"I'm in the South, I can't eat healthy!"

vegaslounge
vegaslounge Posts: 122 Member
edited August 2017 in Health and Weight Loss
Can I tell you how freakin' annoying hearing that tired refrain is? It comes from both ends, folks south of the Mason-Dixon saying that "culture" prevents us from losing weight; the snideness that some people have in regards to Southern culture ("of course they can't lose weight, just look at how they eat!").

Southern culture certainly revolves, to a large degree, around food. Food is love, food is family, and yes, a lot of the food is high-calorie and not "good for you". But y'know what? You can still eat healthily, you can still lose weight, you can still be active no matter your cultural upbringing.

My brothers and I are the first generation of our family born anywhere outside the South since around 1780. I grew up in CA but was raised Southern, both from my parents and the grandparents and extended family I visited every summer for years and years. Of all my family members there are only a handful that are a "normal" weight and maybe two or three I would actually call "skinny", my anorexic late grandmother being one. She cooked elaborate feasts every night and died weighing less than 90lbs. For the record, it was her two-pack-a-day habit that got her at 83 years old, not anorexia.

This mindset isn't due to the makeup of our food. It's choice. I see it in my own family. Southern food is freakin' delicious, and I say this as a vegetarian for 15+ years. You can ABSOLUTELY eat fried chicken, slaw, frog-eye salad and pecan pie, but if you eat two, three, four times the serving size, what can you expect will happen? Don't blame our culture. Culture influences the types of food you eat, but it doesn't force you to eat too much of it. Certainly, if you live in the boonies and know nothing about nutrition, CI<CO etc, I will cut you a pass. But posting to a weight/health internet forum– obviously able to access information– saying it's impossible to eat better due to your "culture"...I'm sorry, that's on you.

I'm sorry for the rant. I was at work today and saw a 9-month-old baby gnawing on a hunk of fried chicken and his parents were laughing about how "it's just how we eat down here!" No, it's not. At least, that's not something we need to encourage in the next generation. Enjoy our landscape, enjoy our amazing culinary traditions– heck, be proud, there's nothing to be inherently ashamed of from being from the South. But don't blame the region for your own choices and your weight. Don't be a self-perpetuating stereotype.

Just had to get this off my chest...

~VL

Replies

  • xvolution
    xvolution Posts: 721 Member
    It's more like "how we used to eat down here" imo. We used to have huge feasts on Sundays, but not so much these days, mainly due to family-wide health issues and not being able to afford such extravagent meals anymore.

    I do miss some of the things we had that were definitely very unhealthy (like fried potatoes and onions) but not enough to damage my health any further.
  • Carol_
    Carol_ Posts: 469 Member
    There are a lot of people from up North around here just as overweight as the next person. I do not see that we choose any less healthy than a lot of people from anywhere else does. Though..that lady with the baby..certainly chose wrong.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,956 Member
    Lol, Virginia and West Virginia are pretty far north, but still have a bunch of obese people in their populations.

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  • ccsernica
    ccsernica Posts: 1,040 Member
    vegaslounge wrote: »
    xvolution wrote: »
    It's more like "how we used to eat down here" imo.

    I agree to a certain extent. We (as in "Southerners") were historically more of an agrarian society and thus worked off a lot of calories by field labor. But, it's been nearly 100 years since that was daily life. At some point you just have to take personal responsibility. I'm a lay food historian and honestly, the "receipts" from my Confederate cookbooks– the era that really lay the groundwork for what we consider traditional Southern cuisine– would be perfectly balanced, nutritionally and calorie-wise, if you published them today. The only difference is portion size, which everybody, regardless of cultural background, has seemed to forget about.

    ~VL

    I'm from the north, but I think this is exactly it because I saw the same thing. When I was a kid, my 4H leader -- who ran a dairy farm -- was huge, and so were her sons. (Her husband had died in a tractor accident some years earlier.) Even though she was still in agriculture, I'm pretty sure she learned to cook for a pre-mechanized farm, when anyone who worked on a farm would easily burn several times the calories of someone sitting on a tractor for most of the day. Not that farming still isn't hard work, but when you have machines taking much of the load off it makes a difference.
  • Carol_
    Carol_ Posts: 469 Member
    edited August 2017
    And...I might be mistaken..BUT..I think most everyone in my Monday night Weight Weight Watchers class 'ain't from 'round here'!
  • hearthwood
    hearthwood Posts: 794 Member
    edited August 2017
    Mississippi still ranks the highest obesity rate-& Colorado being the lowest--but regardless obesity rates are skyrocketing all across the U.S. You're right it is more the portion size than anything else. A scale, MFP and a fitbit or Apple watch are solutions to all of this, it's just that you have to grab the bull by the horns and do it yourself. You can click on this chart to see what the obsesity rate is in your state.
    http://thevreelandclinic.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/obesity-rates.jpg
  • vegaslounge
    vegaslounge Posts: 122 Member
    I'm not saying that people everywhere are not overweight. And we're by no means the only spot in the country that likes eating heavy. Far from it. But I just see, over and over, this– not "victim mentality"– but this just shrug-and-accept-it from so many people down here, and it just gets to pissing me off. Honestly I've seen it on MFP threads, this excuse of "I try to eat healthy but you know how it is down here!" I'm absolutely sure this happens with other populations and I know I am biased because it's what I see and what I've experienced.

    A big part of me says, "let it be, concentrate on yourself". I know it's none of my business and this is all just a big rant. But, I really love where I live and where I'm from; and, I'm human, and I get frustrated sometimes. We could do so much better ...we can and should and we just make excuses and joke it off. I want to raise my kids here but damned if I'm going to raise them with that mentality.

