CalorieLab has out their annual "fattest States" and it’s no surprise. Folks just keep getting fatter, so much so that they had to change the categories slightly so it wasn’t a wash of red, fat, states.
American obesity is something that’s really noticeable if you’re from out of country. Not that Canada doesn’t have its own fatness epidemic, but as in so many things, we just aren’t the leaders in the field. Americans are, well, fat. And even Americans who aren’t fat are mostly overweight. In fact the numbers on that map really understate things, what I find shocking is that when they add up obese (BMI >30) and overweight (25 to 29.9) there’s no State in the union that isn’t over 50%. Mississipi, the worst, weighs in at 69.1% combined.
Sure, you can weasel this a bit. BMI does have some problems, and we’re all good progressives here who don’t like to judge people based on the fact that their packing a few extra pounds *cough*. But it does measure something, and more to the point, it just keeps going up, year in, year out and it has for decades. Americans, or Canadians for that matter, just weren’t this fat 30 years ago.
Or even 10.
The first fact I’d push on is the farm bill and the way it subsidizes things like corn syrup production, so that the empty calories in the center aisles of grocery stores; the calories that are bad for you, are much cheaper than healthy lean meat and vegetable calories. The US literally subsidizes crap food that makes people fat. Because no, it isn’t just about calories. If you’re eating too much sweetened crap, your blood sugar gets messed up and even if you don’t wind up an outright diabetic or hypoglycemic, it plays havoc with your appetite. And if you’re missing essential nutrients in your diet, your body keeps wanting them and keeps telling you to eat more, in the vain hope you might eat something that isn’t crap. Food pollution of this kind doesn’t just make Americans fat, it costs them billions in health care costs, and causes untold suffering and misery due to ill-health. And the subsidies go almost entirely to large corporate agribusiness, not to save little family farms, as the myth would have it.
The second problem is the "cult of the car" combined with the "burbification of America". You generally can’t walk anywhere useful in the burbs, and even when you can most North Americans still hop in the car to go two blocks, because the streets weren’t designed for walking anyway. When I used to work at my last big corporate job I knew people whose entire daily exercise was walking to and from their car. Of course they were unhealthy, out of shape and overweight. How could they not be?
If I were going to pick a third, it would be that people are never really taught how to exercise. Phys.ed gets cut back every year, but those programs that do exist tend to concentrate on team sports instead of teaching students how to do basic strength, cardio and flexibility training—a skill which they could use for life. And for most students, most sports don’t raise heart rates enough, long enough, to do any good anyway. So kids who have little natural exercise in their lives, being driven everywhere by their folks, never learn how to exercise and never get into the habit. It’s no wonder that as they get older they still don’t exercise.
No one should be discriminated against or looked down on because they’re overweight. But as a society it is in no one’s interest for the population to keep packing on the pounds. Fortunately, while hard to fix, the basic problem is actually fairly clear. Hopefully one of these years we’ll be able to fix the farm bill; hopefully pedagogy around exercise will change, and as oil becomes more expensive, hopefully those burbs that survive will be made more friendly to the lowly pedestrian and people will stop turning up their nose at the idea of walking to the store.
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Hi, again, Ian……you are doing it up big time!
Evening, Ian.
Aloha, Ian!
The fattest states are also among the reddest on the EV map.
The burb I live in doesn’t even have sidewalks outside of the subdivision even though there are convenience store less than a mile away. You would be taking your life into your own hands walking there.
corn syrup production, so that the empty calories in the center aisles of grocery stores; the calories that are bad for you, are much cheaper than healthy lean meat and vegetable calories
Maybe with the bee crisis we could pay farmers to grow their own bees. Pay them to stop using chemicals that might be killing bees, the Bush EPA isn’t looking to hard to find a cause so lets just ban them all.
Bees are much more important than the chemical companies to the economy.
Anyway then we use honey to sweeten everything and feed the extra corn to the cows.
Or even the ethanol producers who with high corn prices are having trouble despite high oil prices which should help them.
Well, you know what they’ve always said in Arkansas: “Thank God for Mississippi!”
Still true…………….
The sheer irony of it is, is the fact that the poor can only afford crap… It’d shouldn’t come as a surprise that the poorest state, Mississippi, is the fattest…? Hmmm…?
Let them eat scrapple.
-G
No obesity in my family or in my wife’s family. Some genetic thing, probably, but a lot of exercise freaks. We don’t eat sugar and eat a lot of whole grains, vegetables and fish.
You list important stuff, Ian, but I think even more than the burbs and cars, it is the corn sugar in so much stuff that people don’t even know about – like mayonnaise, for instance. Almost all processed foods.
I had to go to Wal Mart to get something only they had. They had added a food store since the last time I was there. There are so many very obese people lined up to get the cheap pop and other processed food there, they really do need to widen the aisles. All these very wide women there with long skirts and seven or eight kids. The oldest being the most severely obese. Ealry onset diabetes will be one of the next plagues in the USA. It already is in some areas – like Mississippi.
Americans are fat for the same reasons they vote for morons and believe the world is 6,000 years old. They don’t want to know what they’re really doing.
just did mine. That’s a tough scale. I refuse to believe that I have 22.2% body fat.
http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/
Lets put a fat based tax on food:)
Hmmm. See my native state (Oklahoma) is in the top tier. No surprise there. Would have been 10 or even 20 years ago. Okie food groups: grease, starch, salt, and beer. If you can’t fry it, they won’t eat it. On the other hand my current home, Montana, is near the bottom. Must be that nobody can afford to eat around here. I certainly am doing my part to raise our ranking.
EV map?
