US Gets Fatter- and Faster than Ever

[beetbox]

US gets fatter - and faster than ever

Richard Luscombe in Miami
Thursday August 25, 2005
The Guardian


More than 119 million people, 64.5% of the US population, are now considered overweight or obese, according to the Trust for Americans' Health, an independent advocacy group that says the nation has been let down by ineffective anti-obesity policies.

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America's fattest state is Mississippi, where 29.5% of adults are obese, followed by Alabama (28.9%) and West Virginia (27.6%). Eighteen million adults in the US have diabetes, and more than 9 million children are overweight or obese, twice as many as in 1980.

Sixteen per cent of active duty US military personnel are also obese, and it is the biggest reason for the discharge of soldiers.

Efforts to tackle the "twin epidemic" of obesity and diabetes have failed miserably, the trust's executive director, Shelley Hearne, said. "We are in a state of policy paralysis in regards to obesity. We have a crisis of poor nutrition and physical inactivity and it's time we dealt with it."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1555893,00.html

[Sabriel]

1. Hmm...obesity ....discharge.... hmmm..... n/t

[rsmith6621]

2. I Just Finished

A bowl of Tapioca and a half bag of Nachos.....

This is my 900 DU Post.......YeHaw

[MissB]

3. It's getting so bad that I'm having a hard time finding pants for my son

because apparently the clothing manufacturers are adjusting the waist sizes for larger kids. Regular sizes fall off my kid. Seriously- there are at least two inches on either side of his waist between where his skin is and where the pants are.

Some manufacturers aren't even making slims anymore (making my choices even narrower, so to speak) but are making husky pants.

High fructose corn syrup. Reduced recesses and PE classes. Fear of letting our kids outside to play. It all adds up.

[beetbox]

4. Poverty

Looking at the States with the highest rates of obesity leads to the inescapable conclusion that poverty is the main, though not only, disease we are speaking of.

[truthseeker1]

6. and ignorance

due to lack of education

[beetbox]

13. Advertising

plays such a insidious role in all of this. Snack machines and soda machines are populating every corner store and in every hallway in school.

More parents are banding together and forcing schools to provide healthy snacks.

[Lifelong Protester]

17. You got that right...

unless you live in a school building all day like I do, you might not have any idea of how much pressure there is from the big soft drink manufacturers to "buy you that new scoreboard" or whatever so they can get your students hooked on their brand of soda.

I do not allow sodas, candy, or other non-nutritional stuff into our cafeteria. I think kids can go 8 hours without junk, don't you?

[ChoralScholar]

26. We have passed a law in Arkansas

that snack/drink machines are not to be made available until one hour after the last lunch. In some districts that could be 2:30. We removed ours completely where I teach.

Even at that, the legislature passed a law on the type of snacks in the machine. A certain percentage (60% I think) must be nutritious snacks.

In addition to all that the PE requirements have gone up. All kids K-8 have PE every day, regardless -even those who play sports or are in marching band.

So... the Rev./Gov. Huckabee may be a RW nutjob, but he has done some good things to this end.

[Barkley]

33. Fast-food are also cheap and people have give up leisure to exercise

Fast food is an 'inferior good' which means as peoples income rise they by less of it. That might help explain the income component of obese states being the poor states.

Also people have to pay (in terms of foregone leisure) in order to exercise.

Leisure being all non-market activities like house cleaning, washing clothes, grocery shopping, watching the kids etc.

It use to be when people worked in factories, people got their exercise included in the job.

But with todays sedintary jobs, people now have to go out and 'purchase' exercise.

I recently toured a Citigroup facility in Kentucky and they had a exercise room on in the facitily but no one in the room.

While its good to have a convenient workout room, it still doesn't
fix the problem that people have to give up leisure to exercise.

The rich can afford to hire poor people to do their leisure items while they exercise.

[Lifelong Protester]

39. and lets not forget...

That the corporate world would argue we don't need any parks for children to play in (meaning built and maintained at taxpayers' expense) because now we can all go to McDonald's and Happy land or whatever it is called. This is just one more insidious way that the right wants to privatize everything, and if you can't afford it, too bad.

