Obesity in America: A Political Issue?

Can't say I'm surprised when this is what you find in most towns

Considering obesity currently costs the US close to $150 billion per year in health care costs, I personally have no problem with taxing the shit out of junk food or finding some other ingenious way of making sure the obese are picking up a fair(er) share of the tab.

I understand that sometimes it is an economic issue, so finding a reasonable way to make healthier foods cheaper and more readilty available may work too.

BMI is somewhat bullshit to me. I'm 5'10", and weigh 192, and my body fat percentage is less than 18%. I'm not obese, but my BMI is 28 which is borderline obese. I saw an article talking about BMI a few years ago, and one of the people that were considered obese was Tom Cruise. You can't just take two measurements and decide if that person is obese or not. People aren't just geometric shapes that you can apply the Pythagorean theorem to.

Having said that, based on those maps, it looks like all the fatties are in Mississippi, West Virginia, and Kentucky.

I'm technically obese, even if I'm not 450lbs and rocking a triple chin. I see all the shit on the news about obesity in America, and the health issues, and it makes me want to jump on the tax fast food bandwagon. Then again, why should food be taxed higher just because it's fast food? Someone can get just as fat going to a nice family owned sit down restaurant all the time, or just eating like a fool in the privacy of their own home.

Like drugs, I say go for the education path. I educated myself very little on the complications I can see if I don't drop some pounds, and it scared me into wanting to become a mini-Jake. Obviously it won't reach everyone, but if we can at least get kids to understand why pizza is good on Friday night, but not every night and broccoli actually is delicious when you cut off those satanic stalks then the next generation might still be able to use stairs.

End corn subsidies, ban high fructose corn syrup, ban partially hydrogenated oils, bring physical education back to elementary schools, problem solved.

But to answer FC's question, I think the political implications are that those few corporations (what is it, 3?) that have taken charge of the food supply have enacted cost-cutting measures that have endangered all our health, such that you have to have an income higher than the median or grow your own food to avoid being poisoned. As usual, the poor take the brunt of the punishment. I think it crosses political lines but considering the 12 years of GOP dominance in Congress and 20 out of the last 30 years with Republicans in the White House probably implicates the pro-business movement more than the pro-consumer.

If anything politically should be done, it's a long hard look into ConAgra.

What yt said and the BMI is also bullshit.

Welcome to the digital age.

There have been fast food and junk food in the country for a very long time, much longer then these trends. The real problem is the digital age.. people sitting in front of their computers and playing video games instead of going out side and playing cowboys and indians or 'war' or tag or whatever. I don't know a single kid who goes to my daughters school who doesn't have a Wii\Playstation3\Xbox 360 + a Nintendo DS for when they aren't home. I don't know a single person who isn't connected in to the internet updating their facebook page \ Twitter \ Myspace almost on a continual basis. I'm guilty of being a voyeur and my iPhone is like the crack pipe.

I know everyone was so excited about the Wii or Guitar Hero games and how active they would be while playing games... then a month later they were showing off how easy it is to do this while sitting on a couch.

The trends could be applied to the internet \ gaming boom much easier then fast food... infact, it probably is the reason FOR junk food \ fast food purchase. Games (and the internet) are so addictive (there are countless articles and studies confirming this) that people will take the easy road for dinner \ nutrients so they can go back to satisfying their addiction.

It's a shame really... and I think taxing junk food \ soda \ fast food more then anything else is absolutely bullshit it ultimately is bad parenting \ weak will that is the problem. See, I create rules in my house... we eat out once a week (this means if you choose McDonalds, you don't get to have Pizza or go to a nice restaurant and have a sit down meal), no TV while eating and we must eat at the kitchen table and until two weeks ago, my daughter didn't have a Nintendo DS or a Wii but I caved and bought those because we're moving to another state but there are strict rules on play time. New York can blow me if they think they're getting any more of my money.

This man speaks the truth.

I make sure Kid Vivisector plays outside as much as possible. He bikes, plays as many sports as I can afford, and wants to join cub scouts and martial arts.

I know my own health began to get wrecked when I destroyed my wrist when I was his age. I never recovered from that summer and fall of enforced sitting.

He does have video games, but I also make sure he reads a lot. If he's going to be sitting, at least let it be productive sitting.

It's funny how the chain family-style restaurants are becoming more prevalent as an alternative to the "fast food" kings are often worse for you than the chicken nuggets are. BMI is retarded (Brad Pitt and Clooney are both considered overweight or obese according to BMI), and what yt said is spot on. Everyone should check out the doc "King of Corn" about this countries unhealthy obsession with corn production and subsidies.