Don’t need no Canadans telling us red-blooded ‘Merikins we’re fat.
Hey, we might be fat — but we’re…. ARMED!
{hi, Ian!}
Empty calories are cheap when I’ve been poor Ramen and Potatoes were the meal. Butter for the potatoes meant that I made extra.
Thanks for this post Ian. To me, this is the unspoken “driver” of a lot of our economic distress in the US. We are killing ourselves with bad food.
The ubiquity of high fructose corn syrup is ruining the palates and health of Americans. And don’t get me started on the long term health and economic implications of the rising rate of diabetes.
My 86 yr.old mother is in fine shape mentally but her late in life obesity has wrecked her quality of life and is killing her. She doesn’t overeat per se but it’s what she eats and that she will not exercise. Medicare pays for her sedentary choices.
Yeah, too little city planning made sidewalks available, safe, or appealing. (And too many sidewalks abut cars going 40+ mph, which is not exactly inviting to pedestrians.)
Huge topic (pun intended).
We could probably eat the carbs if we walked and rode bikes more. But that would require better city infrastructure.
We’re very good at stuff we, personally, can buy and own – chocolates, autos, meals.
But ask someone to pay their portion of a really nicely designed sidewalk with street trees, separated by a grass berm from speeding cars, and they’ll recoil (unless they already live in an affluent suburb, where they expect these amenities).
Why don’t we eat better?
Too tired. And too tempted?
“I had to go to Wal Mart to get something only they had.”
Isn’t that aggravating? They have decimated the locally-owned and smaller-store sectors.
Teddy, yur killin’ me!
Globally…! 8-(
Hmmm the poor are bearing the increased cost of food by being only able to afford the cheap fatty stuff.
After all with two jobs or just lots of overtime fast food does make economic sense because you don’t have the time or energy to cook.
Yup, crap is cheaper. And the more rural you are the harder it is to find good stuff, in general.
You’ll be happy to know that our wonderful gooper mayor got so sick of hearing how fat people are in OKC that he decided to put us all on a diet.
Four for a buck… The original dollar menu…! ;-)
Heheh. There’s just more of you. We have the same number of guns per capita.
Although, admittedly, less automatic weapons.
dugg thanks to tbsa for opening it
YIKES!! Should be ‘too little city planning made sidewalks UNsafe, even when they are available’.
5 for a buck on sale back in the day!
I resemble that remark.
Sad, I think, that the states with problems in health, obesity, education and so forth are all gaga over the Repukes. Is there, ouch!, a correlation? Keep ‘em fat and unhealthy and stupid and we can keep that control for EVER! (Where’s that fatty Rove lurking just this minute?)
When I was real poor the first time I ate almost nothing but potatoes for two months. Besides being the only person I know to ever manage to get scurvy (which the doctor did not recognize, I wound up self-diagnosing) it turned me so off potatoes that I didn’t eat a single one for 2 years.
They were nineteen cents a pound at the local store at the time. And I had less than $20 for the first month, disposable income.
Tho, I think the marketplace’s pendulum has swung back to bite’em in their ample butts… The diversion of corn into ethanol has cut into the corn sweetener industry, just a tad, eh? ;-)
My sister is a HS principal. We were talking this weekend about her having to spring for so many oversized desks. The problem is that she has some kids who are so obese, they break those too. I cannot imagine the adolescent horror of that happening in front of friends.
But one would think that ‘the more rural’ — well, the more likely to grow your own.
Yeah but doesn’t Canada have a much lower gun death rate? Are Canadians really more peaceful…or are obese Americans just easier targets:)
That is going to go over well in Okie land (NOT!).
One thing I noticed in China is that I never saw any fat people. Anywhere. The worst it got was some people who were a bit pudgy. The young people were thin, and only a few middle-aged people were in the thickened category.
We ate a good bit of the local food: it was mostly vegetables and noodles and flavored with meat. We had a squirrel-shaped mandarin fish (think blooming onion, only fish), but mostly, real food, fresh and steamed and braised and cooked in a bit of oil. This is the diet, breakfast, lunch and dinner.
We even ate fast food noodle soup. There are loads of MacDonalds and KFCs, and a few other chains, filled with young people, but the regular restaurants are also filled with the young.
The difference in size was especially noticeable on airplanes, where it seemed like the area available to us was much greater than on US airlines.
Yes, it’s a huge medical cost. And we pay and pay and pay for it. It’s a major reason for rising medical costs (everywhere in the world, the US is just the leading edge of this phenomenon). A friend calls it “food pollution”. We should be subsidizing good food, and taxing lousy food, the same way we do cigarettes. You want a big mac or a pop. It’s not illegal. But it is an expensive treat.
Makes me feel like a real nanny-state liberal to say that, but I just don’t see that we can afford to do otherwise, and if it’s acceptable to subsidize bad food, why shouldn’t it be ok to subsidize good food?
I gave this post a big fat Digg!
LOL. Yes, we do. We have fewer handgungs, fewer automatic weapons and most Canadians who own guns are rural and need them. They aren’t bought for “defense”, at least not defense from humans.
Ian
How do they know these things? Do they go around weighing people or such? I would really like to know.
If Mississippi didn’t exist I think we would have to invent it – has anyone taken a look around their own state? I see people in California who look like they might tip the whole state into the ocean.
Funny…that’s a popular saying in Oklahoma also.
Most “rural” people today actually live in small towns, not on farms. Less than 1% of the population is directly involved in agriculture. For whatever reason the tradition of the household garden, still ubiquitous in many rural areas in my youth, has all but disappeared.
