Who is responsible for what we choose to eat?

tsh0ck

it should be noted, too, that even if food was shoved down our throats at 3,000 calories a day, that doesn't make us fat. it is our collective inactivity that makes us fat.

m60kaf

I do think the individual is unquestionably responsible for what they eat. However, I don't think large chains make the healiest options possible of their foods -- they add sugar make bread that is more like cake, inject fat, liquids and bone scrapings to make unhealthy high calorie corn syrup laced food 'which the consumer supposedly prefers' for this I think they have a high responsibility

One of the main things that stresses me about eating out is the fact I don't expect it to be clean (in the content not cleanliness -- give up trolls) and have no way of knowing if the calories are 500 or 2500

m60kaf

it should be noted, too, that even if food was shoved down our throats at 3,000 calories a day, that doesn't make us fat. it is our collective inactivity that makes us fat.

Latest thinking is it is food not inactivity that generally makes this generation fat. I think I agree with this - its easy to blindly believe the less active excuse (convenient for food manufacturers)

LATeagno

While I absolutely believe that we are all personally responsible, I do believe that the addictive properties of sugar and starchy carbs and just refined junk in general need to be addressed.

My battle with food addiction is a daily one. I changed my ways, but there are times when I find myself shaking while looking at a donut or a cookie. Shaking because I am one step away from being out of control. It's terrifying. Food addiction is so real. The world is a crack house and food addicts live in it. It really is the hardest thing imaginable to conquer. In the end, though, yes-- it is up to us as individuals.

sammys1girly

Adults know better and can do better. I truly feel sorry for obese and overweight children, though. They are just eating how they've been trained.

EXACTLY

Amber82479

I believe it's 90% the consumer's fault. No commercial is going to make you eat crap. You make you eat crap. However, I also believe that it's 10% the fault of schools who fail to educate us growing up to understand how to eat properly. So many people don't even understand what constitutes a healthy diet, the population is bound to be fat!

Silverkittycat

It's really interesting to find that we all feel that we are responsible. Which sort of contradicts the programme which states the government is not making enough regulation on the food industry to ensure to stop obesity.

I guess my stance is everything in moderation. We are responsible but as a consumer I have been misleaded in thinking something is healthy even though this is far from the truth on the labelling. I would say I'm an educated person but I do feel that the government could play a more proactive role in regulating the Industry so it's easier for everyone to make the healthier choice and that labelling would be simpler to understand. Its also interesting in the research showing that people perceive just because it says or assumed as 'healthy' doesn't mean that it's low in calories.

Currently I'm obese in my BMI and have taken the responsibility to change that.

I think it's great that you're making the choice to change, but do you really want the government to "protect" you from making your own choices?

they do that already. it's called laws:

i cant drink and drive.. i cant take some drugs... i can't get mad at someone and stab them in the neck... i can't walk out of a store with some shoes without paying...some guy just cant see me on the street and go hey i wanna piece of that and then rape me ....

we already have laws in place to protect people from making their own choices. heck we even already have laws involving FOOD that prevent people from making their own choices, so how would this be any different?

Have those laws prevented drinking and driving? stabbings? rape?

suzieqcookie

I agree with your point but it is a lot deeper than that. For example Fatty foods being cheaper than healthier options. False marketing on food which aren't really healthy especially on food targeted towards children.

i saw the chart on what the US government subsidizes to farmers... the bulk going towards beef and pork farmers and the grain farmers, with a teeeny little portion going towards produce. As a single mother buying for 4 people i can tell you eating healthy is much more expensive, but i made the decision to put more money into the budget for fresh produce and all but eliminate junk food. We have never been a fast food family... so many quick things you can do at home, but still, fast and cheap at home is still loaded with fat and calories. It all boils down to being responsible for yourself.

kmm7309

I can see that nobody is going to agree with this, but I put about 60% of the blame on the food industry. Here's why: they started putting chemicals into our bodies that our bodies had never seen before and called it "food". This wouldn't be a problem if they had to do testing on the long-term effects of this "pseudo-food". In order to market a drug, you have to go through many years of testing, study after study of evidence. But they can feed us unknown amounts of chemicals and it doesn't have to be tested on. That's a scary thought- your body is a living science experiment with unknown results.

