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

LilEmm

hahaha! That's so untrue! Financially successful men don't generally marry obese women, sheesh. You raise some interesting points.

In poorer areas, the cheapest and most filling food is fast food. In poorer neighborhoods that I've been in, there isn't a whole lot of fresh produce or quality ingredients available. I lived in San Francisco - it was all liquor stores in the broke parts of town. Beautiful grocery stores in the affluent areas.

That said, it seems to be a combination of culture, lack of knowledge about healthy choices, willfully bad behavior, and a lack of access to good food.

California has started a program where food stamps are accepted at farmer's markets, which is pretty cool, and farmer's markets are starting to be held in, my town anyhow, in the more impoverished areas.

I've noticed that it's definitely related to family income. I drive around a lot for my job and I go to the high-end and low-end areas. In the more affluent areas, obese people are not the norm. I got stuck a school crosswalk the other day in a better neighborhood and had about 150 kids pass in front of my car, and I didn't see a single fat one. But if I'm in an area with cheaper housing, more than half would be chubby or bigger. It's cultural as much as anything. I have a theory that kids tend to be about the same size as their mom, and financially successful men don't generally marry obese women.

I wasn't fat as a kid. It wasn't until I made my own money that I got fat.

I have no comment on income related to obesity, I'm just stating my OWN circumstance.

linsey0689

It is totally out of control and really I don't see it slowing down anytime soon. It is so hard to fit it all, but for all/most of on this site knows how worth it, it really is.

twingirlsmommy

After watching the documentary 'Supersize me' and then reading this quotation in a weight loss blog--I know that Canada's numbers are similar. So now I'm going to rant--and please bear with me! IF you love your children, please, be conscious of what you put in their bodies!! You are the adult, YOU buy the groceries and YOU pack their lunch therefore YOU are in control of this. There should be healthy, delicious snack choices they can pick at all times! Prepare nutrious meals--you don't need to spend hours in a kitchen to do this and it does not break the bank! This is an investment in your childs future! Teach them by example! Lead an active lifestyle and remember YOU are the one who can take them to the swimming pool, drive them to dance, walk them to school, take them to a sports practice. YOU are the one who can bike ride with them, run with them and play with them on the playground or even kick a soccer ball with them. YOU are the one who can shut the TV or computer off! YOU ARE THE ADULT! There are no excuses!!! It saddens me to see the number of overweight children I am seeing when I go out--anywhere! I was an overweight child and mentally and physically it affects you for the rest of your life! My girls watch me exercise everyday and they go for walks with us. My husband and me eat healthy meals. Our children see that a treat is a treat and it is something we have once in a while, when we go out and we DON'T have "treats" in the house! This is my norm and this will become there norm . . . they will not know any other lifestyle because this it.

dgljones

One aside, I hate it when they throw overweight in with morbidly obese to creat some shocking percentage for a news story.
A 200 lb 6 foot tall man could be overweight or he could just as easily be in superb physical condition, but for the sake of the story he is overweight.

Fishshtick

Here's an example of how in denial we are of this epidemic. Rather than insult people with the realization of how obese they are, clothing sizes have shifted with our body sizes over time. A woman's size 8 in 1950 would wear a size 00 today. Most people can't actually even fit into vintage clothing. There is a similar trend with clothes sized S,M,L. The simple fact is that people don't like buying clothing that tells them how fat they are, so retailers select brands that are sized larger than others and over time this has increased the size of S,M, and L. Retailers that make their own brands are really aware of this and market to their clientele, so S, M, L run larger at Walmart than say the GAP.

neanderthin

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?

Sounds more like conspiracy theory 101to me.

laridae79

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.

Well, my daughter is fully vaccinated and is also very healthy & never needs antibiotics - so if we are going by anecdata that refutes your statement. Thankfully most people vaccinate which allows your un-vaccinated grandkids herd immunity.

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.

Yep, those that didn't die from small pox, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, whopping cough and polio (or permanently disabled) did just fine. Obviously most of these that did die of these never became anyone's grandparents. How soon we forget.

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.

....

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

Yep - these are the only things in your post that actually make any sense.

nc90

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.

