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Economic impact of overweight and obesity to surpass $4 trillion in 10 years
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ddsb1111
Posts: 749 Member
The economic impact of overweight and obesity is set to soar past $4 trillion in the next decade. This isn't just about individual health - it's a crisis that affects us all. Our choices ripple out from us, impacting our families, our communities, and our nation as a whole. This isn't about blame, it's about recognizing that we're all in this together. The time for excuses is over.
What are you doing about it? What is stopping you from doing anything? What are the challenges that are making you one of the billion people and counting? If you lost the weight, what advice do you have ? Let’s have a serious conversation about it, with no excuses. We can’t afford that anymore. Thank you for your contribution.
What are you doing about it? What is stopping you from doing anything? What are the challenges that are making you one of the billion people and counting? If you lost the weight, what advice do you have ? Let’s have a serious conversation about it, with no excuses. We can’t afford that anymore. Thank you for your contribution.
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Replies
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I mean we're not the ones who put so much junk in our foods to make it go further and taste better, are we.
Sure it's our choice what we actually do eat but when you've got 100 different variations all covered in buzz words like low fat, low sugar it's kinda hard to pick the right ones.
Not to mention a health care system that just pushes more pills onto you rather than address real causes.1 -
Leo- you’re breaking the only rule 😉 lol. Just kidding I hear you, but that’s not an action step for change. This is the reality, now what are we doing about those challenges? I’d love to hear what you are doing.1
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Captialism rules here and food companies and health care aren't as concerned about our health because what we're doing to ourselves makes them more money.Leo_King84 wrote: »I mean we're not the ones who put so much junk in our foods to make it go further and taste better, are we.
Sure it's our choice what we actually do eat but when you've got 100 different variations all covered in buzz words like low fat, low sugar it's kinda hard to pick the right ones.
Not to mention a health care system that just pushes more pills onto you rather than address real causes.
It is TOTALLY the responsibility of the individual. I've spoken many times about how when people immigrate from poorer countries to here, get a good job and within 10 years are 30-50lbs heavier when they arrived. More money for individuals ALLOWS them to indulge and that's a conscious decision. Sure, you want to enjoy things you may have never had or tasted, but overindulgence seems to just continue.
Also my opinion is that people are more concerned with status than health which is why they forego things like eating more sensibly and having a routine physical fitness program to keep them fit.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 35+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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Interesting topic @ddsb1111
When I look back at times in my life when I was overweight - I was choosing quick, high calorie foods. I was snacking on too many low quality, also high calorie foods.
I became interested in the idea of nutrition and nutrient dense food… I thought about the quality of the foods I was eating… something shifted in me and I decided to be more mindful about what I put in my body.
I was also painfully aware that I had a few chronically ill family members and being obese and in a constant state of inflammation caused them a lot of heartache. So I decided to take my health seriously.
Keeping alcohol to a minimum has saved me a lot of empty calories, eating no ultra processed foods and focusing on whole foods has helped me.
It’s an ongoing project and even today - I wish I had had more of a focus on quality and nutrition years ago, but Im grateful I'm able to focus on that now.
I keep my weight down, eat well, move more an keep my health in check with blood work and trying to be in tune with my body. It’s not perfect.. but it’s where I’m at with my health project. I keep looking for ways I can improve.
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Captialism rules here and food companies and health care aren't as concerned about our health because what we're doing to ourselves makes them more money.Leo_King84 wrote: »I mean we're not the ones who put so much junk in our foods to make it go further and taste better, are we.
Sure it's our choice what we actually do eat but when you've got 100 different variations all covered in buzz words like low fat, low sugar it's kinda hard to pick the right ones.
Not to mention a health care system that just pushes more pills onto you rather than address real causes.
It is TOTALLY the responsibility of the individual. I've spoken many times about how when people immigrate from poorer countries to here, get a good job and within 10 years are 30-50lbs heavier when they arrived. More money for individuals ALLOWS them to indulge and that's a conscious decision. Sure, you want to enjoy things you may have never had or tasted, but overindulgence seems to just continue.
