What do you think of the obesity epidemic in the U.S.?

quirkytizzy

I can tell you with fair accuracy what demographic a given television program is aiming for based on the commercials. See ads for luxury vehicles and travel? You're watching a program geared toward the upper middle class and above. See commercials for pizza, chips, and candy-bars? You're watching programming geared toward blue collar worker and below.

It's not that the more affluent are more virtuous and informed eaters, it's simply that they have more money to entertain and enjoy themselves in ways that don't involve stimulating brain chemicals with cheap foods.

There are other reasons, too, of course, including availability and access to information plus the time and energy to properly absorb and put into practice healthy eating and exercise, but most of it I think boils down to food as a form of entertainment and comfort for those of us who can afford little else. For similar reasons alcohol, drug, and cigarette smoking are also higher among the poor.

You're making lots of sense.

And I like you for it.

zephtalah

I look at my before and after picture, and I think to myself "self, what epidemic are people talking about. Clearly this country is just 90 days from being in great shape, they are just too lazy to put down their cable and workout"

Its self inflicted, like calling suicide murder. Parents are bad for raising their kids with technology. And the upcoming generation will need to fix itself all on its own since nobody is going to do it for them.

I would agree with most of what you are saying. However, "Parents are bad for raising their kids with technology." ? Parents should teach their children about technology, and how to use it responsibly. Some of my uses for technology - MFP and youtube workout videos. I would agree that most children would do far better to go play outside and explore the real world than be glued to some electronic devise the majority of their waking hours. Moderation is key to so many areas of live. However, if you meant raising their children by technology (i.e. no hands on parenting and sticking them in front of screen after screen so they won't be bothered) then I could agree.

Ashwee87

I live in Mississippi and you see "fat" everywhere. I guess I was so numb to it for so long growing up with it, but after living in the PNW for a couple of years and moving back, especially now that I am making this change, I have noticed it even more. It honestly makes me sad. Almost everyone in my family is overweight, most morbidly and my grandfather just recently had a heart attack and had to have a triple bypass. He is the reason I decided to change. It all boiled down to eating habits to why he had his heart attack.

What makes me even more sad, my dad is really overweight and my mom is mildly overweight. I was talking to my mom about a week or so ago because my brother is on a "diet" and she was complaining about how she couldn't eat pizza or other things. It really made me sad that even after what happened to my grandfather, they don't seem to care or want to change.

Also, I have a cousin, who just turned 17 in January who is over 300 lbs. She has been morbidly obese for most of her life. I want to cry when I see her...it truly breaks my heart....

nokanjaijo

I notice this stuff too all the time. I play a game as I am driving and count how many overweight ppl I see vs how many healthy people. Nearly everyone you see is overweight.

However, when you go to places like San Diego CA it is the opposite. Nearly everyone IS in shape. My bf and I played a game to see if we could find an overweight person. It took us about an hour and we only saw ONE. Everyone was walking, biking, skateboarding. I guess where it is warmer, there is more of an opportunity to "get out and move". In colder states we would freeze many days in the winters if we tried to walk. The ice, snow and freezing rain are also a factor. Lack of sun is yet another factor as the sun (vit D) can speed metabolism.

That is my city. I moved here from Houston where it is either too cold or prohibitively hot and muggy. Eating is just the only thing people do there. There are more restaurants than people in that city, it seems.

I know a women who moved from here to Houston for work for a few years. She put on 25lbs there and took it off again when she returned. It's crazy.

summertime_girl

People aren't all that fat in the Boston area. Of course there are some fat/obese people, but it's not pervasive, IMO. I think it's a mentality and a lifestyle that promotes it.

amyplaysflute

I feel like we don't even notice when people are overweight. You have to be obese for anyone to consider you unhealthy. It makes me sad. People don't realize how simple it is to eat normal portions and not keep gaining weight.

