Our culture is set up for obesity.

I agree that our culture is set up for obesity, and its not just the restaurant portions! Like others have said, we are overworked and overscheduled, without enough time to cook or exercise, yet somehow, a cost effective, nutritious alternative to cooking has not evolved. Other than at a salad store (expensive!), I don't know anywhere where you can go and get a plate that is 1/2 healthy veggies, 1/4 starch, and 1/4 lean protein.

I cook for my family 5-6 nights per week, and I plan out balanced dinners. But go to any restaurant and you're getting lots of carbs, almost no veggies, and the meat... sometimes okay, but more often than not has some kind of sauce, or is cooked in a way that introduces a lot of fat.

I find it very frustrating that I have to choose between, say, working out, or eating healthy, because after work, doing homework with the kids and running to a soccer game, I simply do not have the time and energy to both cook and hit the gym. Needless to say, I usually end up cooking and skipping the gym, because who would want to work out with a belly full of pizza!

You will find plenty of people who will tell you that you're doing everything the wrong way, you have bad time management skills or something that will somehow manage to dump the load on your virtue-less head and not on the structure of the world within which you live your life.

And then of course, you will still have to make choices because the darn restaurant is not changing their way of serving foods, so it's on us.
Saying "no" to some projects at work, if possible... and if that doesn't involve losing the job; or to some children's activities (this is a fertile area for cutting back as most will hardly benefit kids in any significant way over the long term), etc can be a start.

But being aware of the range of choices you can or cannot make is important.

I completely understand what you mean, good luck to you!

Not sure where you go out to eat, but when I go it is 1-1.5 hours of time invested plus travel. This is plenty of time to make a meal.

Just so this dosen't get lost in a quote...if this is a cultural issue in the US and Canada explain how it is?????

There are so many cultures in Canada alone which culture do we blame????

The East Indians? the Philipinoes? The Germans? The Irish? The Native americans? The Chinese? Pakistani? Iranian? Egyptian? Cuban? (trust me this is just those that work in the company I do that have immigrated in the last 10 years) Caucasions born here with god knows how many cultures in their blood????

Which culture influence is to blame?

If I go to a restaurant and pay $20+ for an entree, there had better be plenty of food on that plate. If you don't want all of it, you CAN take some of it home with you. If you can't control your impulses at restaurants, don't eat out. But lay off on suggesting that our "culture" should be set up with the lowest common denominator in mind. How about just try harder?

It's totally a cultural issue. I don't think any other country (well, Canada maybe) even lets you take leftovers home. I've never seen it in Europe at least... and portions were much smaller there.

The clever marketing strategies that sold the idea that "more is good" and led to the fat epidemic

Here is the history of bigger portion and the profits earned by big food. Great Entertainment.

The Men who Made us Fat Part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLNbwNMtXQ0

right..so marketing made people fat, not overeating...got ya...

I understand your mindset, but you might misunderstand and miscalculate the power of marketing. It is no secret that next to R&D, marketing is a corporations largest budget. Think about that. If it didnt work, they wouldn't do it. We're talking billions a year for some companies. It's not because they are stupid, it's because it is effective.

You would think people would realize that if a lot of money is invested in a certain strategy that means it is effective and it works.
It is so much easier though to blame an individual's "choices", overeating 'cause they want to overeat, time management skills, gluttony, not knowing the RIGHT recipes that cook themselves in 3 minutes flat, the works.

Apparently you've never seen government programs

And it's even easier to assign blame to some third party's evil doing vs taking responsibility

You know, it even only takes me about 15 minutes of actual work time to make homemade bread. I've never understood why people need bread makers. It isn't time-consuming or difficult to make without one.

I guess if you start by grinding your own flour, it takes a long time, though.

You could also say that our culture is set up for overspending...we have a lot of consumer goods and lots of fairly easy credit.

The clever marketing strategies that sold the idea that "more is good" and led to the fat epidemic

Here is the history of bigger portion and the profits earned by big food. Great Entertainment.

The Men who Made us Fat Part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLNbwNMtXQ0

right..so marketing made people fat, not overeating...got ya...

I understand your mindset, but you might misunderstand and miscalculate the power of marketing. It is no secret that next to R&D, marketing is a corporations largest budget. Think about that. If it didnt work, they wouldn't do it. We're talking billions a year for some companies. It's not because they are stupid, it's because it is effective.

You would think people would realize that if a lot of money is invested in a certain strategy that means it is effective and it works.
It is so much easier though to blame an individual's "choices", overeating 'cause they want to overeat, time management skills, gluttony, not knowing the RIGHT recipes that cook themselves in 3 minutes flat, the works.

Apparently you've never seen government programs

And it's even easier to assign blame to some third party's evil doing vs taking responsibility

Who said you shouldn't take responsibility?
I take responsibility ALL WHILE pointing to the "evil doings".

Your either/or mentality is just plain fallacious.