[shrike]

41. Don't forget all the work they had to do at home

The amount of work our forefathers had to do was staggering. Think about it: chop wood, haul water, wash clothes (by hand), bake bread (from scratch).

I'm sure than even as late as the 60s and 70s people were still walking to work, grocery shopping a few blocks at home and sending their kids out to play stick ball in a vacant lot. Now we all drive everywhere, sit behind a desk all day, sit in front of the TV at night, and give the kids a cell phone so they can stay in touch with their friends.

And portion sizes are larger, too. My husband and I recently visited Dairy Queen. He commented that a medium soft-serve cone today is the size of a large cone when he was a kid.

I'm 45 and was out on the bicycle the other day. I passed four teen-age girls and they were all bigger than I am.

[Skittles]

27. ignorance is not due to lack of education

people like GWB prove that

[AndyTiedye]

32. Parents Push their Kids Into Sports More Than Ever Before

That may actually work for kids who are natural athletes, but
if a kid has no talent for it, he may be put off of exercise
entirely.

Those who ARE on some kind of team find themselves competing
for the chance to get enough exercise, with the bench awaiting
the less-athletic.

Obesity was less of a problem among kids a decade ago when the
rave scene was in full swing.

What we need is less sports and more dancing!

[Lifelong Protester]

5. Unfortunately now...

every kid has a permanent crook in his or her hand from cradling a 20 ounce Mountain Dew or some such. You notice how you can hardly find a vending machine with a regular size can of pop? You can't buy a 'nickel sized' candy bar? (Showing my age here). Just got home from a restaurant where my husband had a FOUR cup bowl of pasta (at least four cups if not more)put in front of him. What is going on here? More more more.... bigger cars, more oil, bigger bigger bigger...

[gristy]

7. Welcome to DU, Protester!

:hi:

[Lifelong Protester]

8. Thanks!

I have been lurking long enough, since last October. I just had to sign on, I can't take "it" much longer withoug venting.;-)

[dweller]

9. Venting allowed

or venting aloud, whichever the case may be. :D

welcome :hi:


dp

[Lifelong Protester]

12. I do both

Venting ALOUD and am glad it is ALLOWED! ;-)

[cliss]

25. Hi, Lifelong!

Welcome to the DU:toast: :smoke:

This is most definitely the place to vent. I needed to go somewhere and unload for my sanity.

[newswolf56]

16. Welcome to DU!

[Lifelong Protester]

18. It's because I have so few posts

to my name, right? I thank you for the welcome, took me a few moments to figure out why folks were saying welcome! :freak:

[Skittles]

29. I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN

I routinely divide my vending machine purchases in half and share with a coworker - the sizes are too freaking big. Also, there are very few healthy choices to be found in those machines. I rely on them somewhat because I get stuck at work at very strange hours and cannot always keep supplies of healthy stuff with me.

[bumblebee1]

30. My spouse and I haqve discussed this.

There are times when we've gone out to eat that I can't believe the size of the portions on the plate. There are many times that I can't finish my meal. Growing up, I was raised in the "clean plate club." My husband sometimes has to tell me to push the excess food away. I start ot feel guilty about wasting food.

[Lifelong Protester]

37. We've just gotten real good at

aggressively asking for a half portion, a shared portion, or whatever. Some servers act as if you are nuts to want less. I've even offered to pay full price, just give me half of the dish as I won't waste food either.

[dweller]

10. A rant from Russ Mokhiber

Dr. Matt is Agitated
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0824-29.htm

i posted today in EDs. that while maybe difficult to follow, brings up some interesting points.

check it out.
dp

[burrowowl]

11. Too much

processed food and not enough mass tranit where you have to run sometimes to catch the bus or go up and down metro, tube or subway stairs, stores to far away to walk to pick up milk, bread, go to local butcher, etc.

[Lifelong Protester]

15. This is true

and too many kids sitting on couches with the latest video games, and now of course, most of them don't even have to walk out of their rooms to be thoroughly entertained by all the electronic gizmos. We are drowning in a sea of too much, the term 'afluenza' is apt.

[Southpaw Bookworm]

36. And too many suburbs

And planned communities that were deliberately designed to not have sidewalks to require that residents must drive everywhere, and to keep out the great unwashed who use public transport or walk.

Ah, those 1950s family values . . .

