Poll about main causes of obesity

[bhsup]

Ultimately it comes down to lifestyle because you are choosing not to exercise enough to counter whatever your taking in. By you I of course mean me.

 

[Cutlass]

Wait, what?

Yeah, depression hasn't got a single frakking thing to do with any choice made by the depressed person.

 

[Flying Pig]

Ultimately it comes down to lifestyle because you are choosing not to exercise enough to counter whatever your taking in. By you I of course mean me.

Yes, but certain people need to do more exercise to counter the same intake of calories. I had little sympathy for this until I lost a lot of weight in a short period of time, and had great difficulty putting it back on.

 

[warpus]

.

I actually didn't vote, turns out, so I ended up voting correctly. I think. I can't exactly remember what happened last night.

 

[warpus]

Yeah, of course, the generally more sedentary and low-exercize lifestyle common to all technologically-advanced country has certainly a noticeable part of the blame.

But the feeding habits that are typical from (invented in even ?) the anglosphere tend to be a really large (I'd even say the main) factor.

Are you talking about the high sugar high carb fast food garbage that the Anglo Saxons have introduced us to? Do the Brits even figure into this? Can't we just blame America?

Another problem that's come to me - unhealthy foods in the U.S. get subsidies, while healthy ones don't.. generally speaking.

edit: ugh, still out of it after my trip. did not mean to double post

Has anyone read this book though? .. It outlines a large part of the problem. Sure, you can blame fat people all you want, but...

 

[Antilogic]

If there was a factor I could vote against it would be genetic predisposition. Our gene pool hasn't been significantly altered in the last couple decades to the point where it could account for the increase in obesity.

My vote ended up going to the prevalence of unhealthy food (same as warpus), but with lifestyle taking a close second.

 

[Akka]

Are you talking about the high sugar high carb fast food garbage that the Anglo Saxons have introduced us to? Do the Brits even figure into this? Can't we just blame America?

Nah, I'm pretty sure the dreadful culinary culture of the UK is a major reason why the US ended up on this junk food path

My vote ended up going to the prevalence of unhealthy food (same as warpus), but with lifestyle taking a close second.

Isn't the prevalence of unhealthy food a consequence/part of the lifestyle ?

 

[Antilogic]

Isn't the prevalence of unhealthy food a consequence/part of the lifestyle ?

Some may see the prevalence of unhealthy food as a subset of the lifestyle argument, I see it the other way around. Bit of a chicken and egg thing.

 

[Berzerker]

lifestyle ~= lousy diet

 

[Darkflight]

People these days can much more easily afford to eat themselves into morbid obesity. Rich people have always managed to eat themselves into morbid obesity across the world in all of human history, but this is the only time in human history that a large part of the human world is composed primarily of rich people.

 

[Zelig]

It can be a lot more time than that.

Or a lot less time. I usually spend 3-4 hours cooking about a dozen portions sunday afternoon. That gives me about a week's worth of meals, I freeze most of them, so it covers a couple days, and then I cover the rest of my week taking out various frozen meals from previous Sunday cooking sessions.

This expresses my thoughts very well. Although people who were obese as children due to their parents feeding them too much deserve some sympathy.

Yeah, that really sucks (well, quality of food more so than quantity), parents who feed their kids sweets and fast food are putting them at a disadvantage for their entire lives.

Are you talking about the high sugar high carb fast food garbage that the Anglo Saxons have introduced us to? Do the Brits even figure into this? Can't we just blame America?

Carbs really get an unfair rap outside of fast/processed food. You need to be careful about glycemic load, but it's not difficult to have a very healthy diet with the majority of Calories from carbs.

Has anyone read this book though? .. It outlines a large part of the problem. Sure, you can blame fat people all you want, but...

Yes, this is an excellent read. It's kind of sad because you get people in the food industry trying to do the right thing but they get pushed aside by the quest for profit margins at any cost. I don't really see any fix other than government regulation.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Lifestyle, which isn't strictly a lifestyle choice.

Obviously, individuals can make better choices and can turn their lifestyles around. I've done it, and I love helping other people do it.

But it's not that people 40 or 100 years ago were better at making these decisions, it's that these decisions really didn't have to be made.

Modern living will make you fat. You can opt out of it, but that's the problem these days: that takes conscious and dedicated effort.

