Why is there an obesity epidemic?
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Because food tastes good and we're intrinsically slobs with no self control.
yep0 -
Here's my two cents for what it's worth: We have lost our sense of self control and we certainly aren't teaching it to our children.
Let me give you a counter example of a country that is (1) first world and wealthy by international standards and (2) has an incredibly low national obesity rate. Care to guess? It's Japan. You know how they raise their children in relation to food? That they are to eat until they are 80% full and stop. Unlike what I've seen here in my own family and in friends' families, where food is constantly pushed on children, they push self control.
Do I think the Japanese diet is really any more healthy than ours? No, not really. They just eat less. And no, I don't think Japan should be used as a model for everything health related, for a variety of reasons, including the smoking rates, stomach cancer, issues with anorexia, etc., but on this particular issue of obesity they have us beat.
So, you want to fight the epidemic? Start with yourself and your own children.0 -
In my experience it is largely due to unprocessed foods not being easily available. It was so easy for so long to just eat fast stuff (one dollar hamburger, anyone?) but I was always hungry after. Now I eat a salad with the same number of calories but it fills me up for half the day.
I'm not claiming to be an expert, but I bet that if we did a national push to make fresh, unprocessed or not overly processed food with alot fewer of the flavor enhancers or preservation chemicals openly and more cheaply up for grabs alot of the epidemic would go away or vastly improve. Hell, just getting some handle on HFCS alone would be a good thing.0 -
I was also under the impression the government redefined what "obese" and "overweight" was awhile ago
You would be correct.
BMI is useless when determining what's attractive in an individual. BMI is for tracking a large population to determine where the $ go. We've done this. bmi-s-inacuracy-leads-to-the-epidemias-s-underesti?hl=BMI+determines%23posts-7811663">http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/555058-obesity-bmi-s-inacuracy-leads-to-the-epidemias-s-underesti?hl=BMI+determines#posts-7811663Who Was Behind the Redefinition of "Obese"
In 1997 a front-page exposé in the Newark Star-Ledger noted:
"Eight of the nine members of the National Institutes of Health task force on prevention and treatment of obesity have ties to the weight-loss industry, either as consultants to pharmaceutical companies, recipients of research money from them, or advisers to for-profit groups such as Weight Watchers."
Case Western Reserve University professor Paul Ernsberger describes how financially conflicted researchers control the government’s pronouncements on obesity:
"Medical beliefs about obesity are shaped by expert panels that are highly selective in the data they consider. Experts included on government consensus panels have been disproportionately drawn from the ranks of diet clinic directors, which might explain the congruence between panel recommendations and the economic interests of the diet industry. In short, economic factors encourage a systematic exaggeration of the health risks of obesity."
Many of America’s most influential obesity experts receive significant financial support from the $46 billion weight-loss industry. These experts help drive obesity hype by churning out a steady stream of studies, alarmist public pronouncements, and treatment guidelines.
The notion that 65 percent of Americans are overweight or obese derives in part from a 1998 decision to redefine "overweight," which cast more than 35 million Americans into that category. This decision was made by a National Institutes of Health obesity panel chaired by Xavier Pi-Sunyer, one of the most influential obesity researchers in the country.
Over the years, Pi-Sunyer has received support from virtually every leading weight-loss company, including Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis, Ortho-McNeil, Wyeth-Ayerst, Knoll, Weight Watchers, and Roche. He has served on the advisory boards of Wyeth-Ayerst, Knoll, Abbott, Johnson & Johnson, and McNeil Nutritionals. He once headed up the Weight Watchers Foundation and is currently a board member of that organization. Pi-Sunyer gave the "obesity overview" presentation on behalf of Knoll, maker of the weight-loss drug Meridia, at a 1996 FDA advisory panel hearing on the drug. He has also been paid to sign his name to ghost-written journal articles used to promote the dangerous weight-loss combination known as "fen-phen."
Xavier Pi-Sunyer is an advisory council member of the American Obesity Association, which is best described as the lobbying arm of the weight-loss industry and is examined in greater detail later in this report. He is the former president of the pharmaceutical industry–funded North American Association for the Study of Obesity (NAASO is also examined later in this report) and heads a NAASO-affiliated research institute that is also supported by the weight-loss industry. He has influenced international obesity policy through his membership in the pharmaceutical industry– funded International Obesity Task Force, which plays a key role in determining policy for the World Health Organization.
