We know obesity and excessive weight gain has become a big problem for this country over the years, and that many Americans have terrible eating habits. Let's take a look at a few factors and think about why this is...
Many food companies of the food industry...
1) Bombard us with appealing ads, false health claims, and compete heavily with other companies for our money.
2) Stuff food with additives, such as chemicals and lab-created substances that do little for our health and overall nutrition, like high fructose corn syrup, preservatives, artificial flavors, artificial colors, MSG, artificial sweeteners, hormones, propellants, stabilizers, etc.
3) Do whatever they can to make a profit, through processing and manipulation, making their food look, taste, feel, and smell the best (and last the longest) by whatever means available (even if that compromises the nutritious value of the foods being sold to unwitting customers).
Many consumers of the United States...
1) Don't bother looking at food labels (let alone attempt to pronounce many of the ingredients listed).
2) Don't bother thoroughly researching the nutritious value of certain ingredients.
3) Don't look any further than (mostly consumer-targeted) diet books, diet pills, diet programs, magazines, random doctors' advice, neighbors' advice, TV commercial or talk show advice, etc. in order to know the perfect diet for themselves as individuals with unique health and nutrition needs.
4) Give too much credit to messages on packaging, without thinking of the consequences, or the reality of the situation (i.e., "Fat free!", "Sugar free!", "Excellent source of calcium!", "High in fiber!", "Low in calories!", "No added MSG!", etc... ).
5) Want fast, portable, and cheap food (whether or not it's bad for their bodies).
5) Just don't give a fuck what they eat, as long as it pleases them.
See, I know it takes two to tango. Companies within the food industry use deceiving ads, coercive marketing strategies, and produce hoards of low-quality, manipulated, non-nutritious food for the sake of making profits. Understandably, this is harmful to people - people who are fucking stupid.
This is where I introduce the benefits of natural selection, in defense of the food industry's "deceptive" and "coercive" sale tactics: Those of us who are smart enough to learn what's good and what's bad (through a plethora of intelligent, readily available, relevant, useful, non-biased, informational, educational, and scholarly sources) will learn to weed out the foods that are generally not going to do one's body well, and will thus, live longer and suffer less from the physical/mental defects caused by foods unfit for our consumption. Thus, those who are stupid, will eventually waste away and end up immobile, having to take all sorts of harmful medications, living life in bed or on a couch, getting depressed and eventually lose the will to be active, socialize, or even live, and therefore, these kinds of people will eventually fall out of existence, and will no longer be around for the food companies to "exploit".
So to the food companies, I say, "Go get 'em!", and request that they make as many stupid Americans as possible become fat, unproductive, unhealthy, and mentally ill. The more this happens, the more advantages smart people will eventually have, because there will be such an increased disparity between the health and well-being of smart people vs. that of stupid people, that smart people will be the one's getting more job opportunities, having more sexual partners, having more children, and just overall, doing better in life... so much that the stupid people will eventually just die off (hopefully, anyway). How great?!
Now, if this does not sound right for some reason, I suggest that you stupid Americans out there eating away your livelihoods take time seriously investigating the quality and nutritious value of the foods you eat, and wonder no more about the five-inch overhang of fat on your stomachs, the grotesque amount of cellulite and fat lumps you've somehow managed to acquire before having reached the age of 22, why you can't jog steadily for more than 4 minutes straight (if that), and why the expensive diet pills, diet programs, exercise gadgets, etc. are not actually helping you achieve anything close to your peak physical fitness.
But, if you're just that stupid and you don't choose to adjust your eating habits, and you prefer to ignorantly fill your shopping carts and mouths with whatever you want because you are just that careless and unconcerned for your health or level of physical attraction, and you'd rather live as a gluttonous, taste-loving, ignorant, disgusting, fat, unhealthy, weak-willed, lazy American citizen, well then.... eat away!
From a social work major,
ReplyDeleteWhat a one sided post. Here are additional explanations for obesity:
1.Sleep debt (Getting too little sleep increases body weight, 2. Pollution (upsets our hormones), 3. Air Conditioning (You have to burn calories if you are too hot or too cold, we live in controlled homes and offices, 4. Decreased smoking, 5, Medicines, including birth control pills, steroid, anti depressives, blood pressure pills, 6.Population, age, ethnicity, 7 Older moms (women giving birth at older ages, 8. Ancestor's environment (obesity runs in families, 9. Obesity linked to fertility, and 10 Union of obese spouses. By the way, as you age your ass will get spread too!
I agree with the previous comment. This post totally ignores many other causes for obesity. Many overweight people cannot help being overweight. The original poster needs to go back to the drawing board to come up with an argument worth its own weight.