I did the same kind of thing the first time I was broke for a while, except I went for the much healthier brown rice – it was called the “macrobiotic diet” at the time. Comet Brown Rice, 29 cents a box (16 oz.) in the early 70’s.
I have a few observations from Ohio.
1. infants who are fed cereal when they’re a couple months old have a higher tendancy (seems to me) to be fat children and fat adults.
2. stupid rules on playgrounds because schools don’t want to get sued. No running, no playing tag, etc.
3.People who settled here eat potatoes.
And Montana, though we add Oklahoma to the list, too. 8-)
Summer Squash and Potatoes cook in oven add taco seasoning packet or hot peppers for flavor. I think the Summer Squash saved me from scurvy.
Still there are other lack of nutrition related disease that I’m sure affect Americans and I’m sure its poorer Americans getting these diseases more.
This is a semi weird topic its cool but do the righty political blogs ever discuss stuff like this?
I think Americans do work too much. It’s really insane when you look at the hours. No one works more hours than Americans, to the best of my knowledge. It doesn’t leave a lot of time to be fit, healthy, to engage in politics or to join in cultural activities. The price is more than the benefit. And to think, mechanization was supposed to give us more free time. Instead we have people with too much work, people with lousy work, and people with no work.
Aloha, yellow! It’s been awhile…! ;-)
To them it’s all a matter of personal choice, so it’s hard for them to say much except bemoan how people are all individually choosing not to be healthy and to say “but it’s their choice”. Which would be fine, except that the government still pays over 60% of all health costs.
the only time I considered myself poor, I did not own a car and the nearest place to buy food was a pharmacy/convenience store that stocked a few groceries.
that did not work out so well as far as healthy eating, but it didn’t make me fat.
I guess I wasn’t really poor or I wouldn’t have been able to afford the processed foods that I relied on. I did eat Ramen noodles, though.
No running or playing tag? What sort of playground is that? Mind you, we have the same sort of litigation problems, with more “dangerous” playground stuff being taken down, etc…
Mass psychosis. Heinlein said that in this age we were all nuts. Sometimes I think he was right.
Potatoes don’t get me wrong they are good food only eating potatoes is bad.
Here’s a couple of pieces of information that I know. 1) My father was a doctor and moved to the little city that I grew up in, in 1954. People who lived in town worked in factories; people who lived outside of town farmed and one spouse worked in town(back then,the best that dairy farmers in that area could do was 50 cows – no mega dairies then). My father told me that he asked the adults who came into his practice what it had been like during the Depression for them(because he knew what it had been like in New York City). He noticed two things: first, that these folks remembered no lack of food – they were growing their own. They had plenty to eat. Second – they were, in his view “Extremely well fed” – what we would call obese. 2)The closing of the one-room school houses in this area of Upstate New York and the opening of central school districts WITH SCHOOL BUSING took place in the early 1930s. (if Emptywheel were here, I think she’d be starting a time line long about now) 3) The big move toward central schools and building new schools came in the early 1950s – and standards put out by the Association of American School Architects required 25 acres of open land for a central high school. No town or city in America had 25 acres inside city limits for a school – therefore, schools were built on the edges of town or outside of town…and students no longer could walk or bike to school. See any connections?
Ian, you could have thrown in an onion now and then and avoided scurvy.
Ian–my younter son’s grade school had rules: no running on the blacktop, only on the grass. But no running on the grass when it was wet from rain or dew. So basically no running.
Things–i mean, they have potatoes at every dinner. Every day. And bread and butter.
it’s not their choice that they are stuck working a job for minimum wage
Lost a lot of weight – got down to 137 lbs. on that rice diet. Thinnest I’ve ever been. A box lasted a week – 29 cents.
Four and six lane streeets where the signals are barely long enough for a healthy pedestrian without a small child or a cart of groceries to cross. And the stores are far enough apart in my neighborhood that you need a car – the nearest grocery is a mile away, across two of those major streets; the next nearest is closer to two miles, out of convenient walking distance.
No time to cook either, assuming people know how. I’m amazed how many people truly do not know how to make a meal from scratch.
I like brown rice too… I like the nutty flavor… I like to mix white and brown too! Rice is the main staple here in the Isles, spuds are a luxury item…! ;-)
To them it’s all a matter of personal choice, so it’s hard for them to say much except bemoan how people are all individually choosing not to be healthy and to say “but it’s their choice”. Which would be fine, except that the government still pays over 60% of all health costs.
Personal choice is a great excuse to not help others.
I’m sure the GOPers will say that we should let them all die.
But then the GOPers would need more workers and so they would bring in immigrants who through no fault of their own won’t speech the language or know American customs which would anger the GOPers even more.
Who would then complain about the low birth rate as they wonder why more women hesitate to bring more children into the world.
Its the circle of unlife!
Did you have the hoarding of rice there a few weeks ago, like we did here?
Thanks, CT. I’ve been MIA lately.
Haven’t seen Kiddo & Lahoma since I’ve been back.
Nothing serious, I hope.
Yah. I grew up in a boarding school and food had always just been provided in balanced portions. One of those “how could I have been so dense” things, but it just didn’t even occur to me till my hair started falling out and my teeth got loose. In retrospect it’s kind of amusing, even at the time I thought it was kind of funny though I was pretty displeased with my stupidity.
Oh, I agree. But a “conservative” blogger most likely would say it’s personal choice.
Seattle Costco still one big bag of rice per customer.
Didn’t know myself until I was forced to learn in my early twenties. It does take time, but there are ways to make it relatively painless (I used to do a lot of stir fries and slow cooked sters/pot roasts/soups).