Also my opinion is that people are more concerned with status than health which is why they forego things like eating more sensibly and having a routine physical fitness program to keep them fit.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 35+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
100% this. Food companies sell us what we want. If we really wanted "healthier" foods, that's what they would sell us. But we don't. We want the crap. We want the dominos pizza... meatlovers, thank you, hold the vegetables, we want the big Mac, we want the doritos, cheetos, sour patch kids, washed down with a can of coke, or better yet, a milkshake. We want it, so they sell it.1 -
Captialism rules here and food companies and health care aren't as concerned about our health because what we're doing to ourselves makes them more money.Leo_King84 wrote: »I mean we're not the ones who put so much junk in our foods to make it go further and taste better, are we.
Sure it's our choice what we actually do eat but when you've got 100 different variations all covered in buzz words like low fat, low sugar it's kinda hard to pick the right ones.
Not to mention a health care system that just pushes more pills onto you rather than address real causes.
It is TOTALLY the responsibility of the individual. I've spoken many times about how when people immigrate from poorer countries to here, get a good job and within 10 years are 30-50lbs heavier when they arrived. More money for individuals ALLOWS them to indulge and that's a conscious decision. Sure, you want to enjoy things you may have never had or tasted, but overindulgence seems to just continue.
Also my opinion is that people are more concerned with status than health which is why they forego things like eating more sensibly and having a routine physical fitness program to keep them fit.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 35+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
You’ve been doing this a long time, do you think the cost and impact is too immense for people to take 4 Trillion and 1/2 the globe being over weight personally? What does it take?
Using Leo’s (sorry Leo) excuse of ‘it’s not fair’ reasoning, what if that 4 Trillion only impacted those in that demographic, and it didn’t impact those who don’t contribute to the epidemic? Would that make a difference? Since, technically speaking, it’s not fair to those who aren’t obese?
I’m probably going to throw out a lot of random scenarios to see what connects.1 -
There's a great book I read awhile back.......I forgot the author, but it's called Fat, Sugar, and Salt. There is no denying that this stuff tastes good to people but why, in the 80's, did this start to get out of hand?
Actually, it started back in the 1950's when fast food and sugary cereals came on the scene. But portions were my smaller back then, people were more active in general, and there was the nuclear family with Mom cooking the family meal. I see teenagers snacking on Seasoned Curly Fries at 10:00 AM, and toddlers with their Moms eating junk food out of Ziploc bags.1 -
I keep my weight down, eat well, move more an keep my health in check with blood work and trying to be in tune with my body. It’s not perfect.. but it’s where I’m at with my health project. I keep looking for ways I can improve.
This is what it takes. You wake up in the morning and you decide. You plan for scenarios that don’t serve you. It’s not easy but it’s doable. You see the same tabloids, commercials, grocery store isles, yet here you are 👏🏻.3 -
There's a great book I read awhile back.......I forgot the author, but it's called Fat, Sugar, and Salt. There is no denying that this stuff tastes good to people but why, in the 80's, did this start to get out of hand?
Actually, it started back in the 1950's when fast food and sugary cereals came on the scene. But portions were my smaller back then, people were more active in general, and there was the nuclear family with Mom cooking the family meal. I see teenagers snacking on Seasoned Curly Fries at 10:00 AM, and toddlers with their Moms eating junk food out of Ziploc bags.
I see these things too. But, do you think our eating should be governed since we’ve collectively decided to ignore the serving size? Do you think our activities should be governed since we choose to not be active? Do you think we should govern nuclear families? What do we do with the situation we have now? Don’t you think a big part of that is personal accountability or do you think there should be consequences? When do we start governing ourselves?0 -
No question, there should be personal accountability. The point I was making is that there are factors making resisting temptation more difficult than it was decades ago.
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There's a great book I read awhile back.......I forgot the author, but it's called Fat, Sugar, and Salt. There is no denying that this stuff tastes good to people but why, in the 80's, did this start to get out of hand?
