Obesity today vs 40-50 years ago.

MaggiePuccini

@tigerhoos, yeah i think you've raised a really interesting point. Our bodies haven't evolved to keep up with the reality. Our bodies are designed for us having to hunt and gather and fish and do a lot of hardwork. And in our lives today, we are constantly temped by foods that we can just easily buy, no energy needs to be expended, other than opening wallet.

It is almost like humans have been removed from their natural habitat and dumped in a supermarket or a chip shop. It takes some kind of quirky hardwiring to coonstantly balance temptation and navigate our way through all this temptation. The fact is that we are not actually suited (physiologically) to our environment anymore!!!

Silverkittycat

http://www.foodtimeline.org/fooddecades.html

Scroll down and check out the average meals.
Fun food facts too.

Deka61

When I was younger, people walked everywhere, to work, to the shops, to the cinema. Only the head of the household, the bread winner had a car. We walked to school, as it was safe too, rode our bikes where we wanted, watched very little TV. Had real friends we saw every day, no "social network" on computers as no computers. We only had meat or fish once a week, but still stuffed our faces with crisps and sweets (candy). So what I'm saying we were more active ALL the time. Not just at gym sessions.

liog

I think there are so many things that factor into the decline of our health with regards to our mental health, our kids' mental health and obesity and related diseases, which I believe includes more than diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.

I've done a lot of genealogy research in my family and I have photos of many people on my mother's side going back to my great-great grandparents. My great-grandmother was a bit plump and my grandmother started gaining weight in the 1960's when her thyroid went kaput. Even still, knowing that my grandma and great-grandma were very similar in body type, I would say that maybe they had an extra 20-25 pounds on them. They just looked bigger standing next to the others because the others were all quite thin.

I think the fact that we don't walk as much to get to and from places makes a big difference. When I was small, I can remember walking with my mom several times a week to the corner grocery store. My grandma and great-aunt each had one of those rolling baskets they took with them to the grocery store that was several blocks from their home. My grandmother and great-aunt never had a driver's license and walked and took a bus everywhere.

Also, we are inside so much now. When I was a kid, in the 1970s and 1980s, after school, on the weekends and during the summer, all of us kids were sent out the door after breakfast and didn't come home until lunch and then went back out again until dinner and if it was still light, we went out again until it was dark. I remember at 4 years old walking up to my friend's house all by myself. She was three years older than me and we'd go to the park up the street by ourselves and we'd ride our bikes blocks away from our house. Kids don't often do that now. We've become so afraid that someone is going to take our children and they are often kept on a short leash.

I think the biggest factor though is the processed foods made with all of the things we can't pronounce along with food dyes, many of which are banned in other countries. I think that has a gigantic impact on our physical and mental health. There are fewer home cooked meals and a home cooked meal is not an oven lasagna or a microwave dinner or frozen chicken nuggets. As parents, many of us are on the go shuttling our kids from activity to activity, or getting home late from work and grabbing a fast food lunch or dinner on the way. In some cities, there are no grocery stores and people can't even buy fresh fruits and vegetables and people get their foods at convenience stores.

Also, our portions have gotten bigger, much bigger. Our plates have gotten bigger. In our house the dinner plates that came with our set are as big as platters and are used as such. We use the salad plates as dinner plates. Portions at many restaurants, especially chain restaurants are gigantic.

One last thing is that we want all of our problems to be fixed with an easy pill instead of changing our lifestyles. We are starting with a large nutritional deficit and it is difficult to turn that around. It takes dedication, commitment, a change in our thinking and an adjustment in our overall lifestyle. It is easier for us to keep going as we are instead of making the necessary changes.

Of course when I say "we" and "our" I know that doesn't include every single person in the country. But, given the rising obesity and related disease, I think it includes a majority of our population.

kyle4jem

What perplexes me is the disgust we feel for the morbidly obese, when much of us have more pity for those struggling with substance dependence. Many of us feel more intense anxiety/disgust looking at an obese person than a smoker- why? I think it's because we all subconsciously identify with the risk that we all take by living in our modern world and eating modern food, that at any day, if we "let ourselves," we could "get like that." Please don't let the amazing steps you've taken to lose weight make you insensitive to those who have not yet begun that battle. Believe me, it's not because they are happy and lazy- they are struggling and likely working harder than you think on whatever their demon of the year is.

There is a bloke who drinks in our local and lives in our street... he's only in his 30s and he surely weighs well over 25st (350lbs). In the summer his belly hangs down below his polo shirt and when I see him squeeze himself into hi tiny wee Mazda, I wonder how he fits.

I was over 18st (250lbs) when I started on MFP and part of me would look at this bloke and then look at myself in the mirror and think, "I cannot let myself get THAT BIG." Thankfully I never did and while I'm still fat and technically still obese I know I look so much better, feel so much better and have the power to get myself down to a size I am truly comfortable with.

However, whenever I've seen programmes on telly where somebody is in the 500lb plus bracket, it's no so much wondering how could they let themselves get that fat, but how the heck could they afford all that food!

fiberartist219

My grandmother was a farmer, and she said that they had to eat a lot of food to be able to work out in the fields all day. She had 6 kids and fed them all. Now she has diabetes, because she's been eating the same high fat food that she always did, but she is much less active than she was back then.

I asked her one time what she thought of the recession and how it compared to the great depression and she said that it is much different. Financially it might seem the same, but when your mules get repossessed and you have to work the farm by hand, you feel the financial burden a lot more than if one of your many tractors got taken away. She said that they did a LOT of manual labor when she was a kid and they didn't think much of it because there was hardly any other options.