I think it happened all over the USA. Can’t remember where I read it, but I did. Lotsa rice on the shelfs at Costco and the Asian food store last week, though.
until recently, my food budget was $100/month. to be honest, cost was the #1 thing i looked at – not if it was good for me. the second thing was how long i could make it last.
Or my sister at least on food, collage girls all seem to think diet, self control you choose to weigh a certain amount.
wow. $100 a month would be a challenge.
I’d have to go with corn, beans and rice. I think that covers all the vitimins and minerals one needs.
I’m amazed how many people truly do not know how to make a meal from scratch.
Umm, no comment.
Seems the rumors of shortages created hoarding which then fulfilled the rumors – real negative spiral. They showed people hauling out 4 or 5 (or more) of the 10 lb. bags at a time. No wonder the limit was imposed.
Infants also drink ‘formula.’ The medical establishment — rant, rant — interfered with natural mothering. Breast fed babies don’t get fat the way formula fed babies do. Breastfeeding moms tend to be more in tune with the needs of their child and more interested in exercise, I think. Our society is all about the big-boobs and shames women into doing the unnatural. The most amazing thing for me, living in hispania-norte-americano, is that young moms almost always buy formula that they couldn’t afford without geneerous subsidy (and probably loaded with corn syrup.) We are, sadly, a very dysfunctional social system. Let ‘em eat grass.
Add chile. Then you get vitamin C. Otherwise, you’re all set.
Yeah, I’ve been there. $100/month is tight. Stews and soups can be used to really eke out the value of meat for a long time. I used to leave a soup or “stew” on the lowest heat for about 3 days and just keep throwing in vegetables and rice and water. Not to everyone’s taste, but I found the flavor quite agreeable.
Stir fries with rice or noodles can also go a really long way, especially if you know how to make a good stir fry sauce.
Meat prices have gone up quite a bit since then, but at least up in Canada you can get huge pork roasts for really cheap, add some vegetables and you’ve got a pot roast that with some freezing/refrigerating can last you for days and days.
I’ve found that I can’t control my weight with diet alone, I need exercise. And the type of food I eat matters a fair bit.
But mostly it’s lifestyle. I never had weight issues till I took an office job and sat on my butt all day.
Actually, a case can sometimes be made for using formula. If women are poor and not getting good nutrition, it can affect the quality of their breastmilk.
Oh, I should also have said – it puts real stress on a woman’s body if she is undernourished and trying to breastfeed.
Even exercise does not seem to be helping me all that much. I am now walking or biking at least 2-3 miles a day and doing 6-10 mile hikes twice a week. Have not lost a pound.
I’ve found that I can’t control my weight with diet alone, I need exercise.
Same here, but backwards. If I don’t work out, I *lose* weight. I lift to keep my weight up.
It’s not just the corn syrup, it’s the fact that it’s GMO corn that the syrup is made from (and the chips, etc.) At least one study in Europe of GMO corn showed a host of problems in animals who ate it. In addition to sugar and junk food, environmental and medical toxins create metabolic problems, of which obesity could be a symptom. Doctors are finding high rates of metabolic dysfunction in autistic children who presented with regression following vaccines. 90% of the flu shots in this country contain 25mg of mercury, enough to disrupt body processes. Aluminum in vaccines has been linked with motor neuron death and Gulf War syndrome. HHV6 virus has been linked to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and MS. Maybe instead of simply blaming lifestyle changes, we need to be studying the metabolic and genetic effects of our toxic environment and our overly Pharmacized culture.
I rode school buses in Texas. Walked to school in CA previously. Had the BEST school lunches in both places. (My mom was no cook, I’m tellin’ you.) Wonderful bean soup on Fridays in CA (lots of Catholics.) Unbelievable veal cutlets and chicken pot pie and sloppy joes and greens and stuff in TX. I ate better at school than at home. And everyone played sports (girls had to play tennis or be on the drill team or cheer — no other choices in those olden days). A fat kid was an anomaly and everyone was sorry for them. Gym class was ’silly’ but we all got a regular workout in our little bloomer shorts (and, no, I am not ancient!) But my own children also were active…and fat kids in their schools were also felt sorry for. Where I now live ….well, shocking. The obese child is the norm.
I thought there was vit. C in corn. No?
I’ve been missing their witty repartee, too…! (((OKK & Lahoma))) 8-(
Health like anything takes knowledge, the free time to do it and effort.
I’m still working on it. Still the more perfect the less tolerant of others the less fortunate.
Scratch that the more perfect you think you are the less tolerant you are of others less fortunate…and the more blind you are to your own faults the more sensitive you are to others faults.
Tsk, tsk… a rudiment art…! ;-)
I don’t know, I just remember hearing that NM had very little malnutrition during Depression due to diet high in chile, corn and beans.
I used to be thin. Not skinny. 5′4″ and 130 lbs. After menopause I now weigh 165 lbs. We eat everything fresh. Nothing fried. Nothing out of a can or box except tomato sauce. Ron makes our bread. I lost ten pounds a couple of years ago and no matter what I did I couldn’t lose more. Recently, I started to “self medicate” with food cause of stress. It worked. I am fat and obsessed with food.
Its better to be chunky and have muscle tone than be thin without muscle tone.
How creative ya can be at the same time, M’dear…! ;-)
The only thing I’ve found that works is portion control and counting calories. Can’t do it with just exercise. Not saying it doesn’t help, but not alone.
