Why are we fat? (I mainly mean Americans, but anyone can postulate.)

[Ginevra]

This is a subject that holds endless intellectual curiosity for me. I am planning to research it extensively this summer for no college-oriented reason, just because I want to know what combination of reasons might make the most logical sense to me.

 

I read a shocking statistic on the increase in American overweight and obesity, about how it has climbed (skyrocketed, actually) in every single state on an ongoing basis since the 1990's (in particular). What combination of factors account for this? Also, how do other countries compare? Is obesity rising elsewhere and it is merely that Americans are the Kings? Or is the rise in obesity very Amero-centric? What about Canadians? Does a similar pattern exist there?

 

Please participate in the poll and follow up with your insights and experiences. Thanks!

[Pawz4me]

My simple take -- Food is inexpensive and plentiful and we're constantly bombarded with it (ads on TV, magazines, billboards, etc.).  At the same time, less and less physical exercise is required to perform routine daily tasks.  It's a double whammy.  I believe in general way, way too many people search fruitlessly for a simple, "magic bullet" answer.  I've lived long enough to see SO many food and exercise fads come and go that I no longer buy into anything.  No food or food group is "good" or "bad."  My philosophy is moderation in all things.

[Amethyst]

Among my multiple answers to your choices to the first question, I included "something else". It's actually a couple of something-elses: the food industry and modern society. The food industry makes our food so salty and sweet and so tantalizing to our palates that it is difficult to resist (not blaming the industry; it's still our duty to resist). The other thing is the way society is structured now (as opposed to my childhood) - frequently both parents work (so there is less home-cooking and more stress);  and cars are everywhere and grocery stores and fast food places are easy to get to.

[unsinkable]

If I had to pick one word:

 

Snacks.

 

The snack industry exploded a few decades ago and obesity rates started rising then, too.

[Laura Corin]

In answer to your question - the UK is getting fatter too.

 

L

[Blessed Mommy]

One word:  LAZY!  Americans, in general, are lazy!

[Crimson Wife]

I live in area that is demographically similar to the one in which I grew up (affluent, predominantly white & Asian). It is frankly shocking the childhood obesity rate here compared to when I was a kid in the '80's. Back then, there was typically 1 heavy kid per classroom, or about a 4% obesity rate. Today it's about 20%. These aren't families who cannot afford healthy meals for their families because the kids are wearing designer clothes and being chauffered around in luxury SUV's.

 

It's politically incorrect to say, but I blame a lot of the childhood obesity epidemic on the rise in moms who are employed FT. Fewer moms have the time to cook healthy meals from scratch every day. It's easy when you're tired to just rely on eating out, takeout, and/or highly processed "convenience" foods. Additionally, kids are being driven to & from school en route to mom's office instead of walking or biking.

 

The larger portion sizes definitely aren't helping things either.

[Jean in Newcastle]

It is a very complicated subject and there is no one right answer or even a couple of right answers.  What makes me very sad is the thought that someone might look at me and think they have figured out my eating habits, amounts, exercise habits etc. just by looking at my size and shape.  Yes, there might be some generalities but they are not absolute.  

[wapiti]

My reading recommendations on this topic:

(1) The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living

(2) Why We Get Fat

 

I like #1 because it explains things more scientifically, including the fact that not all people are the same, i.e., some people can handle carbohydrates just fine while others do not.  #2 is a bit oversimplified, which was that author's purpose following his first, more technical book (which I haven't read but intend to eventually); the oversimplification comes across as a bit overzealous for my tastes even though I agree with the basic ideas.  I also like the second book by the authors of #1.

 

(FWIW, I am not overweight but have adopted a high fat/low carb way of eating in the hope of fixing my insulin resistance and avoiding the type 2 diabetes that is in my genes.)

[unsinkable]

Does anyone remember the movie Stand By Me? And the chubby/fat kid, Vern Tessio, who buried the jar of pennies?

 

My kids laugh at the idea that he is considered chubby bc they say these days he'd be considered normal. I told them during the 60s ( the era of the movie) and the 70/80s (my childhood) he would have stood out. No so anymore.

[Crimson Wife]

If I had to pick one word:

 

Snacks.

 

The snack industry exploded a few decades ago and obesity rates started rising then, too.