[newswolf56]

14. A huge hidden cause of clinical obesity in America is quitting smoking.

Note the fact that the percentage of people who have quit smoking during the past 20 years and the percentage of obese adults is virtually the same.

(I quit smoking 10 years ago after having been reasonably attractive and reasonably fit all my life -- 150-160 pounds and regular workouts -- but I gained 100 pounds in the first year I was off cigarettes: even gaining weight on a 1000-calorie-per-day diet. Nor, since then, will more than 30 pounds of the extra weight EVER come off: no matter how much I exercise or how little I eat. And the minute I slack off -- if for example a back injury flares up and I have to stop exercising for a while -- the weight is back with a vengeance. Moreover, all the other ex-smokers I know tell me my experience is far more typical than the medical establishment will admit. Yes I will remain a non-smoker, but at the now obviously unavoidable cost of being permanently, disgustingly, embarrassingly fat.)

[Lifelong Protester]

19. I'm guessing

that smoking really messes up our metabolism or someother mechanism that would keep us at a 'healthy' weight. I say good for you on quitting smoking. I'm at that age where no matter what I do no weight comes off. I have been trying to avoid the HFCS, and it is in everything.

[beetbox]

22. HFCS is in everything, made from GMO corn

Why are Americans so fat? According to Michael Pollan, it's not just
supersized portions and sedentary lifestyles that make obesity the
second-highest cause of preventable death in the United States. It's corn.

When exploring the causes of the obesity epidemic, Pollan, a contributing
editor to the New York Times Magazine and proponent of "food-chain
journalism," focused on the subsidized overproduction of corn. One result is
a surfeit of high-fructose corn syrup, which accounts for 20 percent of the
daily calories of many children.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/school/cheapcalories083004.cfm

Another problem with corn syrup is that most corn available today has GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and unless otherwise noted (Newman's Own Organics is a notable exception), corn syrup can be assumed to be produced from GMO corn. If like many consumers you are interested in avoiding GMO products, either as a personal act of political will, or so as to avoid being a guinea pig for experimental agribusiness (or both), you will need to avoid corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup. (The same goes for corn oil, by the way.)

High fructose corn syrup is a cheap, highly processed, sticky sweetener that is devoid of nutrients and causes excessive thirst. It is an allergen for many people and causes gas and other digestive issues. Because it is extremely sweet and extremely cheap, it is employed by most large mainstream food companies as a primary sugar source. It is the first or second ingredient in many standard mainstream soda drinks, "juice drinks," inferior energy bars, cold cereals, ice cream and other frozen desserts, and baked goods.

Amazingly, you'll also find it in things like ketchup and other condiments, commercially made breads, and canned foods such as baked beans, soups, and pasta sauces (things that you wouldn't imagine need sugar, and especially not THAT sugar). Often such products include two, three, four or five sources of sugar--or even more--the list reading something like "high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, dextrose, sucrose, sugar..." Believe it or not, some conventional baby foods and even infant formulas contain high fructose corn syrup! And "diet foods," which are supposed to be helping with this kind of thing, are notorious for abusing these sugars.

[Lifelong Protester]

38. Good points

as we now have over sweetened everything. I used to do a taste test with my students, comparing Coke bottled in Mexico with that bottled in the US. They could tell the difference right away ( and these were fifth graders!) as american sodas are so over sweetened with HFCS, and Mexican Coca Cola is sweetened with cane sugar.

[newswolf56]

23. I think you're absolutely right about metabolism. Some ex-smokers...

I know seemed to undergo seemingly automatic weight-gain reversals about five to seven years after quitting -- all females though, and even these never regain their original slimness. With the ex-smoker males I know the weight-gain seems permanent.

One measure of metabolism is heart rate: mine dropped from an at-rest rate of 74-76 as a smoker to a non-smoking at-rest rate of about 54: using this as an indicator, this means as a non-smoker I was burning at least 29 percent fewer calories per day. But since there's a multiplier factor involved -- every organ but the brain functions much more efficiently when there's no nicotine in your system -- the actual number is probably closer to 50 or even 60 percent. Unfortunately though the medical profession remains in official denial about all this, fearful the truth will either lead people back to smoking or will discourage quitting. Thus too there's been no research whatsoever into methods that might take off that weight: absolutely none (probably lest such research be taken as acknowledgement of the problem).

