The projections don't really surprise me. It is just sad that we have people starving all over the world and in a few select countries people are so overweight that they are dying from it. The world and wealth are so unbalanced.
Being obese has more health risks than smoking, so I don't understand why there isn't a big backlash over it like there was smoking. It is one thing to be naturally overweight, but it is another thing to be morbidly obese solely due to a bad diet and lack of exercise.
I used to be a morbidly obese person but I began to recognize that my body was screaming at me to adopt better habits. And so I did and I lost 50+ pounds. I wish other people would do the same. =(
Joined: Aug 27, 2005 Age: 28 Posts: 746 Location: Central NJ, USA
Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 10:55 pm Post subject:
I think the obesity trend is going to reverse itself, simply because America has gotten so damn obsessive about it. If anything, we'll just continue to see a rise in anorexia and bulimia.
There's a big difference between being a little overweight, and being hundreds of pounds overweight. I work in a nursing home, and you would not believe the amount of money spent to take care of one person that is significantly overweight. Try changing the bandages inside of fat rolls. YUCK!
Joined: Nov 13, 2011 Age: 43 Posts: 958 Location: Portland, OR
Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 1:29 pm Post subject:
And go into a fast food place and try to find a reasonable sized portion. The menus are full of these huge super burgers the size of your head. _________________ Your Aspie score: 172 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 35 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie
Diagnosed in 2005
Joined: Feb 16, 2007 Posts: 5111 Location: New Orleans
Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 1:10 pm Post subject:
Like all studies of this type, projections,
We have the hotest year on record for the last twelve months, likely to be broken next month. Since it is one degree warmer, in twenty years it will be twenty degrees warmer.
By 2030, 114% of people will be Autistic, if not sooner. From 1 in 167, to 1 in 88, took less than a decade.
For as long as there have been IQ Tests, they have crept upward one point per decade. This proves that in the year 1,000 people had an IQ of Zero.
Weight gain can be measured, and in America, ten pounds per decade has been the normal gain. Sure, a few being over a hundred pounds over weight stands out, but the normal adult is thirty pounds larger than an adult in 1980.
While a third are a hundred pounds larger, 30+70, 2/3 are 30+.
the Lardification of America is not just Comicbook Guy from the Simpsons.
While family size has gotten smaller, houses have gotten larger.
Energy use per person has gone up, even when we manufacture less.
Projecting any trend is unsupportable over time.
Over the next thousand years, Americans will weigh 1200 pounds, and have eaten all the other animals, people, and topsoil.
Energy use per person has gone up, even when we manufacture less.
I think the rise in obesity is connected to the loss of manufacturing jobs. People aren't meant to sit down all day. _________________ *some atheist walks outside and picks up stick*
Personally, I think the obesity trend is because of this post-industrial period.
People have survived for thousands of years because their bodies can store fat during famine--so the most "fit" people to survive would be the ones who tend to gain fat, not the ones who have high metabolism.
Society has evolved around famine too--people learned to stock up on food, to eat a lot when there was food, and to grow the most calorie rich food crops--like wheat and other grains.
So, now--BAM! We have the means to get enough food in post-industrial countries.
Instead of having to save meat for special occasions (because if you ate meat every day in an agrarian society, you'd soon run out of chickens and cows--so you only ate it sometimes)--we can go to the store and buy calorie rich foods any day of the week.
We are socially and biologically programmed to behave as if famine is a threat--now famine is not a threat in the US.
IMO, the trend will reverse itself when people adjust to the new culture of food accessibility. We have to adjust to modernity.
Joined: Feb 08, 2011 Posts: 2072 Location: Seattle, WA
Posted: Sat May 26, 2012 2:26 am Post subject:
If people want to have the health problems associated with obesity, then let them keep stuffing their faces and not getting exercise. I plan on staying active and eating healthy.
Joined: Feb 13, 2010 Posts: 18240 Location: the island of loveable toy humans
Posted: Sat May 26, 2012 6:04 am Post subject:
Inventor wrote:
Over the next thousand years, Americans will weigh 1200 pounds, and have eaten all the other animals, people, and topsoil.
priceless
for most of us children of a lesser god, it takes real sustained work to keep slender AND fit. slender by itself is nothing, just look at what happened to poor oprah the first time 'round [towing her wagon with the 60# of fat in it]. true fitness is when the fat STAYS off, and is [unless one has superior genes] accompanied by plenty of stringent dieting and huffing and puffing with the exercise regimen. it is not easy, never was. it is SOOOOOOO damned EASY to get fat and stay fat until a premature demise.
I think the obesity trend is going to reverse itself, simply because America has gotten so damn obsessive about it
I don't think that it works like that. I think that obsessing about weight actually goes along with obesity.
For one thing, obesity and obsessing about weight would both be produced by an environment which subtly encourages people to eat unhealthy food as the "default" - some people would feel compelled to actively resist the norm and others would submit to it.
For another thing, obsessing about weight is not what healthy people do; it's what obese people do every now and then when they realise how bad things have gotten. People with a healthy lifestyle and diet don't tend to be obsessed with weight; they just have ingrained habits at a subconscious level which result in them making good choices over and over again. Remember, you might think that your society is obsessed with weight because you see beautiful thin people talking about it on TV. But who is the target market? They're not beautiful thin people.
If we think about sex instead of food, it is easy to notice that organisations and communities which are obsessive about celibacy are also the ones where we might find an abnormally high level of sexual deviance, and vice versa.
Last year the mother of a 4-year-old filed a lawsuit against Nutella. In her complaint, she said she was "shocked to learn" from her friends "that Nutella was in fact not a 'healthy,' 'nutritious' food," as advertised, "but was instead the next best thing to a candy bar."
Should have learned from Bill.
_________________ *some atheist walks outside and picks up stick*
Joined: Jan 10, 2012 Age: 25 Posts: 1238 Location: Issaquah, WA
Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 5:00 am Post subject:
I don't understand why people have such a hard time eating healthy. If you gain weight. Eat less, go for a walk. Change your diet. Whenever I start to gain more weight than I like, I cut my portions by a small amount and drink more water.
Also... if this is becoming a problem, then why are schools teaching children to eat this way by serving them absolute garbage? _________________ I'm a crab in a lobster world.