My mom grew up in the '50's and every day after school she had a snack of Fritos and regular Coke. So the snacking isn't a new phenomenon. The big difference is that the Coke was sweetened with real sugar rather than HFCS and the portion sizes were smaller. She also rode her bike constantly & was a serious ballet student. She was (and still is) skinny.

[Julie in CA]

I was never overweight until I had my dc, and even then, I was okay until I piled on 5 pregnancies in 7 years. Since then, it's been a neverending struggle to try and lose the weight I put on with those pregnancies.

 

I took a trip to Paris & Rome with my ds. The food was wonderful, and I ate whatever I wanted during that time. In the 10 days that we were gone, I lost ten pounds. I enjoyed public transportation, and along with that came frequent walks to metro stations, bus stops, etc.  If our destination was close, we walked there. In my real life I life in an area where public transportation is non-existent, and the only way to get anywhere is to get in my car and drive there, since I live appx. 8 miles out of town.

[AdventureMoms]

I think there are a lot of reasons.

 

Easy availability of foods / reduced physical labor is one, but that has been true for at least some groups for much longer. Why weren't most middle class families in the 50's - 80's overweight? Many worked desk jobs

and had home appliances and plentiful food available.

 

The low-fat trend is a factor, I think. It was really taking off by the 80's-90's and kids were growing up learning that sugars and starches were healthier than fats. This sets off the insulin cycle and leads to frequent snacking and increased fat storage.

 

Maybe changes in grains ala Wheat Belly. I don't know a lot about it but it seems plausible.

 

The extreme availability and over-consumption of processed foods is a large factor, I think. Perhaps the largest factor.

 

This has paragraph breaks when I try to edit, but not when I post. How odd.

[Guest]

I am reading the replies carefully, so don't take my lack of commenting at the moment for thread abandonment.

[twoxcell]

Ok so here are my thoughts:

These are generalities and obviously do not apply to everyone but a good majority. ;)

American's are obsessed with food.(Talk about it constantly, see advertisements constantly, and even take pictures of it for social media.)

American's don't exercise/do as much physical labor as we used to. There is much more sitting around going on.

American's eat too much simple carbs, wheat, dairy, and HFCS.

American's take too many antibiotics which destroys healthy bacteria creating unhealthy bowels.

American's do not drink enough water and too much sugary drinks, diet drinks, and caffeine.

American's do not eat enough fruits and vegetables.

 

[bettyandbob]

My mother was working fulltime in 1973. Prior to that she was fulltime in college and grad school. My brother, sister and I were latchkey kids with two working parents. We were not fat. We were active. We rode bikes everywhere. We walked to school. We also had the house clean and dinner on the table when my parents walked in the door at 7 pm. 

 

It is utterly ridiculous to blame obesity on working parents. Just because you can't imagine working parents raising fit kids doesn't mean it can't happen. My parents did it without thinking in the 70s. We ate real food. We did not own a microwave. I usually bought school lunch, but when I packed my own it had a sandwich and an apple and a nickel for milk. I was a bit jealous of classmates who had chips and tastykakes. 

 

I live in 1/2 a mile from where I lived from age 9-17. There are bike trails everywhere. These trails are cleared before roads in the winter. They are mostly empty. I see adults dog walking or jogging, but as a child, I and my classmates knew every trail. I do not see groups of kids on the trails riding to the pool together, as happened when I was a kid. Children who live within walking distance are driven to school. I do not believe small children should walk alone, but why can't the mom or dad walk with the child. 

 

There is too much convenience food. Too much HFCS added to convenience food. And people do not get exercise. Parents need to lead by example walking places, choosing active family fun. When you do that children get a lot of unintentional exercise -- it's just part of their life. They can also get the programmed exercise from formal sports, but I think the unintentional exercise makes a huge difference. A lot of kids get very little exercise out of soccer practice or a game and at the games they are given snacks and sports drinks (no one needs gatorade after rec soccer match, they need water).

 

 

[Moxie]

So many reasons.

We eat for fun, to keep from being bored. Kids have a snack at every activity so they think they need constant food.

Crappy food is cheap so, unless you are being intentional about it, you buy it.

