Why Americans are so Obese

[pellaz]

google ( "America: Where being obese is genetic and being gay is a choice!" ) //maybe this is close??
http://www.facebook.com/johnnyboyxo/post...omments=12
so was it JohnnyBoyXo

see the video
http://madamejenkins.tumblr.com/

[ceez]

I think most of it comes from the average work week going to 50 hours or more and since fast food is so convenient for people on the go it's what we eat the most and why I started packing my lunch for work. plus it's hard to get up and exercise after working all day. and of course there are the fat lazy bastards like the people I live with, my uncle ways 350+ lbs with a ton of health problems and swears he's going to loose weight even though he made himself a double cheese burger for dinner tonight but its ok because he made it on a George Forman grill :mad:

[Story]

It's a multiple of factors. Fast food being cheaper than healthy food, tastier, fatter and faster as well. People unwilling to change their lifestyles such as eating better/working out. Post depression thinking with parents emphasizing to kids to finish their entire meal and of course portion sizes being way out of control

[Bowyn Aerrow]

Serving size on the can, box, jar whatever is based on calories. It is not based on how much food makes you feel full. When we buy store bought canned corn one can passes as a serving for two people - I think 3.5 is what is labeled.

A can of store bought corn has roughly 210 calories for the whole can. A can of home canned corn has roughly 160 calories.

Their Recipe for canned corn: Water, Corn, Sugar (for flavor)
My Recipe for canned corn: Water and Corn (no sugar, the corn is sweet enough)

They add 50 calories - hidden calories. They add a tad over one tablespoon of sugar to a can of corn (a tbsp of sugar is 45 calories).

Same volume of food, but theirs contains more calories than mine.

The FDA diet is not a healthy diet. The 'new' food pyramid is not a nutritional pyramid, it is still very much an economic pyramid, in that it pushes off grains as being a larger part of the diet.

That would be great if everyone ate whole grains, but they don't. Instead they eat enriched, bleached white flour. A whole generation was raised on Wonder Bread which was passed off as being high in nutrients and good for you. Today with slightly stricter standards Wonder Bread's selling points of nutritionally good for you have gone away.

Frosted Flakes makes for a great start in a child's day. It is enriched with nutrients, and has everything your kid needs to get a healthy start to the day. Add milk and its a complete nutritional meal. Just watch the commercial that runs in the morning between cartoons about a dozen times vying with other breakfast cereals.

What the commercial doesn't tell you that a serving size is 1/2 cup and has a lot of calories from all of that sugary frosting. Most kids pour a huge bowl and eat until full that is 2-3 box recommended servings for one meal. So instead of getting just 110 calories they are getting 220 or 330 calories for one "meal" And that doesn't include the calories from the milk.

Fats are the really bad guys when it comes to the calories.

There is around 100 calories in a tablespoon of fat (it ranges depending on the fat). 1 cup (us) contains 16 tablespoons.

A cup of whole corn (no sugar added) is 140 calories.

If you ate a cup of fat that is about 1600 calories. To eat that many calories in corn you would need to eat about 11 and a half cups of corn.

Tell me, which would fill you fastest with the same amount of calories a cup of fat or 11.5 cups of whole kernel corn?

Americans really do not eat more per volume than other nations (we do throw out more - a lot more - for shame). Most of us eat until full - the real difference is in the calorie content of the majority of foods we eat, most of which is boosted with added fats and sugars.

Humans are designed to eat until their belly feels full. It is how all animals are designed. The body does not register how many calories are in what you are eating, it registers the volume of stuff you are stuffing into your gullet.

I eat 6 servings of fruit and veg a day - this is my mandatory preset food source. If I ate just apples, that is about 6 cups of food A cup of apples has 65 calories. That is about 390 calories.

Granted I do not eat just apples, I eat celery, corn, beans, oranges, bananas, etc.

I consume at the most 400 calories in fruit and veg a day - probably less when we consider that a cup of celery only has 19 calories.

http://www.trulyhuge.com/vegetable-calories.html Gives a rather complete list of caloric intake for more vegs.

A snickers bar has 271 calories - I can eat 4 cups of apple slices to get the same amount of calories. I would have to eat 4 snickers bars to equal a cup, in order to get as much volume as my apples I would have to eat 16 snickers bars that equals 4336 calories. Based on a 2000 calorie per day diet, that means I'm getting over 2 days of calories.

To get 2000 calories out of apples I would have to eat 30 cups of apples. That is roughly 15 pounds of apples. I hope I'm hungry :o

No one lays it out like this.

From birth onward we are programmed to accept things like sugar coated breakfast cereals as being a really good start to your day. Few people actually measure out a single serving of Frosted Flakes - most take a bowl and fill it, add milk - eating by volume of what makes them full which is often twice to three times the 'recommended dosage' per serving.