No. Corn is actually a very poor food source. Much inferior to wheat rice, millet, etc. You have to eat it in combination with beans and chiles, tomatoes, or other vegetables. Native Americans survived on it because they treated it with alkalai (lye or lime) to make hominy and had very diverse diets to supplement the corn base.
yes, things were more active for kids thirty/forty years ago. In many school districts, between budgets and “NCLB” recess does not exist, gym class might be once a week. Basically, kids sit all day long, just as we do at our desk-based jobs. Then, the kids are bused home and many sit in front of computers, with their books, or in front of the tube for hours afterwards. they are many times fed convenience foods at school (chicken ‘tenders’ anyone?)in the school lunch programs.
BMI has problems. I was categorized as “overweight” by the BMI on my last doctors visit (6′, 190 lbs — ideal is 185). My 5-point skin-fold body fat measurement was 7%, so I am anything but “fat”.
Fit and very fit males can easily get put into the overweight category just by doing regular weight training. In football, many professional running backs would be considered obese (6′, 230 lbs), even though they have sub-5% body fat and bench press 400+ lbs .
BMI is sort of crap, but it’s easy to gather this data for a population (height and weight = bmi). Attaching labels to the ratio has so many assumptions built into it, that all you can really say about BMI is that it measures the ratio of height to weight. It certainly doesn’t measure “fat”. If you want that, do skin fold measurements.
Well when good times come again just remember to try and get healthy again. Heck I’m still working on it.
you know, all those obese states. they are the same ones that Obama has trouble with.
clinging to their corn syrup and tatos.
That was not true in Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arkansas, but then they did not eat chiles. In the Ozarks, farmers had to sell most of their eggs, dairy, meat, and produce to pay taxes, buy clothes, and all the other things they needed to live. Chronic malnutrition was rampant. It scarred my mother for life with an impaired immune system.
I think lina’s point was today’s corn is worse.
I have read that plastics can memic hormones and hormones can effect weight.
I gained weight — 30 pounds in like six weeks — the second time I was put on hormones. (First time, when I took the pill in 1970, when hormone levels were 10X as high now, I gained 10 pounds practically overnight, but quit pretty fast because I was also having fainting spells.)
The third time I was put on hormones (to correct my metabolism, that had been screwed up by the first, I was told by a doctor) well, again, I gained another 30 pounds in about a month.
Pounds that have been almost impossible to peel off, no matter the diet or exercise. (In fact, I became wretchedly ill on a low-fat, vegetarian diet — too many carbs.)
How does this relate to the topic? Cattle have been routinely shot up with hormones for how many decades? So meat, and most milk, has been laced with hormones (hence the trend of 5th grade girls sprouting breasts). It seems to me that obesity in the United States has followed the rise in a combination of factors: a balanced diet being replaced with high carbohydrates, high fructose corn syrup, over-long work, computer, hormone-laced meat and milk, the birth control pill, video-game hours, hormones dealt out like mints to menopausal women (and for a variety of other reasons — two generations of American women have been guinea pigs for hormones.)
i’m coming in at 20.3, which means that if it wasn’t for me, texas would be tipping over to the dark side.
When I was a kid no southern Sunday breakfast was complete without scrapple. The Soul Food of the 70’s was nothing more than food familiar to all southern working class and poor, regardless of colour.
I’m going out on a limb here, but I’m thinking a pound of potato chips costs a hell of a lot more than a pound of the median priced fruit or vegetable.
The irony is that I used to be skinny – 5′ 11′ and 135 lbs. Now I weigh 230 (50 lbs overweight). I do not eat all that much and make everything from scratch (I even grind my own spices and make my own spice blends) using fresh or frozen ingredients. No cans or boxes in my house (well, except canned tomatoes).
Not only that, DD! The corn the Indians subsisted on was a nutritionally more beneficial corn strains than what is grown by Big Ag these days… PBS had an excellent Frontline article talking about it… Cows in ‘fattening’ lots can only ingest it for 90 to 120 days, otherwise , major health problems develop… What about the persistent human consumption of that same crap in other forms…? 8-(
Fit and very fit males can easily get put into the overweight category just by doing regular weight training.
yup. I lift pretty much every day – and some days ride the bike for an hour or so as well. There’s no way I have 22% body fat. Muscle weighs more than fat, btw. (or at least I’ve always been told that).
are we talkin’ in America? Jeez, then for god’s sake feed the mother. I didn’t think we were a third world country yet.
Have you had you thyroid checked? My daughter has hashimotos and I learned a ton about thyroid politics. The parameters on the test are not wide enough. Her thyroid function was in the “normal” range but her body and mind were really messed up. She found a doctor who put her on thyroid replacement and in a week or two she was much better. It has changed her life. The old fashion way was to adhere to the test and not pay attention to the symptoms. It is called “The Terrany of the test”.
You stud muffin…You…! Trying to impress Rachel? 8-P
The New York Times did a study where they went down the center aisle, and they found that junk food costs less per calorie, significantly less, than vegetables and meat.
i’m a person of some girth. just got – or tryin’ to get – serious about excercise since Russert dropped dead at work. started reading trhe nutrition labels — not just a glance at calories. i was looking at cereals today. holy moley! what shit. but this weekend is for piggin’ more key lime pie please. monday is back to excercise and back to the fisa phones.
Yes, as noted, BMI does have problems. Nonetheless, all other evidence I’m aware of indicates that Americans are overweight. And there just aren’t enough serious fitness fanatics that they are an issue. BMI does correlate nicely to health, we used to use it in underwriting, /unless/ there was an indication that it was caused by something like serious weightlifting.
Oh, yes we have. Plenty of people go to bed hungry and malnourished.
must be true. i’ve been told that too. i’ve also been told you shouldn’t lift every day. is that true?
