http://www.medstat.com/healthcare/obesity1.asp
Fat parents do beget fat children. I don’t have a cite right now but I remember once reading if neither of your parents had a weight problem your chances of having one were 10%, if only one did it was 50%, if both did it was 90%.
In fact, the study found that 48 percent - almost half - of children with overweight parents became overweight themselves, compared to only 13 percent of children who had parents of normal weight.
Here is an article showing the obese make less than the thin
You might as well point to a picture of a poor person with a cigarette or a bottle of beer and ask “Why would those who are least able to afford it be such heavy smokers, or drinkers?” People, including but not limited to poor people, don’t always make the wisest use of the money & resources they have, for various reasons, many of which have already been alluded to in this thread.
Talking, here, about predominantly blue collar, northeast, small city population made up of people of various southern European ancestries. Actually, in my neck of the woods the majority of the people are of Portuguese descent–I live about 15 miles from where Emeril grew up.
Here, folks, thin = unhealthy and heavy = well nourished/healthy. “You, you’re nothing but skin and bones! Here, eat this pile of pork sausage!” They sound like Mrs. Santa in the Rudolph special. “Eat, pappa EEEEAAT. Nobody wants to see a skinny Santa!”
These people are generally not lazy, but many are relatively low income laborers or mill workers and the like. The live in “three decker” or “four decker” tenements.
The grow grapes and fresh vegetables in their back yards.
And they don’t like to see anyone underfed. It would be considered poor hospitality not to have the table overloaded with food.
Yes, that has been well established. What hasn’t been established however is that this is in any way linked to genetics as was claimed, rather than being entirely socio-economic. Is there any evidence or even any plausible argument to support the idea of any genetic factors at play here?
We do however have a reference to support the idea that fat parents have fat children, but it doesn’t say when the parent’s weight was measured, whether it was before they conceived or after. If after then it really has little bearing on the argument.
We all want to find a politically-correct answer to the OP’s question. But we must leave open the very real possibility that the answer is not as politically correct as we wish it to be.
Blake! you’re posting in another (short!) thread where I talked about and referenced about the genetic studies regarding obesity in only the fifth post:
As for your other objections to my argument in the earlier posts - most of what you called assumptions were actually well supported. It’ll take me all evening to cite, so I’ll get to it later. The only place which was purely my own speculation was in the impact of assortative mating on obesity rates among the poor. The facts behind that I can support though.
Dude, that doesn’t even mention race, so perhaps you can explain how it in any way supports claims about a genetic component to the racial differences in prevalence of obesity? I don’t see how it does any such thing.
Jolly good.
I look forward ot seeing evidence that western European came to agricuylture significantly erlier than west Africans.
I look forward to seeing references that HGs have more need to store fat than agriculturalists.
And FFS if you see spam like that just report it. By re-posting the entire thing you just make me have to wade thorugh it twice, as well as leaving more mess for the mods to delete. :mad:
Really? Huh. The guy at the gym a few years ago did some wrist-measuring thing and told me I had a large frame, and that I should weigh 177 lbs. Oh well
That’s the thing, there’s not an ideal weight. People aren’t supposed to deliver a certain number on the scale. So, to put it on hip and cool terms (because I’m feeling hip and cool here), the guy at the gym: that guy’s whack.
But yeah, I’m 5’7’’ and, even though I wouldn’t consider myself (no one would, actually) to have a big frame, I wasn’t underweight when I was 120 lbs at 7% body fat.
Then you would have to explain why folks in the U.S. consistently score at the top of the ratings when economists study productivity across international boundaries.
Now, if you wished to make a case that Americans are more sedentary during their leisure time, you can probably make a case for that, as has already been noted in the references to television, above. However, at that point the topic is more complex than just a dismissive “they’re lazy.”
Eh, you’d need to narrow this down a little. Does it factor in American mechanisation and the enormous per-capita energy consumption? Hypothetically, a population can be comparatively idle, but if a significant fraction of it has access to a button-pressing job on a modern, automated production line, the productivity is going to be pretty darn huge.
True. OTOH aren’t we also discussing “lazy” food choices?
This also does not make a lot of sense. My experience is that most staples are cheaper to buy in bulk than packaged convenience foods. Iny my area at least, you can get a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs and a quart of orange juice for the price of a fairly modest meal at McDonald’s, and it will last a heck of a lot longer. Nor are you likely to gain as much weight.
I think the point is that buying in bulk tends to cover more than just one day’s food. So if the argument is “I have to spend every dime I’ve got on a Happy Meal[sup]TM[/sup], so I can’t afford to buy something to feed me for a week”, that doesn’t work real well logically.
I think that almost by definition, an obese person has had consistent access to enough food - indeed, more than enough. So unless you can show that diseases of deficiency like beri-beri or pellagra or kwashkiorkor are pandemic among the obese poor, then ISTM that “hunger” in the sense of “consistently lacking access to enough food to maintain body weight and prevent micro-nutrient deficiencies” is not a major problem among the obese in America.
Here in Jackson, MS the financial problems of Winn-Dixie are a cause for some big concern.
Basically, they’re closing a bunch of stores here, and in the worse neighborhoods (the “ghetto”) they’re having a hell of a time trying to find anyone to take over these soon-to-be-vacant buildings. Crime is one reason given - and it’s naturally the one trumpeted by the local media. I’m sure there are others.
The Aldermen and the like in such neighborhoods are floating any idea they can to try to prevent the loss of their local grocery stores.
Just a little added info. The point being that if those stores don’t reopen as something those areas will become even more neighborhoods fed by convenience stores.
Then cook meals that don’t require all of these things. In any case, is there a meal out there that requires oregano as a fundamental ingredient? Surely the oregano is added to increase the flavouring?
Since most folks are just pulling things out of their butts in this thread, here’s what I pulled out of mine. . .
I think it’s the interaction of two factors:
low education level and the accessibility of food in the US.
Yes, it requires a certain amount of knowledge to know what a good diet and exercise plan is. It’s difficult even for the wealthy with a lot of leisure time.
Poor people in other countries (who are also under-educated) just don’t have the means to acquire food. Ergo, they’re skinny. Here, FOOD IS CHEAP. All food. A bag of carrots, a super size meal at McDonalds, fried chicken, 2 medium pizzas, a roast beef, a turkey.
You can get a lot of calories for a little money and if you don’t have an understanding of nutrition beyond “more food makes me fat”, you’re more likely to get fat.
Those two factors explain why you don’t see it as much in other countries, and why you see it more among the poor, since education level in the US is highly correlated with income level.
Do any of your grocery stores have bulk sections? Not sections where you have to buy 10 lbs of flour, but sections where there are big bins of staples and you pay by the pound, whether you get 1/2 lb or 20. You can get just as much flour, spices, etc as you need, and you aren’t paying for all the packaging and stuff. There are also cookbooks featuring “5 ingredients or less” recipes in my public library. The meals aren’t gourmet, but they are certainly healthier than McToadburgers.
Utter bullshit. The way it is generally used here is the way I stated. Using it to request supporting data or reasoning in GQ is standard.
Then it isn’t really a difference in “laziness” as some kind of innate quality, is it? It’s a difference in necessity, not in the basic quality or attitude of the person. And this still doesn’t explain why rich people in third world countries are successful even though they are “lazier” than poor people. (True, some have inherited wealth, but in my experience many are entrepreneur). “Laziness” simply doesn’t work across the board as an explanation for why people become fat.
