Fattening of America

emeraldkity4 · July 8, 2011, 2:58pm

I admit I have 5 or 10 extra lbs ( which shows up more when you are less than 5’5") but that is nothing compared to what some of us are hauling around.

<a href=“http://healthyamericans.org/reports/obesity2011/Obesity2011Report.pdf[/url]”>http://healthyamericans.org/reports/obesity2011/Obesity2011Report.pdf</a>

But I can’t help but wonder, besides the contribution of fast food restaurants & larger helpings to our nations waistline, what is the effect of hormones in our drinking water/ food supply?

I know I am not the only one who is bemused by people drinking diet soda while they eat grinders that Rosie Greer couldn’t finish. I never understood that.

IMO one major factor is that foods like corn are subsidized & so fast food can seem cheaper & easier than eating less processed & healthier food.
[Food</a> Subsidies | Downsizing the Federal Government](<a href=“http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/agriculture/food-subsidies]Food”>http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/agriculture/food-subsidies)

I don’t see a lot of overweight people in our neighborhood but I did on my visit to the midwest. What saddens me the most are the teens who are obese, because their habits are not likely to get much better. ( I am not including those who just haven’t had their growth spurt yet & are chubby, that is a big difference).

I think we need to start in all of our schools- the lunches in our city district are full of fat & sugar & for kids on FRL, they don’t have any other choice if they want to eat!

Maybe it would help if gas went over $4gal, then more people would get out and walk?

TatinG · July 8, 2011, 3:07pm

I don’t know what factors are contributing to this, but 20 years ago there were fast food restaurants, there was subsidized corn and people were thinner.

I just don’t see that much difference in lifestyles today from just 20 years ago. Maybe more people ate at home. The population as a whole was younger. And more people were working. Working especially hard manual labor will keep you thinner. Unemployed people eat due to depression and boredom.

The figures show that obesity is worse in the poor, in minorities and in those with less education. There may be more of those than 20 years ago.

emeraldkity4 · July 8, 2011, 3:14pm

Fast food restaurants 20 years ago, didn’t have the humongous “meal” sizes they do now.

[Fast-food</a> portions keep getting bigger - Health - Diet and nutrition - msnbc.com](<a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20825325/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/t/any-other-name-its-still-supersize/]Fast-food”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20825325/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/t/any-other-name-its-still-supersize/)

interesteddad · July 8, 2011, 3:20pm

Part of it is simply demographic. Older people weigh more. The average age of the population, with the big baby boom glut, is older. Hence, the population will have more heavier people.

If there is a genetic tendency for African American and Latino/a to weigh more, then the increased population in these groups will drive the national statistics up as well.

Also, I believe that it is now federal law that BMI be recorded on every patient’s chart and reported, thus it could also be that there is simply increased reporting. This is particularly problematic given that the BMI charts are a joke. According to the BMI charts, Barack Obama is just a few pounds away from being “overweight”.

It doesn’t help that the nutritional advice given by the government and health agencies encourage people to eat more of the foods that make you store fat.

fendrock · July 8, 2011, 3:24pm

Can you elaborate on this??

mini · July 8, 2011, 3:26pm

Almost all psyche meds will result in weight gain (but they won’t talk about that in the data).

TatinG · July 8, 2011, 3:27pm

Fast food servings are big, but the paragraph states that they are larger than 50 years ago, not 20. I don’t remember when supersizing came around.

Other new things that weren’t around 20 years ago: cable TV and the internet. I’m sure these have contributed to our sedentary lifestyles.

BunsenBurner · July 8, 2011, 3:31pm

Yes, BMI is a “joke”, and BO IS quite likely overweight. By using the European measures. When an average American woman (5’6", 152 lb, BMI OK) goes shopping in Europe and discovers that not too many stores carry the size XL she would wear there, it tells you something!

Tatin, I think the supersizing game started in the early nineties.

DougBetsy · July 8, 2011, 3:34pm

Here is my view on the causes of obesity (in no particular order):

Portion sizes are out of control. Out. of. control.

