Welcome to Debate Club! Please be aware that this is a space for respectful debate, and that your ideas will be challenged here. Please remember to critique the argument, not the author.
Fast food and obesity
Options
Replies
-
100% our own faults. Yes people aren't educated and fast food is some what cheap and convenient but if you have access to the internet or a library you can read up on basic nutrition as well as learn ways to budget.
We don't have to eat burger king and KFC and no it's not cheaper than home cooked food, though people will say it's cheaper or they don't have the time. They even blame their weight on the price of gym member ships.. the list of excuses goes on. Fact is that we are responsible for our health, education and fitness.
If we want to work out, we will find a way. Free youtube work outs, walking, lifting cans and bottles of water, there is always a way. If we want cheap food we will take the time to budget and look around. Hell some people have enough space to grow their own food! I had enough room for pumpkins, potatoes, a lemon tree, some herbs and 2 chickens. I still don't have a car and I use to ride my bike an hour to get to a farmers market to buy cheap veges. Then I'd load them up on my bike and ride on back home. I did this while obese with 2 bad knees once/twice a fortnight because it saved me well over $50 to do so. It worked out so well I had enough money saved up to travel around the world and I did! It's was awesome!
You can even lose weight eating that junk, so long as you eat the right amount... it's just not going to be healthy or satisfying.3 -
DietVanillaCoke wrote: »100% our own faults. Yes people aren't educated and fast food is some what cheap and convenient but if you have access to the internet or a library you can read up on basic nutrition as well as learn ways to budget.
We don't have to eat burger king and KFC and no it's not cheaper than home cooked food, though people will say it's cheaper or they don't have the time. They even blame their weight on the price of gym member ships.. the list of excuses goes on. Fact is that we are responsible for our health, education and fitness.
If we want to work out, we will find a way. Free youtube work outs, walking, lifting cans and bottles of water, there is always a way. If we want cheap food we will take the time to budget and look around. Hell some people have enough space to grow their own food! I had enough room for pumpkins, potatoes, a lemon tree, some herbs and 2 chickens. I still don't have a car and I use to ride my bike an hour to get to a farmers market to buy cheap veges. Then I'd load them up on my bike and ride on back home. I did this while obese with 2 bad knees once/twice a fortnight because it saved me well over $50 to do so. It worked out so well I had enough money saved up to travel around the world and I did! It's was awesome!
You can even lose weight eating that junk, so long as you eat the right amount... it's just not going to be healthy or satisfying.
so if you eat the right amount why wont it be healthy?0 -
Therealobi1 wrote: »DietVanillaCoke wrote: »100% our own faults. Yes people aren't educated and fast food is some what cheap and convenient but if you have access to the internet or a library you can read up on basic nutrition as well as learn ways to budget.
We don't have to eat burger king and KFC and no it's not cheaper than home cooked food, though people will say it's cheaper or they don't have the time. They even blame their weight on the price of gym member ships.. the list of excuses goes on. Fact is that we are responsible for our health, education and fitness.
If we want to work out, we will find a way. Free youtube work outs, walking, lifting cans and bottles of water, there is always a way. If we want cheap food we will take the time to budget and look around. Hell some people have enough space to grow their own food! I had enough room for pumpkins, potatoes, a lemon tree, some herbs and 2 chickens. I still don't have a car and I use to ride my bike an hour to get to a farmers market to buy cheap veges. Then I'd load them up on my bike and ride on back home. I did this while obese with 2 bad knees once/twice a fortnight because it saved me well over $50 to do so. It worked out so well I had enough money saved up to travel around the world and I did! It's was awesome!
You can even lose weight eating that junk, so long as you eat the right amount... it's just not going to be healthy or satisfying.
so if you eat the right amount why wont it be healthy?
This or satisfying? I don't understand.0 -
DietVanillaCoke wrote: »You can even lose weight eating that junk, so long as you eat the right amount... it's just not going to be healthy or satisfying.
Every so often I get the craving for Der Weinerschnitzel's chili cheese dogs. In those rare moments, they're OH so satisfying!
The thing is, this entire debate as it usually occurs on MFP is a total strawman. It's almost always postulated as a binary proposition - either you eat "clean", or you're stuffing your gut with fast food nonstop all day, every day. Nobody advocates for a diet consisting entirely (or even mostly) of junk/fast food, and nobody has ever said that such a diet would be healthy. Context and dosage are critical elements when evaluating one's diet, or when making statements about individual foods therein. I wouldn't consider those delicious DW chili cheese dogs "healthy" if I ate them every day - but if I eat them once a month or so within the context of an otherwise balanced diet, there's nothing unhealthy about them.
The obesity epidemic is multi-factorial, and to simply point to fast food as the cause of it is both misguided and gross oversimplification.10 -
DietVanillaCoke wrote: »You can even lose weight eating that junk, so long as you eat the right amount... it's just not going to be healthy or satisfying.
Every so often I get the craving for Der Weinerschnitzel's chili cheese dogs. In those rare moments, they're OH so satisfying!