Trying to impress Rachel? 8-P
Nah, man, I’m honoring your first dibs… *g*
I’m sure you mean well, but most of the young mothers I encounter (not unlike my own experience) get scared with that “do you think the baby’s getting enough??????” kind of shit. It’s a racket. It is. And I’m sure the majority of the obese teenagers in my town (few 17 year olds don’t have a-child-to-love-them yet) are convinced that formula is best —- just as many (most?) mothers in the 1940s were convinced that formula was best. Just as now Caesarean is best. 40%+ in my neighborhood. Shame on all of us for not standing up.
Depends on where you are. Latest report out shows that for the poor in the US it often is a third world country in terms of disease anyway.
Sounds like you’re at a set point. Aye, sometimes it’s very hard.
jayt’s got his eyes set on a blond.
Yeah, I knew a woman like that. She had to eat a lot and lift to keep weight on. Needless to say the other women were mostly not sympathetic, but it was a real problem for her and during times when she couldn’t do both, she turned into a real stick.
Looked like an amazon when she was eating and exercising though.
Hunger In America
do you know what kind of lunches/snacks are available at her school? what kind of education and exercise programs there are about health/nutrition/weight?
A friend of my is the fund raiser for the statewide food bank network. He says the official figure is that 20% of American households experience at least some food insecurity during the month (missing 2+ meals a week because you cannot afford it).
i’ve always had much te same problem and would give up the excercise. i thinnk problem was i didn’t do anything to change my beating habits , especially consumption.
But the chips stay fresh longer and when your tired your from not enough sleep your body craves carbs, meat and sugar.
The only veggie you want are potatoes I don’t know why Potassium?
The only fruit you want is hostess fruit pies. Or beer lots of beer, great way to self medicate physical pain.
beating habits?
typo?
i’ve also been told you shouldn’t lift every day. is that true?
depends on how you do it. To do it every day, you gotta break it down. You don’t want to work the same muscle group two or more days in a row. So one day you’ll go in, and work one major muscle group (e.g. – chest) and one minor muscle group. Then the next day, you work a different set of one major and one minor.
You don’t want to do an all-around work-out every single day, though – you’re right.
Actually, the transition in schools started earlier, at least in the Midwest. The one-room school houses were in large part a product of the Jeffersonian plan for settling what was, to him, the “Northwest Territories.” He invented a survey system where the land would be laid out on a grid of “townships” six miles on each side, and subdivided into 36 “sections” each one square mile. A block of four sections, or in some cases, 9 sections, would together support one school house. Jefferson rigged the system so that each child would have to walk no further than a mile or so to get to a school.
This all changed with the advent of automobiles. I followed this change in the story of one of my grandmothers, who grew up (and outgrew) her Iowa one-room school house to herself becoming a teacher. By WW-I, the one-room school houses were already being consolidated in rural Iowa, so that the first school she taught in was a 3-story brick building. It is true that the busing came later, but the dynamics pushing school consolidation were in place after WW-I.
Bob in HI
[BTW, why in heck is “busing” spelled with only one ’s’? Why shouldn’t “cussing” also be spelled with only one ’s’?]
Hawaii has stepped up… There’s only soda machines in the teacher lounges… Collective bargaining clause, btw…! ;-)
jayt’s got his eyes set on a blond.
Sshhhhh… ix-nay on the ond-blay. Not ready to leave a good-lookin’ corpse yet…
Actually, Missoula recently pulled the soda machines and most of the fatty snacks in the public schools. Of course we are all a bunch of DFHs here.
I also usually try and take one day a week with no exercise at all, even when I’m training hard core.
After working ten hour days then coming home and having to make dinner for my family I don’t have the energy to exercise.
Because “bussing” means kissing.
When you’re overweight, you don’t have to eat much to keep the weight on. It sounds to me like you could benefit from eating more often, but smaller meals and only drinking water and one or two cups of coffee or tea in the morning. Four or even five small meals a day at the same time every day, lots of water, the correct amount of sleep (at the same time every day) and your exercise program and you should start to see results in about two weeks.
Good luck. I’m doing it now and it’s working.
Anyone see “Supersize Me”? Worth watching.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me
‘Cuz or be’cuss, bussing with two esses is something else, again.
Two-ess bussing is generally not frowned upon, at least not in the ‘process’.
;~D
I knew a few girls at McDonalds who were pregnant watching them eat before they gave birth was scary watching them come back to work a week later and keep eating was worse.
I think “Super Size Me ” the movie would be banned for cruelty if it showed what happens to regular girls who work fast food jobs while pregnant.
You nailed it. I hope someone is listening. It’s soooooo important.
LOL. yup. typo.
ok, got it.
Hmmm, bussing sounds like more fun than busing. I wonder if that’s why everyone got so worked up about interracial bus(s)ing? Perhaps they thought integration was happening even faster than it was?
The government was going to make your kids buss interracially.
I’ve lived in Japan for 30 years and the view from here is that indeed (we) Americans are FAT. Everyone here comments on it, maybe not openly but certainly it’s a tacit understanding that simply can’t be overlooked. And everyone knows its a behavioral thing, which is one more reason to resist the spread of American popular culture; the American popular-culture diet with its “supersize” + sweet + fried mentality and general lack of self-control (=”freedom”) makes people question just what it is the US is trying to propandize.
Ironically, Bob, I had to walk a mile and 1/4(one way) to catch my bus to attend Ka’u High, now the subdivision, Green Sands, has the bus pick-up and drop-off students on each street…! A lot more ha’oles in attendance than when my Sis and I were the only ones…! ;-()
Great healthy cafeteria food and only water in the vending machines. She’s even established a wellness program for the staff. Also, the school participates in a pilot program to track/manage weight /health for the students.
