As a nation, we're getting steadily heavier - WHY?

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Replies

  • AlabasterVerve
    AlabasterVerve Posts: 3,171 Member
    There's research being done right now that shows one of the biggest indicators of childhood obesity is the diet of the mother while she was pregnant. It seems that it can "turn on" the fat gene (or some such) and even though these children are born a normal weight they just get fatter in an environment with abundant food.

    Not that I expect anyone to care. It's much more satisfying to believe there's no biological and environment reasons for the obesity epidemic and that it's "their own fault" for being bad, lazy people instead of something driving people to overeat. Everyone seems to absolutely revel in this idea that being fat is a well deserved punishment for a lack of character and thinness is a reward for a good, virtuous character. Truly bizarre.

    "They get fatter in an environment with abundant food". That would suggest they would not get fat if they did not overeat.
    Of course?

    So ... how would that not be their fault (or in the case of children, their parents fault)? The environment is not making anyone overeat. People choose to overeat.
    People eat when they're hungry. That's normal, not a character flaw.
  • sourberry
    sourberry Posts: 22
    Fake food and laziness.
  • cindergirl73
    cindergirl73 Posts: 51
    High fructose corn syrup! It's in EVERYTHINGGGG!

    AGREED!
  • belgerian
    belgerian Posts: 1,059 Member
    Fast Food, Uneducated I never really realized how much I was really eating till I started to pay attention and getting off my *kitten* and moving instead of sitting in front of a computer typing stuff (OOPS) Time to move.
  • Leiki
    Leiki Posts: 526 Member
    We are getting taller due to better nutrition being available.

    The baby boomers make up a larger percentage of the population than that age group has in the past, and face it, older people are usually either heavier or way way way thinner than younger people due to health issues.
  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
    The OP asked why we were getting heavier since the 90's.
    NO she did not. She just backed up her argument one piece of data from the 90's . Do you think that the reason we got fatter in the 90's and the 00' is somehow different than why we got fatter in the 80's?

    Nope. I think it's always been the increasingly sedentary lifestyle.

    ETA: and yeah, the OP did ask about weight gain since the 90's (went back to make sure I read it correctly)
  • tmauck4472
    tmauck4472 Posts: 1,785 Member
    Because fast food is on every corner and we have no self control, because boxed foods are easier and less time consuming than makeing healthy food. Because we work our jobs till late in the day and our family's are starving by the time we get home so we reach for fast and easy over time and healthy. Or because we are lazy and don't care. Take your pick.
  • AlabasterVerve
    AlabasterVerve Posts: 3,171 Member
    The OP asked why we were getting heavier since the 90's.
    NO she did not. She just backed up her argument one piece of data from the 90's . Do you think that the reason we got fatter in the 90's and the 00' is somehow different than why we got fatter in the 80's?

    Nope. I think it's always been the increasingly sedentary lifestyle.
    You can't out exercise a bad diet...
  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
    The OP asked why we were getting heavier since the 90's.
    NO she did not. She just backed up her argument one piece of data from the 90's . Do you think that the reason we got fatter in the 90's and the 00' is somehow different than why we got fatter in the 80's?

    Nope. I think it's always been the increasingly sedentary lifestyle.
    You can't out exercise a bad diet...

    Depends how you define "bad diet". You can have an unhealthy diet and still be slim. If you mean just calories, then yes, there will come a point where there are not enough hours in the day to exercise off what it's possible to eat. But when people were more active, they had less time to eat and they needed more calories.
  • DMZ_1
    DMZ_1 Posts: 2,889 Member
    1. Portion Sizes
    2. Types of foods consumed
    3. Less physical activity
  • Silverkittycat
    Silverkittycat Posts: 1,997 Member
    Money.... and the last well (tobacco money) is drying up and it's time to dig a new well.

    The definition of obesity changed overnight.. it was intentional.
  • waldo56
    waldo56 Posts: 1,861 Member
    The OP asked why we were getting heavier since the 90's.
    NO she did not. She just backed up her argument one piece of data from the 90's . Do you think that the reason we got fatter in the 90's and the 00' is somehow different than why we got fatter in the 80's?

    Nope. I think it's always been the increasingly sedentary lifestyle.
    You can't out exercise a bad diet...

    That is good advice for fat people looking to be not fat.