Yup. BMI's the worst. I could stand to get rid of my gut, yeah, but the BMI puts me in the 98th percentile of people my age, which means I should probably be dead.

Conversely, we've got a new student worker in the office who was like "WOW I WEIGH THE SAME AS YOU" after a quick talk when he saw me in my gym gear, and the dude looks like someone warmed him up in an oven and dropped him from four stories up. I'd bet dollars to donuts he ranks in the same BMI as I do, but he's a more painfully obvious case.

More fatties in Congress.

*slams fists on desk* God DAMN it! How do we curb their influence?

Japan has equal or higher consumption of internet, games, etc and nowhere near our obesity levels. Please splain, O great expounder of wisdom.

It's interesting to me that you're quick to call bad parenting but not the fact that both parents have to work thanks to the flat wages/increased productivity/cost of living increases over the past 30 years. Also, if I were to suggest that the corporations that have hard-sold the most vulnerable of minds day in day out without limits thanks to deregulation, you'd call me anti-business.

I <3 yt.

Great thread. I was meaning to start a topic on Obesity in America.

My own personal realization of how fucking fat America has gotten was when I had the opportunity to live in the Philippines for a month and some change. Not counting the expats, I maybe saw less than 10 overweight Filipinos and out of those 10, none were morbidly obese-just chubby. Also, when I was there, I dropped 10 pounds just eating the local food. Now granted, it was Asia and the people there are on the smaller side but it was still a revelation on how obese we've become.

My own personal theories on why we're so fat....

Portion Sizes:

In the Philippines (and other countries I would assume), the portion sizes at restaurants are significantly smaller than the American counterpart. At first, it was a little disorienting to have such little food but after a day or two, I adjusted. If you have alot of food on your plate, you are almost required to finish it all. This leads to bigger waists.

Video Games:

When I came home from school back in the 80's, I would go outside and play. These days, kids are more likely to play videogames and nosh on junk food.

School is becoming a toxic environment for obesity:

Not only is PE class and recess being cut back in our public schools but the school lunch programs have become a free for all where kids can have fries and pizza for lunch if they'd like. Gone are the days when you had to eat a balanced meal at school.

High Fructose Corn Syrup:

Some of the unhealthiest shit ever created and it's in everything.

That's all I can come up with for now. Great topic.

Japanese who do not live in Japan gain weight just as fast an Americans, it has to do with society, feel free to google it.

Oh YES YT, it's all big business's fault. No personal responsibility... just like those losers who got ARM loans and lost their houses causing this latest housing bubble recession. Oh noes, it's the big business that pressured them into buying something they couldn't afford! If you're too stupid to know what your signing then you shouldn't be signing.

I have many friends that work two jobs and have the same wages they were making in the 80's and their kids are fit.. why? because they're good parents. It is so much easier to blame someone else for your failings or shortcomings then to accept responsibility and change things. Ask anyone who is overweight why they are overweight, none of them will come out and say "I over eat..." "I'm too lazy to exercise" "I'm a real big fan of WoW". I know two guys, one is a stick the other is over 300 Lbs both play WoW.. one guy does physical labor and the other sits at a desk.. guess which one is which. You need balance in your life, if you work a desk job you got to have an activity out of work that involves exercise and you should know your caloric limit each day, eating a large number 2 at McDonalds every day for lunch sure won't help you stay within that limit. I'm FOR fast food but it certainly isn't the culprit.. Heck, I know overweight people that buy celery sticks to help them lose weight but then fill them up with peanut butter! It's a mental thing, it isn't a "Fast food is evil" thing.

The answer, as always, is in the middle between personal responsibility and regulation, but nobody wants to hear that shit. It's either an all-out ban or free-for-all, right?

Skinny isn't always healthy and a little fat isn't always unhealthy.

That said, when it's cheaper to buy frozen dinners than it is to buy vegetables you have a much larger problem then simple obesity.

Too many calories in or not enough calories burned? Unless there are facts to the contrary I'm not aware of, it's probably both. The Japanese are having more obesity issues as Western dietary practices crowd out the usual rice, fish, seaweed, etc in their diets. Clearly Americans eat too much fat and empty calories. Portion sizes have gotten huge in most restaurants that skew a person's perception of what a proper meal looks like. But there is truth to what Snaieke said too. Americans aren't as active. There are more options for entertainment that leave people sitting on the couch rather than engaging in activities that burn calories.