Sugar is addictive. Carbs are addictive. You have to try to not eat them.

We've been uneducated (or even wrongly educated) about food for generations. My sweet little Grandma became diabetic as she neared the end--her daughter was shocked that the "stupid" doctor told her white bread was bad. It was bread, not cake!

[kitten18]

My reading recommendations on this topic:

(1) The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living

(2) Why We Get Fat

 

I like #1 because it explains things more scientifically, including the fact that not all people are the same, i.e., some people can handle carbohydrates just fine while others do not. #2 is a bit oversimplified, which was that author's purpose following his first, more technical book (which I haven't read but intend to eventually); the oversimplification comes across as a bit overzealous for my tastes even though I agree with the basic ideas. I also like the second book by the authors of #1.

 

(FWIW, I am not overweight but have adopted a high fat/low carb way of eating in the hope of fixing my insulin resistance and avoiding the type 2 diabetes that is in my genes.)

Agree.

I would definitely recommend "Good Calories, Bad Calories" (the first book by Taubes). It goes much more in depth on the science. I was able to get the audio book from my library.

[bettyandbob]

I agree about the part of blaming working parents, but I'll counter and say my mother didn't work and we ate crap.  We were all thin, except my mother.  We were not active.  And no we have no special thin gene.

 

So it's not simple.  KWIM?

 

Food ingredients have definitely changed in these convenience items though.  We didn't have fat free this or that.  I don't think there was HFCS.  Soy?  The only soy I knew about was La Choy soy sauce (which we ate with the canned La Choy meals topped with fried chow mein noodles).  Baked good were made with lard or tropical oils, not soy bean or other weird hydrogenated oils.

 

 

My point was to blame working parents feeding kids crap is BS. 

 

If you were eating junk in the 70s, it wasn't nearly as bad as the junk we have today. 

[El...]

Me?  Dr. Pepper.  :o

[Momof3littles]

-Insulin resistance is more prevalent than many people realize. That is closely tied to metabolic syndrome, which affects a substantial % of adults. Yet most adults don't seem to know that IR and metabolic syndrome are closely related. Most people I know think insulin is only an issue if you are fat and type 2 diabetic. Most people I know also assume only the overweight get type 2 diabetes, and only the overweight folks need to be concerned about IR. I'm a normal weight woman with PCOS and some IR tendencies, with a family history of metabolic syndrome type of issues. I very much believe that many people have the IR tendencies before they get fat.

 

-Most people overeat. I do think this is closely intertwined with the above. If you are on the more IR end of the spectrum, eating carbs causes your body to pump out too much insulin, and then you end up with lower blood sugar afterward. For me, this means a carby snack or meal results in being hungrier than if I hadn't eaten in the first place. So I think controlling the insulin can make portion control more attainable for many people, and I think that simplifying it to mere "willpower" is really a disservice to those who are overweight. I think many kids and adults eat carby snacks all day long and are never satiated. I think many people would feel much more in control of their appetite without feeling deprived if they were not afraid to consume dietary fats and some protein.

 

-We are too sedentary, but the flip side is that I don't think exercise leads to as much weight loss as many people think. Taubes has some info on this as well. That doesn't mean exercise isn't beneficial to overall health or that some people can't lose weight by exercising, but I think we've oversold how much it helps people with weight loss. Many people just amp up their calorie intake when they exercise. To burn a serious number of calories, in general, it takes a LOT of exercise, and I think that's more than most people will ever carve time out for. Again, I totally think exercise has wonderful benefits, but I think we've sort of oversold the benefit of a little half hour walk as a *calorie burning* thing, you know? However, yes, there was a time when a large number of people had very physically demanding jobs where they worked their bodies all day long. Farming, construction, manual labor all probably helped keep some of that insulin sensitivity.

 

-Environmental estrogens/obesogens. BPA has been tied to central adiposity and insulin resistance in men, for example. edited to add: There's also interplay with this and genetics (epigenetics). What your grandmother or great grandmother was exposed to in terms of famine, scarcity of food, or chemical exposures may shape your tendency toward insulin resistance, for example.

 

-Portion sizes are insane. But again, I think if most people were consuming more fat and protein with their meals, they'd feel sated sooner and would have an easier time self-regulating.

