Why are we bigger than ever?

Eating too much and screens (tv, video games, internet surfing)

ilovefastcarstoo wrote: »

hapoy Friday everyone !
I was curious... Since we are supposedly more overweight than ever in the United States. I was wondering the key reasons why and what we can do to spread the word to help others? Thoughts?

If you want to think like a social scientists, there are very particular reasons that work together to make bad food choices either a) the easiest to make, b) the most widely available to make, c) momentarily necessary to make, d) unknowingly made, c) made subconsciously as part of changing "food culture."

Here are some issues:

1. Food is cheaper than ever, yet at the same time modern life requires/expects more expensive other gadgets. Food used to be ONE THIRD of the average US American budget. It is now ONE EIGHTH. Food is taken for granted, and is very CHEAP to over-consume.
2. People eat out at restaurants much, much more often. It is harder to control portion and ingredients at a restaurant than at home.
3. Calorie-dense foods that ignite our biological responses of satiety and pleasure are much more readily available.
4. Brands design their foods to market their foods towards children, who have an incredible buying power and influence on their parents' buying in the Western world. These foods also happen to be, by and large, incredibly sugar-dense.
5. Jobs in the the US and UK are mainly service and/or middle-management. This means sitting on your *kitten* or very minimal movement.
6. A large portion of our lives is spent at computers/TVs instead of out and active in the world.
7. There is a perception among many parents that the "world is more dangerous than it used to be" - and parents rarely let their children go out and play far and wide anymore.
8. People on average now live farther and farther from their places of work, and they generally use personal cars to get there. This means more hours of the day spent in commute and transit.
9. Wages have essentially flat-lined in relation to the cost of living. This means when it used to be enough for one parent to work, now often two have to work (at least to keep up a level of living that people expect, in some cases). This means less time is spent on procuring, cooking, and cleaning up for food. Parents are exhausted.
10. People have stopped acquiring the ability to cook and either don't learn or lose knowledge about food. The 1950s and 60s was all about modernization and automation. Frozen meals, home processors, pre-packaged "just add water" things, fast-food, restaurants, etc - replaced the deep care and knowledge about how to, a) have proper kitchen tools, b) buy and plan meals over a week/month, c) flavor foods so they are desirable by the family, d) re-purpose left-overs.
11. School food is absolutely abominable in most places, and regulations on school food are in serious need of updates.
12. The easy of access of kids to sweets, chips, and sodas on school grounds is absurd.

Here are some books on it (which are the sources for most of these ideas)
http://rajpatel.org/2009/10/27/stuffed-and-starved/#more-93

http://www.frederickkaufman.com/

http://www.foodpolitics.com/

If only the answer were simple! These are trends that I think coalesce to form large changes in your average person's life. But hey! Childhood obesity has dropped 43% since Michelle Obama started her programs!

RobD520 wrote: »

This will be very unpopular here; but the kind of food we are chosing to eat plays a big role as well.

I don't think that's "wrong" per se, I just don't think it gets us anywhere. Sure "what we choose" plays a role.

As a social scientist PhD with a degree in public health though, I am MUCH more interested in WHY certain "choices" even exist in the first place, WHAT shapes those choices (they're not just incidental), WHERE certain "choices" exist (geographically, because some places are 'fatter' than others), and WHY people make certain choice, and if they're even aware that they're making them.

I think you have to get to that level of questioning if you want answers.

ilovefastcarstoo wrote: »

hapoy Friday everyone !
I was curious... Since we are supposedly more overweight than ever in the United States. I was wondering the key reasons why and what we can do to spread the word to help others? Thoughts?

Fast food and not moving enough

We're on fad diets all the time, we believe in diet myths and 'set point' theories, and that's why it's so easy to give up on trying to achieve a healthy physique. Fooling yourself without realizing it. That's what happened to me personally, at least. I grew up listening to diet myths and I thought it was fact.

I believe there are a lot of factors that come into play. Food is becoming more and more processed so that it has a longer shelf life and so that I can even make it to the grocery store from middle-of-nowhere, China. Also, with most households consisting of two working parents and then children that have all sorts of after-school activities, fast food has come to play a major role. Many households struggle to find the time to make healthy meals. Also, outdoor activities have been cut way down. My parents always tell me about times when they were smaller and could go out and walk several miles to their friend's house and no one would worry. But now, there are so many just evil-doers out there that parents worry about letting their kids go out alone. We've always lived in a nice area and a nice house and have had nice neighbors, but even then my parents never felt safe letting my brother or myself go further than the front yard unless they were outside with us or the neighbors were outside in their front yard. Likewise, we couldn't go to the park unless our parents walked down and stayed with us, or one of the neighbors was already down there with their kids. Never alone. So "outside time" has become something you've got to do with the family, which means you've got to wait for mom and dad to get home and do everything before going out. By then, it's dark out. So instead, my parents bought us GameBoys and Nintendo DS's, TV's and DVD players, GameCube's and Wii's, Xbox's and Playstation's, iPod's and iPhone's .... Things to keep us entertained indoors where we were safe.