Actually, it started back in the 1950's when fast food and sugary cereals came on the scene. But portions were my smaller back then, people were more active in general, and there was the nuclear family with Mom cooking the family meal. I see teenagers snacking on Seasoned Curly Fries at 10:00 AM, and toddlers with their Moms eating junk food out of Ziploc bags.
I see these things too. But, do you think our eating should be governed since we’ve collectively decided to ignore the serving size? Do you think our activities should be governed since we choose to not be active? Do you think we should govern nuclear families? What do we do with the situation we have now? Don’t you think a big part of that is personal accountability or do you think there should be consequences? When do we start governing ourselves?
Just a quick aside... in the US we do govern the nuclear family. You cannot legally marry three people together.... polyamory and polygamy are not legally recognized as marriages by the government.2 -
sollyn23l2 wrote: »There's a great book I read awhile back.......I forgot the author, but it's called Fat, Sugar, and Salt. There is no denying that this stuff tastes good to people but why, in the 80's, did this start to get out of hand?
Actually, it started back in the 1950's when fast food and sugary cereals came on the scene. But portions were my smaller back then, people were more active in general, and there was the nuclear family with Mom cooking the family meal. I see teenagers snacking on Seasoned Curly Fries at 10:00 AM, and toddlers with their Moms eating junk food out of Ziploc bags.
I see these things too. But, do you think our eating should be governed since we’ve collectively decided to ignore the serving size? Do you think our activities should be governed since we choose to not be active? Do you think we should govern nuclear families? What do we do with the situation we have now? Don’t you think a big part of that is personal accountability or do you think there should be consequences? When do we start governing ourselves?
Just a quick aside... in the US we do govern the nuclear family. You cannot legally marry three people together.... polyamory and polygamy are not legally recognized as marriages by the government.
Correction 😊 Govern the nuclear family’s system for food preparation ie make the woman stay home and feed the family, since people were less overweight back then.
We can’t go back. We can only go forward.1 -
sollyn23l2 wrote: »There's a great book I read awhile back.......I forgot the author, but it's called Fat, Sugar, and Salt. There is no denying that this stuff tastes good to people but why, in the 80's, did this start to get out of hand?
Actually, it started back in the 1950's when fast food and sugary cereals came on the scene. But portions were my smaller back then, people were more active in general, and there was the nuclear family with Mom cooking the family meal. I see teenagers snacking on Seasoned Curly Fries at 10:00 AM, and toddlers with their Moms eating junk food out of Ziploc bags.
I see these things too. But, do you think our eating should be governed since we’ve collectively decided to ignore the serving size? Do you think our activities should be governed since we choose to not be active? Do you think we should govern nuclear families? What do we do with the situation we have now? Don’t you think a big part of that is personal accountability or do you think there should be consequences? When do we start governing ourselves?
Just a quick aside... in the US we do govern the nuclear family. You cannot legally marry three people together.... polyamory and polygamy are not legally recognized as marriages by the government.
Correction 😊 Govern the nuclear family’s system for food preparation ie make the woman stay home and feed the family, since people were less overweight back then.
We can’t go back. We can only go forward.
Fact. We can only move forward.1 -
A big impact could come from changing the menus of public school lunches and offering nutrition classes.
I taught in public and private schools in NYC for a while - I remember the huge difference in what was offered for lunch.
This was a part of my wake up call. Such a disparity in the quality of food.
The board of ed still has their menus online - they offer pizza, chicken nuggets, mozzarella sticks, fries. There are also salad offerings but these are paired with tubs of high sugar, hi cal dressings and as a compliment to the mains above.
When I taught in a very high end private high school (tuition >$50k per year) the cafeteria was like 4 star dining. They did not offer anything they did not deem “healthy”. Lunches were salmon, chicken breast, lean proteins , all shades of vegetables. No soda or fruit juice allowed. No added sugar, no fried foods.. no vending machines.