ReplyDeleteSure, 11:30... there are a lot of reasons people gain weight. However.... I'm still inclined to think that the leading cause of obesity involves overeating or poor eating habits in general. Moreover, I would guess that those who are the most obese aren't just that way for the kinds of reasons you've listed. In other words, the amount of weight gained/lost for the reasons you've listed I would have to believe is a lot smaller than the amount of weight that is gained/lost due to eating habits. Just my intuition, I guess, however, if you have stats or something to show otherwise, than please present them.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard not to think that diet has something major to do with body fat - more major than any thing you mentioned - when I see people who are quite overweight in the grocery stores with boxed dinners, frozen meals/appetizers, snack foods, and soda, or anywhere in general displaying poor eating habits, like getting crap food from vending machines, standing in line at fast food places, snacking on crap like bagels, cheetos, and mountain dew during class... It all just seems to add up to me, I don't know.
From the social worker, 11:51, Here is an exert from a research project conducted at the world famous Mayo Clinic.
ReplyDelete"Although there are genetic and hormonal influences on body weight, obesity occurs when you take in more calories than you burn through exercise and normal daily activities. Your body stores these excess calories as fat. Obesity usually results from a combination of causes and contributing factors, including:
Inactivity. If you're not very active, you don't burn as many calories. With a sedentary lifestyle, you can easily take in more calories every day than you use through exercise and normal daily activities.
Unhealthy diet and eating habits. Having a diet that's high in calories, eating fast food, skipping breakfast, eating most of your calories at night, drinking high-calorie beverages and eating oversized portions all contribute to weight gain.
Pregnancy. During pregnancy, a woman's weight necessarily increases. Some women find this weight difficult to lose after the baby is born. This weight gain may contribute to the development of obesity in women.
Lack of sleep. Getting less than seven hours of sleep a night can cause changes in hormones that increase your appetite. You may also crave foods high in calories and carbohydrates, which can contribute to weight gain.
Certain medications. Some medications can lead to weight gain if you don't compensate through diet or activity. These medications include some antidepressants, anti-seizure medications, diabetes medications, antipsychotic medications, steroids and beta blockers.
Medical problems. Obesity can sometimes be traced to a medical cause, such as Prader-Willi syndrome, Cushing's syndrome, polycystic ovary syndrome, and other diseases and conditions. Some medical problems, such as arthritis, can lead to decreased activity, which may result in weight gain. A low metabolism is unlikely to cause obesity, as is having low thyroid function."
So please stop putting down overweight people until you understand the actual reason(s) for their weight.
There are other reasons for obesity, but there is always a solution. I think people simply do not have the will power to change their lives. I'll be blunt: I am a former fatty. I spent my whole life thinking I was just "slightly overweight" and this was easy because most people in my family are on the larger side, so yes it CAN run in families but that doesn't mean you have to give up on yourself. I lived a mostly sedentary life, ate terribly and was also taking anti depressants and birth control pills. One day I checked the BMI scale and was floored at my 31.4 BMI. Getting within a normal BMI was the hardest thing I've ever done and it took months of exhausting exercise and giving up just about anything that can come from a drive-through. Turns out getting regular exercise gave amazing results not only to my physical health, but I just felt so good that I no longer needed the anti depressants which likely helped make me fat in the first place. Being healthy is difficult at first, but it definitely can be done.
ReplyDeleteto the original poster, I have never made what would be considered a "flame" comment on this site but your lack of compassion and almost inhumane "solution" for your fellow humans makes me regret living in a world where people like yourself have any freedom to talk at all.
ReplyDeleteIt baffles me why it always comes back to fat = useless. I know a lot of heavy set people who still work, contribute to society, and are generally happy. Health is a very subjective concept. Stop falling into the sheep beauty norms and social standards and just let people be people. I will concede this point to you, no one else should have to pay for those people to maintain those eating habits if that's what they choose.
Overall, this reminds me a lot of what a friend and I were arguing about before that people who can't afford to live shouldn't be able to. He argued that if you don't have money you should just become homeless and fight for scraps. He thought that all social programs were stupid and it's a dog eat dog world. This is like what you are saying, fat people WILL degrade to nothing and will have nothing to contribute. What a crock of shit that is. We are all individuals so stop falling to the fallacy of hasty generalization.
Prof. Chaos
girl said...
ReplyDeleteWhere is Nut Job? He usually has something stupid to say about these kind of issues.
Accept my challenge! I am smarter than you.
^like
ReplyDeletebeing fat is not the only measure of one's health; it's just the most immediately obvious.
ReplyDeletein conclusion, the OP is incredibly shallow by definition
Yes, why is the OP so damn shallow! Is there some correlation between weight and intelligence? I don't think so!
ReplyDeleteOk. It seems like the affects related to food and eating habits are REALLY being downplayed, and put on the same level as not getting enough sleep, becoming pregnant, aging, having hereditary medical problems, etc.
ReplyDeleteObesity has increased dramatically among children and adults within the past 20-30 years, give or take. We can speculate and say that back then, maybe less people had medical problems, genetic disorders, sleep deprivation, medications, lack of activity, etc. to cause them weight gain. I speculate though that the dramatic increase in obesity is really rooted in the food we eat, and not only what kind of food we eat, but how much, and how often we eat.
