http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/fit.nation/obesity.map/

Not good.

Portion control, some basic common sense and America would be a lot better off. I can't believe the crap people stuff in there mouth and then wonder why they are fat. Its so simple yet so out of reach for so many people because they just don't care....or worse yet they come up with an excuse why they have a 40+ waist.

Interesting thing is if you notice a lot of those areas are generally poorer areas. When you are poor your dietary options are far less than for those of the rich. Fast food is cheap, poorer area food markets have a lower variety of options, the poor can't afford the gym memberships and private trainers, etc.

I also did an interview recently where there were scientists that directly related air conditioning becoming popular to the beginning of the US (and shortly there after European) obesity epidemics. It seems that in a climate controlled environment your body isn't "passively" burning calories to keep your internal body temperature regulated. Turning off the air conditioning and nothing else can cause someone to lose up to 5 pounds a week.

Ya ya I had that same thing about the poor and inner city problems being the root cause of obescity in my Cultural Anthropology class...I still disagree. Its more about being lazy and not cooking for yourself.

Eggs...best protein source available CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP
Oatmeal .....best Carbo you can possible eat CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP
Tuna ...get passed the Mercury (I eat tons of it) Cheap Cheap Cheap
Spinach and Broccoli - Can find deals on it
Peanut Butter- Needed fats


I bet I can drive down to the inner city of Milwaukee and find those 5 items. You can live off them and maintain a very lean, muscular body if you choose too. Fact is Big Mac, Coke, and fries taste SOO much better. Eat at Mcdonalds and eat smart you can actually get a cheap decent meal as well.

I am also talking about the people around me..at my work..walking around town who are in Pick-N-Save stuffing Chips, Soda, Sugar loaded products...Cereal..Pizza's. They have money, they have time, they choose to eat what they want to eat.

Hey I would love to eat a big old bowl of custard at night, wash it down with some chocolate milk. Or hell have a coke with a big bag of chips while watching TV... I like those things too but moderation is key. A full stomach of ice cold tasty icecream sounds delicous but its simply not healthy night after night...unless of course I don't care and choose to do so. Then we'll continue to see a rise year after year.

Our industrialized food chain finally pays off for the diet pill pharmaceutical companies.

High fructose corn syrup is straight up nasty.

Missed that one..HFC is in everything. Its almost impossible to find a grocery store wheat bread with out HFC in it. That stuff is straight from hell!

I was amazed today to find that the Accelerade "energy drink" snakeoil actually has real sugar in it when they were giving out free bottles at the gym. It's like winning the lottery finding something that doesn't have HFC or wasn't made in China.

Eat at Mcdonalds and eat smart you can actually get a cheap decent meal as well.

Their fruit and yogurt parfaits actually own, cost just over a buck, and are very low calorie and low fat. I tried one on a lark when in a rush to campus (and grabbing my gigantic diet coke :/ - I'm an aspartame as well as a caffeine addict) and was positively shocked.

I think that a sedentary lifestyle, artificial lighting and climate control, shift work (my meno-gut, ironically, is exacerbated by sleep disturbances brought on by the hormone drop (and concomitant cortisol rise) itself), and the high levels of sugar, fat, and hormonally active chemicals in modern processed food all play a role in increased obesity, but even when people *cook*, it's difficult to maintain a low fat high fiber diet when you are poor. I live in one of the poorest counties in the US (and with a very high proportion of stay-at-home moms who actually cook), and while eggs, beans, rice, dairy, and tortillas (and cheap meat cuts) figure prominently in the diet, actual vegetable matter... doesn't. Why? It's a lot more expensive than the above, especially in an expense per people fed (mac 'n cheese or franks vs salad? no contest) sense, but I'll also note that the preferred non home-cooked dinner choice here in Laredo is... pizza (we have *lots* of budget pizza places and folks from them on almost every major intersection selling 5-6.00 pizzas), which of course is loaded with empty carbohydrates and fat, but feeds a large family quickly and pleases kids.

It doesn't help, of course, that our water is patently unsafe and soda is cheaper than bottled water ;).

But getting back to the whole idea of an obesity 'epidemic', an interesting study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine this week, seems to suggest that obesity is actually 'contagious', not in the physical, but in the social, sense:

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/25/ap3951974.html

Being that humans are highly social animals, as well as appearance conscious, I can't say that this surprises me; Laredo has different weight norms than most of the country (very high obesity rates, see above), and not only did I gain weight after coming down here, but because people's *perception* of where I sat on the overweight spectrum was skewed, I wasn't nearly as uncomfortable about it (for better or worse) than I was when I lived up in wonderful plastic Dallas.

Finally, I'd like to add that trying to lose weight after 40, even when combining diet and exercise, sucks :). It's far, far better not to get to the point where you have 20% or more to lose to begin with...

Regards,
Nydia

We'll lend you guys across the pond Jamie Oliver, pronto :P

Finally, I'd like to add that trying to lose weight after 40, even when combining diet and exercise, sucks :). It's far, far better not to get to the point where you have 20% or more to lose to begin with...Post 35 it's been very difficult to remove the weight I gained during EQ1. I've needed constant diet and exercise revisions to keep the weight headed downward, and it's easy to plateau for a year while trying to find a new combination that works and doesn't drive one mad.

