Obesity epidemic?

LilMissFoodie

From the dictionary: Epidemic - affecting or tending to affect a disproportionately large number of individuals within a population, community, or region at the same time.

I would say obesity fits that definition...

margo36

I think it's the huge amount of processed food in our diets now and lack of exercise. I was a child in the 1950's. We ate seasonal vegetables and fruit grown in the garden. Meals were bulked up with vegetables to make them go further. We played outside and thought nothing of cycling 5 miles to the nearest swimming pool. The nearest we got to processed food was bottled peas and carrots and bottled fruit that surplus to our needs when they were in season. All food was cooked from scratch with fresh food as no one had freezers or fridges. When we thirsty we drank water.

ejohndrow

The problem is that it may 'affect' a large group of people, but the reason it has gotten so bad isn't because if something everyone 'caught'. There can be an epidemic of West Nile Virus because a large amount of mosquitoes carrying said virus populated a certain area and then bit, stung, whatever you call it the people causing them to have the disease. There can be an epidemic of e coli brought on by improperly irrigated soil-causing feces to get into lettuce, thinking along these same lines-the epidemic of obesity doesn't really fit.

If everyone in the entire world ate unhealthy, fast food, high sodium foods, and processed junk they would all be overweight as well-at least the majority of them-we all know some young guys with high metabolisms-so to say ovesity is an epidemic is like saying an outside source caused us to be fat. It is of epidemic proportions perhaps, but it's something than can be fixed quite easily. It isn't something that just came and infected people over the last few days and we all need shots now.

I would say there's more an 'epidemic' of adults not being able to say yes to healthy and no to unhealthy. We aren't dogs, we don't have to eat until the food is gone and we're sick, some people have a hard time with this.

ejohndrow

I think it's the huge amount of processed food in our diets now and lack of exercise. I was a child in the 1950's. We ate seasonal vegetables and fruit grown in the garden. Meals were bulked up with vegetables to make them go further. We played outside and thought nothing of cycling 5 miles to the nearest swimming pool. The nearest we got to processed food was bottled peas and carrots and bottled fruit that surplus to our needs when they were in season. All food was cooked from scratch with fresh food as no one had freezers or fridges. When we thirsty we drank water.

I'd have to agree with that. My mother made meals from scratch, we played outside-rode bikes, didn't have cable and watched very little tv. We also had a garden and fruit trees, we had fresh veggies from the garden and my mother canned a bit too.

The problem is growing up and slowly adding things to your life and not realizing it i.e car, job, college-which lead to less time for friends and fun, which then leads to improper diet and the choice to not exercise. We think we need this stuff (junk food etc) but we don't. I used to think kids were thin and adults were fat and there was no getting around it-then I really thought about why it seemed that way. I sold my car to my sister, I've made a conscious effort to walk as much as possible and to eat healthfully. It's tough at times, but so worth it in the end.

splackk

Funny, a good majority of the people over here in Singapore eat a very "eastern" diet of rice, fish and the like and yet there is a high number of overweight people here too- these are people who cook meals for their families every day using traditional ingredients in traditional way. I would think if it were a "western diet" problem I'd have lost all this weight with no problem when I arrived long ago! Strangely enough, you can also get fat eating traditional fried Chinese and Malay food too...

freerange

I'm confused...are you saying that someone like myself who lives in America and used to be obese only "treated the symptoms" when I started vigorous exercise and changed my eating habits? Cause that's what I did to fight the obesity problem in my life. And I beat it by eating smaller portions, eating less processed junk, and by adding exercise to my daily activity list...

What should I have done? Moved East and adopted their lifestyle? I happen to enjoy "Western" foods, just made leaner and eaten in smaller portions. I guess even though I've lost weight and kept it off for years, I'm still not cured of obesity in your eyes.

Whatever dude.

I was going to leave this alone and probably should have, I hope you don’t get offended by this. But really you need to re-read my post, because you clearly didn’t comprehend it. The S.A.D is the problem, or a part of the problem (Standard American Diet). You said in your post you changed your eating habits. That is the cure, (unless you just cut your portions and kept eating the same stuff you were) so why are your panties in such a bunch?

There is a thought process running around out there that concludes that if you “just eat less calories” as in, you can still eat all the junk you did before just in smaller portions, you will be healthy, because you fixed the problem, obesity. I’m telling you obesity is not the problem, it’s the junk you are eating.

And cured of obesity? What? You really need to have someone read my post to you, and explain it. You cannot be cured of a symptom, that was the whole point I was making. By just getting lean you “may” not be curing the underlying health issues that caused the obesity in the first place. Not all people that die of heart disease, diabetes, and stroke, are obese or even over weight.

Whatever back at ya. Chick.