If you all really want to point the finger equally at other causes for obesity, be my guest. I still believe that the changes with our food (i.e., new chemical ingredients, increase of processed/frozen foods, increase in overall production, changes in federal policies concerning practices of the food industry, etc..) and changes in eating habits (i.e., eating faster, more often, larger portions, convenience foods, etc.) that have taken place over the past 30 years just might have a little (actually a lot) more to do with obesity than you guys all seem to think.....
Furthermore, if we look at obesity rates in foreign countries compared with that of here in America, it's obvious we are doing the worst... perhaps it is equally due to less active lifestyles, more pollution, worse sleep conditions, more medical problems, more busy lifestyles, or whatever, but I'd like to say it is mostly because Americans just eat more and eat more unhealthy stuff than other countries.... and thanks to federal policies and the food industry in general, we have much more terrible food for us available that contains much more terrible ingredients than in other countries. These are just my thoughts though....
And at 12:07...lol. Thanks, I do pride myself in my eating habits and level of will power I manage to maintain in this country, and I only began to develop this mindset a few years ago (before, I ate like an idiot, and liked to indulge in food more than I'd like to admit, and then I realized what it did to my body/mind and I eventually fixed things).
This blog was purposely brash. What I had in mind when writing this, was the food industry versus consumers. The food industry seems to be at war with consumers and obesity and it's difficult to put full blame or responsibility on either party. Some consumers like to blame McDonald's for their weight problems. Food companies like to blame consumers for their lack of responsibility. So my claim is that people just need to wise up to the food they eat, and I think that as long as everyone can commit to a somewhat stable, healthy, and fulfilling diet that suits his/her needs based on age, health issues, etc., a majority of this country's obesity problems would be taken care of.
Unfortunately, there are other factors like federal policies that subsidize some foods over others, which makes unhealthy food more affordable than healthy foods, which just makes the problem worse and harder for people to get around. Not to mention the practical need for convenience foods these days, and a bunch of other causes for our bad choices/habits when it comes to eating.
Anyway, this is just how I see it. And unfortunately, I don't see enough convincing arguments/evidence that a) invalidate my speculations and explain away my supposed false conclusions or b) actually show that food is not that big of a factor compared to the other factors that contribute to obesity.
It's not okay to judge all people who look a certain way as being lazy, gluttonous and ignorant. Do some overweight people look the way they do because they eat too much or don't make healthy choices? Yes. But others are overweight because of genetics, medical conditions, medication and eating disorders, and it's wrong to assume that everyone has the same problem.
ReplyDeleteThink about this backwards: you can't assume that all thin people are thin because they eat healthy. Some thin people have lost weight, some thin people eat terribly but have fast metabolisms, some thin people make bad food choices but are athletes, some are thin because they don't have money, and some thin people have diseases or eating disorders. You're not all the same, so why assume that all overweight people are?
Alright folks. Here's the deal:
ReplyDeleteObesity has pretty much doubled in this country (and maybe others) over the past several decades.
I believe this is primarily due to a change in the way we eat and what we eat.
Considering this, I also believe that the majority of people who are obese today are such primarily due to their eating habits.
Perhaps in 1970, to condemn the majority of obese people as ignorant, gluttonous, weak-willed taste-loving slobs, would be wrong. However, today, I believe most people who are obese are that way due to their eating habits, whether they REALLY know it or not (sometimes we, and even our doctors, think we eat healthy, but just because something looks or sounds good for one's health, doesn't mean it really is). In other words, I would guess the percentage of obese people who are obese due to non-eating related problems (such as lack of sleep, pregnancy, medical conditions, etc.), has not grown in proportion to the percentage of obese people who are that way due to primarily a poor diet.
So, it is unnecessary to point out that people are obese for many reasons outside those that are eating habit related, because I am not attempting to claim that all obese people are just ignorant over-eaters or something.
I KNOW that there are obese people who have relatively healthy diets. I KNOW that there are thin people with relatively awful diets.
But this isn't the point. The point is that today, I think it is safe to say that people with bad eating habits make up a very large percentage of the obese population. And I would say that for the simply "overweight" population, even MORE of that is made up of people who are overweight due to poor eating habits.
Why else would obesity have doubled since the 70s? It seems to me that there is a strong correlation with the way our food and eating habits have changed (which may have gone somewhat unnoticed by us) and the level of obesity.
Unfortunately, I think people tend to overlook much of this problem, as I've seen in this thread. Today, we have the food industry feeding on people's ignorance with all the new, ultimately unhealthy food products that hardly existed before. So, my point is, people are ignorant when it comes to eating, and the food companies love it, because they can take advantage of that ignorance to develop an increase in sales (because they are constantly pressured to do so by Wall Street). This means the general public has to amp up its game, wise up, and stop falling for companies' tricks. And for the love of God people, stop acting like food is not the biggest factor when it comes to obesity rates in this country (and overweight people in general).
Oh and one more thing - I'm pretty sure if one starts out healthy, and then starts gaining weight by overeating or indulging in a poor diet, other health problems can develop which consequently make it even more likely for that person to gain weight, such as inability to maintain a certain level of physical activity, inability to sleep, and depression. So yeah.