Edit in response to Princess Leah: “Obesity rates are rising *everywhere*, not just America… AND "AMERICANS" DOES NOT HAVE AN APOSTROPHE.”
Leah, America IS a fat country (overall), but I'm happy to take comments about any country. And thanks for the critical reading, I'll try to be more careful with my apostrophes next time.
posted
As much as they may be, it is because of an abundance of calories available and a commuting culture.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
Culture. We pride ourselves in all the gimmicks and gadgets that we have. Taking the easy way out. Most kids aren't even playing outside as much as a lot of us used too. Oh sure fast food has something to do with it, but take a look at me. I ate my share of fast food growing up (I rarely ever touch it now), and I weigh 140 soaking wet. However, I did do a lot of outdoors activities as a kid.
So I would sum it up to both. We citizens of the USA are lazy.
Posts: 2208 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:So I would sum it up to both. We citizens of the USA are lazy.
Yep, but *weird* lazy. I was surprised to read recently that we've actually passed up the Japanese for number of hours worked by the average citizen. I think that a lot of people put so much into their careers or schooling that they don't make time for fitness, spending the time watching bad TV instead. At least, *someone's* watching a lot of bad TV, because certainly there's a *reason* I can never find anything good on, right?
One of the weirder complaints I get as a Kung Fu instructor is from younger women who are ecstatic at first that they're losing weight, then complain when they begin to gain it. "But I'm working so hard!" they say, and I have to explain a little thing called "muscle mass". There is WAY too much emphasis on being thin and not nearly enough on being, y'know, "fit" or "healthy". Nope, it's all about the cosmetics.
Posts: 1631 | Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
We are a land of plenty and it's far too easy to eat as much as we want whenever we want. Exercise doesn't help if you finish it off with a basket of french fries and a burger.
posted
I do think that there is some truth to the fact that kids don't play outside as much anymore. With cable tv and video games, I know a lot of kids who rarely go out. Then you have the latchkey kids, many of whom are forbidden by their parents to go outside until a parent gets home, so they spend all the afternoon hours indoors.
As for me, I don't exercise. I'm slowly trying to remedy that because I know that regular low impact exercise will help me deal with the side effects of chemo.
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Our activities (work, play) tend to be more sedentary than they were a generation or two ago and our eating habits have not caught up. We have to make a special effort to waste calories.
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posted
Silly robots, doing all our work for us. That's what it comes down to. Machines do all the heavy work in the factories, on the farms, and even construction sites. Granted that construction work is very physically demanding (been there, done that; helped build a log cabin and done concrete-and-paver work as well) but not anything like what our ancestors went through to build a house. We just don't need to physically exert ourselves to survive anymore.
Blame the Robots! Human Power! Posts: 1631 | Registered: Sep 2001
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I think the way some cities are designed plays a part. If it is difficult to walk or cycle then people are going to use the car even for short distances. The problem is, once you have a city that relies on cars then it is likely to spread further, making cars even more of a necessity.
If more people were able to walk or cycle to work I think their general level of fitness would improve as people who would not go to the gym still get some exercise every day.
Posts: 169 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I was going to say design too. And sprawl. It makes us structure our lives in a way that it makes no time or opportunity for eating right or exercising.
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quote: I violently disagree with Stan's last post.
You could've just said that you disagreed. I feel like @$$ now.
I did say that I disagreed. Do you object to the violently part? I meant it in response to your last statement - that a lifestyle where someone doesn't exercise = lazy. Americans work more hours than anyone else in the world. They are not lazy. What we have done is construct a society where getting exercise is extremely inconvenient. That's bad planning, except it wasn't planned.
In a country where getting enough exercise happens while they are shopping and getting to work, it's easier to do so than in a place where it means joining a gym and carving out an hour+ a day from leisure time that is already limited because they are working so much.
I also hate blaming it on laziness because it means that anyone who is overweight is clearly so because of moral failings. Besides being wrong, that's very cruel - hence the adverb.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I remember I was suprised that my German friend in High School didn't intend to get his driver's license until he was 21; his response was, "We don't get into our cars every time we need to pee like you Americans." Me, I love a good walk, and will quite happily walk a mile or two to get where I'm going even when a car is available. I think that the therapeutic benefits of walking is largely lost on our culture today. I even like walking home in the rain.
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<Is slightly entertained, considering it's in this thread, that the "violence" in kat's post was remarkably sedentary.>
Posts: 6213 | Registered: May 2001
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I don't think it has as much to do with laziness as portion sizes. We take in far more than we need to. Americans gorge themselves, rather than just eating enough to sustain themselves. If we all left the dinner table slightly hungry, we'd be a lot better off, rather than eating until we feel like we will burst.
