Are some people doomed to obesity? - The science of weight loss
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I'm not sure I'm doomed to be obese but I do know I have to work harder to keep it off. I fully believe if someone wants to lose weight and get healthy they will. I don't believe anyone isn't capable of being healthier. If I learned anything through this journey of mine I've learned that if you want to be healthier you will work hard to obtain that goal. I've kept this weight off for about 8 years by working hard and being conscience of what I eat.0
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bennettinfinity wrote: »EatsNotTreats wrote: »EatsNotTreats wrote: »Many diseases usually result from a combination of nature (genotype) and nurture (phenotype). So is it possible that there is a genetic variability in obesity tendency? Absolutely. Is it also possible that the obese people have to make changes to what they are doing if they want to be thin? Absolutely.
So just out of curiosity, why do people think that there is an obesity epidemic now which was not there before??? I understand that this is a CICO forum and people will say well, it's because obese people eat more and exercise less. Ok, if this is your theory, fine.
But why are they doing it NOW??? Why was there never an obesity epidemic before????? And why has the number of EXTREMELY OBESE people skyrocketed in the last few decades????
Because only in the last few decades has food been so cheap and so abundant. Evolution hasn't caught up to this change, so we continue to crave and consume high fat and sugar foods, which would have helped us survive times when food was scarce, even just 200 years ago.
One hundred years ago, most jobs were physically demanding. Now, most jobs require little physical effort. More food + less physical activity = more obesity.
I do agree that these things have something to do with it, but I don't think it tells the whole story.
Basically you looked at what variables have changed over the last few hundred years. And I agree with these variables. But there are more variables.
Here are a few more variables from a big picture standpoint, and we don't need research to know this, just basic observational skills:
1. Composition of our diet has drastically changed over the time interval that you described. One small example is cooking 100-200 years ago used to be done with lard, butter, and coconut oil, whereas that is not the case today. Just one small example. There are many others of course. The published dietary guidelines now promote a dietary composition that is not reflective of diet even 100 years ago. Almost the opposite.
2. Which foods are cheap and more abundant? Junk. Which foods are more expensive? Real foods. This also contributes greatly to the composition of the overall diet.
Citing life expectancy increases as a rationale that "now is better" is not accurate as in the past, morbidity and mortality was disproportionate towards infection, trauma and increased infant mortality. These things are not leading causes of death now because in this regard the intervention of man was a good thing. The medical conditions that cause morbidity and mortality now had much much lower incidences back then and this is not only because of increased life expectancy now - the current slurry of chronic medical conditions now affect the young, middle aged, and old - age groups that are both within and exceed the past life expectancy.
I believe this meme has been disproved on several occasions - if this argument is allowed to run the typical course, we'll end up at 'by and large people are ill educated on matters of nutrition and therefore make bad food choices'.
Junk food is cheap and abundant, there are also many cheap and abundant healthy choices. The Big Bad Corporations don't come to people's homes and stuff them full of junk.
Honestly it shows ignorance/privilege to assume that everyone has access to the same food resources you do. A lot of people really do have a hard time finding good, fresh food.
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I think there is truth to having a "mechanism" that turns off eating. I have been blessed with an active "NO MORE FOOD" mechanism. That being said, I think it's far more of a learned thing than it is a biological. I was raised by my grandmother who always said, "It's just as wasteful to eat it when you are full as it is to throw it away. Your body needs it, at that point, as much as the trash can."0
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bennettinfinity wrote: »Junk food is cheap and abundant, there are also many cheap and abundant healthy choices. The Big Bad Corporations don't come to people's homes and stuff them full of junk.
Honestly it shows ignorance/privilege to assume that everyone has access to the same food resources you do. A lot of people really do have a hard time finding good, fresh food.
Well, if we are going to be precise, I think it's important in these discussions to distinguish between "cheap and healthy food" and "cheap and fresh food."
For a lot of reasons, good quality fresh produce is often not available (it's available less than a lot of people realize even for people who can afford to shop at the WF in the expensive neighborhood--if I buy asparagus at my WF now, is that really in any reasonable sense "fresh"?). This is not the same thing as saying that cheap healthy food is not available, and in fact in the US food prices are on average cheaper than in many other countries.
One issue, of course, is what do we count as healthy? I'd count beans and rice as healthy, and frozen veggies, of course, and those are typically cheap, but I know some will say that rice and beans being cheap vs., I dunno, meat and fresh veggies, is part of the problem.
I am also aware of the food desert issue, but since I live in a city that has that issue and has been working on it (to some extent) I think it also can be overstated or just not discussed precisely enough.
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lemurcat12 wrote: »bennettinfinity wrote: »Junk food is cheap and abundant, there are also many cheap and abundant healthy choices. The Big Bad Corporations don't come to people's homes and stuff them full of junk.
Honestly it shows ignorance/privilege to assume that everyone has access to the same food resources you do. A lot of people really do have a hard time finding good, fresh food.
Well, if we are going to be precise, I think it's important in these discussions to distinguish between "cheap and healthy food" and "cheap and fresh food."
For a lot of reasons, good quality fresh produce is often not available (it's available less than a lot of people realize even for people who can afford to shop at the WF in the expensive neighborhood--if I buy asparagus at my WF now, is that really in any reasonable sense "fresh"?). This is not the same thing as saying that cheap healthy food is not available, and in fact in the US food prices are on average cheaper than in many other countries.
One issue, of course, is what do we count as healthy? I'd count beans and rice as healthy, and frozen veggies, of course, and those are typically cheap, but I know some will say that rice and beans being cheap vs., I dunno, meat and fresh veggies, is part of the problem.
I am also aware of the food desert issue, but since I live in a city that has that issue and has been working on it (to some extent) I think it also can be overstated or just not discussed precisely enough.
I'm sure that's true, and you're right that it's an issue that's at least being recognized now.
I spent a couple of years working with a Somali family of new immigrants. I wanted to take them to the grocery store and realized it was a good 10 miles in any direction to a store with meat and veggies. And of course they had no car, not even bikes at that time.
So the city then recognized that area as a food desert, and started a weekly farmer's market there. It even takes food stamps. I don't think anyone has done any nutritional studies of the area but I would be really interested to see if there have been changes.
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EatsNotTreats wrote: »EatsNotTreats wrote: »Many diseases usually result from a combination of nature (genotype) and nurture (phenotype). So is it possible that there is a genetic variability in obesity tendency? Absolutely. Is it also possible that the obese people have to make changes to what they are doing if they want to be thin? Absolutely.
So just out of curiosity, why do people think that there is an obesity epidemic now which was not there before??? I understand that this is a CICO forum and people will say well, it's because obese people eat more and exercise less. Ok, if this is your theory, fine.
But why are they doing it NOW??? Why was there never an obesity epidemic before????? And why has the number of EXTREMELY OBESE people skyrocketed in the last few decades????
Please don't misuse scientific terminology. It confuses people, which results in confused posts down the line.
Nature refers to inheritable factors - more than just the genotype.
Nurture refers to the environment, which is not phenotype.
Phenotype is an individual's set of observed characteristics resulting from the interaction of the genotype with the environment.
To answer the question, yes, it's CICO. By default, obese people are eating more calories than they burn. They may be very active, and eating too much. Others may eat very little, but are completely sedentary so are still eating too much. Some may have reduced burns because of a disease like hypothyroidism that contribute.
Pretty simply, we are becoming less and less active. Food is easily available and relatively cheap. People in general are not that educated on the energy content of the foods they eat. People are also better able to live while being extremely obese - better medical care, jobs available that don't require mobility the extremely obese generally don't have, etc - a bit less pressure to be at least minimally physically capable.
Perfect storm to contribute to obesity.
Actually, I meant, THIS is hilarious.
For those who don't get why this is funny:
Genotype IS the "internally coded, inheritable information" which is "nature" in the "nature vs. nurture" paradigm.
There is no "nurture" without phenotype being involved. Nurture IS the sum of environmental factors PLUS phenotype.
So how again was the terminology misused?0 -
Muscle does burn more calories at rest, though, right? I may have fallen for the hype, but if it's true then it would seem people who are more muscular would have an easier time keeping the weight off. Not so much genetic, but it would change the equation.0
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herrspoons wrote: »How many obese PoWs were there in Burma during WWII and how many obese Jews and Roma in Auschwitz or Dachau?
So, no.
For a little less drastic example: when I was deployed to Bosnia there were few fat people in the indeginous population except for the elderly, and due to ethnic cleansing you could pretty much tell the natives from the foreigners just by their looks. Did they have a genetic advantage? I would say no and you know what else they didn't have? McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's or any other fast food chains due to political issues in the supply chain (i.e. McDonald's did not want to use the local cattle since they were infected with Brucellosis).
Certainly, there are some genetic factors but those are small factors compared to the availability of cheap, high calorie foods like fast food chains serve.0 -
herrspoons wrote: »baconslave wrote: »EatsNotTreats wrote: »EatsNotTreats wrote: »Many diseases usually result from a combination of nature (genotype) and nurture (phenotype). So is it possible that there is a genetic variability in obesity tendency? Absolutely. Is it also possible that the obese people have to make changes to what they are doing if they want to be thin? Absolutely.
So just out of curiosity, why do people think that there is an obesity epidemic now which was not there before??? I understand that this is a CICO forum and people will say well, it's because obese people eat more and exercise less. Ok, if this is your theory, fine.
But why are they doing it NOW??? Why was there never an obesity epidemic before????? And why has the number of EXTREMELY OBESE people skyrocketed in the last few decades????
Please don't misuse scientific terminology. It confuses people, which results in confused posts down the line.
Nature refers to inheritable factors - more than just the genotype.
Nurture refers to the environment, which is not phenotype.
Phenotype is an individual's set of observed characteristics resulting from the interaction of the genotype with the environment.
To answer the question, yes, it's CICO. By default, obese people are eating more calories than they burn. They may be very active, and eating too much. Others may eat very little, but are completely sedentary so are still eating too much. Some may have reduced burns because of a disease like hypothyroidism that contribute.
Pretty simply, we are becoming less and less active. Food is easily available and relatively cheap. People in general are not that educated on the energy content of the foods they eat. People are also better able to live while being extremely obese - better medical care, jobs available that don't require mobility the extremely obese generally don't have, etc - a bit less pressure to be at least minimally physically capable.
Perfect storm to contribute to obesity.
Actually, I meant, THIS is hilarious.
For those who don't get why this is funny:
Genotype IS the "internally coded, inheritable information" which is "nature" in the "nature vs. nurture" paradigm.
There is no "nurture" without phenotype being involved. Nurture IS the sum of environmental factors PLUS phenotype.
So how again was the terminology misused?
Phenotype isn't nurture. It is the composite of the organism's morphology, physical properties and behaviours, some of which are influenced by biology and some by environment. As some of the factors are purely determined by genetic make up, you cannot say these are down to nurture. Equally, genotype can be influenced by environment by the process of natural selection.
So the terminology is wrong and simplistic.
Ok. I see. I made the leap (an ASSumption), knowing the terminology, while those who do not might have been misdirected.0 -
EatsNotTreats wrote: »Many diseases usually result from a combination of nature (genotype) and nurture (phenotype). So is it possible that there is a genetic variability in obesity tendency? Absolutely. Is it also possible that the obese people have to make changes to what they are doing if they want to be thin? Absolutely.
So just out of curiosity, why do people think that there is an obesity epidemic now which was not there before??? I understand that this is a CICO forum and people will say well, it's because obese people eat more and exercise less. Ok, if this is your theory, fine.
But why are they doing it NOW??? Why was there never an obesity epidemic before????? And why has the number of EXTREMELY OBESE people skyrocketed in the last few decades????
Because the availability of food and change in culture with respect to exercise and eating habits have been evolving with the explosion of electronic gagets and labour saving devices since the 70's and 80's. People don't exercise nearly as much as they did when I was growing up, workers are generally working at more sendintary jobs, and people have access to more calories since food is more abundant and cheaper than before the late 70's. It's starting to show more and more due to the fact that obesity doesn't just show up overnight anymore than cancer or heart disease does. In this context your question, and your yelling become trivial at best since the results were foreseen and we continue to see the trend continuing as nothing will change and no new diet or way of looking at weight control/loss will change things until people change the habits that are getting them this way.
Sorry, it's just more simple than many want to beleive but there is no money in the obvious and free solutions.0 -
bennettinfinity wrote: »EatsNotTreats wrote: »EatsNotTreats wrote: »Many diseases usually result from a combination of nature (genotype) and nurture (phenotype). So is it possible that there is a genetic variability in obesity tendency? Absolutely. Is it also possible that the obese people have to make changes to what they are doing if they want to be thin? Absolutely.
So just out of curiosity, why do people think that there is an obesity epidemic now which was not there before??? I understand that this is a CICO forum and people will say well, it's because obese people eat more and exercise less. Ok, if this is your theory, fine.
But why are they doing it NOW??? Why was there never an obesity epidemic before????? And why has the number of EXTREMELY OBESE people skyrocketed in the last few decades????
Because only in the last few decades has food been so cheap and so abundant. Evolution hasn't caught up to this change, so we continue to crave and consume high fat and sugar foods, which would have helped us survive times when food was scarce, even just 200 years ago.
