Heavy Questions (obesity)

NY Times Magazine ^ | January 2, 2005 | ELIZABETH WEIL

[Keith in Iowa]

>>>>I really don't understand all the blame on McDonalds ---- they were around back in the 60s if not before when childhood obesity wasn't a big problem.

But then again, in that day & age, a trip to McD's was an occasional treat - not a several times a week thing.

[Sam Cree]

Well, I don't know what the beautiful Manhattan ladies eat, but perhaps you are right. I first noticed them a few years ago while jogging in Central Park during a visit to NYC. At the time I was jogging 3 miles most mornings, yet many of the ladies were able to outpace me...'course they were likely 20 or 30 years younger than me...anyway, they were in shape. I figured they were showgirls or actresses, people who needed to look sharp for professional reasons. Anyway, these days, whenever I visit Manhattan, I notice them around.

Agreed with your points about cooking, eating and refined starch. Both me and my wife cook pretty well, neither of us has ever had much of a weight problem.

[Texan5]

I wondered about that myself-when our kids were 6 years old, and for much longer after that, the rules were the same as they were for me as a kid-eat what's on the table, or don't eat at all. And "fast food" was something to be gotten on a road trip so we didn't have to stop for lunch-not a common food item.

[Cobra64]

Ever sop up gravy with a slice of bread?

In Europe, it is common for people to dip italian bread in olive oil, especially in the southern part of Switzerland, and northern Italy. Doesn't everyone know that olive oil is only used in salads?/sarc

It is amazing how culturally culinary narrow some people are.

Best stay home and eat Raisin Bran with skim milk.

[Nataku X]

Point taken. Sorry for making light of your choices. I know I get annoyed when people criticize my diet.

[Coldwater Creek]

What I was referring to was, planning before marriage as to how you could live off of one income, so that the mother could stay home and prepare proper meals. I feel that it is important that the family sit down at the table and eat together.

[Cobra64]

Shrimp? I'll never eat another one. They are almost 100% cholesterol. More than any other fish or meat.

Aaaaah. Shrimp, and lobster, snow crab, and alaskan king crab in drawn butter. We eat crustaceans at least once a week.

[Cobra64]

I once tried to eat a McDonalds burger in 1968. I couldn't finish it. The fast food places "serve" up the worst food I've ever eaten.

[Cobra64]

pancakes and gravy.

Just goes to show you how little imagination I have. When I think of pancakes I think maple syrup.

When we moved from PA to CO (where I met my wife from MN in college), that was the first time I put maple syrup on pancakes. It's good. But when Karen tried gravy on pancakes (she wasn't thrilled with the idea), she loves it that way. What sold her on the idea was when I asked her if she ever had prime rib, mashed potatoes and GRAVY growing up in MN. Obviously, yes. Then I asked her if she ever took a slice of bread and cleaned up her plate.

[Cobra64]

And "fast food" was something to be gotten on a road trip so we didn't have to stop for lunch-not a common food item.

Fast food on a road trip. There are some in this country that pick up road kills. Bambi, Pepe La Pew, Wylie Coyote, Brere Rabbit... Now I know what the fast food joints put in the kitchen.

[esquirette]

Amen.

[MarkL]

But I do like Alton Brown on "Good Eats" for the science of cooking--and Paula Hoh-rn from Sa--vah-in-nah and the pretty Ina Garten. I don't want a blumic model-type telling me how to cook.

Good Eats is one of my very favorite TV shows. I don't mean cooking shows: I mean it's one of my favorite shows period!

I agree with you 100% about Iron Chef... I'm halfway convinced that a lot of those recipes came about from losing bets! I remember one where the "secret ingredient" was this super-deep water ocean fish. I don't even remember what it was called, but it played the "deep ocean monster" in "Finding Nemo!"

As for not wanting a model-type how to cook, well, Giatta DeLaurentis can tell me anything she wants, anytime she wants! Yum, and I'm NOT just talking about her cooking!

Mark

[SupplySider]

I believe real the "root" cause of increasing childhood obesity, as well as much of adult obesity, is the result of the high rate of women in the workplace.

Phooey. More like it's the result of sedentary lifestyles--computers, television, video games.

Much of the TV, computers, and television is due to overworked parents using them as electronic babysitters.

I think welfare (lower class), high taxes (middle class), and feminism (upper class) have taken away the millenia old system of the mother at home, in one generation. Many, many aspects of life now suffer.

[ambrose]

Yes. When I was six, I had enough sense to not eat like a pig.

[elli1]

That's only part of it. Parents in this day and age have to keep a much tighter leash on their kids than they did a generation or two ago. I would be in full panic mode if my kids did a disappearing number like I used to do when I was a kid & my mom was at home full time.

[ConservativeBamaFan]

I share your taste in cooking shows AND women!

[valkyrieanne]

Well, for one thing, people differ genetically. Some think that Europeans were hit with a wave of Type 2 diabetes in the 17th-early 18th century, when prosperity made it possible for just about everyone to have white flour and sugar. The massive die-offs from the Type 2 diabetes that resulted made it so that Europeans who survived (some of whom emigrated to America) were the ones who had *less* "thrifty genes" - and thus less tendency to Type 2 diabetes than did the Africans or Native Americans.

Hispanic people aren't uniform, either - some have more Spanish, some have more Indian, some are a mix of Spanish-Anglo-Indian

[Nov3]

In the non-medical past, those at the extreme would have developed Type 2 diabetes and died without passing on their genes (assuming they even got enough to eat to develop diabetes in the first place.)

No they probably would never get it because they wouldn't be stuffing their face with corn syrup, white flour, soy beans, sugar, fruit and fruit juice, hydrogenated fats etc. They would also be walking.

[Nov3]

Some think that Europeans were hit with a wave of Type 2 diabetes in the 17th-early 18th century, when prosperity made it possible for just about everyone to have white flour and sugar. The massive die-offs from the Type 2 diabetes that resulted made it so that Europeans who survived (some of whom emigrated to America) were the ones who had *less* "thrifty genes" - and thus less tendency to Type 2 diabetes than did the Africans or Native Americans.

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