I blame about 10% of it on the government. The only reason is because I feel like they are empowering poor people to make the wrong decisions. Go into any government facility and all they can tell you about nutrition is the food pyramid. Allowing SNAP benefit receivers to buy junk on government money doesn't help. It takes 100 years to change anything they believe, regardless of proof. I only blame the government for the lack of education for the poor and benefits receivers.

And the other 30% is all personal accountability. The reason this is so low is because you have to think of us, the obese, as a collective whole. Much of what I said about no education for the poor is included in the low sum. I include elderly, hospitalized, children, those eating cafeteria food because that's the only choice, etc. There are many people who cannot control their circumstances. And because of these science experiments to make food cheaper, they are a by-product of poor nutrition and have no means to control that.

Michelle650

We are all responsible for our own actions. We put the foods we eat into our mouths. That being said, young children cannot be entirely blamee! They don't no any better and here, the parents are to blame.

JuneBPrice

It's our fault. It's not the fast food industry's job to make sure that everyone eats healthy, balanced meals, it's their job to sell cheeseburgers.

jhigg11

I think we are all responsible for what goes in our mouths. We are also responsible for what we feed our children. Making sure they are healthy and can learn to read food labels, and what they need in their diet every day. That's our responsibility. That's one thing i didn't really get educated on. I have this site specifically for helping me learn what I need everyday to be healthy and fuel my body appropriately for each days activities. Nutrition would have been an awesome course to offer in junior high.

LorinaLynn

I never considered "fast food" to be cheap. Even on the dollar menu, I'm getting a flat little crapburger that isn't going to fill me up. So I'd get two. And a fry. And a drink. That's 4 bucks, getting the cheapest options. That same 4 bucks can get me a pound of boneless skinless chicken, plus a one pound bag of frozen vegetables, which I could stretch into 4 healthy, filling meals... at least if I could scrounge up another dollar for a bag of rice or box of pasta.

IronSmasher

You probably should've called the topic the name of the program, and posted it in the UK forum.

chuckyp

It's really interesting to find that we all feel that we are responsible. Which sort of contradicts the programme which states the government is not making enough regulation on the food industry to ensure to stop obesity.

I guess my stance is everything in moderation. We are responsible but as a consumer I have been misleaded in thinking something is healthy even though this is far from the truth on the labelling. I would say I'm an educated person but I do feel that the government could play a more proactive role in regulating the Industry so it's easier for everyone to make the healthier choice and that labelling would be simpler to understand. Its also interesting in the research showing that people perceive just because it says or assumed as 'healthy' doesn't mean that it's low in calories.

Currently I'm obese in my BMI and have taken the responsibility to change that.

I think it's great that you're making the choice to change, but do you really want the government to "protect" you from making your own choices?

they do that already. it's called laws:

i cant drink and drive.. i cant take some drugs... i can't get mad at someone and stab them in the neck... i can't walk out of a store with some shoes without paying...some guy just cant see me on the street and go hey i wanna piece of that and then rape me ....

we already have laws in place to protect people from making their own choices. heck we even already have laws involving FOOD that prevent people from making their own choices, so how would this be any different?

The difference is that the laws you use as examples prohibit activities that hurt OTHER people.
You can drink legally, but you can't drink and drive because you could kill someone else with your car.
You can't stab someone else in the neck or rape them because it hurts or kills THEM.
You can't steal shoes, because it's a financial loss to the shoe store.

Food laws would protect us from ourselves which it is not the government's responsibility to do, even though it doesn't keep them from trying by constantly passing stupid laws.

150930

it's a cycle. companies produce what we demand and we demand what companies produce. money and convenience above all else. we always have a choice - whether or not our options are ideal is another matter unto itself. eating yourself sick and staying in a job you hate are actually no different - there is a innate human tendency to become complacent when basic needs are met.

fizzletto

As I expected the majority of replies to this have been "We choose what we eat!" but the thing is, some people might not be aware of what is healthy and what isn't.