The thing is, this entire debate as it usually occurs on MFP is a total strawman. It's almost always postulated as a binary proposition - either you eat "clean", or you're stuffing your gut with fast food nonstop all day, every day. Nobody advocates for a diet consisting entirely (or even mostly) of junk/fast food, and nobody has ever said that such a diet would be healthy. Context and dosage are critical elements when evaluating one's diet, or when making statements about individual foods therein. I wouldn't consider those delicious DW chili cheese dogs "healthy" if I ate them every day - but if I eat them once a month or so within the context of an otherwise balanced diet, there's nothing unhealthy about them.
The obesity epidemic is multi-factorial, and to simply point to fast food as the cause of it is both misguided and gross oversimplification.
I agree with all of this post but especially the bolded. I've yet to meet anyone in real life or on MFP who actually lives one of these extreme lifestyles, whether it truly be nothing but home cooked scratch foods, nothing from a box or can.... or someone who eats nothing but fast food/junk food/convenience food. The fact is that the majority of the people in the world are somewhere in the middle of the whole food/junk food spectrum, but everyone just likes to assume for argument's sake that there are more people at both opposite ends than there really are....2 -
rileysowner wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »Fast food and obesity are not directly connected but depends on what a person orders. I eat fast food almost daily since moving to Low Carb High Fat Way Of Eating over two years ago. Weight dropped off and has maintained and annual lab tests have moved into healthy ranges. Where one eat at home, slow food or fast food it is still what and how much we poke in our faces that counts in the end.
I'm guessing you order you burgers without the bun and fries so that's not a bad idea for many. I usually just grab the McDonald's Hamburger, small fries and a coffee and that's only about 500 cals or so. The biggest problem is that the portions are huge these days. The original McDonald's meal was a hamburger, fries and a drink, which today would be a small fry, and small drink. The calories for that meal would have been around 700 to 800, which as a dinner is acceptable for most people's calorie intake, especially back in the time where people were far more active on average than they are today.
I try eat food that contains very little to no added sugar and that contains no form of any grain.
At McDonalds I eat the round eggs (fresh cracked and cooked in real butter), sausage patties (1 gram of sugar each) with a few senior cups of regular coffee with 9 creams in each cup as I had this morning for $4.84 and came in at 1040 calories today. I also enjoy their side salad with Newman's vinaigrette dressing (3 grams of sugar each) for $1.59. Locally McDonald's has the best coffee in town day in and day out in my personal experience.
My image of pink slime impacts my desire for their beef patties but I do eat one a few times a year.
I find something that works for me at most any restaurant. Being LCHF I can go up to 12 hours without eating OK and function just fine so just a salad works well eating in strange places. I keep a supply of nuts and tuna with me so I can eat about any time I wish. Krogers were out of raw cashews last night so I bought pecan half's for my nut supply for the next 7+ days.
One word for pink slime: Delicious!
All kidding aside, in Canada it was banned AFAIK.
It has never been allowed without clear labeling in Canada, and it has not been used in the US for a long time either. It was just another way to demonize McDonald's, the company which most people go after.
That's what I have read as well. The pink slime is long gone.
@GaleHawkins why are you afraid of the slime but not if the trans fats you intake in the sausage?
Because there are no trans fats to be concerned about in their sausage.
Pink slime may be a healthy food as far as I know. It just doesn't turn on my appetite.0 -
Ahhhh, got ya. You are a trans fat in moderation kinda guy.GaleHawkins wrote: »rileysowner wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »Wheelhouse15 wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »Fast food and obesity are not directly connected but depends on what a person orders. I eat fast food almost daily since moving to Low Carb High Fat Way Of Eating over two years ago. Weight dropped off and has maintained and annual lab tests have moved into healthy ranges. Where one eat at home, slow food or fast food it is still what and how much we poke in our faces that counts in the end.
I'm guessing you order you burgers without the bun and fries so that's not a bad idea for many. I usually just grab the McDonald's Hamburger, small fries and a coffee and that's only about 500 cals or so. The biggest problem is that the portions are huge these days. The original McDonald's meal was a hamburger, fries and a drink, which today would be a small fry, and small drink. The calories for that meal would have been around 700 to 800, which as a dinner is acceptable for most people's calorie intake, especially back in the time where people were far more active on average than they are today.
I try eat food that contains very little to no added sugar and that contains no form of any grain.
At McDonalds I eat the round eggs (fresh cracked and cooked in real butter), sausage patties (1 gram of sugar each) with a few senior cups of regular coffee with 9 creams in each cup as I had this morning for $4.84 and came in at 1040 calories today. I also enjoy their side salad with Newman's vinaigrette dressing (3 grams of sugar each) for $1.59. Locally McDonald's has the best coffee in town day in and day out in my personal experience.
My image of pink slime impacts my desire for their beef patties but I do eat one a few times a year.
I find something that works for me at most any restaurant. Being LCHF I can go up to 12 hours without eating OK and function just fine so just a salad works well eating in strange places. I keep a supply of nuts and tuna with me so I can eat about any time I wish. Krogers were out of raw cashews last night so I bought pecan half's for my nut supply for the next 7+ days.
One word for pink slime: Delicious! All kidding aside, in Canada it was banned AFAIK.