One hundred years ago, most jobs were physically demanding. Now, most jobs require little physical effort. More food + less physical activity = more obesity.
I do agree that these things have something to do with it, but I don't think it tells the whole story.
Basically you looked at what variables have changed over the last few hundred years. And I agree with these variables. But there are more variables.
Here are a few more variables from a big picture standpoint, and we don't need research to know this, just basic observational skills:
1. Composition of our diet has drastically changed over the time interval that you described. One small example is cooking 100-200 years ago used to be done with lard, butter, and coconut oil, whereas that is not the case today. Just one small example. There are many others of course. The published dietary guidelines now promote a dietary composition that is not reflective of diet even 100 years ago. Almost the opposite.
2. Which foods are cheap and more abundant? Junk. Which foods are more expensive? Real foods. This also contributes greatly to the composition of the overall diet.
Citing life expectancy increases as a rationale that "now is better" is not accurate as in the past, morbidity and mortality was disproportionate towards infection, trauma and increased infant mortality. These things are not leading causes of death now because in this regard the intervention of man was a good thing. The medical conditions that cause morbidity and mortality now had much much lower incidences back then and this is not only because of increased life expectancy now - the current slurry of chronic medical conditions now affect the young, middle aged, and old - age groups that are both within and exceed the past life expectancy.
I believe this meme has been disproved on several occasions - if this argument is allowed to run the typical course, we'll end up at 'by and large people are ill educated on matters of nutrition and therefore make bad food choices'.
Junk food is cheap and abundant, there are also many cheap and abundant healthy choices. The Big Bad Corporations don't come to people's homes and stuff them full of junk.
Honestly it shows ignorance/privilege to assume that everyone has access to the same food resources you do. A lot of people really do have a hard time finding good, fresh food.
Define 'a lot', because if the proportion of the population that has no access to 'good, fresh food' is less than the proportion of the population that is obese, then your argument is moot - not to mention a tad off topic... but thanks for playing.
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bennettinfinity wrote: »bennettinfinity wrote: »EatsNotTreats wrote: »EatsNotTreats wrote: »Many diseases usually result from a combination of nature (genotype) and nurture (phenotype). So is it possible that there is a genetic variability in obesity tendency? Absolutely. Is it also possible that the obese people have to make changes to what they are doing if they want to be thin? Absolutely.
So just out of curiosity, why do people think that there is an obesity epidemic now which was not there before??? I understand that this is a CICO forum and people will say well, it's because obese people eat more and exercise less. Ok, if this is your theory, fine.
But why are they doing it NOW??? Why was there never an obesity epidemic before????? And why has the number of EXTREMELY OBESE people skyrocketed in the last few decades????
Because only in the last few decades has food been so cheap and so abundant. Evolution hasn't caught up to this change, so we continue to crave and consume high fat and sugar foods, which would have helped us survive times when food was scarce, even just 200 years ago.
One hundred years ago, most jobs were physically demanding. Now, most jobs require little physical effort. More food + less physical activity = more obesity.
I do agree that these things have something to do with it, but I don't think it tells the whole story.
Basically you looked at what variables have changed over the last few hundred years. And I agree with these variables. But there are more variables.
Here are a few more variables from a big picture standpoint, and we don't need research to know this, just basic observational skills:
1. Composition of our diet has drastically changed over the time interval that you described. One small example is cooking 100-200 years ago used to be done with lard, butter, and coconut oil, whereas that is not the case today. Just one small example. There are many others of course. The published dietary guidelines now promote a dietary composition that is not reflective of diet even 100 years ago. Almost the opposite.
2. Which foods are cheap and more abundant? Junk. Which foods are more expensive? Real foods. This also contributes greatly to the composition of the overall diet.
Citing life expectancy increases as a rationale that "now is better" is not accurate as in the past, morbidity and mortality was disproportionate towards infection, trauma and increased infant mortality. These things are not leading causes of death now because in this regard the intervention of man was a good thing. The medical conditions that cause morbidity and mortality now had much much lower incidences back then and this is not only because of increased life expectancy now - the current slurry of chronic medical conditions now affect the young, middle aged, and old - age groups that are both within and exceed the past life expectancy.
I believe this meme has been disproved on several occasions - if this argument is allowed to run the typical course, we'll end up at 'by and large people are ill educated on matters of nutrition and therefore make bad food choices'.
Junk food is cheap and abundant, there are also many cheap and abundant healthy choices. The Big Bad Corporations don't come to people's homes and stuff them full of junk.