angmarie28

its so sad and scary, I worked at Burger King 6 years ago, and there were quite a few families that would come in and all of them wold order like double whoppers with king sized fry and drink, and they would come in and do this like 2-3 times a week. I could never let myself or my family go like that, when I was 172 lbs my skin would fold over and touch on my side and it drove me absolutly insane, i obssesed over it, which was help when I decided to lose weight. but I am determined to teach my kids how to be healthy. Im a vegetarian, and although the rest of my family is not, they still eat alot of my meals so they eat quite healthy, and I dont let them eat whenever they want, like my nephews have free range of their kitchen and I always see them with soda, cookies, candy ect, and it makes me want to cry, my kids get breakfast (cereal, oat meal, toast and yogurt, or sometimes bacon and eggs, pancakes, or poptarts) then a snack (has to be healthy, they choose either an apple, orange, banana or grapes) then lunch (sandwich, pizza bites, corndogs, basicly something kid friendly but not super unhealthy) then a snack (normaly like cheez its sometimes a couple cookies) then dinner is almost always healthy, always have a vegetable, and if they eat their dinner they sometimes get desert, like tonight they had popsicles. they have pop maybe once or twice a week, but they share a can.
I was never taught to eat healthy, so I had to learn for myself, and I want my kids to learn now.

walkdmc

I think it's sad and scary too. I wonder where the "fat" people are when I take my kids to their sport practices. I'm usually the fattest person there. So, I think overweight/obese people avoid the activities that would benefit them and their kids. It kinda makes me sad for the kids whose lives could be improved with more activity and the parents who avoid those activities, for whatever reason.

I agree with PP who claims Boston doesn't have many overweight people. There's definitely a regional fattness factor. I visited Albuquerque and Santa Fe a couple of years ago and saw very few overweight people.

MorganLeighRN

I was born in the 1960's and it was right around that time that agricultural policies in the US and Canada were changed to one of over-production. Junk-food essentially didn't exist before then, even things like McDonalds and Burger King were few and far between when I was a small kid, but by the late-70s and early-80s it had all started to change.

Phillip-Morris the company charged with addicting people to cigarettes moved all it's money into General Mills, Nabisco, Kraft, and other corporate foods. They became almost overnight the biggest producers of junk food in the world. And they put the 'pedal to the metal' radically changing how food is marketed and sold. They developed strategies based on salt, sugar and fat to get people into 'hyper-eating'.

<iframe width="400" height="225" src="http://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2013/3/1/salt_sugar_fat_ny_times_reporter&quot; frameborder="0"></iframe>

In January I was in Varadero, Cuba for a week relaxing on the beach. It was great but it was also a real eye-opener. The Cuban life expectancy is now greater than in the US, and it was really scary walking down the street in Varadero... there was no advertising.. no junk food.. no Burger King or McDonalds.. no Coca-cola... and everyone and I mean EVERYONE who was Cuban was in shape and athletic! They don't have junk food or video games, they play sports and read, they're all In Shape, it's like going back to the US and Canada in the 1950s or something. The only morbidly fat people were from Canada and Europe, the Cubans all looked like they could run a marathon, it was crazy.

Now in Canada soft drinks are in the top 3 foods purchased at supermarkets. Since when was Coca-cola a 'food staple' of people's diets?

In the mid-70s a big NFL lineman was about 6'1" tall and roughly 205 lbs. By the mid-80s you had the (approppirately named) Walter "The Refridgerator" Perry, who was somehting like 340+ lbs. People just got huge in about a decade or so period. One study I saw says we waste about 40% of all the food we buy in north america now. I could go on but it's too depressing.

We're kids of the "if it feels good, do it" generation. I'm not surprised our feel good spilled over into food.