That and excersize, but that could be partially negated by simply eating less, and that doesn't include taking more care of what we are actually consuming.
Americans aren't as lazy as many think, they are pressed for time. I don't hop in my car to go to 7-11 because I'm too lazy to walk the two miles, I do it because I simply don't have the half hour to walk there and back, I have too much to do. And I certainly don't have time for a two hour lunch like some European workers take.
That's also another small reason why Europeans are slimmer. They take longer to eat their meals, thus resulting in smaller portion sizes. That's because when you eat really fast, your stomach isn't sending the correct signals to your brain to indicate that you are full, so you don't know you're full. When you take more time to eat, your brain receives the correct signals, and you stop eating sooner, and end up eating less. My average lunch is probably eaten in ten minutes, not 100 minutes, but my stomach is the size of a petri dish, so I end up eating small portions anyways.
Europeans place too much emphasis on the "Americans are lazy" stereotype. I don't know why, maybe it makes them feel better about themselvs, in the same way that kids with low self esteem in grade school will make fun of others to raise their own self image. But I think there is far less truth to it than they generally believe.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
-High Calorie, low nutirient food is heavily advertised and served to kids from early in life. Even in families that do have access to fruit, you often hear "My kid won't eat fruit, just fishy crackers". Kids spend way too much time in front of TV.
The vast majority of public schools offer pure crap. Again, high fat, refined carb stuff. At the same time they are often cutting PE time to make time to meet NCLB standards.
We're a culture of convenience foods and electronic entertainment. I can't tell you how many folks I've worked with who consider it normal to walk across the parking lot for coffee.
I know there are some people who have a biological issue, and others who really can't help the lifestyle factors that make them fat, but they're in the minority.
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I wouldn't blame the kids, it's the parents who let them eat what they eat and allow the habits of non-exercise and eating "wrong" which then are cultivated as the kid grows.
Posts: 3636 | Registered: Oct 2001
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I had a teenage volunteer once whose family ate a LOT of fast food- several nights a week. She once asked me why I don't eat fast food, so I told her. The next time her family went out to eat (at Taco Bell) she said she didn't want to eat it and that she wanted to start eating healthier. They told her she would eat Taco Bell or starve, and they were pissed at me. The whole family is really large.
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
For example, a mother I know used the bottle as a substitute for good parenting. Whenever the baby cried it got fed. Soon the mother of this 1 year old got told by the doctor that her kid was extremely overweight. The habit has continued. I think this is wrong for so many reasons. Not only is the (now 3 year old) still overweight, but she had difficulty crawling and then walking. Even more disturbing is the psychological effect. I can picture this little girl feeling the urge to eat whenever she is unhappy. So unfortunately it seems as though eating disorders are partially formed before the poor kids can form complete sentences.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Obesity rates are rising *everywhere*, not just America.
Not all Americans are overweight.
And not all overweight people have a "because".
I hate discussions like this. *leaves to hopefully sober up (in other words, my drunken emotions are driving this post. Just thought I'd put that out there)*
Posts: 866 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
There was an interesting article in the New Orleans paper over Thanksgiving talking about the psychological effects of growing up in the "there are starving children in china" generation.
I remember being told as a child to clean my plate and not waste. While my parents fed me proper portions as a kid, what stuck was the idea that leaving food on a plate was BAD. But when that thought is mixed with bad portions as handed to kids by their parents, or dining in a restuarant, etc, you get people overeating.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I know my previous words read out pretty harsh, but it's a little late to take anything back. An I'm wouldn't anyway, but to at least say it was an overt generalization.
(((Princess Leah))), mmm I wouldn't necessarilly post while drunk. I've done it before...let's just say I could've done without. Hope you are doing ok though. I'm stuck in a rut myself.
Posts: 2208 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Funny you should ask, because I'm (avoiding) writing a sociology paper on this very topic.
First, there is simply an over-abundance of food produced in the country today. And 16 million people can only eat so much of it. So the laws of supply and demand kick in: food becomes cheaper, and portion sizes have become progressively larger in order for food providers to compete.
As has already been mentioned, I think a lot of it also has to do with our much more sedentary culture. Fear of crime discourages parents from letting kids run around outside, so they play video games. I'm from the South, where we have some fabulous food -- which were perfect when we picked cotton all day, but those days are long gone. It doesn't stop people from eating the food they grew up with, hence why some of the highest BMIs are with the deep south.