As to the incidence of childhood obesity, I agree with the other posters: it's a (potentially deadly) consequence of dependence on the automobile and induced fears of the outdoors plus corporate regimentation in public schools -- no recess or vigorous and/or combative PT (not the least because drug-sedated children don't function well physically). All of which is the oligarchy further preparing us (and especially our children) to be obedient little drugged-out force-fattened zomboid drones.

[ChoralScholar]

28. They used to say that

ex-smokers gained weight due to increased snacking, since they didn't smoke. But I think it probably does affect metablolism.

[eridani]

20. And they all overlook dieting as a major cause

Good way to get a permanently fucked up metabolism.

[Lifelong Protester]

40. Exactly

:freak:

[NVMojo]

21. That's just how they like us to be ...fat, dumb and happy ...

so we can ignore them as they run around swinging their dicks at every country they want to take over ...while we munch.

[newswolf56]

24. Thank you! That's the funniest (and most apt) image...

I've read in weeks -- nearly spewed coffee all over my VDT.

[Joseph Christ]

31. haha.

Well I've been talking about this for awhile. Its been getting harder and harder for me to find clothes that fit me. I'm not tall 5-5 but i do bodybuilding so I'm lean and muscular. Its virtually impossible for me to find pants that fit. My ex-girlfriends clothes fit be better than most of the stuff that supposedly made for a male my height.

I've never lived in the midwest, and I never would, I'm a city boy and I've even seen it more and more over the years. It used to be that you would hardly see overweight/obese people in city centers...now its becoming much more apprent.

[flygal]

34. Try finding a gram of fiber on the menu at most restaurants

We ate at Perkins type restaurants a few times while back in the states - I'm on a high fiber diet - there were very few healthy choices and they mostly involved meat.

And checking out at the grocery store I felt like an odity with mostly fresh produce, no frozen or pre-packaged foods, and NO pop!

FYI - this diet I've been on has helped me to lose 20 lbs in the last year. It's also much cheaper getting your protein from plant sources like beans than meat.

[Dogmudgeon]

35. Dietary obesity-promoting chemicals

There are at least two major dietary contributors to obesity that receive little attention: trans-fat and xenoestrogens.

Trans-fats have lately gotten some attention for their impact on heart health, but there have been a number of studies giving strong ecidence that trans-fats dramatically increase fat storage and adipose tissue growth.

Xenoestrogens are toxic estrogen-like substances, some of which are naturally-formed, and some of which are pollutants. PTFE, the basic molecule from which Teflon is made, is one such xenoestrogen; there is also a whole series in most soybean foods, which are promoted as being health-promoting. Soy products have become ubiquitous in the human food chain, from soybean oil (which has replaced most other vegetable oils in prepared foods) to products sold as "health foods".

Xenoestrogens also cause dramatic changes in normal estrogen and testosterone metabolism. Estrogen and testosterone are not simply sex hormones, they are two of the fundamental hormonal building-blocks of the human body. Changes in testosterone are especially dangerous, promoting the development of cancer, and accelerating osteoporosis especially in women.

Unlike saturated fats and refined sugar, it is especially difficult to avoid these chemicals. Xenoestrogen compounds from pollution have been found nearly everywhere in the world's plants, lower animals, and water supplies. Soybean-based foodstuffs are in most prepared foods (usually as soybean oil or a protein extract), and so many people now think of soy as a health food that the news of its risks will meet with tremendous resistance.

Insulin over-production is also a major contributor to obesity, a concept only recently popularized by low-carb diets. While avoiding all carbohydrate can reduce insulin levels, people often forget that stress is also a major insulin-level booster. Obesity, and its precursors such as high levels of refined carbohydrates, trans-fats, xenoestrogens, poor sleep, long-term nicotine addiction and detox, chronic pain, etc., have combined to create a very efficient system for biological mortality-increase in humans.

Inasmuch as hormones are used by biochemical signaling systems, modern developments could be construed as a complex of biological semiotics giving humans one signal: "DIE!"

And no citation flame wars, please; this information is easily available from both lay and academic sources on the Internet.

--p!