Eating habits

Dauntlessness · June 2011

For a long time I had wondered about the obesity crisis America has today. My husband and I have discussed it at length and something interesting came up. I am not saying its right or wrong but I wanted to see what other people thought of it.

If you think about it, not until about 70-80 years ago did food start becoming much more readily available to us. Before then, in order to survive, we would farm our lands, dry food, bottle them and prepare for the winter so that we didn't starve. Part of this was seeking out high calorie, high fat foods to gain weight before the season changed as another precaution for when food was scarce. We ate to survive and it was never wasted. The whole mentality was different.

Today, food is seen as social, pleasurable and is greatly wasted. Though I think some of us respect it, I believe our eating habits have not evolved as fast as the marketplace has. We still are seeking out the high calorie, high fat foods without realizing it. We eat is huge portions and way too often. All we know is that it tastes good and we can eat it instantly, so we do.

Want to change? With evolution, changing a person is typically low and slow. It took us thousands of years to learn this behavior and its not going to change overnight. I guess the best thing we can do is acknowledge why we do it so we don't fall victim to it. anymore.

Just my thoughts. Anyone think so too?

motherinme · June 2011

My husband and I had a somewhat similar conversation but not so much the evolution portion....Our scenario went more like this:
Both of our daughters had a dance recital that they did VERY well in so he wanted to take them out to eat. We were looking at the kids menu and as always, there's fried food galore...which my girls love. Not the real issue. The thing that caught my eye was that you could get a soda with the meal FREE but if you wanted 2% milk or 100% juice, you had to pay extra. How is that supporting healthy eating in our kids?? It was frustrating and I am not sure what to "chalk it up to" (greed, cost of milk/juice vs. soda, etc) but it's not getting better... *Sigh* Just my 2 cents for the day

BeckyRayJohnson · June 2011

I agree with you. You need to add to the list boredom because with us working so much less physically we are more inclined to be bored. I also have been reading a book on sugar and how it works, well it shows that what we eat leads us to eating some other things by the changes in our system. Being tired, etc. I see you have lost a lot..congrats. :flowerforyou:

Barneystinson · June 2011

My husband and I had a somewhat similar conversation but not so much the evolution portion....Our scenario went more like this:
Both of our daughters had a dance recital that they did VERY well in so he wanted to take them out to eat. We were looking at the kids menu and as always, there's fried food galore...which my girls love. Not the real issue. The thing that caught my eye was that you could get a soda with the meal FREE but if you wanted 2% milk or 100% juice, you had to pay extra. How is that supporting healthy eating in our kids?? It was frustrating and I am not sure what to "chalk it up to" (greed, cost of milk/juice vs. soda, etc) but it's not getting better... *Sigh* Just my 2 cents for the day

I've never understood why kids menus are separate and special. I always hated that crap when I was a kid and ordered off the "adult" portion of the menu.

Dauntlessness · June 2011

My husband and I had a somewhat similar conversation but not so much the evolution portion....Our scenario went more like this:
Both of our daughters had a dance recital that they did VERY well in so he wanted to take them out to eat. We were looking at the kids menu and as always, there's fried food galore...which my girls love. Not the real issue. The thing that caught my eye was that you could get a soda with the meal FREE but if you wanted 2% milk or 100% juice, you had to pay extra. How is that supporting healthy eating in our kids?? It was frustrating and I am not sure what to "chalk it up to" (greed, cost of milk/juice vs. soda, etc) but it's not getting better... *Sigh* Just my 2 cents for the day

I've never understood why kids menus are separate and special. I always hated that crap when I was a kid and ordered off the "adult" portion of the menu.

Actually that makes sense, they should just make mini versions for the kids. I wonder why that is.

unsuspectingfish · June 2011

I once had a sociology professor that asked the class what they thought was the number one reason for the obesity crisis in America. Answers ranged from TV to video games to fast food and so on. His response, though? Refrigerators. His reasoning was basically what you said. We keep all this food we don't need around, ready to eat, and so we eat it when we don't really need it.

Zeromilediet · June 2011

I agree. In times past a great deal of energy went into securing sufficient food for survival. Our society was also more rural, there were no drive-throughs, corner stores or easy access to food. I came across this interesting info tidbit:

Cancer - born in 1970: 1 out of 3 - born 1870: 1 out of 33
Infection - born in 1970: 1 out of 100 - born in 1870: 1 out of 2
Heart Disease - born in 1970: 1 out of 2 - born in 1870: 1 out 7
A 30 year old today has a 95% chance of getting Cancer, Heart disease, Stroke, Diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s arthritis, etc.

Of the 2.4 million deaths that occur in the United States each year, 75% are the result of avoidable nutritional factor diseases.
- former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop

Interesting.

Barneystinson · June 2011

I agree. In times past a great deal of energy went into securing sufficient food for survival. Our society was also more rural, there were no drive-throughs, corner stores or easy access to food. I came across this interesting info tidbit:

Cancer - born in 1970: 1 out of 3 - born 1870: 1 out of 33
Infection - born in 1970: 1 out of 100 - born in 1870: 1 out of 2
Heart Disease - born in 1970: 1 out of 2 - born in 1870: 1 out 7
A 30 year old today has a 95% chance of getting Cancer, Heart disease, Stroke, Diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s arthritis, etc.

Of the 2.4 million deaths that occur in the United States each year, 75% are the result of avoidable nutritional factor diseases.
- former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop

Interesting.

There was also, unfortunately, a considerable amount of food-borne pathogen related death in earlier times due to more primitive means of food preservation (or lack thereof). I'd assume that would fall under infection here, though (maybe?)

Zeromilediet · June 2011

I agree. In times past a great deal of energy went into securing sufficient food for survival. Our society was also more rural, there were no drive-throughs, corner stores or easy access to food. I came across this interesting info tidbit:

Cancer - born in 1970: 1 out of 3 - born 1870: 1 out of 33
Infection - born in 1970: 1 out of 100 - born in 1870: 1 out of 2
Heart Disease - born in 1970: 1 out of 2 - born in 1870: 1 out 7
A 30 year old today has a 95% chance of getting Cancer, Heart disease, Stroke, Diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s arthritis, etc.

Of the 2.4 million deaths that occur in the United States each year, 75% are the result of avoidable nutritional factor diseases.
- former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop

Interesting.

There was also, unfortunately, a considerable amount of food-borne pathogen related death in earlier times due to more primitive means of food preservation (or lack thereof). I'd assume that would fall under infection here, though (maybe?)

My guess is that would have been classified as poisoning. Prior to penicillin and wide acceptance of the concept of germs, infection could easily have been a significant killer. Surgeries were performed without clean instruments and hand washing by health care workers was not routinely done until the late 1800s. Childbirth could be a death sentence--according to wikipedia, 40% of birth giving women; my own great grandmother died of sepsis four days after giving birth to my grandmother.

Eating habits

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