We are told that hamburger Helper is a quick, easy, nutritious meal. If we read the package we find that a single box contains 5 servings. 5? really? A serving is 1/3rd cup and this is a complete, nutritious meal? No one is full with 1/3rd cup of anything. One servings contains 110 calories

The stomach holds about 1 cups when full. In order to actually fill your stomach you will need to eat 3 servings of hamburger helper - that is 330 calories :o.

That last assumes you haven't stretched out your stomach eating three large meals a day. Most Americans have bought into the three meals a day concept, not understanding that we are actually grazers. Our species developed on noshing constantly through the day. Thus the size of the stomach is relatively small, getting full with just a cup. Most Americans (and other cultures) need 3 cups to feel full.

Sure we blame Mc Donald's and other easy targets, the reality is that most of the foods we eat have been proceeded and have had cheap calories added so the food seller can package smaller portions and pass it off as being able to serve more people than what that volume of food actually satisfies.

[avidcyclistMTB]

Do you know where this comes from? I looked it up but every place I clicked on gave a different source. I'd like to give proper credit for it if I could.

Sorry Pix, I couldn't find the source either. I saw it on FB. I'll see if I can find it again and maybe there will be credit, but I doubt it.

[East]

I don't understand why everyone says healthy and fresh food is more expensive than crap? Maybe it is a geographical thing.

This morning at the farmers market I got

8 bananas
14 white peaches
2 pineapples
2 red peppers
1 green pepper
3 yellow peppers
3 beets
3 leeks
6 avocados
4 jumbo artichokes
cauliflower
a branch of brussel sprouts
some pecans

...and a few other things I forgot...

for 23.00

...I fail to see how a bunch of crap could possibly could be cheaper.

[Blake1122]

It is true that our country doesn't make it easy to help their people eat healthier. When I try to eat healthy it brakes the bank. We hear all the time on our news about how obese we are but yet they don't do anything about the food prices. If the news wants to gripe about how fat we are then they need to push for more affordable programs to help us eat healthier. Also same goes for Michelle Obama. She wants us to eat healthier than pay my grocery bill or make it cheaper. Just yesterday I went to MC Donald's and I ordered a small drink. They were like if you get a large drink then its cheaper. In my head im like SHIT don't tell me that. I went ahead and got the large. It has to do with self control also. It was my fault to because I didn't use self control but, It was cheaper and you got a lot more. Its a difficult situation and needs to be taken care of fast.

[ardus]

This is a topic near and dear to my heart. I was at one point pretty overweight. I'm 5'6" and I maxed out during my bad times at 205 pounds. Insane. I got there for a variety of reasons, but that's not really germaine here. The way I got healthy again, I'm now anywhere between 160 and 165 on any given day, was I had to relearn the way I looked at food.
I had to learn to look at portions realistically, and I think that's where most Americans go wrong. Plus I stopped drinking things like sodas and energy drinks, which are nothing but sugars in a can. When I plan my meals, I try and ensure that 50% of my plate is vegetable, and the other 50% I divide between meats and grains. I try to ensure I eat as much whole grain as possible, wheat pasta, no simple white breads, long grain or wild rice, oatmeal, etc. With meats I eat a lot of fish, I still eat all the kinds of meat, beef, pork, chicken, lamb, veal, etc, but I've discovered the difference between loading a plate up with meat and having enough meat.
Fast food, BAD. I will occaisonally indulge in something like Arbys because it tastes good, but I normally stay away. I drink a lot of water, and I make sure I excercise as much as I can. That's all it takes. Most people think that they can "Diet", they are trying to make a temporary change. It's not a temporary change it's a lifetime change.
Richard

[pellaz]

If your trying to hold down the calories to an absolute minimum you have to eat just the right foods. It weird walking into a big supermarket and find so little food you can eat. Its a big eye opener why people are so fat.

Reference my graph i put in here above.
True the US and Mexico lead the planet but there were a few other countries not doing so well either. Oddly France was ok, Japan was the best.

[Nick9]

I don't understand why everyone says healthy and fresh food is more expensive than crap? Maybe it is a geographical thing.

This morning at the farmers market I got

8 bananas
14 white peaches
2 pineapples
2 red peppers
1 green pepper
3 yellow peppers
3 beets
3 leeks
6 avocados
4 jumbo artichokes
cauliflower
a branch of brussel sprouts
some pecans

...and a few other things I forgot...

for 23.00

...I fail to see how a bunch of crap could possibly could be cheaper.

wow I would never be able to buy all this for 23 dollars. lucky you