Chewin’ the Fat (Why Americans are so fat)

MSNBC ^ | September 18, 2003 | Gersh Kuntzman

[Nachum]

Sept. 15 — You may have heard that America is fat. You may have heard that nearly two-thirds of us are overweight and 31 percent of us are obese. You may have even heard last week that the Department of Agriculture will soon decrease the number of calories a person should eat every day, an admission that there’s no point in designing diets for the healthy average American when the healthy average American no longer exists.

WE MUST BE fat. After all, Katie Couric did a two-hour special on it on Friday night. And even Dr. Phil, who previously spent his time shrinking heads, has moved on to shrinking bodies.
That’s why I was so happy to see that my favorite academic publication, the American Journal of Public Health, had devoted its entire September issue to why Americans are so freakin’ fat.
If you guessed, “Because we eat so freakin’ much,” guess again: The supersized portions are only the half of it.
You may not be a regular reader of the august AJPH (and when I say “august,” of course I mean, “widely unread”). That’s understandable. There’s not a hot celebrity on the cover or articles that offer new details of why Ben dumped Jen. Second of all, the writing isn’t too stylish. For instance, they keep using academic terms like “the built environment” when they really just mean houses, roads and neighborhoods.
But this issue is chock full of reasons why we’re a flabby nation:

1. We’re the only animals on the planet that live in communities that make us more obese. We’ve built suburbs (“the built environment”) so spread out that people must rely on cars because walking or biking simply isn’t an option. Many developers today don’t even bother to install sidewalks and some communities intentionally build new schools on the edge of town, hindering children’s ability to safely walk or bike to school (whatever happened to President Bush’s “Run No Child Over” education reforms?).

[Nachum]

Well, if you would explain to me what disease it is that Oklahomans suffer from that Swiss people don't, then I will concur with your statement. Of course, you can't.

Europeans, as a rule, serve much smaller portions at meals. I have a friend from France, who when he moved here was shocked at the difference in the size of portions at meals in America. They are huge compared to Europe. Having said that, Americans consume incredible amounts of carbohydrates in their foods. Much more sugar, white refined flour and hydrogenated oils than any other country on the planet.

That is why the Atkins diet has been so successful.

[Chad Fairbanks]

I was an active cross country runner for years and years, and it was actually hard for me to put on weight. As a 'little guy', it would shock people to see the amount of food I would eat.

Now, as an engineer, I sit a lot more than I ever had before, and so it is a fight to keep from ballooning. My eating habits have changed to deal with that new reality...

A little exercise, a healthy diet, and now it's not a fight any more.

[najida]

Nutrition is my profession.....

Kids hear a lot of 'good nutrition' stuff, but it isn't practiced at home and they don't develop good habits. I have a 8 year old patient now that is freakin' me out because he won't eat......long story, but he eats a narrow range of foods that he associates with home....chicken fingers, hamburgers only....no veges, no fruit...his potassium is low and he is constipated...at 8 years old!

And there is gobs of mis-information out there (you don't need this nutrient, this group of foods is bad for you) So fad diets, supplements etc proliferate.....enough to keep Alcoa in business for decades.

~~sigh~~ one more outta the gene pool.

[tubebender]

We live in a small city and my wife has power walked for an hour every morning from 5 to 6 rain or shine even earthquakes since 1977. Our married daughter joined her a few years ago. I stay in bed in case they need a ride home :-)

[SamAdams76]

As a former 300-pounder, I do not take offense to your comments at all. In fact, I could have used a few more people calling me "lard-ass", and maybe I would have taken the weight off years ago instead of waiting until I was 40.

Having taken off 80 pounds (and still going), I have never felt so good in my life. Today at lunch, I took a 3+ mile walk in the woods near my office and felt like a kid, jumping over logs and climbing over rocks, etc. That was on top of a 4 mile walk I did in the darkness of 5:30 this morning too!

Now when I see fat people in the supermarket loading their carts with all this garbage, I want to scream at them to put that stuff back on the shelf, get some real food and get exercising. Of course, that would not be considered to be very polite and it would make me a "mean-spirited" person, even though I genuinely want them to save themselves and feel as good as I do right now.

[Chad Fairbanks]

I'm not gonna comment on the armadillos. I'm here to hawk my new "Chad's Pizza Diet".

Just eat one Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pepperoni Pizza at lunch time, and eat nothing else for the rest of the day and you can stay in fighting trim shape.

Or, maybe it's just me. ;0)

[LibKill]

That's great. But what about the armadillos? :)

[Rodney King]

I don't think they all have a disease.... I just don't think their eating too much for their metabolism makes you a victim.

