[OT] Why are so many Americans "overweight"

[Bran Blackbyrd]

Ok that got me really scared....

But as for that, what also scares me is that fact that all you guys know how much calories you eat and how much is in what kinda food. I honestly know noone who even thinks that precisely in calories.

You are awfully fond of making gross generalizations, aren't you?
A tip: Using generalizations in an online forum is often a good way to start a flamewar, and generally frowned upon. Why? Because no one likes being lumped into a group where they don't belong, or having their life reduced to a single distinguishing factor.

I have a bag of chips right here beside me and I couldn't tell you how many calories are in a serving, or in the whole bag, or how many are in the bag if I ate it along with the chips.
I will risk taking a guess and making a generalization of my own; Exluding the occassional exception, I bet the only people that pay rapt attention to their calorie intake are anorexics, athletes/people in the physical fitness business, and people actively trying to control their diet. The vast majority of people barely glance at the label before eating.

But still, vacation and work have nothing to do with putting on weight.

You know this for a fact? How about the people who are so stressed/worn out from their daily grind job that they don't feel like excersizing? They just eat their dinner and sack out in front of the tv. It happens. The occasional time off would do a lot to prevent this type of attitude. Not to mention that most people are more active on a vacation, and that equals weight loss. We're talking hiking, rock climbing, or even having to walk through an amusement park. It may not be the largest factor in the battle of the bulge, as it were, but it is still a factor.

But it's scary how much you obviously are busy with your food and your weight. Guess culture and living patterns are mostly to blame (the heavy calory food just makes it worse).

Yup, that's how we are. Each and every one of us...
You also have to remember that what one person says on this board is not representative of every man woman and child in the US.

 

[Zarrock God of Evil]

It is nice to know that you have met all 284 million of us, and can make such a broad statement about us.

I spent a great deal of time in the military, stationed around the world. If anything, Americans are not "extreme in lifestyles, opinions and size". America's lifestyle is fairly conservative. We do not have legal prostitition and nude/semi-nude beaches everywhere. America is still fairly dominated by religious institutions.

As far as opinions go, I have seen more arguements between the locals in a Paris diner than I ever have in an American diner. I think everyone has opinions, and message boards allow people to express those opinions fairly easily, but I would never consider Americans to be more opinionated than any other group with fairly equal economic lifestyles.

I will give you the size thing though. Americans do eat a lot. There is a lot of food to be had, and since we are not paying $4.00 a liter for gas, we spend our extra money on entertainment; which often boils down to food. There are several thousand restaurants in Chicago alone. I have no idea how many there might be throughout the country. Food is cheap and plentiful, and is a simple drug for the masses. Besides, all the heart disease and cancer deaths are helping to keep our population under control.

FUI, according to statistics 61% of the American population is either overweight or obese (most of these are older than 25 btw). There hasn't been comprehensive studies on this inside the EU but the few studies that have been made place the percentage of obese and overweight Europeans somewhere between 34% and 47%...
Scandinavia and Netherlands (country of the original posters) have obesity ratings just below 10%. I've travelled alot and it's safe to say that Scandinavians - while "growing bigger" - are still among the skinniest Western people...

-Zarrock

 

[I'm A Banana]

Gee, this is funny...

I'm 20 years old, have been basically living on junk food for the last 10. Sandwich, chips, fast food, pop...I'm a machine.

I'm not overweight. Heck, I'm *under* weight. My day consists of some of the most sendtary activities imagineable. I'm lazy as crap!

How can I do this?

Maybe it's because I stopped paying attention to when I *should* eat long ago, and just eat whatever my body tells me to when I feel the need.

I'm of the mind that the body is quite a good indicator of what it needs to stay regular most of the time. I eat fruit and veggies, I devour meat, I drink water on occasion, juice on others....

I go to bed hungry a few nights...

I get some excersize (I guess late-night walks kind count)

I'm as happy as a smashed clam, sittin' here.

My hypothesis is that America is getting chunky because of our reliance on the ease of livin'. We're an instant-gratification, push-a-button kinda society. And a lot of the reason for that is, I think, the harshness of the work ethic...you've always gotta be doing something productive, something interesting. You can never be caught being lazy or being down. You eat on your time. You watch TV on your time. You do not get paid to have fun, you get paid to do a job and you better frickin' do it or else we'll find someone who does.

So we don't want to have to work for our entertainment. We don't have time...we can't make the effort. When we're not getting paid, we're lazy and we could be paid to be catered to, no matter how much it costs.

It's a rather self-destructive lifestyle, IMHO.

We're America. We like cars, we like Must-See TV, and we like being able to ring a bell and have our food delivered. Additionally, while doing all of those things, we kinda like to eat. Because where else are we going to get time for it? And when we eat, we eat like our parents did: Big portions, and Eat it All or No Dessert for You.

Eating is a reward for us, over here. It's leisure time. We like liesure time because so much of our time is spent doing things that aren't leisurely.

You gotta work 45-70 hours a week, or you don't feel productive.
You gotta spend at least 5 hours a day with your kids.
8 hours of sleep, or you'll be unhealthy!
1-2 hours of watching Oprah to know that you have to do all this or be a bad person
That leaves how much time to do things like walk? When it really isn't all that great out? Or read? Or exercise when you're just happy to sit down?

