If You Are Fat, Whose Fault Is It?

[Nords]

I decided last June to get off the sugar altogether - no cakes, cookies, candy, ice cream, sickly-sweet yogurt, sugared cereal, sugary breads, etc. etc.

Yikes. How can life be worth living under those conditions? How would our bodies find the raw materials to make endorphins?

I'd rather practice tae kwon do three times a week and surf my butt off to "afford" ice cream. I'll eat low-cal yogurt. I'll give up bread. I might even (*whimper*) cut back on the beer a little. But no ice cream?!?

 

[wabmester]

Yikes.  How can life be worth living under those conditions?

The answer is nuts and high-cocoa chocolate. Very little sugar, but lots of mmmm, mmmm, goodness.

I wonder if anybody has looked at the correlation of increased obesity and the FDA's dietary guidelines. It's been over 20 years now that the government has been telling us that fat is bad for us, and obesity rates increased significantly during that period. People take those guidelines seriously. In 1995, one study indicated that 65% of shoppers were looking for low-fat food products. Most low-fat food products just substitute sugar for fat. So, I suspect that our obsession with low-fat had at least something to do with people getting fatter.

 

[FlowGirl]

One important part of the equation is exercise.  People are more sedentary today than in the past. 

I think this, along with portion size are the main changes.  I look at my own parents and in a lot of ways they eat like crap, definitely at least a few decades behind the times - full fat dairy, big pieces of meat, iceberg lettuce as a main veggie.  Nor do they go to a gym.  Yet, neither of them is fat because:

a) they walk everywhere.  Long walks after dinner, walks to the store, nature walks on the weekends. They also have jobs that require a little more activity than sitting behind a desk.

b) reasonable portions and limited snacking.  They're the type of people who when I go to visit I open up the cupboards and ask "where's all of your food?"  They buy just enough for their meals and that's about it.   

Good genetics are not much of a factor as both of them are much thinner than their siblings, and I've also seen my father pack on the pounds when stress causes him to quit a or b.

 

[haha]

The answer is nuts and high-cocoa chocolate.   Very little sugar, but lots of mmmm, mmmm, goodness.

Agree. I haven't eaten sugar of any type or form, or bread, or beer, or pizza, for almost 10 years. When I eat chocolate, which is close to daily, it's the 0 sugar Hershey's baking chocolate. At first it was a little much, but now I love it. My eating style was hard for maybe 6 months, especially giving up good French bread and good beer. But I've gotten 10 years older, and still look and feel about the same or even better. I almost never get hungry, at least in that gnawing almost panic inducing way that I formerly experienced. I wouldn't have done this except that it seemed a promising way to deal with emerging health issues, and it has indeed seemed to work well.

Other than sugar and concentrated carbs, I eat whatever else I want, including cream sauces, lots of omelets, cheeses, wine, steaks, liver, fish, as well as huge salads and Gargantuan servings of veggies. Whatever our government says to do, I pretty much do the opposite. I buy my olive oil at Trader Joe in 750 ml bottles, and I use 2 or more a month. Before TJ’s opened up here, I bought cases of 5 L. tins from an importer of Greek oil. I like it green and strong.

I remember my maternal grandfather-- he lived on butter and cream and lard and tallow. Before heading off in the morning to work, at age 80+, he'd eat bacon and sausage and eggs. He never was sick- one day at age 84, he miled his cows and fed his hogs, sat down on his cistern slab, and died.

So I don't know how I will fare, but I feel fairly sure that I have as good a chance on my peculiar diet as does someone following the latest government endorsed crap. And what I eat has the advantage of being absolutely and completely satisfying.

Only drawback is that it is an expensive way to eat.

Ha

 

[mathjak107]

thats like me sueing trojan the codndom company because the box says one size fits all and i find them way to big...now i have trauma

 

[ladelfina]

Is everyone missing the point that "fat" is not a pathology?!?

More fat = higher chance of survival, evolutionarily speaking. Some people are more efficient at fat-storing than others. This is an anomalous time in (American) human history when "fat" is seen as unhealthy, rather than a sign of well-being as it still is in much of the world -- a few decades out of hundreds of thousands of years. Come the apocalypse, the salad-eaters will be the first to check out. 

