How do they keep people from swiping the scoters? Or if I took my chair, and wanted to go on a ride, what would keep someone else from swiping my not overly expensive travel chair [I think that the insurance company paid around $700 for it, it is a fairly basic invacare, solid, heavy and better than putting my fairly expensive custom chair in the hold of an airplane for the gorillas to play with while we fly…]
Fair enough. I’ve been a poor college student, and a poor adult living on her own who needs to feed herself, and as tough as that was, I do not envy having to feed children on almost no money.
You know, I kind of get my rocks off gloating over being a child of poverty. Like I am oh-so-much cooler and tougher than my peers who live similarly cushy lifestyles now, because unlike them, there was a little bit of blood, sweat and toil in my lifetime. Still, I cannot imagine being the child of poor parents is anywhere near as tough as having to to be the one responsible for making sure your loved ones eat. Very tough and stressful job, and my hat goes off to you, my folks, and the countless others who have made it happen.
But that has nothing to do with what we’re talking about.
Two things. First, while I defer to the stress level, is it really cheaper to serve a family fake food than real? Next, you think there are fat people at Disney World? Try the Mall of America. Nothing will make you want to put a bullet in your head more enthusiastically.
Edit: Actually, we went over my first of two things already, so feel free to disregard.
I work on a boat with about 50 other guys, who rotate in and out every week, so I probably see about 80-100 different guys in my 4 weeks out. And I can honestly say that only 4 or 5 of them would be considered a healthy weight. We are at about 80 to 90% overweight out here. It’s scary.
On the other hand, it is nice to be one of the healthy looking guys 
I’m an avid walker too (did about three hours today), and I’ve noticed that, too - I walk about a mile to my grocery stores multiple times per week, and it is no big deal at all. When I tell other people what I walk to, they goggle at me - a mile is a long distance? It only takes about 20 minutes!
Eh, don’t be too impressed with me. I wasn’t very good at it. 
I couldn’t figure out how to say just what I was trying to say with that stress thing, except I really found that it was kind of immobilizing in some ways. Sometimes it was all I could do to get through the day. If that’s what everyone feels like, the stress alone probably packs on the pounds.
Same experience with a recent trip to London. Was there about a week and saw one: ONE overweight woman, and I wouldn’t even say she was “fat”, merely a size 14* or so.
(Strangely enough, it seemed like everyone was impeccably dressed [no sweatsuits, sagging pants, etc. In fact I’m not sure I remember anyone even wearing JEANS!] and good-looking. Especially the guys. I actually remarked to my mom about it and she said "I know! Surely they can’t ALL be gay? LOL - moms.)
Yeah I’m also eyeroll-y about the “Marilyn Monroe was a size 12” (I’d always heard 14) but the vanity sizing in the US is absolutely out of control. When I was a little heaver (say, a size 16) I decided to check out Lane Bryant* (for non-US-ers, a very popular “plus size” store) when I needed a nice-looking dress for some reason. They start at size 14 and I tried one on and was SWIMMING in it.
**BTW, get a load of what was considered “plus sized” in the 1950s.
Is it really just America? Or the West in general. How do Americans compare to British, Australians, Canadians, Japanese, French and other EU westernized nations? Are they just as fat overall?
Assuming the portion weight is similar, thick cut fries will tend to contain fewer calories (thin fries have a greater surface area, weight for weight - and this soaks up oil during cooking)
In the UK, we’re catching up fast with America’s lead. Mainly because of fast food and snacks. When I was a lad (I’m in my 40s now), it was quite unusual to see anyone eating, unless you went to where a meal was being served. Now, everyone is eating, everywhere, all the time.
As a country the US really does have the largest proportion of obese people in the developed world at around 30%, with the UK and Mexico coming up close behind with 23% and 24% respectively (2005 OECD figures cited). You can have a look at the figures for the other countries you mentioned - strikingly, Japan is only around 3% obese. I believe there is some south Pacific island where the figure is higher.
I have heard, however (no cite) that as a nation Scotland has a greater obesity rate than the US. But there is one thing that I don’t think there are stats on, which is the size of the obesity. The measurement of obesity is a threshold of 30BMI. What is striking to a foreigner visiting the US is how much bigger obese people appear to be in the US compared to obese people in, say, Scotland. This is of course only an impression, but I feel that if the stats were to be compiled they would back this impression up.
ETA: heh, at the bottom of my cite it says “Weighted average”.
Ireland here, we’re definitely catching up as well. However, while there are plenty of people here overweight, in my experience of America more people are more overweight than here.