THANK YOU!!!! We absolutely are a "if it feels good, do it" generation. Honestly, I don't feel sorry for them. They have made the choice to eat that way. All I can do it be accountable for myself and teach my son how to have a healthy life style and hope that he continues that with his own kids.

dwalt15110

I live in an economically depressed city where 90% of the students qualify for free lunch. I taught in this area for over twenty years and lived here all my life. I would see children in first grade who weighed close to 120 pounds. A lot of obesity can be related to culture. It only takes a trip to our local grocery store to see how much junk food is packed into the shopping carts. For some reason, people prefer to buy generic forms of doritos and chips and pop because they feel they can get so much more for their money. In reality, these foods make us crave more and more. I also have seen where children follow the weight pattern of their parents mainly because the parents cook the foods they grew up with. It becomes a vicious cycle, one that requires education to break. Unfortunately, schools can only do so much. Children learn about nutrition, know what is good for them, only to go home and be told eat what's before you or you can go to bed hungry. There is no simple solution to this problem. All we can do is model what is right and invite others to try it with us.

freddykid

The best advice I took during my weight loss is when grocery shopping, stay out of the middle of the store because all the good stuff is near the walls. All the Fruits, veggies, meat, and dairy. I do follow this as much as I can but when I venture into the middle isles, I see the problem. You can see the difference in shopping decisions. In my location many more fit/healthy looking people are near the perimeter of the store, many less healthy looking people fill the middle isles.

Obesity is not an epidemic it is a chosen lifestyle. You either change it or you don't, besides having a medical condition there is really no excuse. You don't even have to exercise at all.

IMO Kids don't just need to play more they really need to eat less. Fast food and sweets aren't forcing kids to get fat, parents are feeding kids too much.

VBnotbitter

I was born and raised in the UK and have lived for many years in Australia, two countries that statistically are catching up with the US in the obesity stakes. A few years ago though I went to live in Ohio for a year and it made me realise that whilst the UK and Australia may have increasing numbers with a BMI in the obese range they are way behind when it comes to numbers in the morbidly obese range. A number of things struck me as different in the US which possibly have an impact. Firstly there were hardly any sidewalks, and where there were there was never anyone using them. I could see the grocery store from my window but it was literally impossible to walk there without getting run over. Also whereas back home I hang my washing to dry and stand at the sink to wash up, in the States it was all dishwashers and tumble dryers - machines did everything. So the incidental exercise which is normal to most parts of the world is missing in the US. I'd take my kid to the playground and never see another family there so the kids arent running around either.

Secondly when I went to get groceries I'd often be the only shopper in the fresh veg section, and I frequently had to identify veg to the cashier so they could price them. My trolley would often get a second glance from other shoppers because it wasnt full of processed food. We lived right at the edge of a city in Ohio and I live right at the edge of a city in Australia but in Ohio there were 20 restaurants and 15 fast food places within less than a 5 minute drive. Here I have a 20 minute drive to the nearest fast food and only one restaurant anywhere close.

I guess what Im trying to say by this ramble is that everyone in the first world are living life styles where becoming overweight is easy but the US takes it to a whole new level where morbid obesity is enabled every step of the way.

MzBug

You can trace the start of the epidemic back to the 70's. That was when the shift from whole food to processed and fast foods kicked into high gear. Growing up we didn't have a lot of cash to feed a large family, we ate whole foods that were cooked at home. We didn't get sweets from the store, we made our own using real sugar, butter and whole flour. We grew our own vegies, and canned what we couldn't eat fresh. We went to the orchards and berry fields and picked what fruit was in season. We canned fruit and made our own jam and jelly. We drank whole milk and ate fresh eggs from a local farm. We did get the 5 cent loaves of cheap white bread from the day old bakery outlet and put it in the freezer.....7 lunch sandwiches a day would use an entire loaf. We never "bought" lunch at school. In the mid to late 70's my brothers were graduating and moving out of the house. We stopped "making our own" and started using store bought stuff. I (the youngest) was the only one in my family who had a weight problem.

This is also when all the additives, "fake fats" and GMO's came into play. The "for your health" diets started popping up in the late 70's and early 80's....no real fat, no salt, no sugar, etc. All these artificial foods and chemical additives had no long term testing done. All the pesticides being used to kill bugs is in our soil, little testing was done on the effects on humans. All the altered feed and antibiotics for the animals raised as food. Humans had been eatting whole foods for how many years? Let's change it!!