    Sorry again, I just had a frustrating day and needed to vent.

    ~VL
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
    There are plenty of people who are fat and don't care.
  • KonaKat
    KonaKat Posts: 3,411 Member
    The bottom line is that our ancestors could eat "fattening" food in reasonable portions and not become overweight simply because they were active all day either working outside or inside. As the mechanical age, etc. developed and provided ease of working, then the level or intensity of work declined but the calories taken in often did not. A dinner plate years ago was much smaller than a dinner plate now. When people fill a plate, if the plate has increased in size and portions increase, then calories increase. Combine that with decreased activity as well as personal taste as to what makes food good.

    I know someone who starts the day with eggs fried in grease, bacon and biscuits and gravy. If she cooks green beans then they are not good unless bacon grease is added. Her portion sizes are twice what most people I know would eat but she can't understand why she weighs what she does. Let's not forget multiple plates at the buffet because it is "eat all you want" and one might as well get your money's worth. I enjoy biscuits and gravy but it is one serving and it is a very rare treat.
  • GottaluvFood
    GottaluvFood Posts: 65 Member
    edited August 2017
    My parent's wedding picture (1960) shows my four grandparents standing next to my parents. My grandparents were all skinny by today's standard--not thin, but skinny. They were from TN. My dad's side were farmers. My mom's side owned an appliance store. When the farmer retired, he stayed skinny. He just ate less. He still ate "Southern", just less. He did not binge eat, zombie eat, or stress eat. He ate until he was full, then stopped.
    (3 out of 4 grandparents passed away in their sixties from strokes, but still thin. One lived to be 85, always thin.)

    At my wedding (2002), all four parents are large. They of course are always going on diets, watching their weight, etc. However, they've all outlived 3 out of 4 of my grandparents. So, who was healthier?
  • GottaluvFood
    GottaluvFood Posts: 65 Member
    Me again...

    In reference to your need to vent...It is bad for your mental health to get so frustrated because the world does not want to conform to your view of perfection. Don't try to control what you can't.

    You imply that you might want to move just 'cuz other people don't eat "right"? Really? You justify it 'cuz of your protection of your kids. I now live in OH. I'm always frustrated 'cuz what my kids are offered. They're older now, so it's not as bad as when they were preschoolers.

    My point is that you won't escape this regardless of where you live...unless it's in a vegetarian commune. Where all free choice is removed from the group. Then you'd have bigger problems than other people's diet.
  • Catawampous
    Catawampous Posts: 447 Member
    I am not from the south but live here now in Florida. Two words. SWEET TEA. OMG they are absolutely not kidding even a little bit!!! It makes my toes curl and my mouth pucker. Swear I get a cavity just smelling it lol. They have to be at least 500 cal a glass lol

    And yep they can eat but they are some of the BEST people I have ever met in my life. So ... I choose to see the positives and worry about my own food choices!
  • MommaGem2017
    MommaGem2017 Posts: 405 Member
    My parents and all my grandparents are from the South. They cooked Southern food like fried chicken, chicken fried steak, fried okra, black eyed peas, fried potatoes and onions, greens cooked with bacon, etc. But no one was over weight. They ate these foods, but not in excess. They worked hard for a living and didn't gorge. I ate these foods growing up, occasionally, and not to excess. Not everyone fits into stereotypes.
  • CattOfTheGarage
    CattOfTheGarage Posts: 2,745 Member
    We used to eat tapioca pudding and we called it frogspawn.

    I didn't like it much, mind you. I've discovered a love of tapioca balls in bubble tea, but I still think frogspawn pudding would not be my favourite.

    Portions are key, whatever you're eating; far more crucial than the type of food, imo.
  • WatchJoshLift
    WatchJoshLift Posts: 520 Member
    Being from Texas... I couldn't agree more! Being Southern isn't a genetic issue, it's just a stinking location. If you want to lose weight, you will.
  • Mini_Medic
    Mini_Medic Posts: 343 Member
    I live in SC and I believe a lot of it is exposure. If you grow up and see your entire family eating lots and lots of fried chicken and huge bowls of cobbler and tons of sweet tea then you will probably follow suit until you either are old enough to know what overweight/fat means or realize the portions everyone eats are too big. I think people are ignorant to the calories they are consuming and many just don't want the wake up call because they are comfortable just saying "it is what it is" and things like "oh I can't help it I come from a family of big people". That part is where culture comes in. Being raised to overeat by example and being raised to eat too much high calorie food is a big problem, no pun intended. That's my gripe, people allowing or even raising their children to be overweight. No child should be obese throughout childhood. I know some kids gain before a growth spurt or hold on to baby fat, that isn't what I'm talking about. I'm referring to the truly obese kids that their parents are failing them by not checking their portion sizes and not offering any healthier nutritionally balanced meals that will satisfy them so they don't have to eat six pop tarts to feel full. Most would turn up their nose at a salad if they weren't exposed to one as a child. If people don't know there are better choices out there and they haven't tasted healthier food that is also yummy they aren't going to just inherently know. I think we can all do better to make better choices and lead by example with portion sizes that fit our daily needs. Southerners are not immune they just need to overcome their own unique obstacles if they are overweight. My obstacles are binge eating and sugar. We all have something that has caused our weight gain. Some southerners just have the cultural food obstacle and some have the portion size obstacle as well. But like you said it can be throw around as an excuse and that needs to stop. Mac and cheese didn't make you fat. The fourth scoop of Mac and cheese did.

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