People are more or less hard-wired to crave foods that are high in sugar/fat/calories. We can work against this, just the way we can 'waterproof' our basements. It will be a continuous lifelong struggle for many to maintain a fashionable thinness, while being overly obsessed with weight has led to a huge increase in life-threatening eating disorders. There's also evidence to suggest that the more you diet, the harder your body's metabolism will work to be more efficient at wringing every calorie out of what you do consume.

Obesity is an American 'epidemic', yet Americans keep living longer and longer. Shouldn't they be keeling over at record rates? In the meantime the diet industry rakes in $40-50 billion annually in the US. (Dunno if that includes things like "Snackwells" and the potato chips with the fake fat that causes 'anal leakage'  ).

As far as "what you eat" is concerned.. I went from the typical American diet to the "mediterranean" diet. Practically no processed food. If I want something as simple as chicken soup I have to make it from scratch... We eat more fresh vegetables, more whole grains, more olive oil, near-zero "trans" fats. Guess what? After 2 1/2 years of this, we both still weigh exactly the same.

OTOH, I knew a guy in college who weighed about 130. He wanted to put on at least a few pounds and ate nothing but cheeseburgers, milkshakes, chocolate, fries.. the most high-calorie things he could find. Never a veg. in sight. Was completely sedentary and still is. 25 years later, he, too, weighs exactly the same! Makes me believe in the "setpoint" theory..

What we don't know about the human body would fill the Library of Congress, so I think it's premature to lay the blame at anyone's doorstep right now. (Though Caroline's supermarket story did give me the willies! -- "It wasn't my fault! I was run down by a donut trolley!")

If people are globally getting fatter, it's probably just due to the sheer availability and cheapness of high-calorie food. A couple of generations ago, food was a much larger budget item which may have had something to do with keeping people's underlying fat-storing tendencies from fully expressing themselves. People also had to do a heck of a lot more work in order to grow/purchase/prepare food.

I think a lot of the 'health risks' of being somewhat overweight (vs. grossly obese/400 lbs) will turn out to be bogus. It was only recently that margarine was the "healthy" alternative to butter. Now there are conflicting reports about salt and cholesterol, as well. The health "truths" of today may well become the health "fallacies" of tomorrow; we just don't know.

Now, off to check my "farro" (whole wheat) soup that's on the boil!

 

[OldAgePensioner]

ladelfina,
I worked with a guy in the early 80's and he was so thin it was comical. I'll bet his waist was 22 inches. He was 5'9" ish and wore cowboy boots. Never asked his weight but it had to be near 100 lbs.

At lunch, he would eat enough food for 2-3 people. It used to gross all of us out. Two big Macs, large fries, apple turnover, milkshake. Then a cup of coffee. He drank coffee/cream/sugar all day long.

Never gained an ounce. Hard to "splain".

 

[Maximillion]

The biggest meal of the dayshould be Breakfast, the smallest, Supper.

Fat makes you high risk for Diabetes, Heart problems, and if you ever need Surgery, it is more difficult to move a fat person plus go through the layers to access organs.

Avoid whites, pasta, Bread, Sugar, walk a mile at least three times a week.

Some people are genetically inclined to be thin, my youngest son and wife are in that category, I and my oldest son have to watch what we eat and must hit the Gym at least 3 times a week.

10 seconds on the lips, a year on the hips.

Stay Healthy so you can see your Grand Children grow up.

 

[cj]

Can anyone say, "portion size"? I forget where I was not so long ago, and they had small, medium, and large sodas. The "small" was 32 oz. How many calories do you supposed there are in a "Double Gulp"?

CJ

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

It's not a matter of "fault," rather a lack of acceptance.

National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance
http://naafa.org/

Here's a photo from the annual convention.

 

[Martha]

Food is cheap and plentiful. Food tastes good. Our genes say eat when food is around.

So the world is getting fat. Not just Americans.

I think we could do much more to encourage exercise, especially walking. Put sidewalks and trails in suburbia and make cities walking friendly. When we look for a place to live, we think about how walking friendly is the neighborhood. Yesterday I was in St. Paul and walked with my sister and neice around lake Como. Even though there was a foot of snow on the ground, the walk was plowed and clean, and many, many were walking around the lake.