Most kids born after 1970 don't know (and didn't want to know) how to deal with whole foods. They were raised with the processed foods and eatting out often. People became more sedentary. This is what was taught to their kids, this is what is being taught to the next generation. Hindsight is 20/20.....but the government won't fess up to their part in it.

zillah73

bump

KenosFeoh

It's not so bad here in the Pacific NW. Most of the people I see in public places look height/weight proportionate, pretty much. Those I identify as obese are in the minority. I definitely see them, but not as many as people I'd consider to be of normal weight. Some of them are probably overweight, statistically speaking.

msliu7911

My husband and I made the same observation when we were at Six Flags last summer... it was something like 50% of all people we saw could definitely be classified as "overweight", nevermind obese. It was prevalent in both adults and children.:brokenheart:

I think about this anytime I go to places like Cheesecake Factory where they serve you a plate that could easily feed a family, and you see many people gladly scarfing down the whole thing themselves. I also think about it when I go to the Chinese Buffet and see how much people slap on their plates.. .as well as those Chinese Restaurants in the mall food court where they give you mounds of rice and Orange Chicken that are overflowing the styrafoam takeout container.

It really is a sad epidemic, and I hate that our nation has turned into one that "lives to eat" instead of "eats to live".

msliu7911

It's not so bad here in the Pacific NW. Most of the people I see in public places look height/weight proportionate, pretty much. Those I identify as obese are in the minority. I definitely see them, but not as many as people I'd consider to be of normal weight. Some of them are probably overweight, statistically speaking.

Good point, its really going to be depend where you are located in the US as well. I'm in Texas, which think most southern states have bad obesity rates.

victoronlife

I feel like it's an unfortunate combination of technology (kids are less likely to go play outside when they could play a game instead), marketing (makes a 1500 calorie burger look really really good), schools (let's face it, school food is not the most nutritional thing out there, and they are cutting back on recess), parenting (parents are obese, and make bad choices, so the kids follow suit) and money (a craptastic meal from McDonalds costs less than something healthy from the market).

AuntieMC

bump

NewLIFEstyle4ME

Wow, these replies are profound to me and also kinda of push of sorts for me too! Thank you ALL so much for your thoughts on this most important subject!

lolwutshannon

I'm honestly disgusted and saddened by the obesity rate in children. It is completely unacceptable.

I blame the advancement in technology- All kids do nowadays is sit in their homes and play video games, watch TV, etc.

The media- For scaring the living $h!t out of people, and causing them to keep their children confined in their home in fear that something horrible may happen. Sure, we do live in a sick disgusting world but you can't live in fear your entire life. Let your kid go out and ride his/her bicycle, play tag with his/her other bubble friends that aren't allowed to leave the house, get your kid involved in some kind of sport, anything to get them moving!

The higher divorce rate- Single parents have to work full-time in order to provide for their kids, pay their bills, and keep a roof over their head. Somebody who works 40+ hours per week doesn't want to come home and cook a healthy meal, it's too time consuming and exhausting after a long work day- or at least that's the excuse I've heard from others. Ordering pizza or going through the McDonalds drive-thru is far more convenient. This also applies to families who are not divorced. Since the economy has gone down hill, there aren't many stay at home parents anymore. So both parents work full-time, go home and the house needs to be cleaned, the kids need to be cared for, yadayadayada and mom and dad are too tired to cook after all of that.

TheRealParisLove

Portland, Oregon isn't so bad. I used to live in Eugene, Oregon and there were definitely more obese people there, but still most people were normal weight. It could be a combination of mild weather making outdoor activities feasible year round as well as an abundance of fresh, organic food. In the summer, you can literally eat free produce. Lettuce, herbs, mushrooms, berries and tree fruits grow wild just about everywhere. Growing a garden is a cinch. You'll end up with more food than you know what to do with even in the smallest container garden.