Wow. No. There are so many things that are wrong and misinformed in your post. I The fact that you just blamed vaccines and antibiotics for the obesity epidemic is just downright scary. Without vaccines, smallpox would likely still be running rampant. As well as measles, polio, and several other diseases. And fluoride in water is not causing an epidemic of thyroid issues. If people are consuming too much fluoride it's because they're swallowing their toothpaste. As someone who graduated with a degree in biomedical Sciences and is starting medical school this fall, the amount of fear mongering in your post is fairly sickening to me.

Obesity is caused by a poor diet and lack of physical activity. Basically, taking more calories in than you expend. The reasons that people are living this way are incredibly vast; socioeconomic status, lack of education, motivation, etc. The list goes on and on. It really is a terrible thing that we have got to start changing in our country. My class and internship in public health really showed how bad it is to live in a low income area. Parks really aren't safe and oftentimes the goal of those breakfast and lunch programs for kids at school is to get them as many calories as possible because many of the kids don't have food stability at home.

I think a lot of it comes down to encouraging and educating people on the importance of managing their own health, and providing some outlet for people to be able to get active and making healthier food options more accessible and affordable.

dawnna76

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?

Sounds more like conspiracy theory 101to me.

I agree, conspiracy theory or personal agenda, you choose. I have to fully vaccinated children who have never Ben sick once between the two of them. They are age 6 and 4. I have friends with same. I personally think the amont of antibiotics needed to cure sickness has more to do with our DNA. Some allies just seem to run sick while others seem healthy. My whole side of the family has a healthy gene as from my grandma on down to my children, cousins etc all seem to never get sick.

Aside: I am so proud that neither of my children have missed a day of a school all year kinda like a weird proud badge I wear.

As for obesity in America, especially in our children. Education is key. My sons teachers talk with them about healthy choices all the time in school, they come me and ask about if this food is healthy and so on. The are the change and with education they can be the generation to make the shift. Also as a parent I make a point to make sure my kids see me doing activities and exercising. Going to the gym everyday is just part of our schedule its not unusual for them to mention something if we miss a day. I also know I am in control of them so we don't have cable, they earn time for video games by doing chores and behavior rewards with a max time set. I also don't let them have candy or sweets at home they are only for special occasions (this coming from cake decorator!) and we keep no foods with artificial color or sweeteners in the home

mistesh

This country was fairly stable for a long time, then a shift appeared about thirty years ago, from where it has gone steadily downhill ever since. An example. From 1965 to 1981, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) refused to approve aspartame. With the country's new administration in 1980, a new FDA Commissioner took over and approved aspartame. In short, we ourselves are to blame. Deregulation, strengthening the food industry and pharmaceutical companies. American families used to spend 15% on food and half of that on health care; now it's the opposite. Portions used to be half the size. The shift meant more people became poorer and bought Happy Meals, as a life experience rather than simply food. But if we choose to eat on and forget about our health until the last minute, can we blame anyone primarily but ourselves? Some say education would help, some say healthier options would help. But that's not all as long as there is dopamine and there is motivated reasoning.

volume77

it's sad

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.

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?

I think diet and lifestyle play a much more important role but vaccines and antibiotics are also part of the picture. At one time, the medical establishment argued that it was genetics because it seemed to be a "family" phenomena. But then genetic changes could not account for the virtual "explosion" of obesity in the last thirty years. Epidemiologists would look for the factors that parallel the rise and the "explosion" of "high-calorie fast food" and restaurant eating, in general, along with our ever-increasing consumption of sugar tracks well with the rise in obesity. Since a lot of medical studies are "sponsored" by Big Pharma, it is unlikely that vaccines and antibiotics will be linked to the rise in obesity any time soon. However, there are a few studies that suggest that this might be the case. Here is an article that cites a number of studies: http://www.healthy.net/Health/Article/Do_Vaccines_Disable_the_Immune_System/539

From the article: "...One answer came in a careful study of illness patterns observed in babies before and after vaccination, published in Clinical Pediatrics in 1988. If vaccines cause a weakened immune system, then we would expect to see a higher incidence of illness following vaccination. In that study conducted in Israel, the incidence of acute illnesses in the 30 day period following DTP vaccine was compared to the incidence in the same children for the 30 day period prior to vaccine. The three-day period immediately following vaccine was excluded because children frequently develop fever as a direct response to vaccine toxins. A total of 82 healthy infants received DTP, and their symptoms were reported by parents and observed by a pediatrician at weekly intervals. Those babies experienced a dramatic increase in fever, diarrhea, and cough in the month following DTP vaccine compared to their health before the shot...."