 

[TromboneAl]

This is a more complicated issue that you might think. Here's my best guess as to why people are fatter than they were 30 years ago:

1. HFCS: Starting in 1966, high-fructose-corn-syrup (HFCS) started replacing sugar. This accelerated in 1980, when manufacturing processes made it cheaper. That's around when people started getting fatter.

Fructose is a different story. It "appears to behave more like fat with respect to the hormones involved in body weight regulation," explains Peter Havel, associate professor of nutrition at the University of California, Davis. "Fructose doesn't stimulate insulin secretion. It doesn't increase leptin production or suppress production of ghrelin. That suggests that consuming a lot of fructose, like consuming too much fat, could contribute to weight gain." Whether it actually does do this is not known "because the studies have not been conducted," said Havel.

2. Diet drinks. There was a recent study that showed that diet soda drinkers are fatter. My thought was, "duh, why would a skinny person drink a diet soda?" But there may be some causality there.

By itself, diet soda cannot be blamed for weight gain; however, various contributing factors may play a role.

For example, a person who drinks a diet soda may feel it's acceptable to make up for those calories with another high-calorie food. And while the tongue is temporarily satisfied by the sweet taste of diet soda, the brain isn't similarly fooled and still craves calories for energy. Other studies have suggested people who drink an artificially sweetened beverage before a meal will eat more high-calorie foods than those who do not.

 

[unclemick]

Hmmm

It's a style thing. Before Katrina - I used to go pick up meds. for a blind friend in Vietnamese village(lowest price around) - the pharmacy lady was educated and normal weight - and 'American height'. Go around the corner to the open air market - the younger crowd was a foot/foot and half taller - and way wider aka overweight than the 'old generation' running the stalls. They also had that godawlful rap music blaring out of their pimped rides.

heh heh heh heh - you are what you eat - right?

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Is everyone missing the point that "fat" is not a pathology?!?

Great post Ladelfina! Very well thought out.

Reading through the rest of this, it really strikes home how many arrows are pointed at us. Product placement and in store marketing. Packaged convenience foods. Cheap sugar substitutes. Rationalization. Changes in our lifestyles away from working with our hands while on our feet to working with our fingers while on our backsides coupled with the unavailability of exercise options. The governments programs working quietly against us.

Certainly a formidable array of problems.

Some personal experiences.

My supermarket has the in-your-face bakery section the minute you walk in the door. This certainly results in the insertion of cherry turnovers into my cart at an alarming rate. But at trader joes where they dont do that, I always make a stop at the frozen dessert section before leaving to peruse the chocolate tortas and key lime pies.

I stand behind the 50-100lb overweight parents with their 20-30lb overweight children and their 30lb year old infant. The infant has a 12oz baby bottle filled with juice stuck in its mouth. I know where its weight is coming from. The basket is filled with cheap juice knock-off 'pouches' and boxes, hamburger helper, a case box of variety chips. Ice cream. Soda. Fried pork rinds. Sausages. Frozen pizza. Maybe a bag of frozen mixed vegetables but rarely anything fresh. Check...I can see where the rest of them are taking on the weight. I love big macs. I wanna have one every time I drive by a macdonalds or walk by the one situated near the entrance inside the walmart. But I know if I did, I'd be as big as a dirigible.

My old admin who ate a cinnamon bun the size of my head every morning, accompanied by a diet coke. Who got royally ripshit at the guy with the pushcart when he had no diet coke and she had to get a regular one because that was going to screw up her diet.

My neighborhood, before there were homes, used to have a set of railroad tracks that moved freight trains full of the local rice, nuts and peaches to the rest of the world. The homes were built, tracks were pulled up, and in their place is a ~10-12 mile long paved bike path that runs through orchards and rice paddies with a beautiful view of the Sutter Buttes. On a weekday when I go skate or tow gabe in his bike trailer, I'm usually the only person on the trail. Since its flat as a pancake and straight as an arrow, I can pretty much see the whole thing end to end. On a weekend, I might see a couple of dog walkers or bicyclists. I use it all the time. When its raining or chilly or hot, we go to the mall or to a warehouse store and walk around those and let gabe push a shopping cart around the whole place.

Every other day I hear about the debunking of a formerly well accepted "good" food or supplement item. Wine is good. Wine is bad. Fat is good. Fat is bad. Yada yada yada.