 

-Loss of cooking skills, prevalence of quick food that is nutritionally devoid. Most people are running, running, running like crazy, particularly those with kids in school, sports, and other activities.

 

-Advice to eat 6 small meals a day ironically keeps some people riding the blood sugar rises and falls all day long. There's some newer research saying perhaps we need to encourage 3 a day again. I think this is also intertwined a bit with the idea about whether intermittent fasting is beneficial for preserving insulin sensitivity. Not to mention every single kid activity has to have a snack or multiple snacks, and they are usually garbage. When my son was playing little league, there was team snack, game day snack, kids eating team snack plus hitting the snack shack and ice cream afterward. THat's a lot of snacks ;) and it isn't as if the kids were burning hundreds and hundreds of calories playing baseball at that age. They swing, hit the ball, run a bit, and spend a lot of time standing out in the field doing nothing at that age. Schools have multiple parties for holidays, birthdays, etc.

 

-My local school district only stopped providing funnel cake as a breakfast option 3 years ago. I wish I was kidding. Then a kid eats that and is probably literally starving an hour later as his blood sugar plummets due to the insulin rise. I think there are a whole lot of overweight kids who actually are chronically hungry because of the insulin spikes they get with their meals. Many kids today are eating breakfast, lunch, and snack at school, and we know that most school options are probably awful for a kid with any tendency toward obesity or insulin resistance.

[nmoira]

It is utterly ridiculous to blame obesity on working parents.

 

There was an interesting opinion piece on Salon a few months back:

 

Is Michael Pollan a sexist pig?

 

Excerpt:

 

The rise of convenience food has to do with market forces, not feminism. After World War II, food companies began unloading packaged food products developed for wartime use on the domestic market: frozen fish fillets, powdered coffee, tinned spinach. These foods were aggressively marketed as wholesome and modern, since housewives were initially suspicious of products like ham that came in a can. But lots of women, it turns out, were simply not so fond of cooking. The twentieth century’s two most popular pro-convenience-foods cookbooks, Peg Bracken’s cheeky 1960 “The I Hate to Cook Book,†with its recipes like Skid Road Stroganoff (“Add the flour, salt, paprika, and mushrooms, stir, and let it cook five minutes while you light a cigarette and stare sullenly at the sinkâ€), and Poppy Cannon’s 1951 “The Can-Opener Cookbook†were hits long before second-wave feminism was so much as a gleam in Betty Friedan’s eye. So why does Betty get blamed?

 

The food movement, with its insistence on how fun and fulfilling and morally correct cooking is, seems to have trouble imagining why women might not have wanted to spend all their time in front of the stove. Since scratch cooking today is largely a hobby or a personal choice of the middle class, many of us wish we could spend more time in the kitchen. But it’s important to remember that this was not always the case.

 

It’s easy to forget, in the face of today’s foodie culture, that cooking is not fun when it’s mandatory.

[unsinkable]

 

It is a very complicated subject and there is no one right answer or even a couple of right answers.  What makes me very sad is the thought that someone might look at me and think they have figured out my eating habits, amounts, exercise habits etc. just by looking at my size and shape.  Yes, there might be some generalities but they are not absolute.

 

Why should the idea that some random unknown person had about your eating habits make you sad?!?!

 

I mean, really! Who gives a flying fish?

[twoxcell]

 

It is a very complicated subject and there is no one right answer or even a couple of right answers.  What makes me very sad is the thought that someone might look at me and think they have figured out my eating habits, amounts, exercise habits etc. just by looking at my size and shape.  Yes, there might be some generalities but they are not absolute.

I do not sit around looking at other people and try to judge their eating and health habits by their looks(even skinny people can be very unhealthy). That doesn't mean we can't have a general(not aimed at specific people) conversation about what is causing so much obesity. I think we can all agree that trying to be healthier in general is a good goal to have. :)

[Jane in NC]

If I had to pick one word:

 

Snacks.

 

The snack industry exploded a few decades ago and obesity rates started rising then, too.

In Michael Pollan's latest book, Cooked, he gives some statistics that Americans spend more time on "secondary eating" (i.e. snacking) than "primary eating" (meals). Secondary eating includes snacking and drinking calories while watching television, driving or surfing the next.