Is it a political issue? In some ways. But I don't believe the government should just come in and start banning foods politicians feel are harmful if consumed in large quantities. Most problematic foods like trans fats and high fructose corn syrup aren't going to hurt you in small quantities. I have no problem with the government putting out health information and requiring companies to list ingredients and nutritional facts on labels. That arms the consumer with necessary information to make good choices. I don't think the government should go so far as to pass legislation to force us to make good health and lifestyle choices. We should still have the freedom to be morbidly obese if that's what we want to do.

Yeah, not to sell the exercise component short, because it's absolutely essential for health, but you can't underestimate the fact that the food products with the most money behind them are uniformly unhealthy (not only fast food, but snack products and soft drinks) super cheap, and unavoidable in communities of any income. This includes those low-income families who work multiple jobs thus don't have the time to fix healthy meals or the money to buy anything healthier than McDonald's.

This is mostly a reiteration of yt's points, I realize, but they can't be emphasized enough.

Also poor nutrition has been shown to have negative effects beyond obesity. I haven't read through this entire report, but I've heard quite a bit about the situation at a charter school for at-risk kids in Appleton, WI - behavioral problems dropped and academic performance improved when the vending machines were removed and the school implemented a wellness program (initially in partnership with a local business, then with a national corporation).

In short, it's not just a matter of getting enough exercise.

Exactly. Exercise is maybe 20-30% of weight loss. The rest? Your food intake. Clean that shit up.

It's quicker, but not cheaper, to buy frozen dinners.

seconded for school!

Not only the pizza and fries but apparently bagels with cream cheese and french toast \ waffles. The big thing out here is to give kids those damned Bagels with Cream Cheese or butter. That's not healthy!! Not to mention juice!!!! Fucking A man! I have a strict policy of no juice for my kid.. only stuff that is 100% juice and even then I usually water it down. I'm a big fan of flavored water but you have to watch out, some flavored water has sugar in it.. I like the brita water pitcher that has a button to press and you can flavor your own it's made with splenda. So far I haven't heard anything bad about splenda, but watch.. it will be the evil devil in 2 years.

I have very little dealings with High Fructose Corn Syrup.. sugar free things (that also lack high fructose corn syrup) taste just as good as regular stuff now-a-days IMHO. I buy those sugar free fudge pops for my kid as a treat and they're great, heck way back when I was 14 I switched to diet soda because I thought the sugar was giving me acne and now regular soda makes me sick.. when they accidental give it to me at the movie theater or someplace I get pissed and more often then not they don't see the big deal. I explain to them, what if I had been a diabetic? usually a sobering reality.

ETA - I forgot to mention milk. Not only do they offer kids milk but now they offer CHOCOLATE MILK! have you looked at the ingredients on those things??? I'm a big fan of regular milk also but you gotta watch out, some milk comes from cows that have hormones to make them mature faster and produce more milk.. this gets passed on to kids who drink it and that is why (so I have heard.... no links) some girls are "maturing" at age 9. I have my daughter on non-hormone organic milk just to be safe... but the schools don't care about that shit.

Want to be more educated about what you're putting in your body? The Eat This Not That website and series of books are a pretty good starting place, especially when it comes to popular chain restaurants. You can also find out the amount of calories you should be eating, track your caloric intake, and get nutritional information on just about any food you can think of at The Daily Plate on Lance Armstrong's LiveStrong website.

It's really not. I don't know where in the hell all these people are shopping that produce and lean meats are somehow more expensive than a week's lunch and dinner's worth of $5 Lean Cuisines.

Another big issue I have with the obesity argument, though, is access to decent stores, especially in inner-city areas. I'm lucky in that I live within blocks of four different stores, each with pretty great produce selections and a Farmer's Market that hits every Sunday.

I went to a co-worker's birthday cookout in Compton a couple of years back and tripped with him and some friends to pick up some stuff at the local grocery store, and the difference in quality and number of vegetables/fruits there compared to that of my neighborhood was pretty appalling. I'd like to hope that that's changed by now, but I got a job closer to home and don't really have many co-workers in that area anymore (plus it's just fucking far away now) so I can't do much recon. Either way, it's pretty terrible, but I can understand the attraction to quicker/easier, less unhealthy meals.

ETA: And what JVC said. Check out the Going to the Gym thread - it's not just about working out, there's some solid nutritional discussion in there too for anyone who's interested.

You know what is good? Those steam vegetable things you can buy in the frozen food section! Ever since they invented those there have been much more vegetables in my dinners and they're great as a snack. Who doesn't love steamed vegetables!? however steaming them yourself... wayyy wayyyyyyy too much work

When we drove through Idaho recently there was a sale on TV dinners at 15 for 10 dollars. Broccoli was selling for 2.99 a pound and lean ground beef was 2.79 a pound. That wasn't uncommon all the way to Arizona. Maybe that's uncommon, I don't know.