Kids rarely play outside anymore. Unstructured time with “kick the can” or “capture the flag” 3 blocks from home has been replaced by video games. PLUS, parents don’t want their kids out playing/riding bikes in the neighborhood. It’s full of stranger danger. Instead, they’ll take a car ride to the play date a half mile away.

Recess is disappearing from our schools.

Air conditioning. It’s true that prespiring is a natural appetite supressent. These days, we go from our AC home to the AC car to the AC school or office. Opening our windows more often would help us nibble less.

When a family has 2 working parents (or a single parent) they are constantly pressed for time. The quick, easy meal is usually fatter than the carefully prepared meal. AND, the parents are quite often tired. If they sit on the couch every night, that’s a behavior the kids will model.

High fructose corn syrup.

Cost. Lean, fresh, healthy food costs more than bargain food. Families on a budget have tough decisions to make. If they can spend less on groceries this month, maybe they can pay the gas bill in full. I think this is a key factor in the obesity stats in our empoverished southern states.

Market deserts. There are pockets of urban America without a full-service grocery store. These residents have to get their food at the 7-11. What kind of diet is that?

Vanity sizing. What used to be a ladies’ 8 is now a 4. The former 12 is now an 8. When women wear the same size at age 40 as they did at 25, they’re fooled into thinking there’s no issue there.

And, lastly, it’s become “OK” to be heavy. Advertisers have found a new niche and the media is selling into it. Why not? 30% of consumers are overweght. They can’t afford to offend such a large segment of the dollar-wielding population. The stigma of being fat has basically disappeared.

pugmadkate · July 8, 2011, 3:37pm

Walk where? Most suburbs are, in my opinion, a central part of the problem. I can walk to a park but I cannot walk to any stores, the library, or even a community center. When I stay with my sister, who can walk to the grocery, library and so on it’s amazing how hard it is to keep up with her at first but it’s also amazing how good I feel by the end of the week.

This is something we are seriously considering for our retirement. We either want to be rural enough that we can have biking/walking trails or urban enough to walk/bike to the basics. Our home and neighborhood right now are lovely but they could not be less walk/bike friendly.

I don’t find that to be the case at all.

pugmadkate · July 8, 2011, 3:41pm

It’s listed as a side effect. Every psychiatrist I’ve seen, and I’ve seen some terrible ones, has talked about the weight gain and how to deal with it.

At this point in my life I would like to loose weight but my priority is staying sane. I’m hoping to at least change my body shape a bit by stepping up my exercise but I’ve been thin and depressed. No way am I going back to that.

interesteddad · July 8, 2011, 3:41pm

The government nutrition guidelines (and therefore the guidelines that health organziations, websites, health providers, and food packaging info offer) is that 60% of our daily calories should come from carbohydrates (sugar, grain, and starchy vegetables). It has been well-known for hundreds of years and accepted science in the medical schools until the 1970s that excessive carbohydrate consumption makes you fat and that the easiest way to lose weight for most people is cut back on carbohydrates and starches.

There are several reasons why this is the case, one of which is that carbohydrate breaks down to glucose which triggers the release of insulin. Insulin lowers the spike in blood sugar by forcing the body to store fat (instead of burning it as fuel) until the glucose can be burned off. This is fine unless you are eating large amounts of carbohydrates all day every day and then the constant release of the hormone insulin means that you are tending to store fat all the time. Even worse, the body becomes resistant to insulin so more and more must be released making the body more and more prone to storing fat. Obesity is fundamentally a disorder of excessive fat storage. This insulin resistance is at the core of a collection of disorders grouped together as “metabolic syndrome” including type 2 diabetes and obesity.

If you can lower the insulin levels, the body will tend to release stored fat and burn it as fuel. This not only makes your belly fat shrink, but it also reduces hunger since you are buring calories from stored fat and don’t feel the need to eat as much. This is the key to “easy” weight loss. It’s hormonal.

With a somewhat different mechanism, sugar (white sugar, HFCS, honey, etc.) also triggers fat storage and insulin resistance. In fact, sugar may actually be the primary problem. Drinking sugar (soda, sports drinks, fruit juice, etc.) is just a disaster.

