How come such a large percentage of americans are obese?
Is there any other explanation other than the “fast food explanation”?
I always thought that “we have plenty of food and little need to exercise” was explantion enough.
What is your evidence for Americans being over-represented in the obesity stakes?
who made this claim?
I once did a research project on this topic. My recollection is that there are quite a few factors:
-
Sedentary lifestyle / lack of exercise compared to other countries stemming primarily from greater use of automobiles rather than walking, and perhaps more hours of television. Relatively long working hours probably do not help.
-
Increasing portion sizes. There is solid evidence showing that greater portion sizes lead to greater consumption, and there has been a steady increase in portion sizes, both in restaurants and grocery stores. For example, a small order of fries at McDonalds is close to what was originally the standard size.
-
Increased use of fat and sweeteners. Food is engineered to correspond to your biological cravings…its not quite irresistable but it certainly requires more will power to overcome, and as a general population we have varying levels of resistance. The use of fat and sweeteners (like high fructose corn syrup) both increases caloric density and can increase the amount consumed.
-
Corn subsidies and corn surpluses leading to very cheap sweetener (high fructose corn syrup). So the food industry is encouraged to use it as you will like the food better, and eat more of it while being inexpensive.
Despite popular belief, high fructose corn syrup is no worse than any other sugar, we just tend to consume a lot more of it!
By the way, other countries are seeing their obesity rates skyrocket, so while the US is pretty far ahead in its obesity rate, other folks may be catching up.
I think there must be something about the quality of the food, not just the quantity.
A personal anecdote:
I have been working at losing weight since Christmastime. It has been going OK, I peaked at 280 and have been inching downward, I actually saw the scale read 258 a week and a half ago. (I seem to oscillate in a 5# or so window, literally on a daily basis, so I just kind of track the highs and lows, and both are trending downward) Mostly I have just been, as the annoying ads say, following one simple rule: Don’t eat crap. OK two rules: I gave up beer also.
Anyway, about a month back I had to go to France (Lille) on business for a week and a half. I basically just said to hell with it, god knows when if ever I will be in France again, and I can start over when I get back. So hell yeah, I ate and ate well. Really well. Had wine and desert with most of my dinners, A beer here and there, and breakfast was a buffet every morning. Dinner and lunch portions may have been a little smaller, but this was more than compensated by the number of courses. I had foi gras and it was meh, then I had GOOD foi gras and it was sublime. Excellent bread with every meal but breakfast, where there were croissants. No home cooking at all.
Fearing a complete backslide, I came home and stepped on the scale, and found that I had gained zero pounds. Now I had been on path where I might have lost 2-4 pounds in that time, but still, not to have reversed course was stunning to me.
I don’t think it hurts that the area around Lille is small farms, with the occasional small village, literally as far as the eye can see. The produce only travels a few miles from the fields to the dinner tables, so doesn’t need to be optimized for shipping rather than taste, and it might be allowed to ripen more in the fields instead of in a truck. The beef was defiantly less marbled than I am used to. The steak tartar was extremely lean.
My personal theory is that it starts very young. Americans in general are socialized to force children to eat more than they want to. It is a very common power struggle between parents and children. We put more than they need on the plate, and then have all sorts of sick ways to force them to eat it. Fighting, yelling, making them sit in front of the plate for hours, even in some families spanking them if they don’t.
Then we spend the rest of their lives bombarding them with mesages that they are too fat.
I haven’t done this with Celtling, and she won’t eat more than she really wants, even if it’s soemthing she really likes. She forgets that she has a piece of cake or a cookie. She is healthy, strong, svelte and much taller than her peers. I put healthy food in front of her several times per day, and allow her to eat according to her appetite. It’s working beautifully for us.
The U.S. is a pretty big fishbowl. We’re just expanding to fit it.
The price of fast food must have something to do with it. I’m constantly amazed at the one dollar burger, or one dollar frozen pizza type threads, etc. that appear here from time to time.
I’m in Canada and there’s no way we get deals like you guys do in the US.
I would suggest a subset of this is pre-packaged food (microwave dinners and such).
Such things are generally made with an eye to being pleasing (tasty) which all too often runs counter to being healthy. That is not to say something that is healthy cannot be tasty but when competing on price the inexpensive pre-packaged foods are not likely to be in the healthy category.