Spending a week-end at Disney World says it all. Did you find anything that could be described as food. It’s a cultural thing. I was brought up being told it was unmannerly and disgusting to eat in the street. Nowadays television and films show otherwise quite normal people clutching junk food and paper beakers with straws sticking out on every occasion and all venues. (That’s not quite true, I haven’t seen any shots in lavatories yet, but I won’t be surprised)
Thirding jjimm and An Gadai. Huge numbers of Europeans are above the “overweight” limit, but the level of overweight is nowhere near the same as in the U.S. Where I live, the majority of folks have a bit of extra, but seeing obese people is exceedingly rare. I’ve seen really only a handful of 300 lbs + people ever out there, and I’m 34.
I think that part of the issue is that Americans as a society and as a culture are very attached to food as a means of social connection; we associate it with affection, camaraderie, as well as depression. In other words, we eat when we feel good and when we don’t. Most of my friends are making all kinds of goodies for Christmas, most of the recipes for which seem to jam as many calories as possible into a single food unit. These are intended to be given as gifts. And people tend to be emotionally vested in their cooking and take offense when it’s turned down for whatever reason.
The upshot is that Americans have a difficult time saying “no” to food, and will have a little something to be polite. A little taste of each dish at a potluck, for example, adds up to a whole plate full of food, and what that food consists of mayonnaise-based salads, macaroni and cheese, and the aforementioned desserts, that’s a shitload of calories. I’ve been way more assertive about saying “no” but I’ve gotten a lot of snide remarks about it, too.
I know what your friend means, but if you look just at the middle class Indians, you will see that they are almost as bad as the Americans.
I am fortunate to live in Switzerland, which has the lowest obesity rate in Europe. People here look good. Even women who have just given birth are amazingly fit. Not a kilo of baby weight.
The UK is rather similar to what you’ve described above. The difference I’ve noticed is the huge size of the portions in the US, and the sedentary nature of many people’s lives - in particular all the driving.
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High Fructose Corn Syrup: starting with the subsidies during the Nixon adminsitration, this stuff has flooded our food. Supposedly, it creates the same craving as sugar, but does not induce the satiation/sickness level, so we keep shoveling it in. Now that more and more corn is being diverted to biofuel, this may change for the better.
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Fear: The early 1980’s were full of child abduction panics, so a generation of kids were ferried to school and kept inside. The overblown statistic that 1 out of 4 women would be the victim of assault was accepted, so women stayed inside too.
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Less leisure time: Global competition meant longer working hours, longer commutes, and more homework for kids left less time to get outside and move around.
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Nouvelle bourgeoisie (for lack of a better term): an improved economy and reduced cultural barriers put more money in the pockets of the underclass, but they rampted-up their old cultural eating habits. Polynesians, Native Americans and African Americans had more money than before, but they didn’t eat more fresh fruit and veggies; they simply ate more poi, fried bread and biscuits. Fresh veggies and fruits don’t reach them, since the demand in their markets did not increase.
There’s the sedentary thing, too. Many US towns and suburbs aren’t designed for pedestrians. There’s the business district and the residential district, and never the twain shall meet.
As for the portion sizes, I guess we can pin that one on good old Yankee Thrift. As a society, we feel cheated if our plates don’t come from the kitchen completely covered with food. In fact, one weight loss strategy is to use smaller dishes so less seems like more because the food is still covering the plate, but because the plate is smaller, the portions are smaller.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get ready for my Weight Watchers meeting.
In Australia the rates of obesity among children are so high that they are expected to drag down the average life expectancy of the population by 2 years.
When I was at school there were only 2 kids that we considered “fat”, nowadays neither would thought of that way.
A while ago I read David Kessler’s The End of Overeating and it makes pretty shocking reading. I was amazed to discover how great an effort the food industry makes to knowingly encourage people to eat crap.
If you don’t want to read the book Kessler talks about it extensively here. It is pretty compelling stuff.
Speaking from the emergency medical technician side of things, people aint getting any smaller. It is not uncommon at all to pick up a 400+ pound patient from their residence.
If you notice, older homes have much narrower doorways than do newer homes. I understand it is to accomodate people in wheelchairs, yes. But do the able-bodied and ambulatory have to make their bodies wider as well?
I am of the opinion that the more obese patients don’t realize that when we come to their residence, we will have to have extra personnel, as well as a larger stretcher to accomodate them. We run the risk of increased injury to our backs, hands, and legs. Then we have the treatment of the patients. A normal adult sized blood pressure cuff won’t work. If we have to start an IV, the veins are deeper, causing extra pain when we poke them. They are normally short of breath when we move them. And because they can’t move without assistance, they typically do not have the best personal hygiene.
So tell me again why McDonalds is so damned appealing?