Also, "family outings" are no longer fun trips to the park or to the zoo or a museum, but instead a trip to a restaurant with 600 calorie appetizers, 900 calorie entrees, and 1200 calorie desserts. Or a trip to the movies with its over-buttered popcorn and cheesy nachos and extraordinarily large sodas. Only to go back home and sit around.

And then there is also the media and advertising. They consistently make it seem like people get overweight because they don't have enough Garcinia Combodgia in their system, which isn't the person's fault and if they just take these 100% Garcinia Combodgia pills, the weight will just slide right off. Or they make it seem like people can eat whatever and then take a Hydroxycut and stay slim. They show lean and fit people eating at McDonalds with their family, happy as can be. And salads are advertised and being incredibly healthy when not all of them are. Put enough cheese or ranch in the salad and it's right on up there with the burgers and fries. Etc etc.

And lastly, there's the economic side of things. Some people can't afford healthy foods and feel that there is just nothing they can do to help themselves since the chips and cereal are cheaper than the kale and strawberries.

Poison in the food supply. Fluoride, gmo, high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, antibiotics, gluten, dyes, chemicals, drugs, and removal of iodine from salt. Doctors in bed with the drug companies. Plastics and bha destroying your thyroid. Monsanto roundup on your food. Government dietary guides that will make you fat sick and stupid. Vaccinations with murcury. Eat up, the government loves you!
Sorry for the rant. Research and consume real food and avoid all the junk above. Don't trust your doctor or the government and make your own conclusions. Good luck.

lfod308 wrote: »

Poison in the food supply. Fluoride, gmo, high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, antibiotics, gluten, dyes, chemicals, drugs, and removal of iodine from salt. Doctors in bed with the drug companies. Plastics and bha destroying your thyroid. Monsanto roundup on your food. Government dietary guides that will make you fat sick and stupid. Vaccinations with murcury. Eat up, the government loves you!
Sorry for the rant. Research and consume real food and avoid all the junk above. Don't trust your doctor or the government and make your own conclusions. Good luck.

I spent some time on a conspiracy website. I had to quit because I felt my brain imploding. I suggest you get out before it's too late.

Honestly, portion sizes. I'm an Australian currently on holiday in the US and I was absolutely shocked. Take McDonalds for example: an American medium fries and drink is the same size as an Australian LARGE fries and drink, and the American large fries and drink is probably twice the size.

Also, holy guacamole, could you guys go two seconds without adding sugar to stuff that doesn't need it? Especially your bread? Trying to find bread anything to eat here so far has been an experiment in feeling nauseous. And I felt really nauseous when I stepped into a candy aisle at Target. The size of the bags! I'd never seen anything like it.

misskarne wrote: »

Also, holy guacamole, could you guys go two seconds without adding sugar to stuff that doesn't need it? Especially your bread? Trying to find bread anything to eat here so far has been an experiment in feeling nauseous.

My husband is from Wales and he commented that just about everything in the USA tastes sweeter than the equivalents in the UK. He's not thrilled with most restaurant food here, and that's one of the reasons. He thinks that some restaurants add sugar to sauces to hide the fact that the meats are not the very top quality so they wouldn't taste good on their own.

I also think it's part of our culture and acceptable now. You see everyone else overweight, you think it's okay and normal. I know so many of my overweight friends don't think they are overweight because they are smaller than most people they see. Not to mention all the magazine and everything are now promoting plus size as healthy.

Noreenmarie1234 wrote: »

I also think it's part of our culture and acceptable now. You see everyone else overweight, you think it's okay and normal. I know so many of my overweight friends don't think they are overweight because they are smaller than most people they see. Not to mention all the magazine and everything are now promoting plus size as healthy.

Empirical evidence? I didn't think so.....

The one comment I do agree with is that there are more people who view people in the 26-30 BMI range as attractive. But I view that as a sign of health.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is clothing. A lot of it is stretchy now, so we don't have that everyday reminder of how our clothes fit. I have some jeans that I have reasonably worn in three different 'sizes'. When I was bigger they just stretched to accommodate, and when I gained weight I didn't really notice.

I also think we tend to make meals shorter in time than we used to, which means we can eat more before our brain signals us as being full.

Portion sizes, definitely. My grandma served OJ in juice glasses--4 oz. now it's hard to find any glasses that small--we drink OJ in 6, 8, 12 oz glasses bc that's all we have (not me, bc I finally found the elusive tiny juice glass!). Coke was served maybe once or twice a week, in the same glasses.

Two separate stoneware sets I've purchased have dinner plates too wide for my cabinets. Seriously, so big the doors won't shut. Hard to visualize correct portions on something that large--it warps your idea of what a "normal " portion is.

And snacks. Snacks are everywhere, all the time. Snacks at least once at my kid's 9-2 school (plus lunch). Snacks after a 30 min soccer practice. Snacks during their 10-12 am mom's group childcare class. Cripes, we just finished breakfast 10 min bf we got in the car, and we will eat lunch 10 min after the mtg ends, I think they can go 2 hrs without food! Hunger is just not acceptable anymore, for even a few minutes. We don't know what real hunger feels like so we eat at the first twinge of "hmm, food might be good".