Back in the “old” days (within my lifetime…read 70’s) you had to buy the parts of a meal and prepare them. This was more work but made for healthier eating in general. You paid attention to the components of a meal and the effort of preparation made meals not a spur of the moment choice (e.g. I’m hungry…nuke a packaged dinner in 3 minutes versus I’m hungry…I need to spend an hour preparing something).
I can’t remember the British guy’s name who did a TED talk and has been crusading for healthy eating but he showed a bit where he brought common vegetables (raw) into a classroom of young children and asked the kids to identify the vegetables. It was shocking how many things they couldn’t do that with (talking about common things like carrots…not some obscure vegetables).
He then watched a family eat for a week then piled the table with everything the family had eaten in that week and showed the mother. The pile on the table was almost all crap food. It was eye opening for the mother.
Get back to making home cooked meals. Families (mom/dad/kids) should make a point of having a scheduled time to sit at the table and eat together. Snacks in between should be minimal and preferably healthy things (like a raw carrot or an apple or something). This is not to say there is no place for sweets or treats. They are fine in moderation.
Done well I doubt anyone will be having feelings of being denied food or going hungry.
Jamie Oliver
Food is marketed by professionals like any other product, and they are good at their job. In addition, Americans have so much more disposable income than in the past to purchase these marketed produts. Finally, the value of exercise and outdoor activities appears to have declined over the years. It is interesting to see pictures of poor people prior to the 80’s–they were skinny. Now those same people are fat–but still poor.
Ah right…thanks.
I submit this item, that children’s car seats, and the crash-test dummies used to evaluate them, are proving inadequate because they don’t account for “the bulging size of children today.”
Just the phrase “obese two-year-old” makes me scream inside.
I do tend to agree it’s the perfect storm of food that is cheap, tasty, and easy. It’s a pleasure/opportunity cost ratio.
Take hot dogs. Hot dogs are not the most fabulous food in the world, but they are good. Do I like it more than a healthy, home-cooked meal? No, but, except for the health implications, the opportunity cost of a hot dog is practically nil: it’s a meaningless fraction of my income, a meaningless fraction of my time (maybe 120 seconds from impulse to plate?). It’s an essentially free pleasure. People aren’t very good at resisting free pleasures, even when they aren’t great ones–they just have to be better than nothing. I don’t think this is a new facet of human nature, it just never applied to food so much.
Now, I know that there IS a real cost to eating a diet of hot dogs and sundries. But seeing that cost is difficult.
How about the relatively lost cost of food today? For $5 to $6 you can get a pretty filling meal at a fast food restaurant or even processed foods at a convenience food. Again, not necessarily healthy but certainly rip stickingly delicious.
Edit: And I see people have talked about the cost of food. Silly me.
Not to be a total A-hole but this was the OP: “Is there any other explanation other than the “fast food explanation”?”
Yes junk food is cheap in the US. is that the final explanation?
I remember someone (here maybe) saying that the U.S. will lose weight when you can get a Cousin’s turkey sub on whole wheat bread with an iced tea for $2.50 and a McDonalds burger and 64oz soda costs $7.50.
Not that it’s the entire problem, but I think a big part of the problem is that people on shoe string budgets and tight schedules don’t have the money (or knowledge) to eat healthy. When you have $4.00 in your pocket and you’re on your way to work at the factory, it’s a lot easier to zip through the McDonald’s drive through then figure out what you can do with $4.00 at a sandwich shop.
There is more nuance to it than “one” answer.
Reading the thread the low cost of food that is not healthy and the ease of getting fast/non-healthy food would seem to be primary causes.
Well, not “fast food” exactly because this was in pretty typical restaurants, but coming from outside the US portion sizes often seemed truly brobdingnagian.
In 2000 I stayed in Iowa for 3 months, eating mostly a mix of fast food and restaurant food. I left the US 10kg heavier than when I arrived. :eek:
(Yes, yes, I know you don’t have to eat it all… unless you’ve been raised on “clean plates” from childhood and leaving food uneaten causes feelings of guilt about starving children somewhere your mother used to remind you about). 