So what is making people from the USA so fat?

[Quaidis]

What makes it worse is that the processed foodstuffs are cheaper than the healthy foods. A lot of people/families really can't eat better AND makes ends meet from paycheck to paycheck.

This is really the crux of the issue. In order to have an 'optimal' diet, an American, on average, would spend nearly 8k a year more on food than if they had a moderately healthy diet (No fast food, etc) ((My own findings, nothing official))

When being healthy (Gym fees, increased utility bills, etc) is financially unsupportable, you tend to not be so healthy.

I would like to call major bullshit on both these statements.

Ppl all over the world manage to eat healthy with MUCH less buying power than the average low-income american family.

same goes for any nonsense excuse of gym fees and increased utility bills(wtf??)...anyone can work out without spending a single dime. You don't need fancy equipment or a professional trainer to do sit-ups and go for a jog.

I was going to post something similar, but instead I'll just agree with you.

One only needs to go to a farmer's market or the produce&meats aisle of a grocery and they can fill up the cart two to three times fuller on healthy basic ingredients than touching the rest of the store (on the same amount of money). People can also start a garden and grow their own food.

Exercise is not limited to gyms and... Whatever else the one guy said. It's easy to get exercise. Simply go outside.



Which really brings up an interesting question. A few people in this thread have stated that Americans live miles away from places. Why not just walk those miles? Or walk to a bus stop? Or bike? It doesn't take years to take on a few miles, only minutes. By that logic, you'd think that everyone would be thinner.

 

[Dags90]

Which really brings up an interesting question. A few people in this thread have stated that Americans live miles away from places. Why not just walk those miles? Or walk to a bus stop? Or bike? It doesn't take years to take on a few miles, only minutes. By that logic, you'd think that everyone would be thinner.

Public transit is underfunded across most of the U.S. due to the large amounts of automobiles. It's generally restricted for major cities, and commuting to them. As a New Jersey resident, the only way I know of getting anywhere by bus is to take some variation of bus to/from New York City.

Speaking of New York City. Where do you people think you can find a supermarket in poor urban areas like say, Harlem?

Here, let me Google that for you.
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&safe=off&q=shoprite+nyc&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1920&bih=913&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl

 

[Freechoice]

Overeating and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle. You guys drive everywhere and your portions are huge[footnote]At fast food joints and the like. Also, food seemed cheaper when I went so you could get a lot of it[/footnote]

His flag is red, yellow and green, dude.

Also, your avatar.

 

[Quaidis]

Overeating and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle. You guys drive everywhere and your portions are huge

His flag is red, yellow and green, dude.

Also, your avatar.

To be fair, when I first made the thread my flag was USA colors at random (I don't remember setting it up like that, or even remember giving myself a flag, but you can do crazy things while drunk.) When I read his post I noticed it was wrong and fixed.

 

[MPerce]

I can only talk about how we eat here in the South, but I think it's a combination of everything being so spread out we have to drive everywhere, relatively low income, and the cultural importance of frying EVERYTHING.

 

[Freechoice]

Overeating and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle. You guys drive everywhere and your portions are huge

His flag is red, yellow and green, dude.

Also, your avatar.

To be fair, when I first made the thread my flag was USA colors at random (I don't remember setting it up like that, or even remember giving myself a flag, but you can do crazy things while drunk.) When I read his post I noticed it was wrong and fixed.

That's weird. Also, to answer your question, American news generally takes precedence because American media never has anything good to report and the prominence thus shifts to off-topic crap.

Look at this page [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Obesity_by_country] on wiki. Notice the US has a subcategory page. We publicize the shit out of everything we do so naturally, everyone knows we're fat.

What everyone doesn't know is that so is everyone else. [http://www.forbes.com/2007/02/07/worlds-fattest-countries-forbeslife-cx_ls_0208worldfat_2.html]

 

[Quaidis]

Overeating and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle. You guys drive everywhere and your portions are huge

His flag is red, yellow and green, dude.

Also, your avatar.

To be fair, when I first made the thread my flag was USA colors at random (I don't remember setting it up like that, or even remember giving myself a flag, but you can do crazy things while drunk.) When I read his post I noticed it was wrong and fixed.

That's weird. Also, to answer your question, American news generally takes precedence because American media never has anything good to report and the prominence thus shifts to off-topic crap.

Look at this page [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Obesity_by_country] on wiki. Notice the US has a subcategory page. We publicize the shit out of everything we do so naturally, everyone knows we're fat.

What everyone doesn't know is that so is everyone else. [http://www.forbes.com/2007/02/07/worlds-fattest-countries-forbeslife-cx_ls_0208worldfat_2.html]

There, I edited the flag off completely so I'm back in the safety of anonymity. No more of this "What weird, obscure little patch of Earth are you from?", "Oh, I'm from the land of cold borsch!"

oO What's with the weird publicity? There are some things to publicize, and some things to keep to ones self. I don't see how the media telling everyone that America is full of fat people is something that's going to help the country as whole, or is in any way interesting? The Detroit fires thing and the American issue with conservatives is far more entertaining. It's kind of like 'This just in: France uses the least amount of shavers in the world.' Who wants to read that? Both are rather disgusting.


Edit - edited my example to make more sense.

Edited again - to fix major post fail.

 

[Freechoice]

Overeating and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle. You guys drive everywhere and your portions are huge

His flag is red, yellow and green, dude.

Also, your avatar.

To be fair, when I first made the thread my flag was USA colors at random (I don't remember setting it up like that, or even remember giving myself a flag, but you can do crazy things while drunk.) When I read his post I noticed it was wrong and fixed.

