Why is there an obesity epidemic?

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  • 366to266
    366to266 Posts: 473 Member
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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.
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,344 Member
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    Everybody knows cigarettes are bad for you, but not everybody knows that Cheetos are bad too.
    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?

    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!
  • 366to266
    366to266 Posts: 473 Member
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    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.
  • etoiles_argentees
    etoiles_argentees Posts: 2,827 Member
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    Everybody knows cigarettes are bad for you, but not everybody knows that Cheetos are bad too.
    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?

    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.
  • 366to266
    366to266 Posts: 473 Member
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    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!
  • julianpoutram
    julianpoutram Posts: 331 Member
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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.
    I'm glad someone agrees with me!
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,695 Member
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    There is no secret answer to this: OVER CONSUMPTION. You get obsese from consuming calories.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
  • AoifeEpic
    AoifeEpic Posts: 10
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    Television. Simple as that.

    People started to sit on their *kitten* instead of spending time doing productive things.
  • etoiles_argentees
    etoiles_argentees Posts: 2,827 Member
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    I don't. Guyunet just grabbed a theory. There is nothing in your food that's addictive.
  • iBluAcura
    iBluAcura Posts: 8 Member
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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!
  • 366to266
    366to266 Posts: 473 Member
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    Television. Simple as that.

    People started to sit on their *kitten* instead of spending time doing productive things.

    Wrong.

    Millions of THIN people sit around watching TV, playing computer games, working at desk jobs, driving to and from work.

    I have four sisters and a brother, all now in their 60s, all of them thin, and they have never dieted in their lives. One sister is a chocoholic. None of them ever exercise. In fact, out of the six of us, I am the ONLY one who does regular exercise. I don't think any of the others even own a pair of trainers.

    My boyfriend has a desk job, has never been to a gym, never been for a run, never done any pressups and cannot swim. He eats and drinks whatever he likes including fry-ups, crisps, sugar in his coffee, plenty of wine, and he is more or less the same weight as he was 30 years ago - currently 144 pounds @ 5ft 8. (That is him on my profile photos - and yeah, both is parents worked!.)

    How does my family and boyfriend fit in with the hypotheses of most of the posters above who blame obesity on laziness and eating the wrong foods? According to your theories, all my siblings and my boyfriend should be obese.
  • etoiles_argentees
    etoiles_argentees Posts: 2,827 Member
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    Oh for pete's sake, James Neal proposed the thrifty theory and then denounced once he had done more studies. Just listen to ninerbuff.
  • jakkidoodles
    jakkidoodles Posts: 103
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    Because we all work so much that we cannot be bothered to cook properly and all that is available are the quick fixes like cheese sarnies and crisps and coke, subway meals at lunch, ordering chinese in the evenings, putting sausage and chips in the oven, eating it and going to bed, waking up early, driving to work, sitting at your desk all day it all starts again.... Well, there's some answers. Not all, but it contributes. Hasn't obesity rocketed since we have needed to be two working parent families?
  • jakkidoodles
    jakkidoodles Posts: 103
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    Saying that, I'm lucky enough to be a stay at home mum, but both my parents worked and I grew up on quick sausage egg and chips in the evenings........
  • etoiles_argentees
    etoiles_argentees Posts: 2,827 Member
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    "People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives."
    J. Michael Straczynski
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,344 Member
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    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!
    You'd probably have a heart attack if you saw the things in my diary, then. I eat Big Macs, candy bars, pizza, potato chips, cookies, pie, cake, beer, hard alcohol, ice cream and all kinds of other "unhealthy" things. On the other hand, I eat all those things in moderation within the context of a mostly "healthy" diet including lean meats, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, lots of water, etc. My weight loss ticker keeps moving downward, I've lost about 12% body fat and have absolutely no known medical/health issues.

    I didn't get overweight because of some government conspiracy, or the food industry, or anybody else. It wasn't my "hormones", or my "body type". I got overweight because I sat on my butt, didn't exercise and ate a lot more than I should a lot of the time. With the exact same government, exact same food industry, exact same hormones and exact same body type still in place, I've fixed my problems and lost the weight. I did that by moving more, eating less and making good choices.
  • 366to266
    366to266 Posts: 473 Member
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    You'd probably have a heart attack if you saw the things in my diary, then. I eat Big Macs, candy bars, pizza, potato chips, cookies, pie, cake, beer, hard alcohol, ice cream and all kinds of other "unhealthy" things.

    Quick - somebody call me an ambulance!
  • julianpoutram
    julianpoutram Posts: 331 Member
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    I don't. Guyunet just grabbed a theory. There is nothing in your food that's addictive.
    This is just an entirely wrong statement. If food wasn't addictive or didn't have something inside it that was, would we eat it at all? The answer is undoubtedly no. We require an addiction to food so that we do not die out, it is so integral to our survival that it would be silly to even make a statement like yours without first thinking about what you're saying!
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,344 Member
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    I don't. Guyunet just grabbed a theory. There is nothing in your food that's addictive.
    This is just an entirely wrong statement. If food wasn't addictive or didn't have something inside it that was, would we eat it at all? The answer is undoubtedly no. We require an addiction to food so that we do not die out, it is so integral to our survival that it would be silly to even make a statement like yours without first thinking about what you're saying!
    There's a big difference between "addictive" and "instinctive/essential".
  • RobynC79
    RobynC79 Posts: 331 Member
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    I don't. Guyunet just grabbed a theory. There is nothing in your food that's addictive.
    This is just an entirely wrong statement. If food wasn't addictive or didn't have something inside it that was, would we eat it at all? The answer is undoubtedly no. We require an addiction to food so that we do not die out, it is so integral to our survival that it would be silly to even make a statement like yours without first thinking about what you're saying!

    Reward and addiction are two different things - one is a pathalogical dysregulation of the other (like cell division vs cancer - one is normal, the other is a pathalogical, uncontrolled state of that process). Just because the brain offers a neurochemical reward for certain actions does not imply 'addiction' to those same actions. The brain rewards eating (and many other actions) by releasing various neurotransmitters that activate the reward pathways that provide a happy or pleasurable feeling, but this is not addiction. Not even close.

    Perhaps you should consider some thinking prior to making incorrect statements too.

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