Another thing I think has contributed is the smaller number of families cooking dinner from scratch and cooking/eating as a family. Children (boys *and* girls) learn poor eating habits and have a hard time changing them because they never learned cooking or basic nutrition.
Then there are the cola wars: Colleges, high schools, middle schools, and now freaking *Elementary* schools get fought over 'pouring rights' -- whether Coke or Pepsi has the right to sell them calorific sodas. The strategy is to latch them onto a brand while they're young so that they'll buy the product *for the rest of their lives*.
There are tons of other factors that work into it, too. Yesterday I first learned of all the government subsidies that go into corn, which is found in just about every processed food in the form of corn oil and corn syrup. Freaky stuff.
Posts: 4089 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
There is a woman who rides the same bus as me pretty much every day on my way to work. She has two little girls who are normally with her, but sometimes it's just one or the other. These kids are so poorly behaved that I will get up and move as far away from them as I can as soon as they get on the bus, even though I cringe to do it because I feel rude. But the children are HORRIBLEY spoiled, and have actually come up to me while the bus is going and shoved a half eaten lollipop in my face. The mom never does anything. OK, so, the kids are brats. They are also pretty intensly overweight. Both little girls are at least 40-50lbs bigger than seems healthy for their age. The mom isnt particularly heavy, and neither is the dad from what I've seen of him. As far as I can tell, the only reason these kids are so big is because their mom uses candy and pop as a motivator for EVERYTHING. I've sat there and watched her threaten them with not buying them candy if they dont sit down, shut up, stop hitting each other, stop bugging the bus driver, and any other number of things that drive the rest of us mad. They always have candy of some sort in their mouth, and guzzle pop constantly. The only time I actually saw the mother follow through with a threat to take away the candy, the youngest child thru such a fit that the bus had to stop for fear of her hurting herself. The mom gave her her candy back. I sit there and FUME, furious that this woman is allowed to be a mother, that these kids are being so thoroughly screwed for the rest of their lives because the moms too lazy to be a good parent, and that there is really nothing I can do about it. And then, one day she sat next to me before I could move, so I lifted my Harry Potter book as high as I could, covering my face, and prepared to ignore as much as I could. But then, she started talking to me about my book. She was rhapsodizing about how much her and her kids love Harry Potter, and asking me if I've read the latest and what I thought of it. I couldnt ignore her. I started talking to her, and eventually actually looked her in the eyes. She was the most tired looking human being I've ever seen. Even when she was screaming at her kids, her expression never changed. Her shoulders were permantely slumped, and her face was just... slack. You know the look that a truly old human gets when they live in their own world? Thats what her face was like. It made me sad. Her little girls, while obnoxious, were actually really smart. Their constant chatter was often imaginative and funny. Annoying, but funny. I couldnt stay mad at her after that. I couldnt put all the blame for her kids issues on her anymore. I dont know why she seemed so defeated, but looking at her you could understand why she always chose the easiest way. It was sad. I'm not saying she wasnt responsible. In fact, I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say. I guess, it's that it was easy for me to assume that her poor parenting and messed up children was a direct result of laziness and stupidity. I still dont know if that is actually the case, and I'm giving her too much sympathy. EIther way, I didnt have the right to judge her.
Posts: 499 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I had a friend from Italy who complained that the reason Americans are fat is because our breads are too soft. He said that Italian and French sandwich breads are mostly crust with a little bit of soft, filling; while American breads were skimpy on the crust and heavy with the soft white carbs.
Posts: 2425 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
I'm trying very hard not to be angered by the wording of the question. The implication that Americans, as a people, are inherently a fat people might be the part that offends me more. Or it might be the implication that only Americans are fat, and that other nationalities have miraculously managed to avoid obesity problems. Both sides of the question are gross overgeneralizations, and they are both demonstrably false.
The majority of "fat people", leaving aside those with glandular conditions and so on, are fat because they eat too much and exercise too little. It's that simple.
Humans enjoy having delicious food to eat. And they enjoy having an easier life. So for millennia, humans have done whatever they could to A) make sure they had a food surplus, altered in whatever ways possible to be even more delicious and bountiful (selective breeding to improve flavor and size has been with us for thousands of years, and the relatively recent creation of artificial sweetening is a difference of degree, not of kind) and B) develop ways to get work done faster and with less effort.
