Why Americans are so Obese

[Pix]

Sorry, I have to post this to delete a draft so I can reply to someone else and has nothing to say.

[Pix]

I'd have to agree with some of you with schools having a bit of the blame. After I graduated from high school and started college/got a part time job, I lost 15 lbs without doing any exercising (outside of anything I did at work) and only one change to my diet.

I stopped eating school lunches. I swear I have never seen anything so unhealthy. My school had a changing food schedule, so on Mondays you could get a salad, or a burrito, or a slice of pizza. It went on through the week, but every day they served pizza. Peperoni and a changing flavor.

The pizza was good-sized, i think they made it at one foot long and cut it into 6 slices. But as the helpful poster hidden behind the counter, with very small print, showed: One slice Peperoni Pizza: 1350* calories.

The asterisk led to a note that said: approximate value. Since the cafeteria workers made it themselves from per-packaged ingredients it could be (and thus probably was) even more unhealthy, More than half the suggested daily intake of a healthy person in one slice of pizza. Who's good idea was that?

My school was similar. The school pizza left grease stains and I thought tasted kinda like cardboard. They also had a snack bar which sold pizzas but they weren't better (less greasy, but it was also microwave, need I say more?)

Thing is schools make sweetheart deals with food companies who are thus able to sell all kinds of junk food either through the cafeteria or through snack bars & vending machines. They have a harder time getting away with that now (so I don't know how easy they can get away selling really bad and unhealthy pizza now) but it's still a factor. They have creative (and dishonest) ways to make a school meal seem healthier than it is and then there's plain corruption. For example, a milk company that normally sold milk to schools a nickel a carton got someone on a school board who then agreed to pay a quarter per carton. That's the kind of crap that goes on and can inflict poor food choices on kids.

And back when I was 14 I was 1 of 2 who was determined not to be overweight. That said, I was under doctor's orders to gain weight as I literally didn't have enough body fat to maintain puberty while the other girl was being treated for anorexia (we were both "healthy" by BMI standards, showing me there's a good reason why BMI is pretty much discredited now, though at least in my case my muscles gained from doing farm labor and athletic hobbies might've thrown it off as BMI doesn't account for the fact that muscle weighs more than fat). And one reason I see is that the both of us did not eat school food!

I couldn't help but notice that the rare times I took to eating caf food or using their snack bar that my face had a tendency to break out. That was so consistent that I'm sure it's not a coincidence.

[Deryn]

My school was similar. The school pizza left grease stains and I thought tasted kinda like cardboard. They also had a snack bar which sold pizzas but they weren't better (less greasy, but it was also microwave, need I say more?)

Oh, the grease. I forgot about that. My school handed the slices out on pieces of wax paper. By the time you got to a table the paper was pretty much completely see-through. Most days they served it with two pieces of wax paper because it was just too much grease.

We didn't have too much of outside company control (I think, no real way to know I guess), but we did have a snack bar that sold things like Pringles, slushies, and other junky snacks.

Most days I wouldn't eat lunch, unless I was starving, and would wait until I got home and had a sandwich or something. The issue was pretty much all the other meals tasted horrible, so I ended up eating the pizza. Unhealthy as it was, it didn't taste too bad.

[BeautifulBlue]

my brother in law pointed out it was for the over weight americans who will not or cannot walk around

Yeah... you see these motorized carts/vehicles which are supposed to be for the TRULY disabled and the overweight people use them. Now, I don't discount that SOME overweight people CANNOT get around. I get that. But if you're just lazy and don't want to walk around, that's a completely different story. It ALWAYS pisses me off when I'm in the store when I see these people on motorized carts step off them and start walking entire aisles to chase their children/etc., then get back on their carts shortly thereafter. It's like, 'Really? You can run after your children, but you can't WALK through the store?'

It's just so disheartening.

[Buffylo]

One thing I have to share, just so this doesn't look so one-sided...

obesitymyths dot com

I can't post links -_-

[Pix]

Oh, the grease. I forgot about that. My school handed the slices out on pieces of wax paper. By the time you got to a table the paper was pretty much completely see-through. Most days they served it with two pieces of wax paper because it was just too much grease.

We didn't have too much of outside company control (I think, no real way to know I guess), but we did have a snack bar that sold things like Pringles, slushies, and other junky snacks.

Most days I wouldn't eat lunch, unless I was starving, and would wait until I got home and had a sandwich or something. The issue was pretty much all the other meals tasted horrible, so I ended up eating the pizza. Unhealthy as it was, it didn't taste too bad.

I normally took a PBJ. Ever since I was a kid PBJs have been to me what ramen noodles have been to others.

But anyway it looks as if our pizza experiences were similar and I wonder how similar they are across the country (and other countries?). As I said mine tasted kinda like cardboard and this KP ep suggests it's very common at :30 where it's referred to as "cardboard caf pizza":




His licking his plate (tray?) suggested it was really greasy, too. And belching was really common, another reason I didn't drink sodas back then and avoided caf food.

Ah, the experiences that unite us, almost like rites of passage.

[TLC1970JAN]

OMG.. What a topic. Well here goes my take.

Everything is always about economy! When you look at our "Food Pyramid" the calorie requirements at approximately 2500/day and most people being sedentary burning only 1200 calories... even those people who wish to eat healthy using the "food pyramid" are destined to gain weight.

I feel the food pyramid is a scam in order to project stock market prices telling people to buy more of this and that in order to boost economy and know where the raise will be (if you're in the know) one makes a killing.

Beyond that "everything is processed" additives to make things last longer, etc. Who knows what side effects preservatives have.

I could go on and on (probably already have) One of my pet peeves. But thanks for letting me vent a bit.

[archubbycub]

As an overweight American, I would just like to say that diet and exercise don't always have anything to do with the fact that a person is overweight. I know several people who have tried everything under the sun to loose weight and have been unsuccessful. At best they have lost weight only to gain it all right back. I myself have tried several diet/exercise programs in the past and have only managed to loose a total of 40 pounds at the most. I'm not saying that every overweight person is that way because of health/hormones/genetics, but on the other hand, we're also not all a product of lifestyle as well.

[BabyPolarBear]

You'll do know that Australia is now the most obese nation.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/austra...-2tfo.html
SUCK ON THAT AUSTRALIANS

[warmpixels]

High fructose corn syrup and refined sugar. Nothing else. It numbs down your taste buds, so that you'll need more.