My guess is that it is the food that is the problem. Plenty of people have been sedentary, but not suffer from obesity. People don't know how to cook and are reliant on restaurants and pre-packaged meals. When you prepare all of your own food, you have more of an appreciation of what goes into particular dishes. If you've never made a batch of Toll House cookies, you may not be aware of how much butter and sugar are in those things! (half a pound of butter and 1.5 cups of sugar before adding in the chocolate and nuts!)

Once you start preparing all of your meals from scratch, what you eat is a real eye opener.

SanteMulberry

There are a lot of factors that combine to produce this illness (and anyone who thinks it isn't an illness isn't paying attention to the disease matrix that surrounds obesity). I personally think it starts with vaccines, in infancy. Vaccines are an assault on the immune system. My grandchildren are un-vaccinated and they enjoy unusual health and vitality---none of them have needed antibiotics. Not so, the vaccinated grandchildren of my friends. My friends say, "We never took antibiotics--never needed them. Seems like they are always on antibiotics now." Doctors have gotten more conservative about the administration of antibiotics, and that is a good thing, but weakened immune systems need antibiotics more often. Our grandparents (and their siblings) never got any vaccines and the vast majority of them lived to ripe old ages. Modern sanitation and nourishing food did a lot more for them than vaccines ever could. I might point out that our adult children got only about a quarter of the injections today's children get and each injection does further damage to their immune systems. Don't believe drug company "science" and propaganda--vaccines harm children.

Next comes round after round of antibiotics (because many vaccinated children have a tough time fighting off infections). It should be remembered that the largest use of antibiotics in this country is agricultural use. And they are used TO FATTEN livestock and make the animals grow bigger, faster!

Is there something in the water that's contributing? You bet! Fluoride--supposedly to make us have better dental health---is interfering with the thyroid activity of millions upon millions of people, because it fills iodine receptor sites. Thyroid disease is epidemic and it only takes a slight loss of thyroid function to cause a piling on of the pounds over time.

Diet is, as many of you have mentioned, is very important. Sugar and starch is calorie-dense and nutrient-poor, a recipe for weight gain. In addition, high carbohydrate diets are also implicated in loss of thyroid function.

Then, we have other pharmaceuticals, like psychoactive drugs which are being passed out like candy and they are notorious for causing weight gain. I know a young girl who was put on Seroquel and gained a hundred pounds and acquired Type II diabetes out of it. And she is STILL depressed!

Finally, are the kids sedentary because they are overweight, or are they overweight because they are sedentary? Both.

JUDDDing

What do you think of the obesity epidemic in the U.S. ?

I think it's hard to NOT be obese in this country. There is so much fast food, junk food, soda, etc. None of it is healthy but we buy it because it's cheap and it tastes good. Especially when money is tight, like it is now. I'm as guilty of this as anyone.

The food industry makes tons of money off our hunger, and the medical industry makes tons of money when we get sick. It's a win-win situation for them. So they keep shoving this cheap crap down our throats, knowing we will buy it. Until something major changes in this country, the obesity epidemic will continue.

If only we had free will.

Then we could make better choices.

TheRealParisLove

I guess I don't like the term epidemic. In my mind, an epidemic is a communicable disease. I don't believe being overweigh is communicable nor do I believe it is a disease.

Actually, studies prove that obesity is contagious:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/yourlife/food/diet-nutrition/2010-11-05-obese05_ST_N.htm

dixiewhiskey

If I shared what I really thought, I would get banned..

It's disgusting.. coming from someone who lives in a country where the majority of people live in a similar society as USA and are not as obese! Our country still has most of the fast food chains, mainstream food companies that our neighbours to the south have but it feels like our world is much different than those of Americans.

From an outsider looking in, I think a lot of the problem is attitude.. I read a post on LIVESTRONG.COM's Facebook page where they posted an article about NY mayor proposing a law banning large size soda. The proposal got overturned in the end but so many people on FB had the mentality that "this is America, if I wanna be fat I have that right".. there were even mothers who were in an uproar about it, happily admitting they always buy soda for their children. One woman who claimed to be a member of the navy harped on about how she was happy that she doesn't "have to pay" for the people who supported the ban and went on about how it is very un-American to support it.

