[OT] Why are so many Americans "overweight"

[ColonelHardisson]

I said it elsewhere - I think a lot of it has to do with the growth hormones used on our food animals.

 

[Zigmutt]

just echoing what has already been said:

1) the world is shifting from a labor market to a service market. And (sorry if i offend anyone) this is where Geeks are making their money. technology and science favor thjose that think and find other ways of doing things- easier waysof doing things- ways that makes people's lives easier.

These little services cause a snowball effect- where you stop doing the little things like getting up to turn the channel to taking the stairs- and then you eventually become a society that is reliant on these things-

2) to go a little further- people dont even clean their houses anymore. they just pay 100 dollars and have a maid come in and clean the entire place. Baby sitters to take care of their kids- shops to change their oil and tires. I know it sounds like i am talking out of my arse- but if you think about it- all these things used to be done by hand- yourself- and every little bit of energy you expend is the energy taken away from being converted into fat cells.

3) the food- let's face it - fast food and frozen foods are the largest food sectors in America. Whether you admit it or not- we eat fast fod and frozen foods more than any other kind of food. And then there are processed foods that have so much sodium that... i cant think of an analogy- but fast food is a growing commodity for this hectic, fast paced world that we call life.

4) lack of exercise- the only people I see exercising now a days are superfit model type people that are already fit. it's like the chickena nd egg question- do people exercise to get fit, or do they get fit to exercise. i dont know if that makes sense, but it's like adrug (I am 6' - 180 lb- and i stopped exercising a while back when i got into college and started the techie phase- now that i graduated, i have taken up exercising again and i cant stop...) and you never see fat people running- is it cause they dont want to ? or are they fat and cant? and are fat cause thy dont run? or they dont run cause they are fat?

i have been asking this for a while- and if you tink about it- it's both ways. both are factors...

and i am rambling-

1)society
2)commodities
3)food
4)lack of exercise

 

[trentonjoe]

I found that it didn't take long for a HS football hero to put on twenty points when you eat vegetables once a month, forget even how to spell efersize, and drink beer every night.

I am currently combating my 205 lb frame with jogging every morning, lettuce, and light beer.

PS According to US News and World Report I am merely overweight, not obese.

 

[S'mon]

Greetings!

S'MON!




Hi Shark my friend!



Your post put me in tears laughing! LOL!

So true! There are areas to walk in, though. Some cities have made better planning and development, for example, than others. Where I live in Cypress, California, it is fairly nice to walk about. San Diego, Sacramento, and parts of San Francisco can be very pleasant to walk in, too. But indeed, there are areas of many cities where it is, as you so eloquently wrote, hell to walk in!

I just love your description S'mon!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I've heard that west California and parts of New England are good for walking, but I've spent most of my time in the US in the South, from New Mexico to Washington DC, but mostly Tennessee. There, walking is mostly neither practical or desirable. One time on a road trip out West we got out of the car just outside a tiny town in west Texas, a long way off any Interstate (we were driving some almost-empty highway), to watch the sunset. We got out, looked down at the ground. Okay, it was literally crawling with centipedes (milipedes?) - about 6"-8" long, midnight black, fat as two fingers. Every square inch of the grass verge seemed covered in them. Then we saw the spiders that were eating the centipides...

We got back in the car.

 

[S'mon]

I said it elsewhere - I think a lot of it has to do with the growth hormones used on our food animals.

Wouldn't that make you tall/bulky rather than fat? Not that Americans aren't often taller and bulkier than us skinny Euros, also.

 

[abri]

From From Wallet to Waistline:.

“If you walked into a McDonald’s in the 1950s and ordered a burger, fries and a 12-ounce coke, you’d have bought a meal with about 590 calories,” said Carol Tucker Foreman, director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America. “Today a popular super-sized meal may contain 1,000 calories more. As a result, we’re super sizing our kids and super sizing ourselves.”

Just looking at my lunch from "La comtesse du Barry", that I import from france: 280 Calories. And that's not even "light"... Yes I think there are some important difference between the States and Europe...
Ps: And remember that people in Europe drink a LOT less pop (at 100 Cal/can), this makes a huge difference.
Ps2: Meals are measured In Calories, not calories (1 Cal=1 kcal=1000 cal), just the scientist talking

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Wouldn't that make you tall/bulky rather than fat?

Not necessarily. There is increasing investigation into this. A good test of it is to compare rates of obesity between vegetarians and meat-eaters. Vegetarian doesn't really mean people don't eat a lot - I've seen plenty of vegetarians eat more than I do. Plants don't give the same amount of calories as meat, of course, but I get the feeling vegetarians are likely disproportionately thinner than meat-eaters - but this is just personal opinion based on people I've known. But I know that the issue is being looked into, and some movement (but not much) is being made to stop the use of these hormones.

 

[Femerus the Gnecro]

I think a friend of mine said it best when we had this discussion a few weeks ago.

"I can't seem to tell the difference between hunger and boredom."

It's a vicious cycle. Bored? Turn on the tv. Then the learned response of "much food while watching TV" kicks in, and by the first commercial break, you're already a little bit fatter.

It's gotten to where I feel weird if I eat lunch at a table without either a TV or a computer in front of me.

I bet I'm not alone either.

-F

 

[Femerus the Gnecro]

I've heard that west California and parts of New England are good for walking, but I've spent most of my time in the US in the South, from New Mexico to Washington DC, but mostly Tennessee. There, walking is mostly neither practical or desirable. One time on a road trip out West we got out of the car just outside a tiny town in west Texas, a long way off any Interstate (we were driving some almost-empty highway), to watch the sunset. We got out, looked down at the ground. Okay, it was literally crawling with centipedes (milipedes?) - about 6"-8" long, midnight black, fat as two fingers. Every square inch of the grass verge seemed covered in them. Then we saw the spiders that were eating the centipides...

We got back in the car.

Texas certainly does have its share of enormous bugs, doesn't it? Having spent much of my life in Houston, I've gotten used to it I guess. Nothing quite like watching a giant hornet (2-3" long) fly about, kill a fully grown locust, drag it up a chair (not quite strong enough to fly off with it from the ground) and fly off with its carcass. Then there are the bigass tree roaches. Scary, scary things. Roaches just shouldn't be allowed to fly.

Luckily, we've got massive spiders to eat the bugs, and bats to eat the spiders. Ah... southern living

-F

 

[Cedric]

I have a pet theory about this. When I was 5 years old, in 1977, a coke was 10 ounces. Now that I'm 30 years old...a coke is either 20 ounces or maybe even a liter.

I think soft drink companies are mostly to blame for American's being overweight.

Cedric