Honestly it shows ignorance/privilege to assume that everyone has access to the same food resources you do. A lot of people really do have a hard time finding good, fresh food.
Define 'a lot', because if the proportion of the population that has no access to 'good, fresh food' is less than the proportion of the population that is obese, then your argument is moot - not to mention a tad off topic... but thanks for playing.
Well, thanks for being a c**t...
In my county, where the growing season is 365 days/year, the USDA says 6.5% of people live in food deserts.
http://ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-environment-atlas/go-to-the-atlas.aspx
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herrspoons wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »herrspoons wrote: »How many obese PoWs were there in Burma during WWII and how many obese Jews and Roma in Auschwitz or Dachau?
So, no.
For a little less drastic example: when I was deployed to Bosnia there were few fat people in the indeginous population except for the elderly, and due to ethnic cleansing you could pretty much tell the natives from the foreigners just by their looks. Did they have a genetic advantage? I would say no and you know what else they didn't have? McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's or any other fast food chains due to political issues in the supply chain (i.e. McDonald's did not want to use the local cattle since they were infected with Brucellosis).
Certainly, there are some genetic factors but those are small factors compared to the availability of cheap, high calorie foods like fast food chains serve.
I agree with your post. It was a deliberately extreme example I used to show that there really are no special snowflakes - if you eat less calories than you require you will lose weight.
Just to clarify, I wasn't knocking your post I just thought I would show a little less extreme and current example that I've personally witnessed. You can actually see how people actually can look in the absence of our current Western food and exercise culture ( note that Bosnian's also walk a lot and play a lot of sports since they don't have a lot of money for TV etc).0 -
bennettinfinity wrote: »bennettinfinity wrote: »EatsNotTreats wrote: »EatsNotTreats wrote: »Many diseases usually result from a combination of nature (genotype) and nurture (phenotype). So is it possible that there is a genetic variability in obesity tendency? Absolutely. Is it also possible that the obese people have to make changes to what they are doing if they want to be thin? Absolutely.
So just out of curiosity, why do people think that there is an obesity epidemic now which was not there before??? I understand that this is a CICO forum and people will say well, it's because obese people eat more and exercise less. Ok, if this is your theory, fine.
But why are they doing it NOW??? Why was there never an obesity epidemic before????? And why has the number of EXTREMELY OBESE people skyrocketed in the last few decades????
Because only in the last few decades has food been so cheap and so abundant. Evolution hasn't caught up to this change, so we continue to crave and consume high fat and sugar foods, which would have helped us survive times when food was scarce, even just 200 years ago.
One hundred years ago, most jobs were physically demanding. Now, most jobs require little physical effort. More food + less physical activity = more obesity.
I do agree that these things have something to do with it, but I don't think it tells the whole story.
Basically you looked at what variables have changed over the last few hundred years. And I agree with these variables. But there are more variables.
Here are a few more variables from a big picture standpoint, and we don't need research to know this, just basic observational skills:
1. Composition of our diet has drastically changed over the time interval that you described. One small example is cooking 100-200 years ago used to be done with lard, butter, and coconut oil, whereas that is not the case today. Just one small example. There are many others of course. The published dietary guidelines now promote a dietary composition that is not reflective of diet even 100 years ago. Almost the opposite.
2. Which foods are cheap and more abundant? Junk. Which foods are more expensive? Real foods. This also contributes greatly to the composition of the overall diet.
Citing life expectancy increases as a rationale that "now is better" is not accurate as in the past, morbidity and mortality was disproportionate towards infection, trauma and increased infant mortality. These things are not leading causes of death now because in this regard the intervention of man was a good thing. The medical conditions that cause morbidity and mortality now had much much lower incidences back then and this is not only because of increased life expectancy now - the current slurry of chronic medical conditions now affect the young, middle aged, and old - age groups that are both within and exceed the past life expectancy.
I believe this meme has been disproved on several occasions - if this argument is allowed to run the typical course, we'll end up at 'by and large people are ill educated on matters of nutrition and therefore make bad food choices'.
Junk food is cheap and abundant, there are also many cheap and abundant healthy choices. The Big Bad Corporations don't come to people's homes and stuff them full of junk.
Honestly it shows ignorance/privilege to assume that everyone has access to the same food resources you do. A lot of people really do have a hard time finding good, fresh food.
Define 'a lot', because if the proportion of the population that has no access to 'good, fresh food' is less than the proportion of the population that is obese, then your argument is moot - not to mention a tad off topic... but thanks for playing.