    But you can very much out exercise a bad diet once you are in shape. To maintain peak performance, adequately fueling your exercise becomes important, which can mean eating a lot more than you would intuitively eat, even if your intuitive eating would be classified as a bad diet.
  • AlabasterVerve
    AlabasterVerve Posts: 3,171 Member
    The OP asked why we were getting heavier since the 90's.
    NO she did not. She just backed up her argument one piece of data from the 90's . Do you think that the reason we got fatter in the 90's and the 00' is somehow different than why we got fatter in the 80's?

    Nope. I think it's always been the increasingly sedentary lifestyle.
    You can't out exercise a bad diet...

    Depends how you define "bad diet". You can have an unhealthy diet and still be slim. If you mean just calories, then yes, there will come a point where there are not enough hours in the day to exercise off what it's possible to eat. But when people were more active, they had less time to eat and they needed more calories.
    You think the single mother working two jobs is obese because she has too much leisure time? Or doesn't get enough exercise when she's on her feet for 16 hours a day? What about the overweight and obese triathletes?

    There are so many people who just don't fit into your theory, you need to account for them as well.
  • jkk424
    jkk424 Posts: 4 Member
    Silverkitty beat me to it. Money. our nation is becoming poorer and bad food is cheaper than healthy. If you had a $10 to spend on food and had two kids- would you spend it on a few produce items or 10 boxes of mac n cheese. yep.
  • vickycollo
    vickycollo Posts: 16 Member
    Well, having spent the first 26 years of my life in the U.S.A. and the last 17 years in the U.K., my opinion is that it's portion sizes, processing, and food marketing, and we are now beginning to see similar trends in the U.K.

    When I first moved to the U.K., there were less fat people than there are now. Over the years I've noticed that there are alot more fast food outlets than there were 17 years ago, portion sizes are becoming bigger and there's alot more junk food advertising. Basically, U.K. food habits have become more americanized. I'm not blaming the U.S.A., because frankly it pisses me off when people in this country blame the U.S.A. for whatever they think is wrong with the world, but I have to admit that I believe there is some correlation.

    I never really thought about it until the last time I went back to the U.S.A. to visit my mom, and I was watching TV one evening and there was an advert for some prepackaged chicken (I think it might have been Tyson). Anyway, this woman was feeding her toddler this chicken and said she liked it because it had "minimal processing." I remember thinking, "Minimal processing? Just go buy a chicken and cook it!"

    Just my 2p.
  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
    The OP asked why we were getting heavier since the 90's.
    NO she did not. She just backed up her argument one piece of data from the 90's . Do you think that the reason we got fatter in the 90's and the 00' is somehow different than why we got fatter in the 80's?

    Nope. I think it's always been the increasingly sedentary lifestyle.
    You can't out exercise a bad diet...

    Depends how you define "bad diet". You can have an unhealthy diet and still be slim. If you mean just calories, then yes, there will come a point where there are not enough hours in the day to exercise off what it's possible to eat. But when people were more active, they had less time to eat and they needed more calories.
    You think the single mother working two jobs is obese because she has too much leisure time? Or doesn't get enough exercise when she's on her feet for 16 hours a day? What about the overweight and obese triathletes?

    There are so many people who just don't fit into your theory, you need to account for them as well.

    ??? Individual outliers would not change the fact that we as a nation have gotten fatter because we have become more sedentary.
  • AlabasterVerve
    AlabasterVerve Posts: 3,171 Member
    The OP asked why we were getting heavier since the 90's.
    NO she did not. She just backed up her argument one piece of data from the 90's . Do you think that the reason we got fatter in the 90's and the 00' is somehow different than why we got fatter in the 80's?

    Nope. I think it's always been the increasingly sedentary lifestyle.
    You can't out exercise a bad diet...

    That is good advice for fat people looking to be not fat.

    But you can very much out exercise a bad diet once you are in shape. To maintain peak performance, adequately fueling your exercise becomes important, which can mean eating a lot more than you would intuitively eat, even if your intuitive eating would be classified as a bad diet.
    I absolutely agree with that. I've always struggled to maintain my weight and exercise was the only way I could keep the weight off. Don't studies show that people who lose weight and keep it off exercise on average 1 1/2 hours a day as well?
  • Silverkittycat
    Silverkittycat Posts: 1,997 Member
    ‘How Did The Fight Against Fat Reach This Point?’

