Americans getting fatter

I agree.... It's best in monounsaturated forms, found in olives, nuts etc.

Fastfoods such as Mcdonalds are a normal part of human culture now. Society has made them acceptable. But their products will never have a natural place in the human diet. Humans are simply intelligent mammals, and nature still intends us to eat raw unprocessed foods from mother earth only.

 

I blame fast food. It's cheap and easy to get, more so than healthier foods.

I blame television. If you watch American TV news, it's very easy to become frightened about all sorts of things. You become less likely to go outdoors, and you are more or less hypnotized to sit around on your backside and be inactive.

I blame the way American cities and towns are laid out. There is nowhere to walk. People are truly surprised to see a person walk even to go pick up a few groceries. If you drive everywhere, you're more likely to get fat.

 

Ain't that the truth! In Europe they live in small dwellings in towns where you can walk out your door and be in the woods in minutes, and public transportation is safe, convenient, and inexpensive. In America we live in large sprawling subdivisions with strip malls everywhere, so a lot of folks need to drive somewhere to get in the woods (I'm one of the fortunate few that has a trail in the woods out my back yard, but you get the idea). No wonder so many people are unhealthy in this country!

 

I agree with you there man. I was in the States for 3weeks in July and I definitely noticed that. European cities were built before cars were around you see

I got the woods just behind the house, and the beach is just down the road so it's pretty class.

 

They say truth is in advertising. American is one (if not the only one) of the industrialized nations that directs advertising (especially on TV) to children. Most countries ban that sort of thing. So if advertisers keep telling your kids to eat sugar sweetened cereals, drink soda and keep watching your TV (still being used to babysit the little ones) . You will have a nation of FAT people. (Obese is just too nice) If you don't eat the calories in the first place you won't have to exercise your brains out in order to stay fit.

 

Oh and maybe fast food restaurants should not be built within walking distant to a school and maybe Coca-Cola and Pepsi should be kept out of the lunchrooms.!!

 

Definitely, I've heard high fructose corn syrup loaded soft drinks are the leading cause of obesity amoung school kids, it should be a crime to have that crap available to them in school lunch rooms.

 

Who cares? It's up to the individual on how they eat. Whether a McD's is a mile away or right across the street, if they want McD's they are gonna go get McD's. They know it's bad for them and that it's not the most healthy of meals, but it's up to them on how they take care of themselves.

 

We all pay for it with our health care costs. That's what bothers me. The health care system is going to go backrupt if it keeps up like this.

We're going to have a whole generation of people with clogged arteries by the time they're 30.

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That's fine for adults who have only themselves to blame when they get fat. But our children should be put in the line of fire.

 

ahhh yes I did say "Some of the danger is perceived". I brought in this little rant cos I'm somewhat aggravated by out of shape, lazy people commenting on how hazardous biking, other activites are while over-looking the hazards thier sedentary lifestyles brings in terms of obesity, heart disease and accident-proneness due to lack of coordination.

It's the very occasional fat, awkward f--k that'll say to me "aren't you afraid you'll get hurt" when they see me rollerblading backwards on a busy street or dive off 5 meters, gurrrh, if I was afraid, I wouldn't be doing it :$ .

Like you I consume lots of healthy fats and sugars and never count calories. My cupboards are not filled with boxes, jars of commercial, over-processed foods but glass jars of back to basics like 3 kinds of flours, various whole grains, olive oil and demerara sugar, honey (3 kinds of this), maple syrup, as well as corn syrup and white sugar -- everything has a purpose
I compared my home-made granola to the ingredients of store bought and I tell ya there was 5 kinds of sugar in the commercial stuff including 'liquid inverted sugar' .

BTW, Canadian studies show that residents of large urban cities tend to be more active and leaner than suburbanites. Toronto has a sense of community and everything you need is within walking/biking distance.

 

will save paying out on social security, wont it?

They pay into the society too with their tax money.

I think the loss of a tax base because of premature death is whats really scary.

 

Well, if they're dead they're dead. No income from them; no payout to them, except perhaps social security payments to their offspring under 18 (if they had lived long enough to have kids, that is).

The ones who survive with illness have to be taken care of. It's just a lot of human misery and cost. Look at the problems just with overweight people becoming diabetic. That stays with one for a lifetime. Not to mention all of the lost productivity to the work force.

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I don't see much of anything on TV encouraging people to stay fit. In the 60s and 70s they used to have public awareness announcements on TV encouraging people to stay fit. Anyone remember the ads for the President's Council on Physical Fitness? I think that one was first promoted by Kennedy.

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Plus I hear you can leave your place and your stuff unlocked without worrying about people ripping it off (try THAT in America), and you can grow smoke for your own consumption without being arrested and having your life ruined. I lived there briefly as a small child when my dad did a stint as a college professor, and I remember it being a really nice place. I think we moved back to the States 'cause my dad figured he would make more money, better retirement, etc., big mistake!

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On the subject of school lunch room foods, 'anyone remember when Reagan tried to pass a law which would define Ketchup and other condiments as a "vegetable"? Pretty absurd, huh?

 

so america is fulla fat people?

big deal....

 

italians are fat too.

 

There are obese people everywhere in the world, not just the USA.

Why is everyone so hung up on the weights of other countries anyways?

Not enough teenage girls jamming their fingers down their throats for you?

 

No need to put blame on corps, the people that decide to eat the unhealthy foods are to blamed here.

 

food industries give really big donations to the government come campaign time to keep their poisons legal... same goes for the pharmaceutical companies...
a lot of that stuff isn't even food or anything resembling what you would define as food, something that nourishes the body(and spirit) and gives a person energy, and yet it fills sooo much of our lives. it seems like americans don't even enjoy food anymore, even though they eat so much of it paradoxically... which would make sense, the more sick a person gets, the duller their taste buds become...but like pepsi or most soda for example though, it burns the throat and doesnt taste particularly great unless your really conditioned to like it i guess. and TV dinners are another really good example, and ramen noodles. its all really void of love, like growing your own food for instance. or making your own fresh juice, or nut milk or something.
try eating any of that shit when your tripping though... tryed eating (organic but processed) pretzels on shrooms once and that was one of the most unpleasent parts of that trip probably... when your in tune with yourself, you want nothing but fruit, which is heavenly tripping, or vegetables or real foods, not nutrient-dead gunk which so often fills the american diet. but were far from in tune with ourselves, especially in america, were poisoned all to hell and dont have a clue, literally. if you ever fast, youll understand what i mean about the sickness and the taste bud things...its sordove like that soad song, the toxicity of our city.....