We know why so many people are obese. Too much food, with lots of calories, over-processed with lots of sugar and unhealthy fats. And lack of physical activity is also takes part of the blame.
But why did this happen? What was the tipping point that turned us into a bunch of chubby lemmings ready to plummet off the cliff into an abyss of obesity-related chronic disease? And more important now -- what is the tipping point that will get us back to a healthy weight?
Think about a typical day, How many people ...
... start the day with sugary cereals, maybe some frozen things that heat up in the toaster? Maybe just grab a cup of coffee or a bottle of Mountain Dew and a donut? Eeww. What a way to start the day.
... eat too much at work? Vending machines offer fattening snacks, and it is easy to eat a candy bar or snack cake with your morning coffee. What about lunch? Off to the closest fast food joint for artery-clogging burgers and fries.
... give up on dinner? It's been a long day at work and now it is time to make dinner for the family. Ugh. Maybe just stop for take-out, grab a bucket of fried chicken or order a big pizza. After dinner it is time to veg out in front of the HDTV where we are barraged with ads for snacks, sodas and more fast foods. Off to the kitchen for a bag of Doritos anyone?
What else has changed over the last thirty-something years? When I was a kid we filled the car's tank at a gas station. Now we stop for gas at a convenience store and while there, we fill our own tanks with some of the worst junk foods. It's just too easy to step inside for a donut, a slice of pizza or a giant soda for the ride.
Portion sizes have increased too. We drink soda in 20-ounce bottles instead of 12-ounce cans, restaurant portions are huge and I think a lot of people have just gotten used to eating more food at each meal.
What about physical activity? When I was kid in the 70's, we had physical education in school every day. That isn't the case anymore. Plus more kids play video and computer games in the house, instead of going outside.
Maybe we aren't as active at home either. Thirty years ago, we didn't have remote controls for our TVs so we had to get up and walk across the room to turn the dial. And we didn't have a cell phone in our pocket -- we had to run to answer the phone in the other room. But did those little bits of activity make much of a difference in our calorie burning back in the day? Maybe, if you add them up over time. Something certainly was different - it wasn't common to belong to a health club and we didn't have VCRs yet -- Buns of Steel and other exercise tapes were a long way off.
So what else has changed that makes over-eating so easy? Leave your ideas in a comment below.
I read an article – which of course I can’t find again right now – which showed that our activity level declined significantly in the last 50 years or so but that our weight did not increase much until 10-20 years later when food became much more available and marketing of foods began in force.
The only people I know who eat like you described are skinny people. Obesity seems to come more from consistently eating a few hundred extra calories per day. I believe it comes from persistent marketing that encourages over consumption every time we turn around.
children walked to school and their parents with them
Let’s start with the psychological issues…..we eat because we are depressed, sad, happy, etc. This becomes a cycle that we can not seem to break. Family gatherings, we eat. Social gatherings, we eat. If we could just change the tradition of how and when we eat then I THINK we would turn on another tradition that is associated with the above.
Let’s face it we eat by sight and taste. If it does not look good we will not try it….if it does not taste good then we won’t eat it. Once we have become accustomed to a taste, changing your buds are very hard to do. We stay obese because the trigger of depressed, sad, happy etc is not satisfied with a healthy portion of steamed broccoli…..it is that slice of cake or the big plate of french fries that reassures our thoughts and comforts our soul.
If we could somehow get back to basics by enjoying nature, appreciating the skin we are in and embracing life then maybe, just maybe being obese would not be the issue.
The Food Pyramid happened 30 years ago, with its advice to limit fats and eat more carbs.
1. We ate fruit for snacks.
2. We didn’t have to walk to school but we did have to walk over 2 blocks to the bus stop. Kids in our neighborhood are dropped at the end of their driveway.
3. We played outside for hours, and always ate a home-cooked meal around the dinner table. Activities (such as sports or social) were not allowed to infringed upon our family dinner.
I’d say the so-called obesity epidemic stems from a number of changes in the quality of the food supply which came about in response to the government’s dietary advice. For example, eat less fat translates into eat more carbohydrates. And eat less saturated fat translates into eat more omega-6 industrial seed oils. These two dietary recommendations coupled with increased access to sweet drinks and replacement of saturated fats with omega-6 rich oils and omega-6 trans fats are the most likely factors driving the obesity epidemic the rising incidence of diabetes, noncommunicable diseases, and depression. Google – “Your Brain on Omega 3″ and “Enjoy Eating Saturated Fats: They’re Good for You” and “What has government done to our health – Free Press.”
maybe full fat was more filling and all this low fat stuff is leaving us hungry all the time.
It’s the amount of hidden calories in Fast Food and Restaurant foods. Eating a salad instead of a burger sounds good until you find out that salad has 800 calories or more! Someone can consume over 2000 calories in one meal and not even be aware of it. Years ago going out to eat was a treat or special occasion. Now it’s almost a twice daily occurrence.