Well, thanks for being a...
In my county, where the growing season is 365 days/year, the USDA says 6.5% of people live in food deserts.
http://ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-environment-atlas/go-to-the-atlas.aspx
But a hell of a lot more people are overweight than just those who live in food deserts. It isn't an excuse except for 6.5% of the population (and even then, you can lose weight eating nothing but fast food and what is available to those people, but it can be more difficult because those foods may not keep you as satiated).0 -
Isn't odd that most of the people that have been doomed with bad genetics are in the USA? And that these people that share genetic ancestry in let's say Europe aren't obese in general?0
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JeffseekingV wrote: »Isn't odd that most of the people that have been doomed with bad genetics are in the USA? And that these people that share genetic ancestry in let's say Europe aren't obese in general?
No logic. That doesn't belong here. Only doom is here.0 -
JeffseekingV wrote: »Isn't odd that most of the people that have been doomed with bad genetics are in the USA? And that these people that share genetic ancestry in let's say Europe aren't obese in general?
No logic. That doesn't belong here. Only doom is here.
haha. I'll end the thread like this. Supersized McGentic meal.0 -
bennettinfinity wrote: »bennettinfinity wrote: »EatsNotTreats wrote: »EatsNotTreats wrote: »Many diseases usually result from a combination of nature (genotype) and nurture (phenotype). So is it possible that there is a genetic variability in obesity tendency? Absolutely. Is it also possible that the obese people have to make changes to what they are doing if they want to be thin? Absolutely.
So just out of curiosity, why do people think that there is an obesity epidemic now which was not there before??? I understand that this is a CICO forum and people will say well, it's because obese people eat more and exercise less. Ok, if this is your theory, fine.
But why are they doing it NOW??? Why was there never an obesity epidemic before????? And why has the number of EXTREMELY OBESE people skyrocketed in the last few decades????
Because only in the last few decades has food been so cheap and so abundant. Evolution hasn't caught up to this change, so we continue to crave and consume high fat and sugar foods, which would have helped us survive times when food was scarce, even just 200 years ago.
One hundred years ago, most jobs were physically demanding. Now, most jobs require little physical effort. More food + less physical activity = more obesity.
I do agree that these things have something to do with it, but I don't think it tells the whole story.
Basically you looked at what variables have changed over the last few hundred years. And I agree with these variables. But there are more variables.
Here are a few more variables from a big picture standpoint, and we don't need research to know this, just basic observational skills:
1. Composition of our diet has drastically changed over the time interval that you described. One small example is cooking 100-200 years ago used to be done with lard, butter, and coconut oil, whereas that is not the case today. Just one small example. There are many others of course. The published dietary guidelines now promote a dietary composition that is not reflective of diet even 100 years ago. Almost the opposite.
2. Which foods are cheap and more abundant? Junk. Which foods are more expensive? Real foods. This also contributes greatly to the composition of the overall diet.
Citing life expectancy increases as a rationale that "now is better" is not accurate as in the past, morbidity and mortality was disproportionate towards infection, trauma and increased infant mortality. These things are not leading causes of death now because in this regard the intervention of man was a good thing. The medical conditions that cause morbidity and mortality now had much much lower incidences back then and this is not only because of increased life expectancy now - the current slurry of chronic medical conditions now affect the young, middle aged, and old - age groups that are both within and exceed the past life expectancy.
I believe this meme has been disproved on several occasions - if this argument is allowed to run the typical course, we'll end up at 'by and large people are ill educated on matters of nutrition and therefore make bad food choices'.
Junk food is cheap and abundant, there are also many cheap and abundant healthy choices. The Big Bad Corporations don't come to people's homes and stuff them full of junk.
Honestly it shows ignorance/privilege to assume that everyone has access to the same food resources you do. A lot of people really do have a hard time finding good, fresh food.
Define 'a lot', because if the proportion of the population that has no access to 'good, fresh food' is less than the proportion of the population that is obese, then your argument is moot - not to mention a tad off topic... but thanks for playing.
Well, thanks for being a ...
In my county, where the growing season is 365 days/year, the USDA says 6.5% of people live in food deserts.
http://ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-environment-atlas/go-to-the-atlas.aspx
Whoa... claws in there, Tiger...
OK - so all I'm saying is that unless your argument is that 6.5% of the population is 'doomed' to be obese by living in food deserts, you're off the topic.
Pointing it out might make me a ... but it doesn't make me wrong.0
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