Pi-Sunyer has chaired the National Institutes of Health Task Force on the Treatment of Obesity since 1995, when he also led the industry-funded NAASO. In 1998, when his NIH panel redefined the official standard for "overweight," he served as editor of NAASO’s journal, Obesity Research.
In addition to Pi-Sunyer, the 1998 NIH panel included a number of other financially conflicted researchers, such as Claude Bouchard, Graham Colditz, and Shiriki Kumanyika, each of whom is profiled later in this report.
The decision to redefine "overweight" was a big boost to the diet drug industry. In April 2005 The New York Times reported: "[M]any drug industry analysts see a potentially even bigger market if such a drug also catches on among the more than 60 percent of adults in this country who are statistically overweight, those with a body mass index of 25 or more."
The weight-loss industry appears to appreciate the flawed BMI standard. In 2001, Roche, maker of the weight-loss pill Xenical, promised a donation to NAASO for every individual screened during "BMI Awareness Week." In 2005, the American Cancer Society ran an event called the "Great American Weigh In" at Weight Watchers.
I like some of the questions asked here - http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/obesity-denial/0 -
Image got cut off in the post but you can see the whole chart at the following link:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/35/BRFSS_obesity_1985-2006.gif
Charts increase in obesity percentages by state over the past few decades.
Orange is 25-29%. Dark Red is over 30%.
This only charts through 2006, but the trend has still been increasing steadily. Colorado has been trying hard to hold out with remaining under 25%, but now even they have gone over to the dark side.
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I am not in America and have never been there - but if 2/3 are overweight and 1/3 are obese, that means nobody is normal weight or underweight as 3/3 equals the whole total??
Surely your figures are not right - absolutely everyone cant be overweight or obese?
2/3 are overweight and OF THOSE, half are obese. America isn't alone - in the UK 39% of the population is overweight and an additional 22% are obese. The real brain teaser is why poor people in both the US and UK have a much greater likelihood of obesity than middle or upper income people. People like to say it's about high calorie food being cheaper, but I seriously doubt that poor obese folk are sitting around snarfing up fried pork rinds but wishing they could afford broccoli. So are people fat because they're poor, or are they poor because they're fat? Some of each, I think.
The poor have always had higher levels of malnourishment than the well off. People aren't poor because they are fat, but they might remain poor because they aren't well educated for instance (although that is massively oversimplistic). My dad grew up in a very poor part of Manchester - he is now 65. One of his observations recently was "when I was growing up, you could tell poor people because they were thin, now you can tell them because they are fat"....
Edited to add: Also, the working classes in vast swathes of England at the time were involved in heavy industry, whilst food was expensive...0 -
Because we eat too much and move too little. .
/end thread
This. Duh.
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Because food tastes good and we're intrinsically slobs with no self control.
This!0 -
Because Americans tend to be lazy and eat whatever the hell they want.0
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It's a combination of the food industry purposely putting in harmful and addictive substances into our food, and the consumers who have no self control or refuse to educate themselves about proper nutrition.
Everybody knows cigarettes are bad for you, but not everybody knows that Cheetos are bad too.0 -
I think there are several factors.
Re the "poor", a lot look at food and think chicken, potatoes, vegetables and cooking time all add up to a lot of time and money whereas chuck a burger and chips in the oven, quick and easy and seems much cheaper. What they don't realise is that the chicken and veg cost the same, if cheaper than the frozen burger and chips option.
People don't move as much. These days everybody drives or gets the bus or train, parents drive their kids to school (granted some areas don't have much option for travel) but years ago, kids and adults would walk everywhere. I remember going out with friends and just walking all day long.
Kids don't play out much anymore. Some is for safety reasons, some is just laziness. Games consoles, lack of play areas, parents don't involve their kids with activities, stick them in front of the tv, they're happy.
People aren't educated enough when it comes to things like food and exercise. Kids aren't "forced" to eat what their parents are eating - "don't want the green stuff, want brown instead" and parents give in for an easy life. A lot of kids don't know what some vegetables even look like. If kids aren't being taught to eat healthily and exercise, they won't teach their kids to eat healthily and exercise and the trend continues from generation to generation.
Portion sizes - Fill a plate and some people will eat whatever is on it whether they are full or not. All you can eat places don't help either and neither do competition places where you don't pay for the 20 ribs if you can eat them all in under a minute.