And don’t get me started on the evils of spandex. Before when clothes got too tight we would cut back on our food. Now our clothes just stretch with our expanding waistlines.
Worldwide among humans, the fat outnumber the hungry. A government’s advice cannot be a cause—rather see the intense work by multinational corporations to engineer irresistible foods full of sugar, salt and cheap fat, empty of nutrition. Distracted by blandishments and ‘news’, you eat and grow.
Then the diet peddlers get to work, each season creating a new miracle cure. Capitalism’s limited vision wins again.
Yes, if you ate only real foods, best without labels or ‘ingredients,’ and worked at simple tasks rather than buying costly machines to do the work, then renting or buying other costly machines to ‘exercise’ you… but why be a kook? Why stand out from the crowd?
Solutions? Wake up, smell the corruption of fat and hungry on the same planet, and remedies are easy. If not, Nature will deal with you.
Worldwide among humans, the fat outnumber the hungry. A government’s policies cannot be a cause—rather see the intense work by multinational corporations to engineer irresistible foods full of sugar, salt and cheap fat, empty of nutrition. Distracted by blandishments and ‘news’, you eat and grow.
Then the diet peddlers get to work, each season creating a new miracle cure. Capitalism’s limited vision wins again.
Yes, if you ate only real foods, best without labels or ‘ingredients,’ and worked at simple tasks rather than buying costly machines to do the work, then renting or buying other costly machines to ‘exercise’ you… but why be a kook? Why stand out from the crowd?
Solutions? Wake up, smell the corruption of fat and hungry on the same planet, and remedies are easy. If not, Nature will deal with you.
…fat does not make us fat; simple carbs( sugar)and excessive (sodium) are the reason…control your blood sugar and your health and (life) will be amazing.
The law of unintended consequences….in the quest to fight heart disease we’ve created a monster! Low fat, high carb, sugar or HFCS in every product – do we REALLY need sugar in peanut butter? In Spag sauce? Gary Taubes has some good answers for what the tipping point was in his book Good Calories Bad Calories or his more user-friendly Why We Get FAT… Basically, not all calories are equal, our bodies processs sugars and starches differently than they do dietary fats (yes Saturated fat is good for you as long as it is part of diet that eliminates sugar and starches), meats and low starch veggies. Most governments of the world will refuse to go back on what they have been preaching and legislating because then how will they feed their people? – grains and HFCS are CHEAP and filling (at least for the short term).
Ironically, the obese are actually starving – the cells of thier bodies are literally starving and then sending out signals for more food (nutrition) but the whole sad cycle starts again with the consumption of sugars and starches. Next time you see an obese person, have a little compassion and know that person is actually starving.
Pegasus
Regarding comment #4 – the Food Guide Pyramid went into effect in 1994, not 30 years ago. It’s not that. Look what all of us are doing right now – sitting in front of a computer, which wasn’t in anyone’s home back in the 1970’s, and still wasn’t in all homes in the 80’s. We got our first computer in 1984, and that was early in our neighborhood. What did we do with our time before we sat at computers for a couple of hours (or more) each day? We have gotten used to much larger portion sizes, and we are way less active. Even if we exercise an hour a day, but sit at a desk/computer for 8 or more hours a day, and then watch TV at night, that is too much inactivity. My parents had a rule when we were kids – one hour of TV per day. After school we played outside or else my mother would find us something to do – like clean a toilet or mop a floor. Parent allow laziness nowadays.
I think it is things like MSG, high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, more sugar than before, etc. All processed foods are full of these.
I agree with almost everything previously written, but I would like to add the American make more money than ever before, which adds to the desire to eat out and the easy choice to not cook at home.
We need to stop eating all foods we see advertised on TV. Some of the food-like products sold by the giant food/Ag. corporations, should have health warning labels. It’s very bad for us. We are what we eat.
Body. Mind. Spirit.
Bonnie, you’re right, the actual pyramid was introduced in the early 90’s (1992), I misspoke on that. But the recommendations to lower fats and raise carbohydrates began in the early 80’s, and even earlier in the popular press at the time. Everywhere you looked in the late 70’s and 80’s was the cry of lowering fat in the diet. That was basically the moment the obesity curve took off. Certainly other factors can and do contribute, but the dietary changes that happened related to that (including, as someone pointed out, increasing omega-6 fats) were much more dramatic than for example, the change in exercise. Grain consumption and sugar consumption really rose after that. Basically, as someone else points out, that is a recipe for feeling more hungry, for many of us.
we should stop complaining about fast foods ,inactivities.
we should complain about our low thinking, we,re not using our mind enough to listen to our common sens.
We eat like bigs, and we forget that we are human beings. let,s use our mind,and all problems wil soon be solved.
we eat because it feels good, it tastes good, it is easily available, it is cheap, because we don’t smoke anymore, we don’t seat down for meals with family and friends and we eat in front of the tv where they are constantly advertising junk food and poisonous drinks.
I’m thin, I eat healthily and it means I must exercise a severe willpower to keep away from fattening unhealthy food. It is hard, but it pays!