I actually lost weight while maintaining 400+ days played on two characters in EQ. I would sit for hours and never eat. I drank quite a few beers though...oh those were the days.

Pizza + Hate/Fear/Growth did not do a body good, hehe.

It is easier to keep it off than to take it off, that is for sure. I'm trying to undo a few years of very poor eating habits and feed my kid better than I was eating.

But feeding the kid is nuts, since he eats the way he is supposed to. It takes him an hour or more to eat, every night. Luckily he'll eat pretty much what we give him (including most veggies) but it takes a concentrated act of will not to try and hurry him up while he is eating and slow down myself.

This is a pretty funny comic about losing fat. (http://www.basicinstructions.net/2006/09/how-to-lose-fat.html)

I put on about 2 stone while playing EQ - but equally it was a period of rather suseptible growth/weight gain, being 18 when I started and about 23 when I finished. I managed to shake the majority off though, but I like to think it's a continual reminder that sitting on the computer during all your spare time playing MOO's is not the way forward :P

edit: a great diet is being a historian - sitting in archives all day where you're not allowed food/drink is a real weight killer.

I'd be curious to find more investigation into the relationship between socio-economic areas and obesity. My strictly anecdotal experience has been that 'lower class' folks tend to just not care as much about weight. How much is it more attributed to the, "Well, we're poor and can't afford many luxuries, we can at least enjoy what we eat" mentality?

One thing I've always wondered as well - could our current infrastructure for producing and delivering food actually sustain a strictly healthy diet? What would happen if, say, overnight we banned HFC? The amount of food consumed daily in the US is mind boggling, do we have the capability to switch from that - or do things like McDonalds and HFC serve an important role for the population at large?

I'd be curious to find more investigation into the relationship between socio-economic areas and obesity. My strictly anecdotal experience has been that 'lower class' folks tend to just not care as much about weight. How much is it more attributed to the, "Well, we're poor and can't afford many luxuries, we can at least enjoy what we eat" mentality?


Most that are considered on the "poor" side are forced by economics into buying cheap food IE: Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Cheap 89 cents a loaf bread etc...

I don't think its an "I don't care situation" as much as it is cheap food contains crap ingredients high fat, loaded with HFC, loaded with sodium and cheap carbs etc.. which makes for an unhealthy diet equaling overweight unhealthy people who I would say really do care they just need to be educated in nutrition and shown alternate yet inexpensive diets.

Ibuden was pretty much right on with his buying eggs etc post as that is probably a good answer.

Interesting thing is if you notice a lot of those areas are generally poorer areas. When you are poor your dietary options are far less than for those of the rich. Fast food is cheap, poorer area food markets have a lower variety of options, the poor can't afford the gym memberships and private trainers, etc.

AND are less educated to know the importance of what is a good food choice and what junk does to the body. Education empowers. :)

I bet I can drive down to the inner city of Milwaukee and find those 5 items. You can live off them and maintain a very lean, muscular body if you choose too. Fact is Big Mac, Coke, and fries taste SOO much better. Eat at Mcdonalds and eat smart you can actually get a cheap decent meal as well.

Hey I would love to eat a big old bowl of custard at night, wash it down with some chocolate milk.

Many are not educated on what is healthy to eat nor even how to cook stuff that is good for you.

And funny you mention custard.....fresh homemade custard made with real egg is my favorite!! :)

Link to the NEJM Framingham study on the social spread of obesity:

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/357/4/370

The social network cluster graphics and glossary of terms were particularly interesting, as was some of the data that came out of it - interesting summary graphic here:

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/357/4/370/F4

For the short attention span folks: If your friends get fat, you likely will too!

The study's authors suggest that this 'social' spread of obesity through friendship networks provides a valid rationale for approaching obesity as a public health, as well as a medical problem (in other words, social recognition, as with smoking, is a valid approach independent of other factors). I can't help but be fascinated with the dimorphic, reality-disconnected views of body image which seem to be the only two archetypes we see in America - rampant anorexia (and the marketing of unrealistically low, unhealthy individuals as attractive in the media and fashion) and the masses of the overweight, and can't help but wonder if some of that complacency with increasing obesity in America is kind of a 'throwing in the towel', so to speak, an implicit recognition of the unattainability (for most of us) of the images we are surrounded with and which do not mesh with our own reality.

Regards,
Nydia

Seeing this is sad. Right now my boss's daughter weighs 75lbs. She has Celiac's and isn't responding well to anything. They just released her from Univ of Maryland yesterday after feeding her through a tube for a week. She's 5'10" and only 17. To thik that some people are overweight and trying to lose weight while others can't even gain weight is bitter irony.

In the army I developed a tendacy to eat way way way too fast; probably from the "EAT! SLIDE! EAT! SLIDE" crap from basic traning. I have to consciously tell myself to sloooow down while eating. I too gained weight from gaming but have been since changed my lifestyle and losing it again. It's too easy to eat the unhealthy stuff while playing. =\

Celiac's is a terrible condition. I can only imagine what her diet must look like.

I tend to eat too fast as well, but my diet during weekdays is so regimented now -- with multiple small meals instead of three larger ones -- that it's only an issue when I go out to dinner with friends.

Any indication how much alcohol plays a role in obesity, especially among lower income populations?