Watching an episode of Penn and Tellers "Bullshit!" they dug into the food business. They interviewed a few very overweight couples who 'tried everything' diet-wise. All of the special diets and foods helped them lose a few pounds over the months they were on it, then when they went off the diet, the weight (and more) came back.

Then they tried eating a balanced reasonable diet of 2000-2500 calories a day with lean meat, vegetables, and limited packaged foods and junky crap. Exercised for 20-30 minutes every day or at least 3-5 days a week.

Guess what, all the weight fell off.

The really, really interesting part of that show? They disclosed that the truth behind the "before" and "after" pictures you see in diet marketing materials. The diet companies find an athlete that has suffered an injury, usually a serious one that requires a few months of laying in bed. When they recover, they take a 'before' picture of them fat and flabby. Then those people resume their normal life routine of eating well and exercising...oh yeah, and maybe popping a few of those pills or drinking some of those funny shakes. A couple of months later when these folks have gotten back to the same well-toned, well weighted shape they were in before suffering their injury...they take the 'after' photos.

Fun stuff.

The opportunity to eat well and get on your feet for a reasonable period every day is readily available, frequently less expensive than our 'regular diet' and really not that hard to do. Avoiding the bad stuff just takes discipline and willpower. Eventually you'll get to a reasonable body weight and health level.

As ladelfina points out, that doesnt mean rail skinny. But it sure as **** doesnt mean being so porky that you cant see your own private parts or tie your own shoes.

Unclemick...tell those tall, fat, rap music listening kids to get the hell off your lawn!

 

[Marshac]

1. HFCS: Starting in 1966, high-fructose-corn-syrup (HFCS) started replacing sugar.  This accelerated in 1980, when manufacturing processes made it cheaper.  That's around when people started getting fatter.

Fructose is a different story. It "appears to behave more like fat with respect to the hormones involved in body weight regulation," explains Peter Havel, associate professor of nutrition at the University of California, Davis. "Fructose doesn't stimulate insulin secretion. It doesn't increase leptin production or suppress production of ghrelin. That suggests that consuming a lot of fructose, like consuming too much fat, could contribute to weight gain." Whether it actually does do this is not known "because the studies have not been conducted," said Havel.

I have also read that it doesn't cause the same "full" sensation as sucrose- so you eat more. I don't know if it's legit.. just something I read. I try and avoid HFCS (although it's in everything) when possible, and I avoid aspartame like the plague. Sucralose (and acesulfame potassium) is on my avoid when possible list, but is more acceptable than aspartame.... Tagatose is on my "I can't wait" list.

 

[MJ]

I just got done doing the calculation on my Super Computer and it turns out that if every American reduced their body weight to what is considered normal by the FDA then we could free ourselves from our dependency on foreign oil and pay off the national debt because of the energy savings in moving all the excess fat around in cars, airplanes etc.

Don't forget the energy savings by reduced AC usage for those over heated by their excess fat during the hot weather.

For me, I think it's my frugalness that keeps me from eating "badly".
It is a lot cheaper to cook fresh potatoes than buying potato chips or bringing your own homemade lunch than going to BK or McD.
I find it very sad seeing the type on poor quality foods poor people buy with my subsidized food stamps.
Finally, if some people had to truly pay for their health insurance, they might do a better job at their preserving their health.
I just had my dental checkup and my dentist found 2 cavities. Since I am now retired and soon will be off my dental insurance, I asked him right away what else I can do to keep the cavities down to none.
I also believe that companies also have some culpability by the continual use of advertising especially on the children, to hypnotise them into "demanding" their parents to buy unhealthy foods. They, then become the next adult generation to "voluntarily" buy the junk.

 

[cube_rat]

is on my avoid when possible list, but is more acceptable than aspartame.

Aspartame gave me panic attacks! This stuff should be banned from planet earth. Even the name Aspartame sounds positively evil.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Sure. Because adults sure as heck cant just say "no".

Gabe's in the top 2% of his age class for height, and is just below the midline for weight. I cant find baby clothes to fit this kid...anything with legs long enough falls right off of him.

His breakfast is oatmeal and a little fruit. He drinks water with maybe a splash of juice in it, although he likes plain water just fine. Most of his diet is vegetables, yogurt, avocado's, bannanas, peanut butter and whole wheat pasta. Almost all organic.