Is it economic? A tale of 2 cities?
We spend a fortune on public schools and the quickest way to make a change would be to change what’s offered in public school lunches. It’s just as easy to promote the cafeteria as a place of learning for the public schools as it is in the $$$ private schools.
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Of course it's down to the individual to make the choices but not everybody has the information available to make the right choices.
I read an article yesterday about the guy who came up with the hypothesis that saturated fat is bad for you, funnily enough it was in the 1950s, as mentioned above by a other poster. He happened to be in the right place, at the right time and put his theory to a cardiologist who happened to be the Doctor for some president, Eiffenhower? (Sorry, my American history is poor). The president had heart problems and this dudes like, yo it's gotta be the saturated fat. Because heart disease was unheard of up until that point, it was very rare and scary and everybody went with it... even though as stated above around the 1950s was when America started making cereals and such.
Anyway, there's been lots of studies since that disprove saturated fat of causing any heart problems and that you don't need to limit it at all.
Now let's say I'm new to healthy eating and I'm googling. Without really, really digging deep the majority of information will tell me that saturated fat is the devil... so how am I supposed to make informed decisions of what I eat when I can't even get the correct information?
I'm a month into carnivore diet, I love it and will continue eating this way and putting it to friends and family. What I've found is everywhere tries to sell you low fat meat because we're all so terrified of fat giving us heart problems... fat is crucial and keeps us feeling full. If I believed that fat was bad and lived on 5% fat meat, I would probably be hungrier, sicker and making worse food choices to fill in the gaps between meals.
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There's a great book I read awhile back.......I forgot the author, but it's called Fat, Sugar, and Salt. There is no denying that this stuff tastes good to people but why, in the 80's, did this start to get out of hand?
Actually, it started back in the 1950's when fast food and sugary cereals came on the scene. But portions were my smaller back then, people were more active in general, and there was the nuclear family with Mom cooking the family meal. I see teenagers snacking on Seasoned Curly Fries at 10:00 AM, and toddlers with their Moms eating junk food out of Ziploc bags.
I see these things too. But, do you think our eating should be governed since we’ve collectively decided to ignore the serving size? Do you think our activities should be governed since we choose to not be active? Do you think we should govern nuclear families? What do we do with the situation we have now? Don’t you think a big part of that is personal accountability or do you think there should be consequences? When do we start governing ourselves?
Governed? Frankly, it is not in the interest of big business to have people control their eating. The "foods" they develop are designed to be hyper-palatable and usually lack much in terms of nutrition. Now, as obesity becomes a huge problem and cost, what is the solution proposed? Not eating whole home cooked foods, but a drug because as a growing number of obesity "experts" are saying there is no other way to deal with this as obesity is a disease. The problem is it is a disease of our own making, at least the making of the food industry that depends on people continuing to eat what they make so they can continue to make profits. The best thing I did for my health is to start eating food I cook from whole ingredients. For me that was going Ketovore, but any way of eating that makes things that are highly processed into rare treats rather than a major part of their overall diet will likely have the same positive results. Sadly, we live in a time where the foods that people have been eating for countless generations are being portrayed as dangerous while at the same time people, even dietitians, will recommend processed foods as part of a balanced diet.2 -
What do I do?
Try to take responsibility for myself (these days
), and for my limited influence on public policy and those around me.
I don't expect companies to do anything other than sell us what we vote with our dollars that we want to eat. (I have to admit, I don't even think that most "hyperpalatable" foods even taste very good. I got fat eating a lot of so-called healthy foods, just too much of them.)
I don't expect or want corporations to act like my mommy and daddy. Maybe we're collectively sleepwalking, but blaming capitalism, big companies, the government, blah blah blah, just seems like off-loading personal responsibility. No one forces me to put particular types/quantities of food in my mouth, chew, and swallow. No one forces me to sit on the couch for hours and watch TV or play electronic games.
