I'm frequently surprised when I listen to doctors and nutrition experts discuss the obesity epidemic and wondering what can be done about it. I agree there is a problem but the solution is simple. Eat a low carb diet without sugar, starchy vegetables, high sugar fruits and processed carbs and there will be no obesity epidemic and no one will have to exercise (for weight loss) and no one will have to reduce their intake of food. We shouldn't eat less than we want and we can't do that long-term anyway. If you are only eating vegetables and meat and high quality fat (nuts) you can eat all you want and not gain weight. Those foods are naturally lower in calories anyway for the most part so you just naturally eat less calories and those foods are satisfying so that you automatically stop when you are full (unlike when you eat sugar and other carbs). The problem isn't one of eating too much and too little exercise. That's not why people get fat in the first place. It's not that they are eating too much food but that they are eating the wrong foods. If you don't eat sugar, pasta, rice, bread and drink soda you don't get fat. The obesity crisis is only about 30 years old. Some people were fat before then but not to the degree that we see today. Soft drinks and pastries existed long before that but people didn't get fat to the same degree. That's because they didn't eat them like they were going out of style! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! When people bought real food at the grocery store or raised it on the farm and actually cooked their own food their was no obesity epidemic. People can't lose excess fat when they continue to eat sugar and other highly refined carbs because the body doesn't burn fat when insulin levels are high in the bloodstream and eating carbs triggers the production of insulin. As far as I can tell (and from what I've read) this crisis started when it began to be recommended that we cut fats from our diets. This leaves a nutritional gap and therefore it was filled with more sugar and other carbs. This is when everyone started to become fat. I don't understand why there is still a problem when the solution is known. If you know what makes you fat...don't eat it Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Do any of you have weight problems that you just haven't been able to address?
The estrogen theory is quite convincing. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0099776
The reason there is an obesity problem, is because government solutions have led to obesity. The highest rates of obesity are dependents of the government; poor. For example, the solution in schools is to make everyone follow an obesity geared diet, even if you are thin. The thin kids are not treated as thin kids, but are treated like they are potential fat kids. This unconsciously programs them to become fat kids to please the adults. As an analogy, say you had one or two bad seed children in the classroom. They try to fight and scare the other kids. Instead of isolating them in the principle's office, and deal with them, we will use the obesity approach and discipline the entire class, as though the entire class are bad seeds and need the same solution. This approach is not being proactive. It is being a moron because this approach will backfire. It will program kids to be bad. In the child's mind, it makes no sense to take abuse for something you did not do. It makes sense it you deserve it. Government has too many morons in high places of power, due to elections driven by celebrity and cronyism. It is not about ability. These morons often do more damage than good since they are not qualified for the job. The poor have the highest rate of obesity, yet we hear how the poor are starving. My approach to obesity in schools would be to have two lines in the cafeteria. One line is for the overweight kids, where there are the healthy food options. The second line is for the thinner kids, which has more junk food options. The thin kids can choose either line, but the fat kids have to choose the healthy line. Which kids go where is decided by an official scale and a teacher supervisor at the cafeteria entrance. Who goes where is not permanent, but can change day to day as the thin get fatter, and the fat get thinner. This distinction separates the young minds via cause and effect, leading to the carrot of thinner behavior which allows them more treats and options. Liberalism will argue you can't isolate the fat kids, or else it will hurt feelings. What is worse hurt feelings today or disease tomorrow? This opinion kicks the can down the road. I would ask, why punish and hurt the feelings of the thin kids who did nothing wrong and don't need any change? Why is victimizing the innocent, to protect those who epitomize the problem, justified?
You damn liberals are all alike. So you want to make another big goverment program? There will be more guidelines and regulations around your proposal with more goverment workers hired to implement your program. There will have to be more school workers to man the two different lines and different foods brought in for the 2 lines. Who is going to pay for all of this you liberal commie? That is always the answer you liberals come up with, more regulations and more taxes. Why don't you go back to Russia with all of your commie friends?