He can get 'advertised to' incessantly. Until he's old enough to make money and buy his own food, he'll be eating what I buy for him. Hopefully i'm preparing him to eat healthy by providing a healthy and balanced diet for him.

There will also be none of that sitting around watching tv and playing video games crap. I imagine I can have some influence in that regard as well.

I'm really, really good at saying "no".

 

[Outtahere]

I can't use any of those artificial sweeteners either, make me deathly ill. I try to eat organic when possible, dh cooks fresh food every night and I take leftovers for lunch. We share a garden with my parents in the back yard and feast on frest fruit and veggies when ever possible. We go out to dinner once a week for chicken fajitas. We both walk at least once a day and do some kind of weight workout several times a week.

I see the results of all the junk food on the kids walking to the bus stop, I don't know how some of them make it there. It's very sad and really upsets me to know that they allow places like Burger King and MickyD's to have shops set up in schools.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

One thing I've been pondering is whether fatness, especially in children, comes from the food or the drink. It seems to me that most of what kids drink is soda and fruit juice. I notice every fat baby has a bottle of juice stuck in their mouth. I've often asked parents who put bottle after bottle of juice into their kids why they're doing that. "Because juice is good for them!". Its water, sugar, and vitamin C. Only two of those things are good for them and kids dont need that much vitamin C in their liquids. When I mentione that I get "No...it has food value and fiber and stuff in it!". Uhh...no...its water, sugar and vitamin C. "Well, its better for them than soda or those fake juice drinks!". Nope...they're all water, sugar...and well, at least the juice and fake juice have vitamin C in them. At that point I get the "You've got to be entirely wrong but I'm out of things to say" look.

I have a friend who is grossly overweight...he drinks over a gallon of milk a day. Its his default drink.

Maybe the best and only thing a lot of people need to do is make their default drink water...or wine...which has a lot of water in it. As I imagine beer does.

 

[dunc0029]

<<caution - libertarian>>

I think this is just a symptom of the lack of personal responsibility in today's world.  Nobody's accountable for their own choices.  If I get fat, it's Burger King's fault.  If I smoke, it's Joe Camel's fault.  If I'm stupid, it's the school system's fault.  It's the same logic as censorship - we blame the entertainment industry for corrupting our children.

It's like we, as a society, are saying "we must elect a big brother to protect us from the things we are too ignorant to avoid".

 

[cube_rat]

One thing I've been pondering is whether fatness, especially in children, comes from the food or the drink.  It seems to me that most of what kids drink is soda and fruit juice.  I notice every fat baby has a bottle of juice stuck in their mouth.  I've often asked parents who put bottle after bottle of juice into their kids why they're doing that.  "Because juice is good for them!". 

CFB -Good point on the chubby babies sucking on pure sugar in their bottles.  Also, look at the sedentary lifestyle the kids lead today.  When I was kid, we were always outside playing baseball, basketball, riding our bikes, skateboards, you name it.  Kids now a days sit in front of the boob tube or computer in their spare time in addition to drinking all of those sugary drinks.

 

[cj]

We were talking about the issue with kids the other day. Within 2 days there were 2 different news items on TV:

1. Kids were going to be weighed at school, and this would be on the report card, letting the parents know if their child was over the "normal" limits.

2. Schools are removing recess from the school day because the time is needed for academics.

Do you see the inconsistency here?? And we've already had the discussion about how kids are glued to the TV and/or computer playing games or whatever instead of being outside playing. And then we blame McDonalds and Burger King because they are overweight. Duh!

CJ

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Big debate on whether schools should allow soda machines on campus.

We had a water bubbler when I was a kid.

 

[haha]

I feel that the situation that kids face today is tough. As a parent, go with the flow can easily lead to a fat unhealthy child. I am glad it was different when my kids were young.

As to adults and their own weight problems, I think fault can be laid many places, many already mentioned here. Our whole suburban, sedentary way to life is unhealthy.

But who can change it, in a reasonable time frame? So if an adult wants to weigh less, he or she has to grab the bull. Here's an interesting site by one guy who was very, very fat, and did just that with great success.

http://www.waswayfat.com/who_I_am.htm

Here is another compelling story, featuring a couple who decided to lose weight together,

http://www.dolfzine.com/page660.htm


Ha