It has never been allowed without clear labeling in Canada, and it has not been used in the US for a long time either. It was just another way to demonize McDonald's, the company which most people go after.
That's what I have read as well. The pink slime is long gone.
@GaleHawkins why are you afraid of the slime but not if the trans fats you intake in the sausage?
Because there are no trans fats to be concerned about in their sausage.
Pink slime may be a healthy food as far as I know. It just doesn't turn on my appetite.1 -
queenliz99 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Don't make this about America please because obesity is a worldwide problem.
Just thought I'd go and do a little fact-checking on this, and stumbled across the attached from the UK Government. Honestly, I'm pretty staggered by what I'm seeing:
lol, I did the same just before you posted.
Surprised by Iceland, then again Im ignorant about their culture.
Why are you surprised by Iceland but not Mexico?
Everyone already knows that Mexican food is really, really tasty.
No, actually Mexico and other countries that have a high proportion of poverty are on the fast-track to having obese societies like the more developed world. & big brand companies are targeting them by exploiting their poverty for their profits. E.g. Pepsi Co's biggest growth right now is in developing countries. Who now are starting to have obesity problems.0 -
fitforeternity493 wrote: »No.. But you should watch a documentary called Forks Over Knives.
Forks Over Knives: bad film-making based on a terrible and utterly debunked "study." If I had one wish about MFP, it's that people weren't so gullible as to think that the crux of Forks Over Knives (which gets cited here a lot) is anything but fake.
3 -
Packerjohn wrote: »
Not McDonalds, but my mother really and truly believed that chicken Kiev (breaded/fried chicken with at least 2T of butter in the center) is healthier than beef stew "because it's chicken."1 -
I grew from 150 to 220 in 2 years of way too much fast food and buffets and sugary drinks. I lost the excess weight in nine months of slim fast. Then I straightened out my dietary habits. Wholesome foods, cooked at home, etc. Didn't matter, I packed it all back in and another 70, without the assistance of fast food.
It turns out the world is full of delicious food. If you want to blame and regulate fast food you might as well just mandate we all eat nutritious gruel.6 -
Packerjohn wrote: »
Not McDonalds, but my mother really and truly believed that chicken Kiev (breaded/fried chicken with at least 2T of butter in the center) is healthier than beef stew "because it's chicken."
This is actually too common, I think -- assuming that bright line rules about food (always choose chicken over beef, always choose fish, always choose white meat or never choose white carbs) mess people up. If you have an option of fried fish, a carbonara with whole grain pasta, or a white pasta with shrimp and lots of vegetables, which is really likely to have a lower cal count and more nutrients? People here could look at the options and judge it, of course, but it's one of the many reasons why dividing foods into "bad" and "good" in a simplistic way is so idiotic (and that would include assuming that something at fast food is always worse than something at another restaurant, I suppose).
That said, I think in our culture people do assume, if anything, that fast food = bad and fattening. This is probably why once they decide to go there, usually (and again, not talking about the average MFPer who tracks and has decided fast food fits into their diets) they may just figure they already are making an unhealthy choice so might as well go all out. Without that mindset I think it's more likely people would make better choices (like a burger but no fries or sugary soda, or a small burger and small fries, or if you like the side salads, one of those, etc.).5 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »
Not McDonalds, but my mother really and truly believed that chicken Kiev (breaded/fried chicken with at least 2T of butter in the center) is healthier than beef stew "because it's chicken."
This is actually too common, I think -- assuming that bright line rules about food (always choose chicken over beef, always choose fish, always choose white meat or never choose white carbs) mess people up. If you have an option of fried fish, a carbonara with whole grain pasta, or a white pasta with shrimp and lots of vegetables, which is really likely to have a lower cal count and more nutrients? People here could look at the options and judge it, of course, but it's one of the many reasons why dividing foods into "bad" and "good" in a simplistic way is so idiotic (and that would include assuming that something at fast food is always worse than something at another restaurant, I suppose).
This is so depressingly, painfully true. I have a friend who was diagnosed as pre-diabetic 6 months ago. She's "changed her diet" - wheat buns on burgers instead of white ones, sweet potato fries instead of regular fries, whiskey instead of beer. It hasn't made a lick of difference to her weight or her health. Which she doesn't understand, because she's eating so much healthier now! It's so frustrating, and I'm worried about her. I don't know if she *really* thinks she's being healthier, or if she's putting herself through serious mental gymnastics to justify eating food she's not ready to give up.1 -
I grew from 150 to 220 in 2 years of way too much fast food and buffets and sugary drinks. I lost the excess weight in nine months of slim fast. Then I straightened out my dietary habits. Wholesome foods, cooked at home, etc. Didn't matter, I packed it all back in and another 70, without the assistance of fast food.
It turns out the world is full of delicious food. If you want to blame and regulate fast food you might as well just mandate we all eat nutritious gruel.
Been there and did that many times. It was not until I learned about macros and found one that worked for me that maintenance became possible. Yes healthy food is often calorie dense.1
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.3K Introduce Yourself
- 43.4K Getting Started
- 259.6K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 387 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.2K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.2K MyFitnessPal Information
- 22 News and Announcements
- 911 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions