Super Size Me

[downwithgravity]

i liked supersize me. definitely a better documentary than fahrenheit

 

[Riesstiu IV]

I find it hard to believe the American obesity statistics. I myself weigh 155 pounds at 5 feet 11 inches and have a BMI of 21.5. I really don't see a 66% obesity rate in the population. If that were the case then I'd be hard pressed to find a date (being overweight is a HUGE turn off for me) if that many women were overweight! People in my area are always exercising, playing sports, and going out for jogs.

I have heard that certain cities in the South, such as Houston and Atlanta have awful obesity trends...

 

[The Last Conformist]

It's 66% overweight, not 66% obese.

 

[yoshi74]

BMI is BS. It has no way to measure the muscle mass of someone. Someone with more muscle mass and few fat can get till obese. When such statistics are based on BMI i would forget them.

I don't think the movie is against americans, but more against the fast foods. McDonalds & Co. provide food with very much calories, but it saturates quite bad. Even worse, you get more food thrown at you for free (e.g. a burger and a coke - why don't take the menue for the same price, free fries.)

 

[Akka]

Well thats sortof what I am saying our poor are rich enough to be fat. I know it is not as good now with the things we eat but I don't believe there are many fat people in third world countries. Apart from the rich leaders.

In fact, I was surprised to see it's false.
There was a big article this very week into a newspaper I read regularly. It's about how obesity was spreading like a wildfire. I was stunned to learn that 12 % of the subsaharian Africa (not really the richest and best feed part of the world) was overweight.

Being overweight is not really about being rich. It's a combination of some (or all) several factors like : bad health habits, lack of exercice, bad quality food and food too greasy/sugary.

And if USA are so often branded for it, it's because they were the main initiator of these factors, and that they seem to go on par with their culture, which is spreading as well.

 

[Evertonian]

This film is coming here in September and I just can't wait. Its the film I'm most looking forward to this year, although I already found out the plot

BMI is BS. It has no way to measure the muscle mass of someone. Someone with more muscle mass and few fat can get till obese. When such statistics are based on BMI i would forget them.

Regards the body mass index. As others have said, someone is overweight if they have a bmi > 25 and obese if they have a bmi > 30. 66% of americans have bmi > 25. Apart from a few of the Pacific Islands, this is the highest in the world.

Now as some (like yoshi74) have said there are specific problems with the BMI measure, it doesn't take account of fat/muscle ratio. So for someone with big muscles a truly healthy BMI might well be greater than 25, or for someone with no muscles it even 24 might be overweight.

Should we take the BMI measure seriously then or should we ignore it because of these flaws? Well, IMHO we need to take it seriously. You see, the link between smoking and lung cancer (surely everyone agrees they are linked?) was only discovered because studies were done which looked at people who smoked (and didn't) and people who died of lung cancer (and didn't). The scientists doing the studies saw there was a correlation. And similarly studies these days show correlation between people who have BMI > 25 and people who suffer health problems associated with being overweight. Now its true that not everyone with BMI >25 suffers overweight health problems. But its also true that not everyone who smokes gets lung cancer. But you can certainly reduce your risk of bad health by being under 25 on bmi/giving up smoking.

If you are overweight I recommend you can either take more exercise, to burn some calories, or you can consume fewer calories as a way to lose weight. For example, if you drink a lot of soft drinks (cola etc) then you can switch to mineral water and this will reduce your calorie intake.

But another part of the problem is the composition of foods we eat now. The huge corn subsidies mean that corn and corn products are unnaturally cheap. This means corn syrup, and a processed corn based fructose are really cheap to buy for food and drink manufacturers. It is included in very many processed foods and all the soft drinks. Its very sweet and so we think the food is tasty. But too much of this interferes with our body's processes, and we causes us to store more excess fat rather than burning it off when we exercise.

Its a free choice to consume fructose, it shouldn't be against the law, but the price is unnaturally cheap so people consume more than they should, and also people don't understand what it is and what it does.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

Thought it was 1/3 overweight and 15-20% obese. If what you say is true it'd be very weird... I only have 2 overweight friends and don't even know any obese people. Where are they all at?

Taking at your profile, I see that you are about 20 years old. Around that age most people are more concerned about their body image than latter down the line.

 

[romelus]

I couldn't justify paying money to see it and eating gallons of popcorn and drinking gallons of pop just to further continue the stereotype of overeating Americans.

well, you could instead pay taxes so the government can fix obesity related health problems of others. actually, you already are, silly me

 

[Shadylookin]

well, you could instead pay taxes so the government can fix obesity related health problems of others. actually, you already are, silly me

Silly you indeed, I don't pay taxes. I don't have a job and I don't make enough interest with the money I have in the bank to tax. Paying taxes to fix people's fat problems is a laughable idea. I suggest we put all the obese people on the west coast and tell them that the first person to walk to washington DC can have a tax hand out and a life time supply of candy bars and the problem would fix itself

 

[romelus]

Silly you indeed, I don't pay taxes. I don't have a job and I don't make enough interest with the money I have in the bank to tax. Paying taxes to fix people's fat problems is a laughable idea. I suggest we put all the obese people on the west coast and tell them that the first person to walk to washington DC can have a tax hand out and a life time supply of candy bars and the problem would fix itself

well aren't you the lucky one. even if no one is paying the "fix fat health problems" tax, everyone (working) is still paying for them. obese people face a ton of problems like heart disease and diabetes which tie up hospitals and doctors, raise health insurance rates for everyone and cause airplanes and cars to burn more fuel and generally only benefit the moomoo makers and food vendors and jerry springer

 

[Double Barrel]

It was considered good in past centuries, actually. A sign of wealth, much like pale skin.

Of course, the obesity epidemic among poor people no longer gives it such distinction.

Two excellent points!

I think we have to be the first nation in history who's poor people are fat.

Personally, I think the fat/obese epidemic is Darwinism and / or population control. Nature's way of telling us that we might be getting carried away with her planet.

 

[Shadylookin]

well aren't you the lucky one. even if no one is paying the "fix fat health problems" tax, everyone (working) is still paying for them. obese people face a ton of problems like heart disease and diabetes which tie up hospitals and doctors, raise health insurance rates for everyone and cause airplanes and cars to burn more fuel and generally only benefit the moomoo makers and food vendors and jerry springer

well we are all going to die and I imagine baring sudden death we will probably all use hospitals and nursing homes and I'd be really angery if I paid all my life for health insurance and they denied me on some technicality.

 

[romelus]

well we are all going to die and I imagine baring sudden death we will probably all use hospitals and nursing homes and I'd be really angery if I paid all my life for health insurance and they denied me on some technicality.

if that technicality means you stuffed yourself silly all your life and your obesity caused your health problem, then you would only have yourself to blame

on the other hand, if you lived healthfully your entire life and one day needed medical care (even healthy people eventually get sick), and your doctor was busy treating some fat guy's heart problem and you died on the hospital bed, you wouldn't be too happy would you

 

[Shadylookin]

if that technicality means you stuffed yourself silly all your life and your obesity caused your health problem, then you would only have yourself to blame

on the other hand, if you lived healthfully your entire life and one day needed medical care (even healthy people eventually get sick), and your doctor was busy treating some fat guy's heart problem and you died on the hospital bed, you wouldn't be too happy would you

I don't care if I smoked 50 Cuban Cigars a day, snorted cocain, ate greasy McDonalds Hamburgers for breakfast lunch and dinner, had a constant BAC of .2, and kicked 3 puppies every morning if I paid for medical care I want it.

Most hospitals are better staffed and baring emergencies most surgeries are schedueled and it wouldn't kill you to wait a few hours, in the meantime I'd take advantage of the morphine my insurance company will be paying for at a price that's 100 times higher than it takes to make the stuff. If I died I would cease to exist and so would my feelings of anger and shouts that I hope the obese man dies choking on a chicken bone.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I think we have to be the first nation in history who's poor people are fat.

You might have been that. Today, obesity is more common among the lower social strata in the entire developed world, and the rest is heading there.

 

[CenturionV]

Two excellent points!

I think we have to be the first nation in history who's poor people are fat.

Personally, I think the fat/obese epidemic is Darwinism and / or population control. Nature's way of telling us that we might be getting carried away with her planet.

Doubtful, nature is not sentient, and cannot "decide" who survives and why.

I think its far more likely that alot of americans obesity problems come from lack of excersize and the idea that eating food, even bad food, is a good thing. You know your mother, always telling you to finish EVERYTHING on your plate, or your grandma continuosly offering you anything she has in the fridge. Now this might have been fine back in the day when your would burn 20,000 calories on hard physical labor in the feilds every day, and the vast majority of people lived out of cities, but its not suprising that very technologically advanced nations, with the majority of there people living in cities, a constant battle for more "time" and "speed" in everything (including food), the absence of much physical work, and the fact that classic society has always says to eat 3 meals a day, and to eat everything you take, that were getting over weight.

When my grandpa was a kid (during the depression) used to be that you did not really go looking for excersise, it found you, and there was no place to hide. Now we need to factor excersise in like work as its own activity. And alot of people are not just making the cut anymore.

I'm talking from the opinion of somebody who has the same problem as I weigh about 255-260 at only 6'4 and without any bulging muscles...

 

[Mise]

I had heard Houston.

I heard it was Springfield.