Animals and the farming industry - Notice how your big juicy chicken breast shrivels to half the size once cooked? It's all the stuff that's been pumped into it to make it look big and juicy has evaporated. Some farmers are also feeding their animals feed with chemicals in them to fatten up the animals. The animals eat the chemicals, we eat the animals, we get the fattening chemical.0 -
I am too drinkies and too lazy to read this thread. I'll tell you what I told my daughter recently, when explaining to her why we're trying to eat more whole foods...
Once upon a time, people had farms. They grew things and they sent them around the country for people to eat. Growing things and sending things started costing more money, so they started stretching out the food--using fillers and preservatives so it would last longer and be cheaper to produce. People just wanted to fill their bellies, so they were happy with this fake, stretched out food. Companies realized they could make a profit around it, and found new and "improved" ways to make it "taste good" to the consumers. They used less and less Real Food and made more and more Profit. We were already used to this 'compromised' food, so the companies--now actually Corporations--decided we need ways to make "food" even more "convenient" and came up with more and more ways to pump us full of filling, but ultimately unFULLfilling, food-type products. And now we're in a position where we are eating a diet of chemicals that is full of 'energy' (calories) and thinking it 'tastes good,' instead of actual food that is nourishing to our bodies. And because our bodies are not being nourished, we desire more and more of this fake food, with all of its 'energy,' to fulFILL us, and it never can.
You know, or something.
Great answer :drinker:
I think of how hard it can be to convince my family members to cook/eat homemade foods. :grumble: It just seems like they want takeout all the time. When I was growing up it was an occasional treat not the everyday thing fast food has become.
Looking at the economy of it, I would much rather take my money and spend it on quality ingredients instead of restaurants/fast food. And with good homemade meals we control what goes into it.
Not to mention the effort that goes into actually working to make what we eat at least gets people off the couch as we often work together to cook.
Even making sweets for home are better than whatever comes in the quick bag or box. I don't think sugar is evil, just over used.0 -
^ good post.
So many reasons. In surveys of obese adults, social scientists at the University of California came upon further evidence of the fattening effect of dieting. Instead of looking at young dieters to see if they were more likely to gain fat, they asked obese adult women when they started dieting. Almost two-thirds had gone on their first diet before the age of fourteen, and the heaviest woman had started earlier and more often than the rest. Is there a link?
To be honest though, I think it's more related to viruses, microbes, bacterium, and such. adenovirus -36?0 -
...they asked obese adult women when they started dieting. Almost two-thirds had gone on their first diet before the age of fourteen, and the heaviest woman had started earlier and more often than the rest.
Wouldn't that be because they were overweight as children, and the heaviest women now were also the fattest children so they started earlier and more often? I hate when people try to imply causation that doesn't exist - if they could prove that all these obese adult women went on diets as children even thought they were of normal weight, then that would be something to prove the hypothesis that diets cause obesity. But asking obese people when they first went on a diet is meaningless. They were probably fat kids too.0 -
Exactly, hence my post.0
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...they asked obese adult women when they started dieting. Almost two-thirds had gone on their first diet before the age of fourteen, and the heaviest woman had started earlier and more often than the rest.
Wouldn't that be because they were overweight as children, and the heaviest women now were also the fattest children so they started earlier and more often? I hate when people try to imply causation that doesn't exist - if they could prove that all these obese adult women went on diets as children even thought they were of normal weight, then that would be something to prove the hypothesis that diets cause obesity. But asking obese people when they first went on a diet is meaningless. They were probably fat kids too.
This is set-point theory. I believe it. Lots do, including some who don't call it that. It explains why slow weight loss is more likely to last than quick fixes. I agree that the diet industry is part of the problem. I agree with the preceding posts on processed junk food and less movement, too. It all adds up to one big fat picture.0 -
It is simply a case of these factors in my opinion:
*Calories are EASY to get hold of.
*You can consume HIGH CAL DENSITY foods easily.
*These foods do not keep you full for long so you go for more.
*We live in a world where we do not require exercise in order to achieve daily tasks.
*Life is more complex because of the environment we live in and thus, we are more stressed, developing direct links between food and emotional relief.
There are many more, but I consider these to be some of the most important.0 -
"stress" is what I keyed in on.0
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It is simply a case of these factors in my opinion:
*Calories are EASY to get hold of.
*You can consume HIGH CAL DENSITY foods easily.
*These foods do not keep you full for long so you go for more.
*We live in a world where we do not require exercise in order to achieve daily tasks.
*Life is more complex because of the environment we live in and thus, we are more stressed, developing direct links between food and emotional relief.
There are many more, but I consider these to be some of the most important.