That's weird. Also, to answer your question, American news generally takes precedence because American media never has anything good to report and the prominence thus shifts to off-topic crap.

Look at this page [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Obesity_by_country] on wiki. Notice the US has a subcategory page. We publicize the shit out of everything we do so naturally, everyone knows we're fat.

What everyone doesn't know is that so is everyone else. [http://www.forbes.com/2007/02/07/worlds-fattest-countries-forbeslife-cx_ls_0208worldfat_2.html]

oO What's with the weird publicity? There are some things to publicize, and some things to keep to ones self.

That's not what America thinks. Any news that's bad news is good news. If we can feel better about ourselves by reading about other people's misfortunes, we probably will. The exception is when that person is poor or didn't deserve it.

If you can make money off of something and no one can prove you did anything wrong, you're cleared to do it. Ask Rupert Murdoch. People find interesting the most ridiculous shit. Maybe it's because journalism is good at making uninteresting news interesting or maybe we just like hearing dumb things, but Americans have no problem hearing that we're fat.

Oh, and when fat news is run, there is sometimes advice on how not be a fatass, but it doesn't involve bacon so fuck it.

 

[zeit]

All the food in America is processed and loaded with the bare minimum of actual nutrients; the rest of it is (literally) sawdust, corn syrup, and a long list of mysterious chemicals. Not just McDonalds and Jack in the Box either, I mean nearly everything. Everyone in the grocery stores that isn't in the produce or raw meats section is processed sludge with filler material added to give it a non-disgusting texture. People need to eat a balance of different nutrients, but in the US they are eating this crappy food that doesn't give them everything they need. They don't feel satiated so they eat more, and they end up being overweight and malnourished all at the same time.

 

[Dryk]

I'm pretty sure that "mysterious chemicals" wouldn't be approved for sale. Maybe "chemicals that nobody tells people about and that we haven't bothered to research for ourselves" though.

 

[godfist88]

Overeating and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle. You guys drive everywhere and your portions are huge[footnote]At fast food joints and the like. Also, food seemed cheaper when I went so you could get a lot of it[/footnote]

what he said, also they put a lot of processed corn in our food so that contributes.

 

[Yan007]

Mostly carbohydrates and vegetable fats. People have no idea how bad these are, regardless of how good it is in terms of general quality (as in whole wheat bread is better than plain white bread). If you follow the gov. guidelines on how much carbs you need a day, no wonder you get fat and get heart diseases.

 

[lacktheknack]

Absolutely no other country puts so much work into making their food as unhealthy as possible.

After all, "Texans Deep-Fry All The Things" is a stereotype for a reason...

 

[zeit]

I'm from Texas and we're actually more into BBQ

 

[5ilver]

Well, let's see what comes to mind.

Healthy food has a more bland, boring taste and costs *a lot* more.

Going out for a jog or visiting a gym while overweight is considered taboo and socially unacceptable (<-makes me scratch my head-how are fat people supposed to lose that weight without access to a gym or jogging?!). Really, doing *ANYTHING* while obese is socially unacceptable.

There's a lot of "I'm not fat, I'm just curvy/beautiful as I am.". I don't mind people being happy with how they look-the issue is when they're obviously using it as an excuse and not really believing it.

A lot of americans feel they *need* and deserve a car for everything, from going grocery shopping to visiting a friend in another state. Yeah, maybe the US really is that big but even then- there's these things called bicycles. Come oooon, *try* to make an example for the kids.

A lot of people believe running/lifting weights/etc. will either make them unattractive (too much muscles+sweat) or feel like torture. This one makes me sad as any sort of physical work feels SO MUCH BETTER than sitting at home.

 

[Dense_Electric]

I would imagine the same thing that makes anyone in any country fat - too much food and too little exercise. Why is this even a question? Biology doesn't give two shits which country you're from, if you never get off the couch you're going to weigh a ton.

 

[Yan007]

I challenge anyone here to cut down carbs under 100g/day and to remove vegetable oils from their diet while eating meat and animal/saturated fats such as coconut oil to NOT lose weight. By cutting down on sugar (carbs), your metabolism will be more efficient and store less calories as fat.

It's not only that people eat too much, also that they've been utterly lied to.

 

[TheMann]

That's weird. Also, to answer your question, American news generally takes precedence because American media never has anything good to report and the prominence thus shifts to off-topic crap.

Look at this page [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Obesity_by_country] on wiki. Notice the US has a subcategory page. We publicize the shit out of everything we do so naturally, everyone knows we're fat.

What everyone doesn't know is that so is everyone else. [http://www.forbes.com/2007/02/07/worlds-fattest-countries-forbeslife-cx_ls_0208worldfat_2.html]

Yeah, pretty much this. In reality, Americans aren't that more or less fat than most other Western nations. But unfortunately, the media here likes to play up things like this to get them ratings. Also consider that weight loss here is an industry. I can't even count the number of ads I've seen for some diet that will help you lose weight, or some magic piece of exercise equipment that will help you drop X number of pounds so the opposite sex will find you suddenly attractive. If people can't be convinced that they're chunky in the first place, this sort of shit wouldn't sell nearly as well. Also, politicians are starting to use this as a issue to gain favor with voters, which is really despicable. "Our children are fat and I'm going to do something about it, dammit.", which leads to over-regulation to the point of absurdity. There was a case in Arizona where a girl wasn't allowed to eat the lunch that her mother packed for her, because it was deemed to be not nutritious enough by the school. So they wanted to force her to buy a school lunch, but she didn't have money on her for that, so she went hungry that day. Oh, and this girl was not fat in the least.

It's an over blown issue, mostly done for some people's personal gain. I suspect that by the time US news filters overseas, all that's left is the sensationalist stuff.