 

[Zelig]

Lifestyle, which isn't strictly a lifestyle choice.

Obviously, individuals can make better choices and can turn their lifestyles around. I've done it, and I love helping other people do it.

But it's not that people 40 or 100 years ago were better at making these decisions, it's that these decisions really didn't have to be made.

Modern living will make you fat. You can opt out of it, but that's the problem these days: that takes conscious and dedicated effort.

I don't disagree with this sentiment in general, but it goes both ways.

When I was growing up my parents never took us out for fast food, everything was cooked at home, and there was rarely any junk food around the house. (Homemade fruit cake at Christmas.) My parents enrolled me in sports when I was <5, and I've been playing various sports pretty much ever since.

So from my point of view, I haven't opted out of anything. Sports are one of the highlights of my life and cooking my own meals yields vastly better quality than fast food on top of being overall cheaper/faster. I'd need to make a conscious and dedicated effort if I wanted to alter my lifestyle to one of sloth and fast food.

 

[Zack]

This poll doesn't really make sense. The other options are just factors contributing to the unhealthy lifestyle.

 

[Antilogic]

So from my point of view, I haven't opted out of anything. Sports are one of the highlights of my life and cooking my own meals yields vastly better quality than fast food on top of being overall cheaper/faster. I'd need to make a conscious and dedicated effort if I wanted to alter my lifestyle to one of sloth and fast food.

I don't doubt the cheaper, but I do doubt the faster.

 

[Zelig]

I don't doubt the cheaper, but I do doubt the faster.

See my previous post:

Or a lot less time. I usually spend 3-4 hours cooking about a dozen portions sunday afternoon. That gives me about a week's worth of meals, I freeze most of them, so it covers a couple days, and then I cover the rest of my week taking out various frozen meals from previous Sunday cooking sessions.

Being optimistic about the time needed to bundle up in winter gear and drive to the nearest fast food place still gives at least five minutes each for getting there/ordering/getting back.

Twelve meals at fifteen minutes each is three hours. So I guess not much different.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Even with the prevalence of extremely calorie-dense food, exercise is still a thing. Lifestyle it is then.

This. Supply-side dietnomics works about as well as supply-side economics, i.e. not at all. Calorie demand is a much more flexible tool with which to change the balance than calorie supply. When I was in my late thirties, I had a job that required very mild exercise, but 8 hrs/day. I ate and ate, and still lost weight, without at all intending to.

Eating a nutritious diet and fewer empty calories, I imagine, probably helps, but pales in importance by comparison. Unless your diet is so poor that your body is full of cravings that don't actually come from its calorie/energy/fat set-point, but some other unfulfilled need, I doubt that there is much to gain (i.e. lose) by changing diets.

 

[warmonger]

It really is quite simple if you eat more calories than you burn, you'll put on weight. Just because food is plentiful doesn't mean you have to eat it.

complexity comes from what is the right amount for me is different from the right amount for you. And the right amount for me changes according to what I'm doing, feeling and eating. Gross calories are different from net calories. Complex carbs take a fair amount of calories just to digest, absorb and distribute so the net calories are the relevant numbers.

As some one else said good home cooked meals made from scratch are much cheaper than processed or bought meals, so getting people interested in basic cooking is important. It used to be on the school sylllibus back in my day - is it still?

 

[Synobun]

As some one else said good home cooked meals made from scratch are much cheaper than processed or bought meals, so getting people interested in basic cooking is important. It used to be on the school sylllibus back in my day - is it still?

Not in Canada as far as I know. School has veered way off from life skills and right into standardized memorization-based knowledge territory. I took a cooking class in high school that was attached to a 'family studies' course which was female-centric (woo, sexism!) and it did not teach me the foundations of cooking or any basic meals. It did, however, teach me how to make shaped pancakes and a complicated spicy quinoa casserole that took five hours to make. Yay, cooking!

 

[Cutlass]

US schools, particularly the schools the poor go to, have been cutting back extras for years. But things that need to be remembered concerning the costs of cooking still include that it is time consuming, particularly for those who lack good nearby food shopping options, and that is common where the poorest people live. It takes at least some skill. It takes knowledge of the options. And the working poor tend to work long, or irregular, hours, which make it harder.

That's not to say that eating better is beyond their means. But rather it is to say that suggesting they eat better is easier said than done.