Whoops - obviously I meant to say it makes you fat.
You know, I’ve gained a little bit of weight lately. (Not a whole lot, just a little tummy fat.) I used to have a huge Coke habit. I thought, hey, this isn’t good for me, I’ll quit, and I’ll lose weight!
Haven’t lost a pound. Do feel better, though.
I had a revelation today in my quest to lose the last 10 (I’m down to 135 now from 175). This morning in my commuter haste, I didn’t make the coffee. So I figured I’d go to Starbucks, grab a house blend, and hell, some breakfast too. My eyes glaze over “cheese danish” (brain: no, the cheese has too many calories!) “apple fritter” (fried and sugary, no go) and finally land on “zucchini walnut muffin” (brain: A HA! Vegetables, nuts and whole grain!)
Then I looked up the nutritional information (of course, this was after I ate it, so the damage was done).
Cheese danish: 320 k/cal
Apple fritter: 540 k/cal
Muffin: 640 k/cal :eek:
I feel like a sucker.
And the lesson is: always read the nutritional information!
Word. When I was little, we never bought those large bottle unless we were having a party. My mom would only let us have one kind of sugar cereal at a time, and we had to finish the three or four other boxes of unsugared cereal before we could get another. We had dessert only after dinner, and I don’t remember suffering because of it. My mom did make sure we had things like fruit, fruit roll-ups, trail mix, potato salad, crackers, etc. to eat after school, although we did also buy thing like potato chips and oatmeal cookies too. My parents also had the “two bite” rule. We never had to “clean our plates” but we were expected to eat two bites of everything. We weren’t perfect, we did eat junk food, but it was a treat, not a meal.
Plus the high cost of staying informed on the subject.
“Not eating the worst possible way” does not equal “eating OK”.
I fully agree that people with good eating and exercise habits can indulge in cake and ice from time to time.
I don’t agree that anyone with good eating habits EVER would indulge in a single snack that has 1470 calories, 90 grams of fat. That is nothing less than gluttony and reflective of a questionable relationship with food.
That’s a quantity of food that I would be willing to wager DID NOT EXIST for purchase in a single serving 20+ years ago. Maybe not even 10 years ago. . .in a “pre Cheesecake Factory” era. In other words, that’s not a food product that was created to meet a consumer demand. It’s a food product that was created in conjunction with a marketing strategy. If you want to be putty in their hands, be my guest.
I read the free version when it was originally published. 
The problem with this line of reasoning, though, is that school lunches have always been strachy, fatty messes. You want to see a horror show of a dinner menu? You should see what I used to eat every day. I still didn’t crack 150 pounds until I was 20. Kids used to be able to eat this stuff because they were constantly in motion whenever they had free time. When I was young, playing sports was the default setting for any boy under 16. If you had a good reason, you might not be, it was assumed you were. We didn’t have obesity in children then, as far as I could tell. Our neighborhood “fat kid” was 5’0 and about 140 when he was 10.
I’ve never heard of this snack. :eek: Maybe we don’t have it in Canada? 
Yeah, same here-I was a twig when I was little. I filled out in junior high, but I’ve always been pretty small-it’s only in the last few years that I noticed I was gaining a bit of weight. I was always outside playing on the swings and riding my bike.
I was also not over-indulged-sure I got junk food, but they were treats-NOT routine food. Maybe some snacks like popcorn or potato chips in the evening, but even then a small bowl. I also was probably one of the few kids who actually loved eating my vegetables.
Out of curiosity (because there aren’t any Cold Stone Creamery places around here), I went to their website and took a look at their nutritional info for ice cream.
:eek: In the “Gotta Have It” sizes, every regular* ice cream listed had at least 47 grams of fat for that size serving, and some had as high as 68 grams of fat.
*I did not count the Sinless San Sugar, Sorbets, or Light Ice creams
The peanut butter ice cream, for a “Gotta Have It” size (Gotta Have It size is measured at 397 grams of ice cream) was 68 grams of fat and 1040 calories. Christ on a parfait!
That makes me feel a lot better about my treat choices. I usually go to Sonic and get a Vanilla Cone(180 cal and 6 grams of fat) or, if the occasion is really special, a Regular Root Beer Float(300 cal and 8 grams of fat)…according to Sonic’s nutritional info. Still not the healthiest treat around, but I eat one of those maybe once a month.
I started changing my dietary habits slowly by first eliminating sugary sodas from my regular diet and switching to diet soda. This year I decided to change it even more by eliminating almost all foods that I can’t make myself in my kitchen and limiting my dining out to once a month. This means that if I wanted a BBQ sandwich I have to make the sauce myself and smoke the meat myself. Since potato chips are no longer on the menu I eat raw fruit for my snack and either have cereal or yogurt and fruit for breakfast. (I don’t make my own yogurt.)
Is it really more expensive to eat healthy then it is to eat junk? I only ask because so far my household food budget has gone down and since I never budgeted eating out money with the household food that doesn’t enter into the picture. Beef is on the menue about 2-3 times a week and it’s usually in haburger form. Chicken is relatively cheap if you buy it whole or if you buy the legs or thighs. Maybe the fact that I eat less has something to do with the money I’m saving.
We went to our favorite Chinese restaurant for lunch today and I ordered one of my regular meals and was surprised at how bloated it left me feeling. A few months ago this meal wouldn’t have been anything but it’s surprising how easily you get used to a reasonable diet once you make an effort.
Marc
It is a discouraging sign of our times that I read this and thought, “I should try that.”
I didn’t realize I was using this as a “line of reasoning” for anything. In fact, I believe I stated earlier that there is no one factor that can be blamed for obesity in children. It’s a combination of uninvolved parents, lifestyle changes in our society, and a skewed sense of how much we should eat. That schools don’t seem to set a good example, either, for balanced eating is just one piece of the puzzle, as is lack of exercise, education, or motivation.