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.

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?

Sounds more like conspiracy theory 101to me.

Not really a conspiracy--just corporatism seeking $$$. Vaccines and antibiotics contribute a LOT of dollars to Big Pharma's bottom line. And Big Pharma has near total influence over the medical establishment. NO ONE in the medical establishment is going to suggest, any time soon, that the huge numbers of vaccine injections that we give to young children is a bad idea. (A few brave docs have raised their voices to protest the number and timing of the injections. Sadly, they get labeled as "quacks".) Some vaccinations don't even make any sense. A child's immune system does not even respond well to vaccines until around the one-year mark. So why are we giving them to 3 month-old infants?

As another example of the nonsensical nature of vaccine administration: Giving a polio vaccine to an infant in poor countries is a really dumb idea, but it is done anyway. When we decided that we were going to wipe out polio from areas in Africa where it is endemic, no one thought to look at the patterns of infection and the damage that they do at various ages. When an infant or young child gets polio, it is a mild to serious infection but with low mortality and virtually no residual problems. But the important thing to remember here is that IT CONFERS A LIFETIME OF IMMUNITY. The polio vaccine, on the other hand, is only effective, at best, for ten years. AND when teenagers contract polio, there is not only a much higher mortality rate, BUT it is very much more likely to produce disability. In poor countries, disability for a young man or woman is a near death sentence--or at the very least, a future of begging.

Trueray

Its a way to keep the population down. If everyone was healthy it would be twice the amount of people living in the U.S right now.

StheK

I do think it's sad but I don't think that it's just something that hit us out of nowhere and it's not something that is just hitting the United States. The whole world is going through the same thing on some level.

If you think back to how much food has changed and the way we deal with it on a daily basis. Food is all over the place all the time. There is no place where there isn't food or we don't eat.

Also you have to take into consideration how much LESS physical activity we do that 50/100 years ago. Technology does everything for us now. There are machines that fix machines.

There is also a lack of nutritional information out there. Admittedly I have fallen for a lot of the fad diets over time but look at our own food pyramid. How many times has that changed since it came out? There is a lot of old information that people hold onto as the written word and in the next ten years imagine what they'll come out with.

I realize that there are a lot of programs in place to try to help people but it's going to take a long time to fix this. It's easy to not care about your health and it takes planning and dedication to eat well and exercise. It takes will power and an inner strength on the days where you just don't want to and most people like the path of least resistance. I know, I was one of them!

I agree. And I would add that our food manufacturing system is completely broken, too. That's a big part of the problem.

smantha32

plynn54

Its all about Convenience, drive through restaruants, drive by pharmacy, Convenience stores, banks, we even have a drive through flower store, doors that open for us, we are lazy why get out of the car if you dont have to

rankingfullstop

It's terrible. I think it has a lot to do with portion sizes and the "foodie" culture here in the USA. Look at all the food and restaurant oriented websites. I think it's fine to enjoy different foods but some of the meals offered in restaurants are just over the top. I'm 20lbs overweight and while I do need to lose nowadays 20lbs is probably not as far on the excessive end as it would have been years ago.

I live in Washington, D.C. which is a healthy city. So here I'm definitely on the heavier side.

HotrodsGirl0107

I notice it all the time and I used to be one of those obese people. I live in Alabama so it is more likely to see an overweight or obese person than a normal weight person. I am unfortunately seeing my little nephew develop a weight problem and it breaks my heart. He is only 5 and already gaining a lot of excess weight. Both his parents are obese and openly practice fat acceptance even though the mom's body is eat up with weight related health problems as well as the dad but they don't see anything wrong with having their kid follow in their footsteps. Unfortunately I am just supposed to keep my mouth shut and continue to let them feed that poor child a steady diet of pizza cola and fast food cheeseburgers. He doesn't even know what veggies are outside of french fries and unfortunately I am not exagerating.

jsiricos

I think the Obesity in the US is definalty linked straight to the economy and food supply (both store and restaurant bought)

Many have said about children not playing outside, yes, thats a factor, I was always outside, but honestly, how many parents could do what ours did, and tell children to "go outside and play until dinners ready"
Having my children out of my sight, was not an option as they were growing up, I don't trust anyone now. Yet I was always up tree's falling in rivers, running from trouble (yes, I was a tomboy) The world is no longer safe to send kids out to play.