 

His book contains sources so you might want to consult it for your research.

[Pawz4me]

-We are too sedentary, but the flip side is that I don't think exercise leads to as much weight loss as many people think. Taubes has some info on this as well. That doesn't mean exercise isn't beneficial to overall health or that some people can lose weight with it, but I think we've oversold how much it helps people with weight loss. Many people just amp up their calorie intake when they exercise. To burn a serious number of calories, in general, it takes a LOT of exercise, and I think that's more than most people will ever carve time out for. Again, I totally think exercise has wonderful benefits, but I think we've sort of oversold the benefit of a little half hour walk as a calorie burning thing, you know? However, yes, there was a time when a large number of people had very physically demanding jobs where they worked their bodies all day long. Farming, construction, manual labor all probably helped keep some of that insulin sensitivity.

 

I think some day scientist will discover that being slightly or moderately active for the majority of the day, doing a variety of activities using all muscle groups in a functional way performing meaningful tasks, is much more beneficial for us than working out at high intensity in the artificial atmosphere of a gym.  Or in other words, the type of activity people got 50 or 100 years ago just getting through the day was probably much more beneficial in some way than what we get at a gym using all sorts of fancy equipment for an hour or two.  But there's no going back to that lifestyle for most of us, so we have to do the best we can.

[OH_Homeschooler]

It is a very complicated subject and there is no one right answer or even a couple of right answers.  What makes me very sad is the thought that someone might look at me and think they have figured out my eating habits, amounts, exercise habits etc. just by looking at my size and shape.  Yes, there might be some generalities but they are not absolute.  

 

Absolutely! I'm obese, I'm a Weight Watcher, and I'm slowly (S-L-O-W-L-Y) losing weight. But my life is busy and stressful and I'm happy on the weeks I merely maintain my weight loss, which I guess means on some weeks, I'm happy to remain as obese as I was the week before. 

 

I have spent most of my life obese. I did lose weight as a (single, childless) adult and kept it off for a long time. So I know what to do and how to do it and I'm working on ways to be better most of the time, although I know I will never have it as easy as it was back then. 

 

Although I am obese, I am more well-read on diets and diet plans than most individuals. Similarly, I know tons and tons about different kinds of workouts, and I know what I like to do to get sweaty. 

 

There is simply no single answer, no magic bullet. If there were, this wouldn't be a problem in the first place. And it's not just a matter of food availability, or lack of exercise.

 

And there's also the psychology underlying WHY you would eat something when you're not hungry, or why you don't take an extra ten minutes to walk on occasion. That is a huge component, I believe, that is not reflected on the list.

 

 

 

And Blessed Mommy: 

 

One word:  LAZY!  Americans, in general, are lazy!

 

 

No, just no. I am NOT lazy.

[twoxcell]

 

I think some day scientist will discover that being slightly or moderately active for the majority of the day, doing a variety of activities using all muscle groups in a functional way performing meaningful tasks, is much more beneficial for us than working out at high intensity in the artificial atmosphere of a gym.  Or in other words, the type of activity people got 50 or 100 years ago just getting through the day was probably much more beneficial in some way than what we get at a gym using all sorts of fancy equipment for an hour or two.  But there's no going back to that lifestyle for most of us, so we have to do the best we can.

:iagree:

[LucyStoner]

All of the above?  This is not a single variable problem.  

[Momof3littles]

My observations and thoughts, which include obese and morbidly obese extended family:

 

1. The invention of metformin.

 

Before metformin, one took care not to be overweight enough that diabetes and a daily injection would be part of one's life. Now one can pop a pill so it's hardly an inconvenience to be diabetic. Metformin is free at the local supermarket, with Dr.'s Rx.

Ah, but that's the chicken and egg argument so many people find fascinating on this topic. THere are substantial numbers of people who are IR and are not overweight. About half of women with PCOS are normal weight or under that, and most have some degree of IR. I take metformin and eat LC for PCOS and to help with my IR long-term, although I am not diabetic. Yet I could definitely drift down that path quite easily due to the IR tendencies. It wouldn't take me getting "fat." I'm already predisposed to metabolic syndrome issues, type 2, etc. even if I never become overweight, let alone morbidly obese. It doesn't necessarily take being overweight to cause IR. Some researchers think people have IR tendencies, and the weight issues are just a symptom of that.