When I grew up, computers were Commodores with floppy disks - I still had one, a TV in my room, game consoles.. but my parents always told me to go outside and play. Not many folks are doing that these days.. people out of stress turn to take out more than once a week and good, healthy food is becoming more pricey. I really think that if most Americans who are obese/overweight took charge, dropped the attitude and stopped supporting these big corps who create and offer poor food in grocery stores, there would be dramatic changes for the better.

SherryTeach

I think it's pathetic and embarassing. I was especially ashamed when I went to Europe on vacation and someone said, "You don't look like an American. You look good." We need to get our collective *kitten* together and stop making excuses for our gluttony and sloth. It's disgusting. :sick:

That happened to me too. I was visiting friends in France and a couple of people I talked to wondered how I could be an American since I was slender.

lolwutshannon

People aren't all that fat in the Boston area. Of course there are some fat/obese people, but it's not pervasive, IMO. I think it's a mentality and a lifestyle that promotes it.

I'm from New Jersey originally and it's the same way up there! There are overweight/obese people, but not half as much as there are in South Carolina which is where I live now. I can't even tell you the last time I saw somebody who was at a healthy weight aside from the people at my gym.

SRHelicity

There are a lot of factors that combine to produce this illness (and anyone who thinks it isn't an illness isn't paying attention to the disease matrix that surrounds obesity). I personally think it starts with vaccines, in infancy. Vaccines are an assault on the immune system. My grandchildren are un-vaccinated and they enjoy unusual health and vitality---none of them have needed antibiotics. Not so, the vaccinated grandchildren of my friends. My friends say, "We never took antibiotics--never needed them. Seems like they are always on antibiotics now." Doctors have gotten more conservative about the administration of antibiotics, and that is a good thing, but weakened immune systems need antibiotics more often. Our grandparents (and their siblings) never got any vaccines and the vast majority of them lived to ripe old ages. Modern sanitation and nourishing food did a lot more for them than vaccines ever could. I might point out that our adult children got only about a quarter of the injections today's children get and each injection does further damage to their immune systems. Don't believe drug company "science" and propaganda--vaccines harm children.

Next comes round after round of antibiotics (because many vaccinated children have a tough time fighting off infections). It should be remembered that the largest use of antibiotics in this country is agricultural use. And they are used TO FATTEN livestock and make the animals grow bigger, faster!

Is there something in the water that's contributing? You bet! Fluoride--supposedly to make us have better dental health---is interfering with the thyroid activity of millions upon millions of people, because it fills iodine receptor sites. Thyroid disease is epidemic and it only takes a slight loss of thyroid function to cause a piling on of the pounds over time.

Diet is, as many of you have mentioned, is very important. Sugar and starch is calorie-dense and nutrient-poor, a recipe for weight gain. In addition, high carbohydrate diets are also implicated in loss of thyroid function.

Then, we have other pharmaceuticals, like psychoactive drugs which are being passed out like candy and they are notorious for causing weight gain. I know a young girl who was put on Seroquel and gained a hundred pounds and acquired Type II diabetes out of it. And she is STILL depressed!

Finally, are the kids sedentary because they are overweight, or are they overweight because they are sedentary? Both.

You have diet and a sedentary lifestyle *after* scientifically-invalid thoughts on the roles of vaccines and antibiotics on weight? How do vaccines and antibiotics explain the regional and socioeconomic differences observed in obesity rates across the country? We know that obesity rates are much lower in Colorado and other areas where outdoor recreation is much more common. In addition, socioeconomic status is strongly correlated with the quality of the diet, calories consumed, and obesity rates. Changes in diet and "play"/exercising habits directly affect caloric balance (more "calories in" and fewer "calories out"), which makes sense when it comes to explaining the rise in weights.

Do you have results well-designed studies in peer-reviewed journals that attribute the rise in obesity to vaccines or antibiotics?

krazyforyou

It is especially difficult for people in longterm health care. when it takes 3 people to simply turn them it speaks volumes. The young and the old all ways get push to the wayside.