TatinG · July 8, 2011, 3:42pm

I agree with your first points. Portion size in restaurants are out of control. Just go to Europe and you’ll see just how much the difference is.

And I also think the ‘stranger danger’ problem with not letting kids play outside is overblown also. That I blame on cable TV pumping up all the missing children stories. Which began about 20 years ago.

Two working parents or no responsible parent controls contributes to the lack of outdoor activities for kids and to the overuse of fast food restaurants.

Another thing: We are all rushed for time. When we rush we eat faster and we then tend to eat too much. You don’t even know you’re full until after 20 minutes has passed.

emeraldkity4 · July 8, 2011, 3:42pm

Re: #10
Well I was being facetious, but when I was in the midwest, my host was horrified when I suggested that we walk instead of taking public transportation. ( it was faster to walk)
A major reason we moved to the city 28 yrs ago, was because we can walk to the grocery & to the park/library/post office, but now I read that the county council wants to cut out the bus route that services our neighborhood to the other parts of the city! :p

BunsenBurner · July 8, 2011, 3:54pm

“And I also think the ‘stranger danger’ problem with not letting kids play outside is overblown also. That I blame on cable TV pumping up all the missing children stories. Which began about 20 years ago.”

^^True. Or parents are too paranoid about traffic. Kids in my neighborhood have to walk to and from the elementary school, because the school is less than a mile away, but I see so many parents driving their little Jills and Jacks, creating the very traffic they are concerned about!

And PE classes… They are a joke.

ucsd_ucla_dad · July 8, 2011, 4:01pm

I think it has to start in the home. The majority of the meals are eaten outside of school and even in school, it’s not required to eat whatever lunch the school offers - they can bring a lunch bag. Even if they eat the school’s meal, they likely have an option of making some decent decisions if the kid was raised to do so.

Parents and eventually the kids need to take responsibility for what they consume and not look toward the schools, the government, restaurants, etc. for the solution. If the parents and the kids are determined to stuff themselves with high-calorie garbage they’ll do so whether they choose the large meals at McDonalds as opposed to the smaller meals, they choose to hit the ice cream store every other day, they shop in the tater chip/cookie/candy/ice cream/bacon aisles at the grocery, and throw all self-control to the wind.

This isn’t the fault of schools, fast food places, restaurants, the food industry, or the government although all of those can help to some extent but they can’t solve the problem.

cbreeze · July 8, 2011, 4:04pm

Not to the point of morbid obesity. Weight gain is the direct result of the kind and amount of food one puts in the mouth. One doesn’t see many obese Africans in Africa.
People in the US like to put the blame on something else rather than their own lack of self control.

prefect · July 8, 2011, 4:04pm

There may not be more fast food restaurants than there were twenty years ago, but I think the menus have changed. For example, I recently went to Wendy’s and ordered a hamburger. I got a cheeseburger. When I questioned it I was told that all of their burgers come with cheese now. You have to specifically ask for no cheese. Portion sizes are much bigger than they were twenty years ago too, I think. It’s also becoming the norm for entrees to come with cheese, bacon, etc.

TatinG · July 8, 2011, 4:05pm

I agree. The solution isn’t government. In fact, Arkansas instituted some strict requirements in schools with regard to PE and food choices and the program hasn’t made a dent.

Ultimately, as the old saying goes, people dig their own graves with their spoons.

sryrstress · July 8, 2011, 4:07pm

EK is correct about her midwest statement. I see it everywhere. We’re the 15th fattest state, with a rate of 29.1%. Yet today the front page of the largest state newspaper says …“it could have been a lot worse”, because 15 years ago we were second. So we’re proud of the fact other states got comparatively fatter? Even though we’re within 4% of the fattest and we’re still 15th? ug…

I’m not sure about 20 years ago, but 35 years ago things were certainly different. Most moms cooked a meal every night, we didn’t eat out much, and she shooed us out the door in the morning and saw us back in at night. In between, we rode bikes, swam, and played.

Fattening of America

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