Our individual actions, massed together, create the culture. Culture is influential, and meaningful. Humans IMO are wired to create and follow norms. Many people (perhaps subconsciously) want to be "normal", so fall into doing what others around us do. (That's true not just for eating and exercise, but for preferences in music, books, hobbies, career aspirations, and much more. As a generality, we choose to do what we see others around us doing, so that we'll fit in.)
In my youth, 1950s to early 1970s, cars didn't have cupholders, and it wasn't seen as perfectly normal to go about one's daily life with a bucket'o'sugary-drink all day in most any context. Life inherently involved more movement, including "sedentary" jobs. (I think the influence of the Internet and related computer technologies in the so-called "obesity crisis" is under-discussed, not that I think we should turn back the clock. Look at how those timelines correlate, though.) I don't think cooking simple meals is necessarily more time-consuming than hitting a drive-through; I think it just isn't the norm, and fewer people have the (simple) knowledge/skills.
It kind of makes me laugh to read what people say about the horrors of school lunches these days, frankly. When and where I was in school, a common lunch entree was gravy, literally: We got a big heap of instant mashed potatoes, topped with a big dipper-full of fatty gravy with a very limited amount of hamburger, pork or beef shreds, or something like that. There were usually multiple gravy-entree days most weeks. Beyond that, maybe mac'n'cheese, hot dogs, that sort of thing. Sides would be a bit of sad head lettuce with a few multicolored mini-marshmallows and vinaigrette dressing; a few limp canned green beans, green peas, or sweet corn; maybe a white Parker House roll with butter. Occasionally there would be sloppy Joes (low on meat), or something like that. On the good side, there was milk.
I'm not going to give advice here (on this thread) about how to lose weight or be more active. I do that darned near every day (at ridiculous length, usually) in the Community, for good or evil. I don't do it to save the world or billions of dollars - that's unrealistic IMO - but because being at a healthy weight (and active) has been a huge benefit to quality of life for me, and I want that for other people, too. Those who are willing to commit to it can achieve that, I think.3 -
@Leo_King84
You said we have to dig for information. Can you show me how deep it takes? I went to the first page of every single board of MFP, and every single medication recommendation for Ozempic and similar meds, they all say the same thing- a balanced diet and excercise is needed. Please, show us where we need to improve the education or where the education is completely skewed? Is it the lack of resources, education, or the lack of mentors living a healthy balanced routine?2 -
SafariGalNYC wrote: »A big impact could come from changing the menus of public school lunches and offering nutrition classes.
I taught in public and private schools in NYC for a while - I remember the huge difference in what was offered for lunch.
This was a part of my wake up call. Such a disparity in the quality of food.
The board of ed still has their menus online - they offer pizza, chicken nuggets, mozzarella sticks, fries. There are also salad offerings but these are paired with tubs of high sugar, hi cal dressings and as a compliment to the mains above.
When I taught in a very high end private high school (tuition >$50k per year) the cafeteria was like 4 star dining. They did not offer anything they did not deem “healthy”. Lunches were salmon, chicken breast, lean proteins , all shades of vegetables. No soda or fruit juice allowed. No added sugar, no fried foods.. no vending machines.
Is it economic? A tale of 2 cities?
We spend a fortune on public schools and the quickest way to make a change would be to change what’s offered in public school lunches. It’s just as easy to promote the cafeteria as a place of learning for the public schools as it is in the $$$ private schools.
I’m with you here. It would cost less than 4 Trillion to improve healthy habits in terms of a lunch menu. This is an excellent place to start. The unhealthy parental culture will be harder to educate/convince unfortunately. I’d love to hear options for that. I wish I had some productive ideas myself.1 -
@Leo_King84
You said we have to dig for information. Can you show me how deep it takes? I went to the first page of every single board of MFP, and every single medication recommendation for Ozempic and similar meds, they all say the same thing- a balanced diet and excercise is needed. Please, show us where we need to improve the education.
He thinks the widely available, scientific consensus is wrong and we need to seek the "truth" from pseudoscience peddlers on youtube.2
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