The wealthiest peoples tend to have the best capacity for acheiving both of these ends. America, being a very wealthy nation, finds it easy to create vast quantities of ultra-delicious foods, and has (building from thousands of years of pre-American humans doing precisely the same thing) a great deal of ability to turn strenuous activity over to machines.
Therefore, Americans have a greater access to large amounts of food--much of it unhealthy--and larger numbers of ways to get work done without much physical effort. This condition encourages obesity, because obesity comes from eating too much and exercising too little. Even in earlier times, obesity could always be found in the higher classes, who could afford a lot of food and slaves or servants to do their work for them. In Renaissance Europe, the ideal of the beautiful woman was one with some meat on her bones, because it meant she was rich enough to not have to work. The working classes simply couldn't afford to get fat, but the wealthy classes could, and did.
To oversimplify, we're fatter because we're rich enough to afford to become fatter. But look elsewhere in the world. There is obesity in all of the major developed nations. The richer they get, the faster they catch up with us.
And you'll also notice that a thundering lot of Americans are not fat. Some are just young people with lightning metabolisms, and some are too poor, personally, to have much access to excess food and simpler labor. But a lot of people aren't fat because they watch what they eat, or they work out, or both. Having a wealthier nation only unlocks a greater potential for the individual to slide into obesity. It doesn't mean it's necessarily going to happen.
Posts: 1814 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Fat people are always full of excuses about why they're fat, when the simple answer is that they eat too much and don't exercise enough. Yeah, there are genetic and other exceptions, but I'm speaking about the majority. Canadians aren't any different, and for the most part neither is anyone from any country who is obese. You can complain about your career taking up all of your time, but if you're not willing to take care of your health, then what's the point of the career? You're not going to live long enough to enjoy the fruits of your labor.
I work 8 hours a day, and often I'll put in some overtime, and yet somehow I still manage to get a fair amount of exercise. A 30 minute walk with the dog after supper (or a solo walk if you don't have a dog). Some light weight-lifting. Tennis, soccer, football, or anything else I can play with my friends. An hour of exercise a day isn't a lot, even for those with the busiest schedules. Hell, you can exercise while watching television, if that's how you spend your evenings.
And the point about Americans being fat because they have so much food just seems ridiculous to me. There are a lot of us who have access to the same amount of food, and yet we choose to eat in moderation. We all indulge once in a while, but if you're eating more than what you need to satiate your hunger on a regular basis, then you need to recheck your thinking.
In any case, I have nothing against overweight people. If you're comfortable in your own skin, then more power to you, but I've never known an overweight person who didn't genuinely want to lose weight, and almost everyone I've known who has really put an effort into shedding some pounds has succeeded. I think all it takes is some moderation and common sense.
Posts: 1855 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:And the point about Americans being fat because they have so much food just seems ridiculous to me. There are a lot of us who have access to the same amount of food, and yet we choose to eat in moderation.
See, this is why I said:
quote:And you'll also notice that a thundering lot of Americans are not fat [. . .] because they watch what they eat, or they work out, or both. Having a wealthier nation only unlocks a greater potential for the individual to slide into obesity. It doesn't mean it's necessarily going to happen.
Stating the fact that we have more food than most societies in the world have historically had was not an excuse. It was a fact. If the Assyrians had had the same amount of food we have, and the same labor-saving devices, there would have been a lot of fat Assyrians.
It is not that the existence of large amounts of food makes anyone fat. It just allows people who are inclined to eat more than they should the opportunity to do so. A lot of people respond by eating too much. A lot of other people don't. I don't see where that's making excuses. It's a very simple fact.
Posts: 1814 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
It's very simple. Americans are fat due to the excessive use of apostrophes. This leads to a lascivious excess in all other things, inclusing eating. When the Grammar Communist Revolution arrives, obesity will be among the many problems it will solve. No more fatsos in the Grammarian Paradise!
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
You know what bugs me? Skinny people. We have so many skinny people here in America, with BMI's under 18. It's disgraceful. It's ugly and it makes it harder for them to function, but most importantly, it's unhealthy. And yet it's so easy to gain healthy weight! All you need to do is eat more. Yes, of course there are those with high metabolisms and other such issues, but they're in the minority. Most people who are skinny are just too lazy or self-centered to eat properly.
Look at what you're saying. Turn the argument around. Don't be sizeist.
Posts: 866 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Verily, I wrote my post before reading yours, and I concede to and agree with your point, in so far as having the excess creates the potential to indulge.