It is definitely more expensive if you’re traveling for work and can’t cook for yourself.
And, cooking a good meal takes a lot more time than nuking a pre-packaged fat (and salt) laden entree.
What you should have been thinking is “typo.” It should have said “20 pounds in the last few months”, as in 4.5. Sorry. But I’ll take Lord Ashtar’s congrats anyway. 
Oh, and thanks, Dung Beetle. I often suspected that corn was a huge issue. But when I tell people about the Great Government Corn Conspiracy, they look at me like I’m nuts. Idiots!
You honestly didn’t think that trying to identify the cause of a social phenomenon requires a line of reasoning?
Well, anyway, if anything, school lunches have gotten healthier than they were when I was a kid. My kids have been in three school districts, and each sends home a menu for the month, with information on calories and fat. They don’t do that badly. I’m sure they’re not planning on kids getting more than 2000 calories during the rest of the day, but I think it would be odd if they did.
And yet other people who have trouble losing weight are just “lazy” to you, like yellowval’s niece?
:rolleyes:
Jeeeeeeesus.
I’ve always been a candy, chocolate and ice cream fan, but 1470 calories in a sitting?
I read an article some time back in a political magazine (not sure which one; possibly Mother Jones) about the influence of the meat and dairy industries on high school lunch menu decisions. Basiucally, the author says that every attempt at the local level to improve things is thwarted higher up by people who make big decisions on bulk purchasing for school menus. Here is an online article that makes a similar point:
The fruit and vegetable industry just doesn’t have the same sort of influence.
That was true in our house, too. On the rare occasions we got soda, the largest size was generally a can (375ml, or about 12oz), and i usually had to share that with my sister.
But i really think the amount of exercise kids get has changed. In school, we played cricket or rugby or soccer or basketball at every opportunity. Half an hour for lunch? We’d be kicking a ball around. And after school we would all get together and ride our bikes all over the neighborhood. In high school, we not only played pick-up games at lunch or after school, but almost everyone was involved in school sporting teams. I’m sure this still happens in many schools, but it seems to me that many kids get little or no exercise in their everyday lives.
Of course, money is an issue too. My high school was a government-run (not pirvate) boarding school that was well funded with good facilities, and we had 4 full-sized football/soccer fields, 6 tennis courts, cricket nets, a new gymnasium, outdoor basketball courts, and a 33 meter swimmming pool. In such surroundings, it’s easy to get interested in healthy activities.
I sort of agree with you here (congratulations on the weight loss, BTW), but with some caveats.
For most of my life i’ve been fit and healthy. Never really a jock, but i played a lot of sports in school, and after leaving school kept myself fit by running and lifting weights. I only really started to put on weight in grad school, when the sedentary lifestyle that comes with reading books all day combined with my own poor time management to reduce the amount of time spent on exercise to almost zero.
While i don’t really look that fat when i have clothes on, i went from my fit and healthy weight of about 168-170 pounds (at 6’ tall) to about 195. Back in April i got sick of squeezing into my pants and started running again, and i now run 5 miles about 5-6 times a week, as well as playing softball a couple of times a week. When i exercise regularly, i also tend to eat better, because i don’t snack between meals so much. I don’t actually weigh myself often because we don’t have a set of scales in the house, but since i started exercising i’ve managed to pull my belt in almost two full notches.
But—and here’s where i take some issue with what you said—the fact is that eating donuts or ice cream contributes to making people fat. Sure, the person who sees you eating a donut probably doesn’t know about your recent weight loss, but it’s probably still reasonable to conclude that your original weight gain can be attributed to eatting crap like that.
Same with me. Despite my improved fitness and my gradually shrinking waistline, i still eat sweet shit like donuts and ice cream, and i have no trouble admitting that they are unhealthy and contribute to my girth. Even if someone is working on a weight loss and/or exercise program like you and i are, if you’re overweight and eating crap, then you’re contributing to your own problem. I’m not going to make a moral issue out of it; i see it as nothing more than a basic fact. I know that i’d lose weight faster if i stopped eating crap altogether, but i choose not to because i like sweet stuff. I just try to be sensible about it.
Your observations in the one district are indeed the same in most areas. It is a well known fact that corporate influence in the development of school lunches and in how the US government defines healthy foods, has led to a horrible sense of what is healthy and what is not.
Obesity can be caused by many factors, but, primarily, it is caused by consuming more calories than you burn in a day. My husband who is overweight, about 80 pounds, he carries it well but it shows and bothers him, admits this freely. Although he shows remarkable self-cpntrol, self-discipline and hard work in other areas, he admits that his devotion to exercise and good eating are sadly lapsed. Funny thing is, he does not overeat too much, rather he has, since 18 put on about 4 lbs a year. In all, that averages to about 20,000 extra calories in a year (or overeating an average of 60 calories a day), but, when he did not stop this advancement early on, it has become the problem that he has now.
However, he will never hide behind the incontrovertible fact that IF he could only overcome some negative eating habits, and exercise a bit more, he would be able to lose the weight.
There are a lot of psychological reasons why people are obese as well, some have learned to cope with stress this way, other simply enjoy the pleasure of eating. I guess I am one of the lucky ones. I don’t really like food, I eat solely because of hunger and that is why my doctor sometimes has to put me on milkshake diets to keep at my optimal weight when i fall a few under 
I said I wasn’t using a fatty school lunch as my line of reasoning for the social phenomenon of childhood obesity. It’s one thing among many.
*bolding for emphasis.
You referenced my post about school lunches and told me there was something wrong with that line of reasoning. I am trying to clarify that such was not my line of reasoning in the first place.
My reasoning suggests that there is no single cause.