Seattle, I agree with you 100%. I think it's going to take at least a decade or more for people to catch on though. And even then, people won't want to listen. They love them some Doritoes and donuts. I used to be obese...and my body felt like it was falling apart at 40. I finally had enough and started to lose weight. I lost about 70 pounds while still eating "heart-healthy" whole wheat junk, so it can be done, but I was miserable. I was near starving every time I went to bed. I still had frequent headaches and woke up with so much joint pain (even after getting down to about 145lbs) I took pain medication on a daily basis. Then I read up on Paleo. I'm not going to get on some soap box about it and I am not one of those fanatics who scream about carbs being evil. I eat plenty of carbs. But I ditched anything with wheat in it. I started to eat lots of healthy fats. (But I was so brainwashed that I had to ease into it, thinking "I can't eat that! That's pure fat, I'll be dead of a heart attack by bedtime!") The result: I am now at 111 pounds and I am NEVER starved. I eat meat, seafood, healthy fats, vegetables and fruit. I have not had to take a single pain killer since starting to eat this way and have no headaches or joint pain. I know my weight right now is on the low side, I don't like the way it looks and am actually trying to get back up to 120 but it's just not happening, even though I've upped my daily calories by about 500. I've just recently reluctantly started to add white rice back into my diet...empty calories, but I need them. I know people think I'm starving myself but they would be really surprised if they actually saw what I ate. This morning? 4 eggs (cooked with lard), 4 strips of bacon, about 4 cups of spinach (when raw), coffee with full-fat coconut milk, pureed pumpkin ... over 900 calories just for breakfast. Over 40 grams of fat. (And no, I do not eat bacon every day - twice a week usually. It's just what I ate today.) Before I would have eaten a couple of egg whites, no-fat cooking spray, coffee with fat free creamer, whole wheat toast with fake low-fat butter... so very little fat but I would have been starving come 11am. It's wheat and sugar. And it's in everything. Eat it and it makes you crave more and more while making you hungrier and hungrier. Oh and by the way, I don't exercise. I lost over 100 pounds, eating what people say to avoid, and not exercising. Hm. Yes I miss some of my favorites - I was a wheat junky - but I like being thin and I like being pain free. When people stop listening to "the experts" and ditch the heart healthy whole wheat mess and eat real food that doesn't come from a package that's loaded with 25-30 extra ingredients, we'll be rid of the obesity problem. But I doubt it. Like I said, people love their donuts and pizza.
One of the reasons is, paradoxically, the diet craze. Twelve thousand years after the end of the Paleolithic Era, deep down inside we are still cavemen. When our calorie intake drops, our metabolism says, "Oh shit, there's a famine!" This used to happen, on the average, every seven years. Cavemen stored enough fat to get through the famine, and then during the following six bountiful years, they built up their fat reserves again. But what happens if the famine lasts a long time, or if famines return at irregular intervals? The body says, "Oh shit, there's no longer a reliable food supply." So it begins to become more efficient with those precious calories. You sleep more, you move more efficiently, you give up energy-wasting habits like drumming your fingers, and your digestive system finds ways to tune itself more economically. You find that you're able to get by on fewer calories than before. If the famine, or the diet, ends after a couple of years, your body might start to slack off and go back to its original ways. But if you keep going on a diet a couple of times a year, your body is (quite reasonably) going to decide that the food supply will never return to its original level. So it not only makes these changes permanent, but it makes them even more drastic. My ex-wife dieted so often that she gained weight on a 1200-calorie daily diet! If you want to lose weight, don't try to lose more than one or two pounds in a month. Anything more than that sends a signal to your body that the food supply has dried up so it had better become more efficient. I've never dieted. I eat about 3,000 calories every day, and my weight has been stable (170-180 lb) for 40 years.
Why is there an obesity problem? Simple Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It's, quite literally, cheaper to mass-produce crap food that is high in calories and empty of any real nutritional value than it is to grow simple whole foods... especially when companies like Monsanto aren't required to pass any specialized testing / state what's in their GMO/Pesticide ridden stuff, yet any organic and/or "natural" food has to pass special certifications to be sold as such.
---bias--I'm degreed in psychology--- I see the obesity problem as a psychology problem, and as an economic problem. Stagnant low wages in the midst of so much advertising can be depressing and lead to feelings of alienation. Both of which are uncomfortable. Eating fats and sugars excites pleasure centers in the brain releasing dopamine, etc. so people eat because it makes them feel better(less unhappy). Unfortunately, much like drug use, to get the same effect, you need to eat more, then obesity sets in and depresses you even more, so you eat more, and more and more. Then, just like junkies, the obese tend to die young. .....................salad-------- I've been eating lots more salad lately----but, I put deer salami and cheese in the salad----- Over winter, I was snacking on salami and cheese(and gained 10 pounds)---(first, I wore the shirt outside the trousers, then got bigger trousers, then wore the shirts outside of those trousers)----this way, i still get my salami and cheese and a healthy amount of greens, carrots, olives, peppers, etc.....(so far, I'm down 2 of those 10 pounds)------------------------------GO SALAD!.