When I was at school at age 14 I didn't really know anything about calories and carbs and fat. I knew that some things were bad for you, like chocolate, and some things were good for you, like vegetables, but I had no idea about the things in between. For example, I always assumed pasta was perfectly fine. I didn't know that it was full of carbs and should only be eaten in moderation. I knew it wasn't deep-fried or anything, so I had no idea that eating lots of it at least once, sometimes twice a day would lead to gaining weight. And yet, my school cafeteria sold cheesy pasta bake every day, didn't regulate how often you bought it, and it was the only vegetarian option.They didn't provide calorie information, or any sort of dietary advice. It was only when I got older, and started looking into these things, that I learned that my lifestyle hadn't been as healthy as I thought it was.

Another example: I saw an advert on TV a couple of years ago for a Special K cereal bar. The advert included skinny women dancing around in dresses talking about how they were a great diet bar and were low in fat and low in calories. I went to the supermarket that day and found that it was actually higher in calories, fat, sugar, AND salt, compared to a chocolatey cereal bar of the same weight that did not boast about being healthy for you. If you don't look into these things, and you go by what advertising tells you, or the most affordable food (which is, especially in schools, the unhealthy things), that can certainly contribute to a poor diet.

And of course, as we all know, once you're addicted to food, it's very hard to get back on the wagon. From a psychological perspective, it's exactly like being addicted to drugs, only the drug is food. It's legal, readily available anywhere you look, and unlike cocaine or heroin you can't go cold-turkey - you HAVE to eat a certain amount of food to survive, so it's very hard to stop once you've started. The people who have signed up to this website have already tackled half the problem, it's the people out there who struggle with their addiction to food and have no will to change that are being screwed over by the shopkeepers who are perfectly happy allowing obese people to buy 20 chocolate bars in one sitting as long as they get paid for it.

tvanhooser

I am the only one who physically puts the food in my mouth so I am. Blaming manufacturers, the government, retailers, family or friend influences, stressful events in my life, etc. only adds to the national epidemic of blame shifting to avoid the pain and shame of personal responsibility! I always tell my kids that it doesn't matter how many people pressure you to do something and if "everyone else is doing it" (which they AREN'T of course--that's another lie we soothe our consciences with!), only YOU are responsible for your own choices and will reap the consequences of your poor choices. That's no less true for adults than it is for kids so if I'm going to preach it, I have to live it too!

Silverkittycat

Latest thinking is it is food not inactivity that generally makes this generation fat. I think I agree with this - its easy to blindly believe the less active excuse (convenient for food manufacturers)

Nope. Convenient for those waiting to hold big food responsible for your poorly made choices.

wookiemouse

I agree that it's a multitude of things. In a perfect society, the individual is to blame because, as a PP stated, no one forces you to down a bag of chips. BUT - parents play such a key role here. They are your guidance, your source of right and wrong. If you grow up thinking a bag of Lays and a 2L coke a day is ok, and every single one of your family members is obese and don't worry about it, then of course you're going to be ok with it. You don't know any better. This can easily last until adulthood - after all, all this stuff in stores and in restaurants is "ok" by goverment standards as food, they wouldn't put it out there if it was going to hurt us, right?

Along the same lines, when 99% of your coupons are for crap food, and it costs less to get a box of Twinkies than it does a bag of grapes, something is seriously screwed up with our system. America has found a way to produce food cheap and fast at the expense of our health. And doctors can preach and haw all they want about eating right and exercising, but if the poor (and heck, even middle class!) in this country don't have ACCESS to these things, then it's a moot point. Yes, flaxseed may be GREAT for your health, but at $6/bag, seriously - who is going to buy that when they can buy 6 boxes of Oreos for the same cost with coupons??? There has to be a better way. I don't know what the answer is, but I know education has to start early (nutrition should be mandatory in the schools) and the food industry has to shape up, BIG time.