    "How did the fight against fat reach this point?" asks a hard-hitting Seattle Times article by reporter Susan Kelleher this week. The answer, as we've been detailing for some time, is that there is an ongoing campaign to make obesity a "disease" — an effort driven by the pharmaceutical industry, which will profit from increased public fears of fat by selling weight-loss pills.

    As Kelleher states in her must-read report that echoes concerns we've highlighted time and again, "Some of the world's most prominent obesity experts, with backing from the drug industry and medical societies, defined obesity as a stand-alone 'disease' that caused premature death and needed to be treated with drugs." One way for the pharmaceutical industry to fill its own prescriptions for profit was to push for a redefinition of who's too plump. That's just what happened when a government panel, populated by researchers with ties to the weight-loss industry, changed the government's standard of "overweight" from a Body Mass Index of more than 27 down to 25. That decision cast more than 35 million Americans into the fat camp overnight, without those individuals gaining so much as an ounce. Kelleher notes:

    It started more than a decade ago as drug companies and their scientific consultants increasingly promoted using a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 as the trigger point for when someone should be treated for obesity, including being prescribed weight-loss drugs … In May 1995, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) asked 24 experts to write guidelines for diagnosing and treating obesity. The expert panel officially defined obesity as a BMI of 30 or higher, and overweight as a BMI above 25 and below 30. The panel, which included the pharmacologist who created the phen-fen combo, was criticized for its ties to the drug and weight-loss industries.

    Why are these guidelines, which carry the government's imprimatur, so important? Kelleher explains:

    Industry-sponsored obesity experts continued to support treatment guidelines for obesity that included prescribing drugs. Guidelines are essentially detailed steps for doctors in diagnosing and treating an ailment, including recommended drugs to prescribe. The doctors who write guidelines are a powerful force in health care because their opinions become the blueprints that drug companies and medical societies use to teach doctors in the trenches how to prescribe newly approved drugs. Many of the doctors who supported Redux, including [George] Bray of Louisiana State University and others, worked on the obesity guidelines for the NIH and the World Health Organization.

    The case of Redux, half of the "fen-phen" appetite-suppressant combination that was banned after its deadly side effects were uncovered, is a perfect example of how dubious obesity statistics are used to promote profitable pills. Kelleher notes that during the FDA hearings on the drug, one company:

    … presented data showing an obesity pandemic and said desperate measures were required to stop it from prematurely killing 300,000 Americans a year. That controversial figure came from weight-loss experts and researchers who used epidemiological data from decades-old health studies to build the case that excess body fat was a crisis more urgent than even AIDS …

    One of the leading obesity experts supporting Redux and the effort to classify obesity as a disease was Dr. George Bray, a physician and medical researcher at Louisiana State University. A consultant for numerous drug companies for more than three decades, Bray holds patents for such things as low-fat potato chips, a cream to reduce fat thighs, and treatment for metabolic disorders. Also at the hearing was a newly formed group, the American Obesity Association, which built a case for treating obesity as a chronic disease. Funded largely by drug companies, including two involved with Redux, the association was headed by Dr. Richard Atkinson, an internist who advocated gastric bypass for severe obesity and who later founded a company to test for what he believed might be an "obesity virus." At the hearing, the association positioned itself as a patient-advocacy organization, though it offered no patients to testify for the drug … Judith Stern, vice president of the American Obesity Association and a nutritionist at the University of California, Davis, was disappointed the panel members had not voted to approve Redux. Stern told reporters, "If they recommend 'no,' these doctors ought to be shot."
  • waldo56
    waldo56 Posts: 1,861 Member
    What about the overweight and obese triathletes?

    There are very, very, very few of these people.

    If most fat people started seriously training to be competitive triathletes and totally ignored their diet, they'd stay fat for a while, but once they started to accumulate significant fitness, that situaiton would change fast. Its hard to stay fat when you're burning 2000+ calories per workout.
  • waldo56
    waldo56 Posts: 1,861 Member
    The OP asked why we were getting heavier since the 90's.
    NO she did not. She just backed up her argument one piece of data from the 90's . Do you think that the reason we got fatter in the 90's and the 00' is somehow different than why we got fatter in the 80's?

    Nope. I think it's always been the increasingly sedentary lifestyle.
    You can't out exercise a bad diet...

    That is good advice for fat people looking to be not fat.