They have terrific PE program and an inordinately high rate of participation in athletics. She despairs though when she sees the kids/parents outside of school. She’s lived in that small town for 37 years and used to teach many of the parents of her kids. She says you cannot imagine how quickly/badly the parents have aged. A poor diet and the stress of living in a low income/”low possibility” area is daunting.
I feel uncomfortable endorsing a “diet fad” book- however, the intro to “South Beach Diet” made a huge amount of sense to me, as a biologist. I didn’t follow the recipes, just absorbed the general advice in the intro chapter, and lost 20 pounds over about 5 months w/o much effort.
I was always one of those people who had to struggle really hard not to be skinny, so gaining weight was a new deal for me!
I know that is true, MMC — and we all have to stand up against that. We can’t, I think, accept that we can do nothing. but we also have to help our young people be unafraid of being normal. I mean, really! If a young woman is not breastfeeding her child, I sure would want to know why not.
I think that was the real fear – it would result in what was then called miscegenation, which was also illegal in many southern states at the time.
Another way to see how overweight we’ve become: look at some of the youtube clips of pop hits from the ’50’s and ’60’s — musicians and teen fans alike are all so slender! Downright skinny, even. (Not that we would’ve called them or ourselves skinny then.) America sure doesn’t look like that now.
The simple advice I find does a lot is just this: nothing made from flour, no sugar, no simple carbohydrates, drink lots of water.
If I can stick to that for a couple months, I lose significant weight.
I did the “South Beach Diet” four years ago just for a small weight loss. It’s a really informative program. Americans simply do not understand the mechanics of metabolism and insulin resistance.
Konichi wa, Hakuto! Aloha!
Oops, Hokuto! ;-)
And where is the “religious” right on this issue. And why aren’t we all wiping their noses in this? And, sadly, I just see it getting worse and worse.
Now that you mention it…
Welcome, LynnDee!
I’m also convinced that the high level of salt in almost every prepared food is part of the culprit- more salt, more craving for sugar, more sugar more craving for salt, etc. Bad spiral. It’s a “taste buds” thing.
It’s the Cheetos
Smart ass…! *g*
Ian- that is basically the message of the south beach diet. I’m not endorsing the commercial aspects of it, just the general good sense behind it. I could never have put myself on a regime following the recipes, but the basic principles are really sound.
Without alot of effort or eating strictly veggies it takes a ton of effort to keep sodium under 2000mg a day.
cuz when you cuss you cuss and when you bus you bus. except when you buss. Kisses Bob in HI :”)
I was a teenager during part of that era, and it’s funny to think of my mother making me drink milkshakes with eggs in them to gain weight.
Yes- and it isn’t fat that’s the culprit, it’s the simple carbohydrates. Yes, along with weight gain in population, also huge increase in diabetes.
Very little carb intake, and, fresher foods, eg. more leafy and root veggies…!
Yes- I’ve started reading the food labels on everything- even seemingly innocent stuff like tomato juice has tons of sodium.
All I have to say to all the Christianists out there is Matthew 25.
I have said it before and will say it again. You cannot be a capitalist and a Christian.
Hey, CTuttle, reminds me of the name of the publishing company here in Tokyo: “Charles Tuttle” (http://www.tuttlepublishing.com/aboutus.php).
Capitalism is also incompatible with democracy – as the old SDS said.
yeah- I was always totally skinny- bought books with calorie table info to find the most fattening foods!
That is the depressing part for me. I do not eat “snack foods” or sweets, only drink iced tea (unsweetened) and coffee and occasionally juice, and cook everything from scratch with reduced salt (lots of garlic and chiles more than makes up for the lack of salt).
Back to the Last Thread, don’t know if this was mentioned.
Just so you know – I did breastfeed my own and believe that in most cases that is the best. But there are exceptions, and undernourished mothers are one of them.
DING!
Heh, I’m a Charles Tuttle! I believe that publisher is actually based in Vermont, as Charles E. Tuttle Publishing, and they specialize in Oriental studies…! ;-)
Chips are cheap if you’re trying to get enough calories. They are expensive if you are trying to nourish yourself.
I’m sure! Do think people have different metabolisms, genetic inheritance. One of my sisters was always pudgy, whereas I was skinny, even at young age- and we grew up at the same healthy dinner table.
Trying to feed my family of four on a very small budget 25 years ago made me into a pretty good cook — even mayo and barbeque sauce was made from scratch. Still do, when I have the energy. We are fortunate to have a local Ohio farmer’s market here, and lots of sidewalks. It is a great place to walk.
Dr. Dick @169: When I first became a social worker/probation officer/counselor to whomever, my boss said to me, “You cannot be both a Republican and a social worker. I did not, at first, understand — being a cradle
Repub and all. It didn’t take me long to “get” it. You either care or you don’t. You hear the word — or you don’t. I find the religious right to be an embarrassment to the very idea of Jesus. But, hey, that’s just me.
Happened across an interesting article at Open Left on PIE (not exactly the food pie, but had to create a connection somehow!)
I like it because he says my local Senate candidate, Andrew Rice, gets the best score for the Senate. ;)
Hey! I sent him some money earlier. I have been ashamed to admit I am an Okie with those two evil cretins in the Senate.
While I am not religious, it was reading the teachings of Yeshua al Nazarat and the writings of the founding fathers (I still have a special place for Thomas Paine) that turned me into a socialist.