So instead, we eat, and it makes us feel better.

We hate ourselves, and we hate ourselves even more because it's impossible to be who we think we should be.

 

[Zarrock God of Evil]

Because we kicked AXISES A**, and become the richest most powerful nation in the world.

I'm not fat, just large-boned!

He he. The wealth explanation is hardly valid. Sure - the US has a larger average GDP per Capita than most European countries - but if you exclude the richest and poorest 5% of the countries, this picture will change dramatically. The gap between rich and poor in America is HUUUGE compared to in Europe - especially in Scandinavia and the Netherlands where the gap is close to non-existant (by an international scale anyway). So using the GDP per Capita to estimate how rich the average American is compared to the average European wildly skews the result...

On a related note a survey on highest living standards in the world turned out this result in 1998:

Country Score (max. 100)

Denmark 98.4

Norway 95.6

Austria 93.2

Sweden 93.1

France 91.9

Finland 90.8

Luxembourg 90.7

Ireland 89.1

Poland 88.5

Germany 88.1

This survey was conducted by the University of Pennsylvania...

For more relevant information check out this link Economist Survey. It's got average Calorie Intake, Average Sugar Intake and much, much more and compares Japan, Argentina, USA, Germany, and Denmark.

(...and if anyone's wondering why our country has such a low life expectancy compared to living standard the answer is: Alcohol.)

-Zarrock

 

[Derulbaskul]

Hi everybody, thanks for the replies.
(snip)
(Just a funny fact, 50% of the singapoure people are still virgins and they have the worst sexlives in the world by a 100 mile lead. Owyeah, you'll laugh about this, their favorite place to masturbate seems to be in the bus to work... right....... that makes you think twice before you sit down or brab hold of something there )
(snip)
Kris- Out

Where do I start?

This is total and unadulterated crap. Please don't present such garbage as facts.

Also, your statement that Singaporeans are the richest people on earth is false but not as offensive as the garbage you stated above.

Ridiculous. You should delete this from your post.

 

[Uller]

uh?

Common knowledge...more socialist countries tend to have higher unemployment rates.

A quick look at the CIA world factboock confirms...

These are 2000 numbers...all are higher now.
US unemployment: 4%.

Germany: 10%.
France 10%.
Spain 14%
UK 5.5%

Most of the smaller countries (except the Scandanavian ones) had significantly lower rates and were more in line with the US. In the US, these sort of unemployment rates would be considered catastrophic since we are a lot less socialistic (so there is a lot less of a support structure for people who can't find jobs).

Not trying to turn this into debate about capitalism vs socialism...just pointing out the facts that US workers work more on average because there is more work to do. People who are trying to find a job would call that a good thing. We also still have a very large farm based economy. I live in a rural area and typically farmers are at work as I'm driving into the office and are still at work after I'm home. Most of the farms around here don't produce enough money to support the people who work them, so many farmers also have other jobs.

 

[alsih2o]

i have a theory, europeans, from my understanding, get more holiday time(vacation) than americans...and i think therefore use more of it to be active, and don't see it strictly as "rest time". i know this doesn't account for all of it, but it does help along the way to an explanation.

it seems(i have never even been to canada) that europeans schedule something to do on their vacations, where americans schedule someplace to go do nothing.

my 2 (i am not a sociologist or dietician, but i play one on t.v.) cents

 

[Wicht]

He he. The wealth explanation is hardly valid. Sure - the US has a larger average GDP per Capita than most European countries - but if you exclude the richest and poorest 5% of the countries, this picture will change dramatically. The gap between rich and poor in America is HUUUGE compared to in Europe - especially in Scandinavia and the Netherlands where the gap is close to non-existant (by an international scale anyway).

Not to argue economics, but the poor in America are very well off and it is very rare for a family not to have the means to obtain large amounts of food. I should know

It is also an interesting observation of mine that it is the ones on foodstamps and living on lower incomes in this country who tend to be the most overweight. I think there are two reasons for this. One, there is a certain segment of the population that is too lazy to cook. Two, junk food and pop are cheaper than bread and water.

 

[Psychotic Dreamer]

Personally I am one of the many overweight Americans. I don't let it slow me down. I enjoy life and get out and get exercise. I'll never forget back when I was in high school and I was at a doctors apointmet. The doctor looks at me and says, "You and I have a similar problem. We are overweight." At the time I weighed about 185lbs and should have been about 160lbs. The doctor looked to weigh about 300-350lbs. It just seemed crazy for him to compare us. It's just like the doctors that sit there and smoke and says, "Smoking is bad." Just insane.

 

[Umbran]

I'm 20 years old, have been basically living on junk food for the last 10. Sandwich, chips, fast food, pop...I'm a machine.

I'm not overweight. Heck, I'm *under* weight. My day consists of some of the most sendtary activities imagineable. I'm lazy as crap!

How can I do this?

Maybe it's because I stopped paying attention to when I *should* eat long ago, and just eat whatever my body tells me to when I feel the need.

Actually, it's more likely the fact that you are only 20 years old. The human metabolism changes as you age - early on you can eat more junk and get away with it, in your late 20's and 30's that changes...

Net result - you should be careful. If you keep eating like that, in 5 to 10 years you may find yourself balooning out.