Why is there an obesity epidemic, part 2.

jknops2

My question was about large populations, not individuals. Reading all this, it seems the overwhelming opinion of the question why individual are obese is that:

1. It’s the persons own fault. If you eat crap or too much, or both, you get obese. Your own fault and you yourself are to blame for this and you yourself have to solve this.
2. Secondary, to some degree the food industry is blamed with giving us too much and not good enough food. But again the opinion is you don’t have to eat it, and you are weak if you do eat too much of it.
3. And there are some outlier opinions that this is all a Monsanto/ USDA conspiracy to make us sick, so they make more money.
4. And a few deny that there is an obesity epidemic, it is just a government/scientist conspiracy to get more research money.


But the fact remains, 2/3 of the US is overweight and 1/3 is obese. And many countries worldwide are not far behind this statistic. If can’t believe that 2/3 of the entire US are just weak, spineless overeaters.

We also need to keep in mind that 2/3 of the US being overweight is going to have catastrophic health consequences which all of us will have to pay. Tobacco clearly also has bad consequence for people and we have severely restricted tobacco, by taxing it, outlawing in for kids and restricting where you can use it. Tobacco use was at a maximum of 40% of the US, weight is now an issue for 70% of the US. How much longer are we going to wait until we deal with this?

But, reading the above discussion, I see virtually no support for any government intervention here. Again as an individual, yes you can make a choice, but as a society where 2/3 of the entire country is overweight, I do think that we need to do much more than leave it up to the individual. I do think that similarly to tobacco use, we need to:

1. Regulate what are where the food industry can offer us. As many posters say we can’t help ourselves.
2. Outlaw food advertising, especially for children.
3. Tax, added sugar/fat, soft drinks, fast food, etc.
4. Stop subsidizing corn, and instead subsidize vegetables and fruit.


These are just some suggestions, but I see virtually no support for this in the US, even on MFP, where everyone is much more aware of weight and health than the general public is in the US. Any ideas why this is, or how we can change this? Or should we even address this?

fiberartist219

In my opinion, people are fat, because we have an abundance of food, but not necessarily an abundance of nutrition. We like foods that are convenient. Foods that are easy to store, like grains, or foods that have preservatives in them, are what we go for because they are easy. We can easily find these regardless of the weather conditions or what crops survived that year.

The more nutritious foods, in general, expire quickly. We have to eat them right away or not at all. They are more expensive and require a lot of planning.

Furthermore, our lifestyles have become much less active. We drive cars, sit at computers, and barely even get up all day long.

Yes, we can all eat a smaller amount of food and workout more, but we have to make a conscious effort to do so. Personally, sitting around all day eating junk food comes naturally, because that's the culture I live in. I have to really work at it to be active or to eat nutritious foods instead of salty, starchy, and greasy foods that are more readily available.

To a certain extent, I do think that the US government had a role in the epidemic, because in WWII, there was a lot of propaganda to eat foods that had a longer shelf life rather than fresh fruits and veggies. The ability to store food was somehow part of the war effort, because we could ration it a lot easier.

However, I don't think there is any sort of conspiracy to make us sick.

LorinaLynn

What Fiberartist said, plus I think part of the blame goes to the Diet Industry.

Once a upon a time, to lose weight, you ate less.

Then people figured out how to make money from that, by selling crappy-*kitten* "low calorie" foods, crappy-*kitten* weight loss books, crappy-*kitten* videos, crappy-*kitten* pills, all "guaranteed" to work easily and effectively, and they do work for a while, until you stop using them, then you gain it all back and then some. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I don't think it's a conspiracy to get people fat and sick. I think it's just plain greed.

onyxgirl17

laziness, easy access to food, cultural acceptance and sometimes cultural pressure to eat more... etc. etc.

rileysowner

Personally I think people are fat because we have an abundance of inexpensive food and we are much less active than we were even 70 years back. Few people work at physically demanding jobs, and while tired at the end of the day they have not burned nearly as many calories as they consumed. This is not a food quality issue, but an issue of living in developed countries, and the effects of the major changes in in it where even the more physical jobs like farming have been made less so by technology. When I was a child few farmers used the large bales for hay and straw which required human work to move stack them. Now the majority use large bales which are moved with a tractor. No more human , but most will eat as much as the same harder physical working farmers of 30 years back ate. The practical upshot is increased weight. Do the other things mentioned contribute to this. Possibly. Yet I still disagree strongly with the sort of things suggested in the OP.

tigersword

Americans eat, on average, about 500 calories a day more than they did 50 years ago. They also burn, on average, about 500 calories less than they did 50 years ago. It seems blatantly obvious to me.