 

edited to add that when I got diagnosed with PCOS, I was a 24 yo adult and weighed 114lbs. I am about 120 ten years later. I most definitely have IR tendencies, but have always had a normal BMI. Most docs used to assume all women with PCOS were overweight. Many researchers think IR is present to some degree in all women with PCOS, and that includes the substantial percentage or aren't overweight. PCOS alone (not counting IR more broadly) affects 5-10% of women of childbearing age.

[shukriyya]

There was an interesting opinion piece on Salon a few months back:

 

Is Michael Pollan a sexist pig?

 

Excerpt:

 

Liked this article. :)

[5of5]

American's take too many antibiotics which destroys healthy bacteria creating unhealthy bowels.

Not to say that I think there is just one factor, but I do wonder about how big of an effect this might be.

[Joanne]

I believe the increase in obesity and being unfit is correlated with the decade in which we became indoctrinated against dietary fat.

 

I believe the increase in unhealth corresponds with political and monetary choices that created a metabolic crisis for America.

 

The calories in/calories out model does not explain my size. Neither does the lack of activity (I am not sedentary). The same is true for my oldest, who happens to be my most active child as well as the largest.

[Momof3littles]

Agree that the research on colonization of the gut in overweight vs. normal weight people is really interesting. I think antibiotic overuse is a factor, but research is showing that the method of birth also affects colonization long-term (c-section vs. vaginal birth). And of course what we eat and how that fuels the prominence of different strains in our gut.

[Jean in Newcastle]

 

 

Why should the idea that some random unknown person had about your eating habits make you sad?!?!

 

I mean, really! Who gives a flying fish?

 

What?  What I said was that I didn't want people judging me for my weight.  One of the ways they might judge is to presume that I have bad eating habits.  

[nmoira]

Agree that the research on colonization of the gut in overweight vs. normal weight people is really interesting. I think antibiotic overuse is a factor, but research is showing that the method of birth also affects colonization long-term (c-section vs. vaginal birth). And of course what we eat and how that fuels the prominence of different strains in our gut.

I suspect what we eat is of greatest long-term significance. Just increasing fiber intake causes digestion to take place further along then intestinal tract, and the diet of most Americans is woefully short of fiber.

[twoxcell]

 

Agree that the research on colonization of the gut in overweight vs. normal weight people is really interesting. I think antibiotic overuse is a factor, but research is showing that the method of birth also affects colonization long-term (c-section vs. vaginal birth). And of course what we eat and how that fuels the prominence of different strains in our gut.

I believe this would be a fascinating study, as well as the correlation of antibiotics to overall health.

[MeghanL]

Can we also consider that the standard definitions of "fat" may be misleading? For my age & height I should weigh between 116-136 lbs. As a female, there is no bust size option to check. Try getting a DD chest to look propotional in a 136 lb body! There is only one time in my life I fit within that range, and I had people constantly asking me if I was ill. I didn't look healthy and I didn't feel healthy. Now I am 175 lbs. I exercise 3 hours a week doing high intensity aerobics and weight lifting. I have zero health problems and look and feel "normal". According to my BMI, I'm morbidly obese. For a long time, I was worried about that, but I eventually had to get over it. I will probably never weigh 130 again. And, really I probably shouldn't. Although I am healthy, active and happy I am still counted in the statistics of morbidly obese, and I just don't think I should be. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

I do not sit around looking at other people and try to judge their eating and health habits by their looks(even skinny people can be very unhealthy). That doesn't mean we can't have a general(not aimed at specific people) conversation about what is causing so much obesity. I think we can all agree that trying to be healthier in general is a good goal to have. :)

 

Which is why I joined the conversation. . .    but gave my opinion (as did others) that it was not just one or two variables.  

[twoxcell]

 

Which is why I joined the conversation. . .    but gave my opinion (as did others) that it was not just one or two variables.

I think everyones ideas so far have been interesting. I don't think I read your whole post I just saw the part I quoted from a previous person quoting it and wanted to clarify was all. :) I agree that health and weight are very complicated.