Agreed. And also add that calorie-dense foods taste good and our brains release all kinds of pleasant hormones when we eat them. That falls under your last category to some extent...more stress equals more pleasure-eating.0 -
Okayyyy....for the pm I just received and deleted, no I'm not making excuses for being fat. I am at my highest weight at 107.0
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Re the "poor", a lot look at food and think chicken, potatoes, vegetables and cooking time all add up to a lot of time and money whereas chuck a burger and chips in the oven, quick and easy and seems much cheaper. What they don't realise is that the chicken and veg cost the same, if cheaper than the frozen burger and chips option.
Well that is a load of nonsense. You are saying that chicken + potatoes make people slim but beef + potatoes make people obese!
Just because you add veg to the chicken dish doesn't make it any less fattening. In fact it could be MORE so depending on what people think is a "vegetable" (for example a LOT of British people think sweetcorn and tinned spaghetti hoops are a vegetable). It just adds carbs, calories and fat to the dish.0 -
I don't think it's the above so much as it is that most just don't care. Do we really believe there are people out there stupid enough to think that a diet composed entirely of chicken nuggets, cheetos and coca-cola is healthy?Everybody knows cigarettes are bad for you, but not everybody knows that Cheetos are bad too.
On second thought, don't answer that question - because there is a large contingent who believes that starving yourself, taking diet pills, fasting and sticking a hose up your rear end to "cleanse/detox" is healthy too....but heaven forbid they eat sugar, eewwww, teh unhealthy poisonzzz!0 -
To be honest though, I think it's more related to viruses, microbes, bacterium, and such. adenovirus -36?
Nobody has ever taken any notice of this when I've told them, and I don't know what to make of it, either, but I post it for general information. I was very thin as a child, until age 16 when (weighing about 130 lb) I began taking the contraceptive pill. Over the next two years my weight increased and by the age of 19 when I had a medical for a manual job I weighed 210. That was when I first started dieting. I dropped 20lb to get the job, by eating a diet entirely of ham and raw tomatoes and slimming biscuits.I then gained that back and carried on gaining until by age 52 I weighed 371 lb.
I was told by a kinesiologist that my pancreas was damaged and had been oversecreting insulin for many years.
I have no idea whether the Pill had anything to do with it. I stopped taking it when I was 23 but I suppose it COULD have somehow damaged my pancreas.0 -
I don't think it's the above so much as it is that most just don't care. Do we really believe there are people out there stupid enough to think that a diet composed entirely of chicken nuggets, cheetos and coca-cola is healthy?Everybody knows cigarettes are bad for you, but not everybody knows that Cheetos are bad too.
On second thought, don't answer that question - because there is a large contingent who believes that starving yourself, taking diet pills, fasting and sticking a hose up your rear end to "cleanse/detox" is healthy too....but heaven forbid they eat sugar, eewwww, teh unhealthy poisonzzz!
you are correct, they just don't care.0 -
Do we really believe there are people out there stupid enough to think that a diet composed entirely of chicken nuggets, cheetos and coca-cola is healthy?
I have received about 30 new friend requests on here in the last few days. Before adding people as friends I look at their food diaries if possible. I have today seen several instances of MFPers eating all the things you describe - and worse. One lady's diary showed that she drank a whole bottle of Coke and I could not help calculating in my head just how much nutritious, filling FOOD she could have had for the same calorie/carb count!0 -
I'm glad someone agrees with me!It is simply a case of these factors in my opinion:
*Calories are EASY to get hold of.
*You can consume HIGH CAL DENSITY foods easily.
*These foods do not keep you full for long so you go for more.
*We live in a world where we do not require exercise in order to achieve daily tasks.
*Life is more complex because of the environment we live in and thus, we are more stressed, developing direct links between food and emotional relief.
There are many more, but I consider these to be some of the most important.
Agreed. And also add that calorie-dense foods taste good and our brains release all kinds of pleasant hormones when we eat them. That falls under your last category to some extent...more stress equals more pleasure-eating.0 -
There is no secret answer to this: OVER CONSUMPTION. You get obsese from consuming calories.
A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
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Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition0 -
Television. Simple as that.
People started to sit on their *kitten* instead of spending time doing productive things.0 -
I don't. Guyunet just grabbed a theory. There is nothing in your food that's addictive.0
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I would like people to stop blaming McD's for obesity! People are the ones going and buying the food, McD's only supplies the food! I'm a parent of 2 boys and i take them to McD's like once every 2 weeks, and keep them on sports!0
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