When I was heavier I ate like an American. Now that I eat like an Asian, I'm at my optimal weight and I'm never quite full, but never very hungry either. I do enjoy a cheeseburger now and again, though.
Indeed... an interesting read: http://twentytwowords.com/diets-fro...utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=1KSS&ts_pid=2 It is interesting to see how some places have huge assortments of foods and yet are lower in calories than places with less food that is highly processed...
Touche' ! The fact of the matter is one size does not fit all. Some kids are naturally skinny and can drink sugary soft drinks and eat junk food and never get sick or gain weight. They don't need help from a program that is designed for overweight people who need help. It is like one child breaks his arm and we place all the children in arm casts just in case others fall and break the same arm. This is emotional thinking and makes little sense. My approach of two lines costs less, because teachers know the students, and schools already have cafeteria monitors who can referee, who goes where, quickly. The teachers can also cut slack now and then for good effort. The fat line is will only require a fraction of the higher price speciality prepared diet foods. The other line can more of the cost effective bulk stuff that is fine for healthy and active kids. If they over do it, the monitor may put then in the other line now and then just to keep their mind clear of compulsions.
Another problem is connected to the break up of the family, and one parent families with lazy mothers. These parents get money from the government, to feed their children breakfast, lunch and dinner. But they don't feed them. Rather they think the school should act as the maid, so they can use the child food money as a kickback. The government is like an indulgent husband, to these women, not requiring any effort from his lazy wife in terms of her children. Why pay her to feed the children and then not require she do her job? In two parent homes, where the government is not the father, the women are less lazy toward their children. This lack of parental care, in terms of feeding the children, makes small children have to feed themselves. Many might stay hungry at home and need school lunches. At home, they have to choose their own diet based on prolonged hunger and convenience; fast junk. This sets up bad habits very early. The dead beat government husband need to straighten up its act and make his lazy wife feed her children. It is not up to dad to feed the children at school, and pay his lazy wife to sleep. Government benefits by the lazy mother because it can expand with another program to fix the problem it just created; evil or moron dad with an agenda.
I don't know where that lie comes from (media generated, as most are?) but it is a lie. For lunch, I sometimes eat a value meal at Wendys and sometimes eat a salad from the grocery store and the salad costs half what the value meal costs.
I agree for the most part that expensive isn't really an issue in eating healthy. Regarding comparing a salad to a value meal it depends on what is in the salad (any protein). The main reason that it isn't more expensive to eat healthy rather than at fast food places is that water is cheaper than soft drinks and no one needs fries or chips. If someone is drinking water and only buying a burger maybe this is cheaper in certain circumstances but that's not what most overweight people are doing and you need more than a burger in any event. The real reason that most people are overweight is just that they can't/don't give up sugar and processed carbs. Also, "Why does a salad cost more than a Big Mac" is irrelevant as a question anyway. It's implying that a good salad is inferior to a Big Mac and should therefore be cheaper which is incorrect. It's also implying that the cost of one food somehow is or should be related to another food which is simply not true (or logical).
What's actually IN that salad though? That chemicals have been added to preserve it, etc. I know that isn't true everywhere, but the times I've tried the salads at the local grocery stores here, I've regretted it.
You do realise that you are only one person and that not everyone eats like you do, right? The graph was representative of large portions of the population, not just you. And small Wendy's value meal, consists of unhealthy junk food, sugar laden white bread, not enough salad or healthy meat options, things like chips are fried. The wraps aren't that healthy either. Often with unhealthy sauces and the value meal size is what we, in Australia at least, would consider "large". And that is the thing with junk food in the US and generally in restaurants as well. The meal portions are stupidly large. Even salads at the supermarket aren't that healthy, unless you buy one with a light non creamy dressing. I notice that here in Australia as well, where these ready to eat salads are becoming very popular. Then I look at what is in those salads and I have to laugh. Bacon, chicken lumps that look like processed chicken and then cubed, and some even have ground lamb. Creamy dressings. Croutons.. Because nothing says "healthy" like deep fried white bread... Combine all of those and you end up with a heart attack on a plate. Not all salads are healthy. In fact, some are decidedly unhealthy. Coupled with areas where fresh food is not easily available or is stupidly expensive, and junk food outlets are on every corner...