[HappyCrazyMama]

My mom grew up in the '50's and every day after school she had a snack of Fritos and regular Coke. So the snacking isn't a new phenomenon. The big difference is that the Coke was sweetened with real sugar rather than HFCS and the portion sizes were smaller. She also rode her bike constantly & was a serious ballet student. She was (and still is) skinny.

 

I still agree with snacks as one reason. Your mom had afternoon snack (likely smaller portion size too), I think this is normal snacking and I also think some people need to eat more frequently than others. On the other hand I have seen people eat almost constantly and I have seen parents offer their child a snack every hour and the kid is not even asking for something to eat. I do think it is one means of over consumption if you're not careful about it.

[LAS in LA]

2. The reduction in attending church

 

Some religions promote self-discipline. Gluttony for ex. is not encouraged.

I have to disagree, since church-goers are just as likely or more likely to be obese than the general population. [No citations, but I've seen several articles in the last 10 years.] If drinking and dancing aren't allowed, you eat! The church potluck is a well-established social event which does not promote healthy eating. Unfortunately, I think self-discipline as a virtue is more prevalent in dieting circles than in churches.

 

Your other points were good ones. :)

[Pawz4me]

Can we also consider that the standard definitions of "fat" may be misleading? For my age & height I should weigh between 116-136 lbs. As a female, there is no bust size option to check. Try getting a DD chest to look propotional in a 136 lb body! There is only one time in my life I fit within that range, and I had people constantly asking me if I was ill. I didn't look healthy and I didn't feel healthy. Now I am 175 lbs. I exercise 3 hours a week doing high intensity aerobics and weight lifting. I have zero health problems and look and feel "normal". According to my BMI, I'm morbidly obese. For a long time, I was worried about that, but I eventually had to get over it. I will probably never weigh 130 again. And, really I probably shouldn't. Although I am healthy, active and happy I am still counted in the statistics of morbidly obese, and I just don't think I should be. 

 

I totally agree.

 

When I was younger and still had a uterus, anytime I got into what was then considered the healthy/normal range for my height, I stopped having my periods.  Completely stopped.  I went three years w/o a period that wasn't induced by oral hormones.  My gynecologist, bless his heart (he was generally a stickler about weight), finally got through to me that my body knew *much* more about what weight it needed to maintain to be healthy than did any height/weight chart.  And I gave up the overwhelming burden of trying to keep my weight in the normal range.  My periods came back regularly and DH and I were finally able to get pregnant.  And I think since then, with the unbelievably stupidity of BMI, things have gotten even worse.  I don't doubt that there's some manipulation going on by the pharmaceutical industry, so that when they do eventually develop a pill for obesity that works, they'll have a larger (pun intended) market for it.

[unsinkable]

 

It is a very complicated subject and there is no one right answer or even a couple of right answers.  What makes me very sad is the thought that someone might look at me and think they have figured out my eating habits, amounts, exercise habits etc. just by looking at my size and shape.  Yes, there might be some generalities but they are not absolute.

 

 

Why should the idea that some random unknown person had about your eating habits make you sad?!?!

 

I mean, really! Who gives a flying fish?

 

 

What?  What I said was that I didn't want people judging me for my weight.  One of the ways they might judge is to presume that I have bad eating habits.

Oh, so you didn't say, " What makes me very sad is the thought that someone might look at me and think they have figured out my eating habits, amounts, exercise habits etc. just by looking at my size and shape."

 

Oh, gee, so sorry.

[twoxcell]

 

Last time I went on a serious "I want to be really thin diet" my hair started falling out in gobs.  I wasn't feeling all that healthy either.

I know what you mean. I lost over 50lbs in less than a years time this past year, and I thought I was going to go bald last fall. Some of my weight loss was on purpose and some of it because I was literally sick for a year and it took months to recover. Including several months of going almost completely without sugar etc. At one point I was down to a lower weight than I even wanted to be. I'm maintaining a really good weight right now but I do need to get into shape physically.

[wapiti]

True, but on a percentage basis, the number who would not be diabetic if they beleived a pill would not take care of it is significiant. If they had to do injections, they would prevent getting to that weight by adjusting their intake, as their parents did. Instead, because of the belief that the Dr. can cure anything, they indulge themselves and eat what they know is inappropriate...a box of ice cream at one sitting, pounds of potato salad, yada yada. The total calories taken in daily adds up to more than anyone can possibly expend daily with physical exercise.