My argument is that having access to the food isn't a reasonable excuse for over eating. Saying "I eat too much, and that is why I am overweight" is still an excuse. It is an attempt to explain a fault; a justifcation. I guess a better question is "Why do some people eat much more than they require, and yet are unwilling to compensate for their indulgence with exercise?"
Posts: 1855 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, Leah. It's obvious you were being sarcastic, but yes, being too skinny can also be unhealthy, and I don't think you'll get any arguments about that here. Also, I don't think anyone called overweight people "ugly," so maybe you don't have to get so offended and confrontational.
Posts: 1855 | Registered: Mar 2003
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But it's hard to find places you can walk to that are worth going to. We don't use public transport much. The way to control weight, if you're white-collar, is to set aside time for exercise -- not to go about daily life. Many of us have other priorities.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Call fat people ugly? Not here they didn't, you're right. That was an overreaction on my part. I'm just angry by the blame and the guilt that seems to be okay to lay on large people. Look in the "Anorexia" thread. Google a little. The underlying sentiment behind this sort of discussion is the one that allows perfect strangers to think it's okay to tell me how many calories are in a Coke to "save me from myself", to discuss MY body in public, to assume that I don't excercise, and to blatently mock me because I'm a fat@$$. Fat-bashing still appears to be okay to do loudly and in public without fear of being opposed, and I do not want that to continue.
The argument I'm trying to make is that for many people, size is not controllable. Are people ridiculed or blamed for being too skinny *all the time*, in the media, in their homes, while in public? No. Is excess weight unhealthy? Yeah, it is. But don't you think that those of us who carry it around know that?
To quote a friend of mine currently combatting binge eating disorder, "just because I'm fat doesn't mean I'm stupid." She's diabetic. *I* am diabetic. We know how to use the glycemic index to make food absorption take longer. We know what foods have enough fat in them to muck with short-acting insulin. Give me a food, I bet I can tell you its carb content off the top of my head.
It's funny that this thread is going on when earlier today there was a thread about how sad it was that children of 8 or 9 years were frequently diagnosed with anorexia. Where does the attitude come from that lets the issues of control and helplessness be worked out towards food?
A few years back, a friend and I took one of those moronic online quizzes that you do when you're bored. One of the questions was "Would you rather be obese or anorexic?" We both answered anorexic. And we'd both had the experience. And we were both dealing with bulimia at the time.
Since then, I"ve been able to stop purging, and I no longer dangerously restrict my food intake. But I've been unable to stop binge eating, and as a result, I've gained quite a bit of weight. I wear a size 12 right now. There is a huge difference in the way I've been treated since I stopped slowly starving myself to death and destroying my esophagus. And that hurts.
There is nothing inherently wrong with being overweight. There is no reason to mock or insult or discriminate against someone because of thier size. There is no reason why fat people somehow must lose weight just because society sends millions of subtle or blatent condemnations of anyone bigger than Keira Knightly in a corset.
If you're worried about health, that's nice. Very sweet. But you don't encourage someone by telling them that thier problem is their own fault. Obesity is not just a question of a person eating too much and not excercising. It's not just a "lazy" thing. Don't place unwarrented blame.
quote:
Taking the easy way out.
We citizens of the USA are lazy.
fat because they eat too much and exercise too little. It's that simple.
people aren't fat because they watch what they eat, or they work out, or both.
the simple answer is that they eat too much and don't exercise enough.
I've never known an overweight person who didn't genuinely want to lose weight, and almost everyone I've known who has really put an effort into shedding some pounds has succeeded. I think all it takes is some moderation and common sense.
posted
Maybe that's why I got so upset... I think you're on target. It's a bunch of crap to point the finger at fat people in a scolding way, with an attitude that reeks of condescension.
I mean, seriously, I walk *two* miles every day and I'm fat because I'm lazy?
Sometimes I think people are so callously insensitive because they actually have no concept and no frame of reference for what a touchy subject this actually is for us fatty mcfattersons.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Indeed. Have you read "Fat Farm"? One of the stories by our host that is most dear to my heart.
Posts: 866 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Terrific story. The main thing I remember about reading it (when I was in high school) was the description of the guy's amazement that he'd lost so much weight that his legs no rubbed together at the crotch. I immediately thought to myself, 'Do my legs rub together?' and then I was upset about that for the rest of the day.
It's beeen a long time since I've read it, though. I'm waiting for the rest of the comic to appear on IGMS.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I still remember the feeling I got when I learned who the old man with the whip was... *shudders* that one hit hard. In a good, cathartic sort of way.
Posts: 866 | Registered: Dec 2003
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