Menopause made a big change for me. I’d always been really thin and I’ve always exercised a lot and eaten pretty healthy, but with menopause the pounds just went on by themselves. I eventually put myself on a plan I made up. Exercise 1 hour/day. The eating part included eating as much as I wanted to, including butter and oil, but no junk whatsoever – no cake, cookies, candy, ice cream, chips. And I had to have greens twice a day. Over the course of my 3 month drive, I lost the 21 pounds I wanted to. I also made a graph with the date on the bottom and the number of pounds going up the vertical axis. Each pound lost was worth 2 boxes on the graph. If the graph stayed level too long or started going down (indicating I was gaining weight), I either exercised more or was more careful about what I ate. I never did limit how much.
I kept the graph going for years and stayed at the weight I wanted. I’m a bit over now, but still thin. Been eating junk food to anesthesize emotional distress.
I’ve been sending him money as well, through Blue America. I know what you mean, get tired of all the red around here…
Next door to the east looks kinda blue, but with our critters miht as well be red. :(
I don’t mean to be mean —–I just remember how my mother-in-law (and others) made me question my own desire to feed my babies naturally. I think our society is not at all supportive. Sometimes the rare exception gets touted — and undermines the merely regulars. I was lucky! My babies were weighed at the hospital and I managed to be a great feeder….so when I went home I had support to fight off the negativos! Most young women do not have that support. Natural is natural. (and breastfeeding saves a ton of money — which is probably why women are herded out of it by the producers of formula.)
Ah! The Rainbow Family. If they are the same folks who visited our co-op in Michigan in the 1970s, they’re all old hippies. Prolly a new generation. It might be interesting to do a study of them. One of the longest lasting hippie communities left, I imagine.
Bob in HI
Ah yes- that “M” thing- that was my experience also!
That’s what I like about Andrew, he’s a real progressive!
You cannot be a capitalist and a Christian.
DING!
new thread – no zed.
thers is upstairs
I empathize with the menopause, but, I think a histerectomy and producing kids can work against one’s self too…!
mine, too.
one last thing occurred to me- arcane- but one form of chromium is essential for proper functioning of insulin receptors. This and other minerals have been leached from soil bec. of the way we produce crops. So, grains like barley e.g. that used to be high in chromium, are no longer so, at least in US. Tho maybe still in some parts of the world.
I know there was a “fad” for taking certain kinds of chromium supplements to lose weight, a while back. I’m not necessarily endorsing, but from what I read of scientific articles, made a lot of sense to me. So, a lead, tho not an endorsement for anyone who wants to google, and come to their own conclusion.
It wasn’t much different 30-odd years ago when I had mine. Not a lot of the young women I knew were breastfeeding in those days.
Sounds like she’s doing wonderful things in a difficult situation. You must be really proud of her.
Ding.
probably the lower nutritional value of what we eat keeps people craving food even though they have theoretically had enough to eat. their stomachs are full but their bodies are hungry.
I would follow my football-playing brother around and try to eat as much as he did, especially as summers and bathing suit season were coming up. I was really skinny in high school. That was then.
Thanks greenwarrior,
Yes, I am very proud of her. We’re twins and when I’m visiting her town, I am stopped wherever I go. People just approach me to comment on how wonderful she is and they “hope she won’t retire until my child graduates”.
She’s really had a passion for her calling and is truly doing God’s work.
A recent study seems to indicate that PE at school doesn’t reduce BMI in children. Gary Taubes’ recent book, Good Calories, Bad Calories is an interesting read, though it’s not a diet book and doesn’t give any advice. Exercise, while a good thing to do for general health, doesn’t work very well as a weight loss method when one looks at the population at large. Some people are able to exercise and lose weight, but most people automatically adjust the amount they eat to compensate for the exercise. Also, the calories per hour listed on exercise machines is often misleading–it includes basal metabolism. As others have mentioned, lifting weights seems to be more effective than just aerobic exercise, though you have to be careful to lift enough weight–some people just go through the motions.
I’ve found reducing carbs has been the only diet that’s worked for me.
Most high school P.E. programs are pretty awful, not at all what a trainer would recommend for someone trying to control weight. Putting on muscle increases metabolic rate for as long as you keep the muscle, and cardio has a window after exercise where it increases your burn rate. That said, I don’t think exercise alone is enough unless you’re really pushing it (when I was running over 50 miles a week, I guarantee I did not have to worry about my weight), but I do know that there’s some reason to think it’s help, and on a person anecdotal level I know that I never struggled with my weight when I was getting even moderate exercise (though, to be fair, that’s more a maintainence than a loss thing).
Cardio also increases your ability to learn, substantially, for some hours after you exercise. I believe they’ve even measured specific brain changes as a result (I’ll have to look it up again and do an article, it’s fascinating). Evidence for weight and motor skills is less, mostly because there are a lot less studies, but there’s some evidence that learning skilled motor activities also improves intelligence and in older types staves off age based physical declines. Cardio combined with light weights and yoga/tai-chi is probably pretty close to ideal for anyone who can fit it in, and is very good for older folks. Add some challenging mental activities, decent diet and keep social ties up and barring bad luck or illness, you stand a good chance of being healthy, able and fit either until you die or the last couple years of your life.
For youngsters though, exercise is correlated with a ton of good outcomes including better grades, more self-esteem, better ability to concentrate, higher graduation rates and on and on.
Another reason for weight gain: People are smoking less. Niccotine is a great appetite supressent. (Nasty carcinogen, yes, but it does take care of appetite).
And if Americans are working more, getting paid less, pray tell how are they going to find time to exercise?
When it comes to obesity, they’re not playing around in Japan:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06…..13fat.html
- Tom
If you can find it, watch the documentary “King Corn”. I saw the producer on CSPAN with Brian Lamb and it was pretty fascinating. Two young guys lease an acre of land to plant corn and follow the process. Get’s into this subject with some humor a la “Supersize Me”