I would always ride my bike too (in the UK) but here in the US, most drivers have no clue how to pass a cyclist, I won't cycle outside, it's just not safe.

Economy - yes, times are rough, people COULD make better choices in the grocery store, but a comparison between the UK and US, a few years back (2 I think) we were home for Christmas, Sprouts were 99 pence a pound - my teen, at the time.. LOVES them *shudder* Come back to the US, can only find Sprouts for $3.99 for 8 oz, cello wrapped...

You can't make people eat healthy if the healthy food is priced way out of budget.

If you want healthy, veggies need to drop in price, junk food needs to have a "junk food tax" or some sort of incentive.

Restaurants, whoa, All You Can Eat - seriously? Even when I used to have to go with my ex, I could only eat one small plate to his 3 or 4. The mentality is "I paid for it, I'm going to eat it"
Recent trip for Lunch with a friend, I got the Salmon, no sides, small salad. She got it as it comes, the pile of smashed Potatoes was as big if not bigger than the Salmon, with a tiny side of Brocolli.

Question is tho, if you were not on MFP, doing your best to lose, would you notice the overweight people and the junk in their shopping baskets? Or would you be blissfully unaware?

amelia_atlantic

I'm actually writing a research paper on the "sociology of food" for my class. The childhood obesity rates are ridiculous and public schools have a lot to do with it. In what world does cutting funding for LUNCHES and athletic (or even gym class equipment) seem like the logical place to start handling a budget crisis?!
We base student's intelligence and over all competancy as an education system based on standardized tests. If we're feeding our kids starches and fried food washed down with soda; how can they really perform on these tests or study for them without the inevitable sugar crash?

Something very interesting I've found in my research is a book called "Fat is a Feminist Issue" by Susan Orbach (I think). She states that "owning your body image" even at an obese weight and shunning society's perception of what "feminine" is. Now, I have feminist tendencies though I've never been an extremist. I think this idea is good in theory. No, we shouldn't carry self hate around but "owning" an overweight body image doesn't change the health risks of carrying around that weight. What we should be "owning" is our health not just our image.

I could go on for days...

Blacklance36

Two of my overweight neighbors have a three year old. They were bragging to me about how "big" he is for his age. It starts right there with some people. The kid was not tall, he was overweight. Nothing to brag about as far as Im concerned.

I was recently in Vegas (I live in Alberta) and was shocked at the difference in weight of the population between where I live and what I saw in Vegas.
I could not believe the serving sizes at restaurants either. My buddy and I started sharing meals after the first couple as we were leaving food behind. One restaurant had three different kinds of gravy....

Sweet_Potato

I live in a thriving urban neighborhood and actually experience the opposite. I do a double-take when I see an obese person here because it's such a rare sight! My neighborhood is very walkable, with good bike paths and an excellent bikshare system, and a lot of outdoor spaces for people to exercise in and for children to play in. The neighborhood is full of gyms and yoga studios and other fitness studios, and when the weather gets nice there will be a lot of free outdoor exercise classes. We also have a lot of farmer's markets and good grocery stores.

My place of employment is another story. My coworkers all live out in the suburbs and most of them are overweight. They have to drive to get anywhere and have extremely long commutes, and I'm guessing they don't eat as well.

The problem is that most of the U.S. is like where they live and not where I live. But the good news is that more and more people want to live in cities or are putting pressure on their communities to become more walkable and bikable with better food options.

k8blujay2

To me, it just shows me how lazy and full of excuses we all are (I'm including myself here). We opt for the easy way out instead of what is better...

SoDamnHungry

I had a similar experience to yours. I was sitting at a table in a restaurant one day and looked around...and realized that truly, it looked like 2/3 of the people were actually overweight. I think it's terrifying. And it makes me angry that people are either so uneducated, so lazy, or have so little self control that they get like that, accept it as normal, and then pass it on to their kids who often never even have a chance when it comes to being healthy and physically fit.

Interestingly, I'm spending some time in the city and have noticed how much trimmer people are there. I'm in one of the "hip" neighborhoods, where people walk a lot and and are young and pretty concerned with how they look. Not that overweight people don't, of course, but these people are trendy and in pretty good shape.

