Posted on 04/10/2007 2:07:12 AM PDT by nancyvideo
The number of Americans 100 pounds or more overweight increased 50 percent from 2000 to 2005, twice as fast as moderately obese people. "The proportion of people at the high end of the weight scale continues to increase at a brisk rate despite increased public attention on the risks of obesity and the increased use of drastic weight loss strategies such as bariatric surgery," said study author Roland Sturm, a Rand Corp. research organization economist.
(Excerpt) Read more at rightbias.com ...
And in a related story, number of people increasing.
Walmart and amusement parks indeed! I am thinking of going to Schlitterbahn this year but the scenery could be brutal. Might be too many whales.
Look at any 1940’s newsreel footage of American soldiers, factory workers, and especially the women! WWII America seemed lean and fit across the board. True, there wasn’t as much to eat during wartime rationing.
Jeez! That’s a pretty substantial increase, too...
Cause of or caused by Global Warming?
- Bingo.
I have noticed that, for some reason, women seem to be especially susceptible to being seriously overweight. Maybe it’s just their choice in clothing which seems to emphasize form hugging pants, but the percentage of women waddling around shopping malls seems to be unusually high.
Especially disturbing are the programs on TV, many of which feature college age girls, many of whom seem unaware that they are already “heavy set” at an age when obesity shouldn't’t even begin to appear - except for those who overeat for emotional reasons.
However, I have noticed this does not seem to be a particularly American problem. There are now many home buying/selling and home improvement shows showing up on television in the past year from the UK and I am always amazed over the number of housewives on these shows who are seriously obese - many are built like little barrels. Maybe it’s all those fish and chips washed down with frequent visits to the local pub that’s doing it, but it’s truly surprising to see.
The FDA doesn’t help pushing 2000+ calorie diets for a people that mostly sit on their butts all day (myself included). Cutting that by 400-500 calories helped me lose 25 lbs in the last 4 months. Adding rigorous excercise three days a week helped even more.
I'd have to disagree with you there. We still have PE all through the grades in our school district, but the number of obese kids is still increasing. Forty-five minutes of standing around tossing a ball at a hoop is not going to make anybody lose weight or keep it off.
I'd say that with kids, part of it is that they rarely have to walk any distance to school anymore. Local parents here insisted that the school district bring in buses for children who live just 3 blocks away because it was too hard for the little ones to walk that far. In addition, many parents feel nervous at the idea of letting their children run around wildly after school, as my generation did. They're afraid of child molesters. Even if you give your kid the freedom to run around ad lib., there are no other kids outside for him to run around with.
Then remember how you used to get your fingers slapped for dipping them into the cookie jar? You were told you'd ruin your dinner. Families used to have more structured eating. Today, the pantry is stocked with snack foods and kids can stuff their faces.
Who pays attention to the FDA? Thats the first problem. You know your body better than a gov’t agency. Common sense tells you that if you eat too much and don’t exercise you will get fat. If you eat cakes and ice cream all day you will also get fat.
When you add in all of my “fat fingered” posting around here, that’s probably so, LOL!
I wish the Nanny Staters would just STFU and leave people alone. How long before fat people are ridiculed in the streets, rounded up and sent to internment camps?
How long before the ACLU steps up to protect THEIR rights?
*Crickets Chirping*
I make my kid do 10 push ups before he plays any video games and 10 more for every level he passes (he's six). i also work out hard and hope that will rub off.
Bisphenol A
http://website.lineone.net/~mwarhurst/bisphenol.html
http://www.wwf.org.uk/news/n_0000000145.asp
http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/NewScience/oncompounds/bisphenola/bpauses.htm
BPA speeds the pace of sexual development in mice, and causes mice to be obese: Howdeshell, K, AK Hotchkiss, KA Thayer, JG Vandenbergh and FS vom Saal. 1999. Plastic bisphenol A speeds growth and puberty. Nature 401: 762-764.
look in to this .....
I hate to bring this up and rattle cages, but obesity is usually a class-related thing. You will almost never seen a fat person who is upper-middle class or upper class. It’s no accident that Bergdorf’s does not carry size 20. The middle class has plump people, 40 pounds overweight or so at most. The working class folks start to get heavier. The unemployed, rural and urban, are as a group heaviest of all. There are exceptions, of course—there are some skinny poor people, for instance.
Before you say, “Oh, yeah? My boss is rich, and he’s 350 pounds!” recall that if a rich man is fat, he probably doesn’t come from a family that’s had money for a long time; he probably earned his wealth.
Now I’ve done it. If there is any subject that’s more sensitive than fat, it’s social class!
Wait until the PC nazi bureaucrats start busting down doors and dragging fat kids away from their parents. I give it two years maximum before it starts.
Maybe the poor coincides with lazy which coincides with buying easy to make microwave foods and take out. I was poor but my mom made whole foods from scratch.
Maybe the rich have more incentive to be somewhat in shape, maybe poor people are depressed but now a days people are ridiculously fat, and lazy.
When I was poor I guess we had no video games, no cable, no remote controls and chores (i'm only 35).
Cheap foods, often hailed as a "triumph of the American system" are largely responsible. They are loaded with high fructose corn syrup and trans-fats, and have carb counts vastly higher than the usual foods the upper-middle class on up eats.
Food used to be expensive relative to other costs of living - now it's so incredibly cheap that nobody believes that Democrat or charity ads about "starving Americans" are actually about anyone other than drug addicts. When they replaced sugar with HFCS, butter with trans-fats, and published the ridiculous food pyramid to boost Archer-Daniels-Midland's bottom line back in the early 70's, the obesity rates began to shoot up.
And the problem isn't really solvable now.
Well, poor people can be skinny, too. My grandfather was poor and always described himself as a hillbilly, and he was one, but he and all our kin on that side were skinny as a rail. Appalachian skinny—you know what I mean. Maybe he difference is that fried chicken and cornbread and greens you ate are actually good for you. Now the foods of choice for the poor are potato chips and pizza. And today we have a lot more chemicals in our food, including corn syrup, which I’m convinced is terrible for the health.
I do think that upper-middle class people experience a subtle social pressure to stay slender and fit, and do what it takes to achieve that.
I’m in total agreement with you. But self-discipline is part of the picture, too.
Agree.

we're NOT FAT..... we got big bones
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.