 

FWIW, the Volek and Phinney book I linked upthread mentions that as late as the 1920s, before there were insulin injections, the primary treatment for type 2 diabetes was a diet involving carbohydrate restriction.

[LNC]

This is a subject that holds endless intellectual curiosity for me. I am planning to research it extensively this summer for no college-oriented reason, just because I want to know what combination of reasons might make the most logical sense to me.

 

I read a shocking statistic on the increase in American overweight and obesity, about how it has climbed (skyrocketed, actually) in every single state on an ongoing basis since the 1990's (in particular). What combination of factors account for this? Also, how do other countries compare? Is obesity rising elsewhere and it is merely that Americans are the Kings? Or is the rise in obesity very Amero-centric? What about Canadians? Does a similar pattern exist there?

 

Please participate in the poll and follow up with your insights and experiences. Thanks!

Read Fat Chance by Robert Lustig.

[Momof3littles]

True, but on a percentage basis, the number who would not be diabetic if they beleived a pill would not take care of it is significiant. If they had to do injections, they would prevent getting to that weight by adjusting their intake, as their parents did. Instead, because of the belief that the Dr. can cure anything, they indulge themselves and eat what they know is inappropriate...a box of ice cream at one sitting, pounds of potato salad, yada yada. The total calories taken in daily adds up to more than anyone can possibly expend daily with physical exercise.

But a predisposition to IR can make people feel chronically hungry. That's the kicker. I am not overweight, but for years I wondered why a bowl of cereal or a bagel made me ravenous and so hungry I was shaky an hour later. I had the urge to just stuff my face because I could feel my blood sugar plummeting. Only years later once I got the PCOS diagnosis and pieced together the IR piece that is so prevalent with PCOS did it make sense.

 

Eating those things made my blood sugar spike. My body pumps out too much insulin in response (hyperisulinemia), which then causes my blood sugar to drop too low. I feel hypoglycemic, hungry, cranky, brain foggy, and have the urge to find any kind of food I can to bring my blood sugar back up. If you've never experienced that, consider yourself lucky. I've controlled mine through my adult life by having those clues early. However, I also come at it from the privilege of having the ability to educate myself on it (master's degree in a healthcare field), and I'm in a financial position to afford to eat LC.

 

Some of these people binging, believe it or not, are truly hungry a lot of the time I think! Trying to regulate their appetite without getting their insulin levels under control is very difficult.

 

Even people with Type 2 are often told to eat modest amounts of whole grains, for example. But many of them have IR substantial enough that their blood sugars still soar with that approach. And the doctors tell them don't eat fat. They are told to cut back on meat, etc, and then they wonder what exactly they are supposed to eat. I think there's a lot of oversimplification and poor education taking place. I do believe in personal responsibility, but I can tell you that knowing how I feel when I have a blood sugar and insulin spike followed by a nice big drop in my blood sugar, it is easy to be ravenous having just eaten. And I'm a normal weight woman with no emotional eating issues or anything like that confounding things.

[AdventureMoms]

I also think advice to have three meals and three snacks a day or six small meals to improve metabolism is misguided. I also know a lot of people who feel faint or lightheaded if they don't eat every 3-4 hrs. Their doctors claim this is normal. Given that eating more than 3x a day is a pretty recent (and pretty American) concept, I find it hard to believe that this is "normal" for so many. I think it's an issue of blood sugar and our low-fat ultra-high carb excessively processed diet.

[bettyandbob]

 

 

2. The reduction in attending church

 

Some religions promote self-discipline. Gluttony for ex. is not encouraged.

 

 

 

Have you been to a church coffee hour, a church picnic, any church event that involves food? I've attended a few denominations and most churches have quite a few food activities and the food is not the best food for you.

 

The mega church I've been bringing my ds to because it has a fantastic Sunday School program for children with special needs has a huge cafeteria. They sell a lot of donuts on Sunday mornings, fries, pizza, it's not a health food place at all. They also have a coffee bar in another part of the building that has a variety of sugary coffee drinks and pastries.