    But you can very much out exercise a bad diet once you are in shape. To maintain peak performance, adequately fueling your exercise becomes important, which can mean eating a lot more than you would intuitively eat, even if your intuitive eating would be classified as a bad diet.
    I absolutely agree with that. I've always struggled to maintain my weight and exercise was the only way I could keep the weight off. Don't studies show that people who lose weight and keep it off exercise on average 1 1/2 hours a day as well?

    Yep. Heavy daily exercise is the key to long term weight loss maintenence.
  • AlabasterVerve
    AlabasterVerve Posts: 3,171 Member
    The OP asked why we were getting heavier since the 90's.
    NO she did not. She just backed up her argument one piece of data from the 90's . Do you think that the reason we got fatter in the 90's and the 00' is somehow different than why we got fatter in the 80's?

    Nope. I think it's always been the increasingly sedentary lifestyle.
    You can't out exercise a bad diet...

    Depends how you define "bad diet". You can have an unhealthy diet and still be slim. If you mean just calories, then yes, there will come a point where there are not enough hours in the day to exercise off what it's possible to eat. But when people were more active, they had less time to eat and they needed more calories.
    You think the single mother working two jobs is obese because she has too much leisure time? Or doesn't get enough exercise when she's on her feet for 16 hours a day? What about the overweight and obese triathletes?

    There are so many people who just don't fit into your theory, you need to account for them as well.

    ??? Individual outliers would not change the fact that we as a nation have gotten fatter because we have become more sedentary.
    All of the active, obese people are special snowflakes but if everyone else would just do what they did they wouldn't be obese. Gotcha. lol
  • astrampe
    astrampe Posts: 2,169 Member
    As an outsider (Canadian) it seems to me to be the portion sizes and food options. When I go to the US and order a meal, I am utterly shocked at how much food is on the plate. It's also far cheaper. I suppose that makes it easier to serve and order more. And, perhaps, that's why there's a "get my money's worth" philosophy. And even at the grocery stores and corner stores, the selection is unbelievable! With that much food around all the time, it's no wonder weight is an issue.

    I don't notice that much different in Canada. It is more expensive, but the portions seem to be the same. I've never eaten at a Canadian restaurant and thought, "wow, the portions are much smaller here". I always bring food home with me. I also see just as many heavy people in Canada. So, I think it's more than portion sizes and food options.

    I've been living in Canada for the past 11 years - and there is not much difference in portion sizes between the USA and Canada - and bot are HUGE in comparison to portion sizes in South Africa and Europe....This site shows the portion sizes from 20 years ago and now... http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Food+Portions+Then+And+Now&FORM=IQFRDR
  • Silverkittycat
    Silverkittycat Posts: 1,997 Member
    Yes, let's blame the food, Big Food, portions, restaurants, junk food, sugar, carbs, wheat, lack of education... and so on.
    Might be dieting that causes the problem?

    People people people. You are free to choose...don't place blame, stop pointing figures and looking for excuses. Who enjoys being a "victim"?
  • Bellefay
    Bellefay Posts: 13 Member
    We recently had a program on TV in the uk showing how and why our nations are getting bigger. The men who made us fat! Anyone watched it? What an eye opener.
    The primary cause is corn syrup as mentioned before. It is in everything and is very bad for us become in large quantities it switches our brain sensors off from recognising we are full or we have eaten. As its in everything it is hard to control also the body turns it to fat and keep it stored much more easily than other sugars and it therefore becomes the primary chose of the body for storage in case of crisis or starvation. The body stores it around thenorgans and you might slim but under MIR like the journalist did he was diagnosed by the doctor as a toffee. Hard on the outside And fat on the inside, you get the gist.
    Secondly the program discussed the portion sizes and how in the Us and the Uk portions had been triple since the 70's to make us eat more food and therefore to buy more food. They looked at how manufacturers created food that appeal to our senses. Smell good, taste good but have no nutrient. They also looked at the number of food outlets on high streets and how with so many outlets it takes more than will power to resist buying some to snack on. The journalist also looked at how snacking which was frowned upon back in the day and how it was introduced to the mainstream with disguised advertising and how each decades competed with the last one on portion sizes and how they could get us to buy more food by using advertising incentives like by one get one free or the McD meal and supersize craze.
    The program concluded with product labelling and how each country was reluctant to force companies to display cal contains of foods. And how the European parliament refused a proposition to introduce traffic light labelling. Red for high calories, green for healthy, and yellow for eat but not everyday. Each country decide to introduce their own system and I can tell you just being on holiday to Italy, France, and Spain in the last few days has been very difficult for someone like me who tries to see and control what I eat, because some label their foods on portion size and daily allowance which if you don't know what it is in the first place, can be difficult to work out. It would be so much easier if the work had been done for me.
    The program ended which politicians trying to avoid the question or telling us that we are responsible for what we eat and that WE should be more careful of what we eat, what a farce.
    So with that I make a conscious effort to do what they expect me to do, I stand in the supermarket scrutinizing every food labels whilst my kids runs riots and impatient. What else is there to do when the people we hope are looking out for us are digging their head in the sand. One more thing diet food, healthy option and even organic food are not necessarily good for you too! It is another gimmick to make us buy more food and this time in a new disguise!! Some of them are and can be more lethal than your regular foods. BEWARE!!!!
    I hope this will motivate you in your journey and quest for healthing living.
    That program has changed my life.
  • AlabasterVerve
    AlabasterVerve Posts: 3,171 Member
    Yes, let's blame the food, Big Food, portions, restaurants, junk food, sugar, carbs, wheat, lack of education... and so on.
    Might be dieting that causes the problem?

