that way.

Not all people are built the same.

Compared to other countries, we're definitely fatter. I agree with most of you that it's not fair to place the blame solely on McDonalds, but I do think that our culture has a lot to do with it. Clearly our nation is obssesed with fast food, soda pop, and super sizing everything. It's not just all genetics.

Reaaaalllll Nice Ahmed. Short posts, but very rythmic, too the point, and kinda funny.


On to serious topics. I think there is something to say about "blaming" consumer food culture. The problem is not actually urban. Most obesity (in proportion to population) occurs where there is 1. limited access to more heathy alternatives, and 2. Where there is extreme horizontal expansion and every pretty much needs to drive to get where they are going.

Sometime way back, someone thought it was brilliant to do things like "from concentrate" and add tons of sugar to their juice drinks. Well, now the only places you get "fesh" orangejuice is at expensive bourgeois super markets that large chunks of the community 1. can't afford, and 2.have developed a taste for because they were raised on sweeter flavors.

And don;t get me going on the car thing.

Also, alot of it has to do with image, confidence, consumer esthetics, etc, and obesity is just the visual manifestation of a culture that has really placed an emphasis on isolation and to a degree, alienation. So yeah, peopleeat too much.

I do think individuals can rise above it, but I don;t think its quite fair to approach an entire cultural issue from the viewpoint that its all in individual preference.

-Dolce

Good point. I think alot of the Fad diets (South Beach or low carb or whatever) place most of the emphasis on "looking" healthy...not "being" healthy. Looking good just means obsessing over your scale every morning. Being healthy requires a vast change in life styles and is a very long term oriented goal.

As Tony pointed out, this (American) culture is particularly obese, and you bring up the socio-economic question that while France works 30 hours a week and has national health care, giving them lots of extra time to do things like, oh, go for a nice stroll...and taking meals leisurely. The U.S. push towards 60+ hours of in-work (not even counting out of work) time is just leaving people scrambling to scarf down easily accessable, and high energy sustaining food, and renders them either too beat when they come home to go for an hour walk, or, even if they want to, its too dark out and unsafe (that is mostly in the suburbs though).

It definately has to do with cultural construction of what "High Standards" of living are.

-Dolce

Obesity has many causes for different people, but it all comes down to ONE THING:
Too many calories in, not enough calories out.

Here are few ideas others may not consider:

1. MOM, DAD AND LENNOX/BRYANT/CARRIER GAVE ME THIS BODY: Genetics tend to determine a person's metabolic rate. For example, two people with identical eating and exercise habits can have daily metabolic rates that vary by several hundred calories day which can add up to tens of pounds per year.
Metabolic rate is also affected by how often you eat and environmental temperatures. For example, if you live and work in a cold environment with heavy air conditioning, then your metabolism is going to slow down.
Why is American obese? Air conditioning, believe it or not, is a major reason.

2. MY WAISTLINE BROUGHT TO YOU BY MCDONALDS AND BETTY CROCKER: In the competitive, market-driven world of restaurants and ready-to-eat foods at grocery stores, whatever is going to sell is going to determine how foods are prepared. Taste sells and fat/salt/sugar equals taste. Therefore, prepared foods tend to have higher fat/salt/sugar contents than similar foods prepared at home.
Why is America obese? Moms working outside the home and nobody home cooking is a major reason.

3. STRETCH PANTS' REVENGE II FOR THE PLAYSTATION: Man, when I was little we played OUTSIDE. Just the other day, I saw where Nickolodean had a "Go Outside and Play Day." A TV network has to tell kids to go outside and play? Between TV, video games and this weight-gaining machine I'm on right now called a PC, we all live our lives on our asses.
Why is America obese? We spend too much time watching the world or playing in a fantasy world, instead of getting out and living in the real world.

4. TOO LITTLE TIME, TOO MUCH FOOD: The average American spends about 10-15 minutes actually eating lunch - a typical fast food value meal contains 1200 calories (600 for the 1/4 pound cheeseburger, 450 for the large fries and 150 for the large Coke). You don't even realize you're full until you've eaten waaay past that point. In Europe, a typical lunch will take 45 minutes to eat and contain 800 calories. We eat too fast and too much too quickly to realize when we are full or at least had enough to satisfy our hunger.
Why is America obese? We spend more time driving to get lunch than eating it and don't stop eating until it backs up into our throat.

Want to lose weight?
Turn the AC up to 78 instead of 72. That big thing in the kitchen next to the refrigerator is called a stove. Walk away from the remote, game controller and keyboard right now. Measure your eating time using the hour and minute hand, not the second hand or a stopwatch.

Blame motherfucking technology, too. I hate when people can't take blame for themselves, because people and their lack of self-control is to blame, but many are too damn lazy, and need someone else to do shit for them (or, sit around, and blame someone else). After all, isn't it a LITTLE too convenient and coincidental that obesity became a larger problem in America (and all over the world) when technology was becoming more and more advanced? Television, radio, music, CDs, MP3 players, computers, telephones, etc etc etc. As days go by, technology gets more and more advanced, and obesity becomes a much bigger problem with it. Technology makes us want to sit on our asses all day, play video games on our computers, while listening to the latest generic shit you hear on the radio every day, all the meanwhile with our television on in the background, and our friends talking to us on our cell phones. It's our faults, but technology has only made things a lot worse. Hey, I'm not perfect, but at least I know where the route of the problem is being poisoned.

Wow. This is probably the best thing i've ever seen on a message board regarding this issue. Like you said, most people are content to just pound on "big" people with snide remarks instead of actually understanding where the probelm comes from and trying to help. As a person who has dealt with obese people their entire life (my mother and one of my brothers), I understand what these people go through everyday and just how hard it is to lose the weight. I espically loved your point about how "eating healthy" costs more money than most folks have. Coming from a vegan healthy food nut, I completely understand how freakin' expensive healthy food is. Any extra money I have is normally gone after shopping for just a weeks worth of food. I also enjoyed your point on how no one wants to actually break down and help with the problem (free vouchers for the obese). All they want to do is make them feel like shit. I just wanted to single your post out, andaroo. Great stuff.

I just wanted to *bump* this. People should see andaroo's post.

Bump, given Andaroo's success.

i was bored and browsing old threads when I saw this.

Also, I miss makeshift.

The crack, maybe you could be on the crack but not as much as back tthen.

You said blame four times in two sentences.

I could eat McDonalds every day for the rest of my life, and not gain a pound.

As andaroo said... it's not that easy.