We don't need regulation, we need education. We need fitness. I don't know how it is elsewhere in the US, but when I was in high school in the mid 90's, I was only required to take one quarter of physical education, and one quarter of health education, FOR ALL OF HIGH SCHOOL. Most Americans don't understand basic nutrition, and we don't work heavy manual labor jobs anymore. In the last hundred years we went from 98% farmers to 98% office workers. That's what has changed.

SideSteel

Americans eat, on average, about 500 calories a day more than they did 50 years ago. They also burn, on average, about 500 calories less than they did 50 years ago. It seems blatantly obvious to me.

We don't need regulation, we need education. We need fitness. I don't know how it is elsewhere in the US, but when I was in high school in the mid 90's, I was only required to take one quarter of physical education, and one quarter of health education, FOR ALL OF HIGH SCHOOL. Most Americans don't understand basic nutrition, and we don't work heavy manual labor jobs anymore. In the last hundred years we went from 98% farmers to 98% office workers. That's what has changed.

You mean it's not carb timing?

Mlkmaid

Portion size, high-fructose corn syrup, sedentary lifestyles, etc., etc.. When you really think about it, it should actually be easy to lose or maintain weight nowadays because they put calories counts on everything, there are "apps" and various programs at our disposal, a plentiful supply of pre-packaged meals, diet foods, and nutritious/organic food products, gyms, trainers, etc., etc.. Why are we all fat?????

kmacgera

I'm really not interested in govt telling us what to do. Note Bloomberg's decree that pizza deliveries cannot include 2 liter bottles of pop. This is the over-reaching of the nanny government.

We have far less physical work that is necessary to do than we used to. We could make choices, like washing our own cars, mowing our own lawns...

I personally have a job I work too hard at. Once upon a time I actually took a lunch break, would take a walk or go to the gym. Now I work until 6 or 7 pm. Far too tired to go work out at end of day (which is why I work out and come in late).

Wonder what's normal for most people on a working day?

Sharonks

I am opposed to government intervention on many things. I also see this as harder to tax. I know some states come up with junk food taxes that include things like carbonated drinks, chips, and candy. If you don't eat a lot of these things I guess you wouldn't mind paying a little tax on them. But many things are subject to whims of whether they are good or not. For a gluten free person they may see wheat as evil. A vegan is going to say tax all meat and animal products. An Atkins dieter is going to say that carbs are bad. I think any food eaten in excess is bad but how do you tax that?

I really see a lot of our weight problem as a problem with society. When I was a kid, most mom's cooked dinner. Kids played outside and ran around. Many adults worked in jobs that entailed some amount of physical labor. Now, many people don't cook, they pick up fast food or zap a frozen meal. Many people have jobs that require they sit in front of a computer all day. Kids play video games rather than tag, or maybe play tag in video games rather than irl. My husband remember that as a child having a soda pop was a rare treat. He remembers the handful of trips to McDonalds with Grandpa. I also remember when people took more responsibility for themselves.

I believe there are some things that are beyond our control. I think that hormones and other chemicals in our food affects our bodies. If the government is going to intervene in anything it should be at that level. I remember reading studies about residual antibiotics and female hormones appearing in drinking water because the various purifiers weren't able to remove them. There are strange things in our food stream like giving cows hormones to make more milk and now those hormones are in the milk we drink. Those are things that should be studied and eliminated if they are present.

Since some parents don't have the knowledge to teach their kids about healthy eating maybe that should be part of health and pe classes. Schools should be modeling better eating habits since not all parents do. And even when parents do, the kids will say that the school doesn't do that so obviously the parents don't know anything.

I believe that we are in charge of our own destiny and despite having health problems that exist for no known reason except perhaps genes I still believe I can choose to take care of myself or to not. I think the governments job is to ensure the safety of our food supply and ensure that companies are accurately reporting what is in their product. It is up to me to decide whether I want to consume it.