    People people people. You are free to choose...don't place blame, stop pointing figures and looking for excuses. Who enjoys being a "victim"?

    They're not mutually exclusive. You can take charge of your weight -- that's why we're all here -- but that doesn't remove our obligation to find out what's causing the rising levels of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and all the other diet related diseases so an effective treatment can be found.
  • TauTheBull
    TauTheBull Posts: 96
    Its simple really... We eat to damn much and dont move our *kitten* enough!!! One of my rants is that the human body needs X amount of rest between workout LMAO. I think this to some degree is what keeps us from moving less! Move daily, move quickly and eat way less!
  • vickycollo
    vickycollo Posts: 16 Member
    Yes, let's blame the food, Big Food, portions, restaurants, junk food, sugar, carbs, wheat, lack of education... and so on.
    Might be dieting that causes the problem?

    People people people. You are free to choose...don't place blame, stop pointing figures and looking for excuses. Who enjoys being a "victim"?

    They're not mutually exclusive. You can take charge of your weight -- that's why we're all here -- but that doesn't remove our obligation to find out what's causing the rising levels of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and all the other diet related diseases so an effective treatment can be found.

    Victim? The food companies are so powerful, I don't think we as consumers stand a chance, regardless of how savvy, well-informed or well-educated we may be.
  • hag101108
    hag101108 Posts: 22
    Someone mentioned they thought it was more socially acceptable. I don't think that really is the case at all. I don't think it is anywhere near socially acceptable. We read these boards every day with people talking about their horror stories.

    What I do think is that there are companies that have made it 'easier' to be overweight. You can now get some of the things that before only 'skinny' people could get. It benefits some for us to be overweight, even obese - so of course there are those that want to keep it there. With the ease of the internet to order these things, it doesn't really give many a benefit of becoming more health conscious.
  • jdploki70
    jdploki70 Posts: 343
    Don't know if this has been said, but the increase in technology is a huge factor. When I was a kid we had to get up to change the channel. There wasn't much on TV, and Betamax and VHS had limited options, so we spent a lot of time doing stuff, going out, playing, working on the house, etc. Now we get thousands of channels to watch, all visible with remote controls, multiple game consoles, two or three computers in the house, and the whole of the internet can be had with only moving your index finger and a bit of your arm.

    The other contributing factor is that people are growing taller. It doesn't factor in as much as the increase in technology, but the average height is increasing, which, by extension, means the average weight is increasing too.
  • Bellefay
    Bellefay Posts: 13 Member
    You are so right Vicky. The journalist told us how the food industry lobby in the US threaten to withdraw food help to poor nations if they voted on the UN resolution to withdraw corn syrup from food which reduces cost and makes them loads of profits.

    This war is not able eating less and exercising to death or being more active, please be more informed.

    It is about Better quality foods choices. Re educating people on portion sizes and avoiding highly processed foods.
    Blaming people for being overweight now a days is plainly an ill informed and an uneducated argument.

    Companies have a responsibility to feed us good food not food produced with ingredients that ultimately cause us to develop diabetes and cholesterol.

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