Bane81

It's a real sad state in our society. Even though I'm Canadian, the same kind of issues have been plaguing us as well. The fast food industry is a huge reason why there is such an epidemic. It's much faster and cheaper to buy a happy meal for your kids, which is what a lot of parents will do. Meal planning and preparation takes more time then what the average person is willing to do in this day in age. If there's an easy way out, a lot of folks will naturally go that route.

I fell right into this trap, the high school cafeteria sold a lot of junk, vending machines full of salty, sugary snacks. I used to play football as a defensive line back so I figured the bigger I was, the harder they would fall. Unfortunately it all eventually caught up with me because as we age our metabolism slows way down.

I'm not sure if we can ever solve this epidemic, but we can salvage some of it. Food industry corporations are way too powerful, lobbying and paying off politicians to dump tons of chemicals into the food we eat and water we drink. Not to mention all the GMO's scientists have started to mess with, our bodies are getting bombarded all the time from this crap.

smantha32

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.

I was raised by a single mom.. however in the 70's she could work part time and still have enough money to raise us. She still cooked.
People can't do that anymore.

sunman00

An outsiders view if I may;

I travel to the US a lot, & there are some big differences in what you might call 'average size'

the two worst offenders; Hawaii & Florida, lots of huge people in both states; it's 'all you can eat' all over the place, and where you're served the portions are what one might call 'massive'.

the best? NYC & most of California; healthy lifestyles stand out here, lots of joggers, walkers, healthy eating shops, salads, fruit juice bars etc

something else I've noticed, actually in Dallas & Boise, Idaho; people drive everywhere, there's little or no what we call pavements, I'm not saying the prevalence is obesity but folk don't have ankles or calf muscles, the legs are undefined ?

when we order in the protions that come will easily do dinner & lunch the next day; pizza sizes are simply huge, it's fries with everything,

the worst thing we saw was in Disney, Florida, a family of 4, Mum & Dad were in those motorised wheelchairs, barely able to walk & their kids were well on their way to a similar fate; they'd paused for a mid morning snack from their rucksacks, all 4 of them ate a whole tube of pringles and drank a litre of soda, i dread to think what was for lunch.

There's a big deal about healthy eating here in the UK at the moment; Jamie Oliver has been getting involved in school lunch menus, 'cookery' TV is big with the accent on a healthy balance of fruit & veg thrown in BUT it's noticable that you see more obses people of all ages, it may be a whole Western world problem?

darrenhough1976

Portion size is easily 2-3 times what it was when I was a kid in the early 80's. It's not just fast food places either. Check out the calorie count on the AVERAGE meal at a restaurant like Maggiano's or Macaroni Grill....easily 1000 calories, probably 1500-1800 without even including drinks. An entire day's worth of eating in one meal. And that's not even including desserts and giant bottomless sodas and sweet teas. Order fries at a chain sit down restaurant and you're going to get what three people would've eaten in 1979. I ordered the salmon at Pappdeaux once and was presented with a plate the size of a snow shovel that held at least a 12-14 oz piece of salmon, sitting on a bed of probably 1500 calories worth of french fries. And that was one of the more reasonable things they had on the menu.

Fries used to be in a tiny paper bag....now they come in a cup that could hold 32 oz of liquid. When my grandfather was a kid, sodas were in 6 oz. bottles. 8 oz. bottles came along when my dad was a kid, 12 oz. cans were normal when I was a kid, and now you're hard pressed to find anything less than a giant 20 oz serving of soda sold as a single serving.

Coffee is another hilarious one. For so many people a normal coffee is a 600 calorie 40 oz. frappachino with whipped cream and chocolate chips. That's not a coffee, that's a milkshake with coffee in it.

it's been my experience that people usually have no clue as to how many calories they are cramming into their bodies every day. They ingest 3000+ calories a day, walk on the treadmill once or twice a week for 15 minutes while reading a magazine, and say that diets "don't work".

I

Sweet_Potato

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.

I don't think weather is necessarily a factor. The population here in Washington DC is very fit, but the weather is crappy most of the year: unpleasantly cold in the winter (it's snowing right now, in fact) and insanely hot and humid in the summer. Yet people still get out and move around. I actually thought San Diego's population was a bit on the heavy side, for a city. You have the beautiful weather but you also have to get in a car and drive to most places which encourages inactivity.