I never said I was a victim per se. However, it's quite straight forward: People have differences in taste, but most people prefer to look at things they consider attractive and try to avoid looking at things they consider unattractive.

When you have looked at homes, have you ever considered the outside appearence of the home? How about for your neighbors homes? How about for the neighborhood itself? How about for entire cities? How about for artwork? How about for both women and men?

I don't go around judging everyone's appearence. However, there is a point where people are so disgustingly repulsive that I take notice. If it is the result of terrible burns or deformation, I of course notice, but I feel bad for the person and would go out of my way to help them if I could.

When it is obvious that the person is disgusting because he/she is a fat lard ass with no self control, and doesn't go through the daily struggles to find balance in life that we all do, I have contempt for them. And, just as I don't look at disgusting artwork, and don't buy ugly homes, I want nothing to do with these whale turds.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Oh, their diet is beer. They are sleeping off this afternoon's binge as we speak...

[Rodney King]

Look Hair, to be sure, I am just trying to needle you a little bit. Of course one should be a bit more sensitive. However I was just using hyperbole at first, and when I realized that I was pissing you off I took it a little further. And I'm sorry for any personal offense. However, my general opinion is 100% valid. As SamAdams's post shows, we do not do these people any favors by enabling them.

[meyer]

Nutrition is my profession.....

Kids hear a lot of 'good nutrition' stuff, but it isn't practiced at home and they don't develop good habits. I have a 8 year old patient now that is freakin' me out because he won't eat......long story, but he eats a narrow range of foods that he associates with home....chicken fingers, hamburgers only....no veges, no fruit...his potassium is low and he is constipated...at 8 years old!

Good grief - that's got to be tough to deal with. I guess that I'm lucky that Mom had the basics down. I can't say she followed the exact same food pyramid we are supposed to use today, but there were always a couple of servings of fruit every day and a couple of servings of vegetables every day. And, the sweets were limited.

And there is gobs of mis-information out there (you don't need this nutrient, this group of foods is bad for you) So fad diets, supplements etc proliferate.....enough to keep Alcoa in business for decades.

That is true, and its often hard to separate the good information from the bad. It isn't an exact science yet, but there are some basics to follow regardless of the diet choice.

~~sigh~~ one more outta the gene pool.

Sadly, in this case, a victim of inept parenting. Still, it does end the gene line.

[Rodney King]

The real answer to why America is so fat is this: Because we can be.

For mots of history most people have struggled for most of the day to provide themselves with enough calories to live to the next day. As society became wealthier and food output had required less calorie input, we have gotten fatter.

Some of use choose not to become obese, others choose obesity.

Because of our wealth and freedom, the economy has adapted to support this new lifestyle; ergo the lard-ass scooters available at Walmart.

The only thing that can change this is education and improved self-esteem.

[FreedomPoster]

>>I have a friend from France, who when he moved here was shocked at the difference in the size of portions at meals in America. They are huge compared to Europe.

It is pretty easy to just divide many restaurant meals in half, eating half and saving half for the next day's lunch.

I have found that you generally won't starve doing this.

[HairOfTheDog]

There is so much ugliness inside you I am gonna give up.

But... in reference to your earlier claims that one (1) Some Vietnam Vet (good guy) is left with no where to park because of obese people I would say I doubt it. Where I am it seems there are enough handicapped spots in front of most supermarkets for everyone in the county with a sticker to park.

and (2) that they somehow victimize you because they are unhealthy and drive up your medical insurance. Everyone does something that makes them likely to need medical... Fat people, smokers, people who drive too fast, people who snow ski. People who breed. We all pool our money into insurance... we have different risks and need it at different times. Where some risks are extraordinary, they pay more. where they are about the same cost as everyone else, they don't. That is how insurance works.

[Sloth]

There are very few morbidly obese people in CT, but they are all over in OK.

Is the weather in CT more conducive to outdoor activity than in OK?

[Shooter 2.5]

We became fat because food became a recreation instead of fuel.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Well, since they DO place pretty high taxes on smokers to cover the 'medical cost associated with smoking', maybe we can tax obese people to cover the 'medical costs associated with obesity'?

Or not.

[meyer]

Is the weather in CT more conducive to outdoor activity than in OK?

Considering that shoveling snow is an outdoor activity, then the answer would be "yes".

[Mortimer Snavely]

What's worse is going to a buffet restaurant. I have seen disgustingly huge people load their plates over and over again.

I don't refer to them as all-you-can-eat joints any more. They're troughs, pure and simple.

[Rodney King]

Is the weather in CT more conducive to outdoor activity than in OK?

Not really, winters are winters. You can play outdoors in the summer in June and July in CT. In OK you really can't in July. But then again, OK has longer falls, so I think it evens out.