Yes and no. You don't have to ban certain foods and such. You just need to educate the public better on nutrition and making the right choices. The bad foods will fall away or diminish in popularity on their own.

You're joking, right? Heat up some water, put something like this in the pot, throw your vegetables in for a couple minutes.

Most definitely it is cheaper. The food I buy for 2 weeks would last for 4 weeks if I was buying frozen meals instead of fresh meat and veggies.

I'm guilty of using those. They're not the best and xenoestrogens from the plastic packaging and all that crap, but they keep a lot longer and work in a pinch.

It might be cheaper looking, but factor in the nutritional cost vs the nutritional cost of cooking fresh food, and it might be cheaper going for fresh foods.

We're how many years past the Surgeon General's warning and how many people still smoke?

Sad to say, but education doesn't stand a chance against superior marketing power.

The fast food industry made a genius move a few years ago when it started to associate consuming huge quantities of their product with masculinity. "You need to cram our new four-pound, bacon-covered, fried burger into your face or you're a total pussy! It's man food, bitch! Don't listen to those nutritionist poindexters!"

That's kinda the point though. People only look at exact cost and not nutritional cost. What will get more food on my family's table? is the question that's asked.

It's the anti-intellectualism of fast food!

I would just like to point out to everyone that freezing and cooking most plastics releases carcinogenic toxins. A member of my family has been battling like three different kinds of cancer and one of the culprits, per her doctor, is her use of plastics in cooking/freezing/water, etc.

This whole idea of "you have to read the ingredients and study up on your foods..." thing is true to an extent, but don't we pay taxes to pay the cost of people monitoring our food/drug/etc. supply to make sure it's not going to kill us? Call me a socialist, but I think that's a much better use of our tax dollars than blowing people up in foreign entanglements or giving tax breaks to huge corporations and the very rich.

Again, this wasn't an issue until the monopolization of our food/drug supply created this short-term profit motive to stuff in there as much cheap $#!# as possible and sell bigger and bigger portions of said cheap $#!# to the unsuspecting masses. These multi-national corporations clearly have nothing but contempt for their American customers. But enjoy policing your food and paying more out of pocket to take care of those whose poverty and substandard education didn't afford that degree of circumspection.

And Snaieke, I think even your party has moved on from the laughably ridiculous idea that home loan borrowers had the political and financial power to create a $300-odd trillion derivatives market (many times greater than the GDP of the entire world) with all possible law enforcement bought off or castrated. But enjoy your nirvana of blaming the victim.

ps. Snaieke, sorry but those sugar substitutes are worse for you than plain old sugar.

What?

1. Purchase head of broccoli.

2. Run under cold water. Shake off excess.

3. Chop into pieces of an appealing size.

4. Place in steamer basket in pot with a bit of water.

5. Steam.

I think it takes about ten minutes. And doesn't involve an environment-choking plastic bag. And, I would assume, higher quality broccoli, since the guy at my farmer's market certainly doesn't put his stuff in little plastic bags.

Perhaps we've put our finger squarely on a problem right here. Learn how to cook. Think about your food. Know what's in it. It's a lot harder to eat pizza and macaroni and cheese every night if you have to watch yourself dump the appropriate amount of grated cheddar into the sauce every time you want it.

edit - The Zooey/DaveB mind-meld strikes again. Don't mind us.

Tell it to Castro, Paco!

You don't even need that thing, just a metal colander that fits in the pot.

The more money you have, the better marketers you can buy, and marketing is a science today. The human brain has been effectively hacked. Hence, the plutonomy of corporations in charge these days will never be lacking in true believers, especially since we've given them direct access to America's youth.

Speaking of Farmer's Markets, everyone who is concerned about food production in NA should go read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Uplifting story of eating local for a full year.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news..._foods_couldnt

You don't have to sell me. I do buy fresh foods.

LOL. ps. Martin Scorsese Dog is my idol!

Sorry about your family member.

But I somewhat disagree with your comment on plastics.


http://urbanlegends.about.com/librar...ve-dioxin2.htm

Well, on average... I have 2 burners going at a time and the third burner is for special nights so the microwave sure does help in so far as timing your dinner so everything is hot when served and while I appreciate it isn't as great as fresh steamed food it does have a variety; like water chestnuts and baby carrots and snowpeas all in a handy-dandy-pouch and for a full time single father that sure does help, especially with the clean up. Like, for example. If I make pasta, there are two burners going for the water and the sauce and the oven going for garlic bread the microwave sure is handy, especially since I'm not a fan of reaching over boiling water to get to the back burners.