Who to BLAME for obesity?

M

melimcn

Cathlete
Is anyone else sick of this argument?
I just read this in the paper today:

"Much obesity is the result of genetics and the environment. Yet we're blaming individuals when the food environment is the problem." Twenty years ago, the Rand specialist said, you didn't find food everywhere. Today it's at the gas station, the hardware store, the carwash and the bookstore. "The most readily available and most heavily promoted food is the least nutritious. Eating is an automatic response to cues from our environment. The brain is wired to respond to cues, and those in the food industry have become exceptionally good at triggering those cues." She advocates more regulation of the food industry and of restaurants.

I don't disagree that there are individuals out there that are subject to poor genetics, and have health issues that cause obesity. But by and large, we are a society of free will that refuses to admit it. We refuse to take responsiblity for our behavior. I'm so sick of hearing how evil fast food chains are. Just becuase the candy bar is in front of you, does NOT mean that you have to eat it.

Sorry, just had to rant on this. If nothing else, it's inspired me to eat a healthy lunch and work out just a little longer today.

Happy Tuesday everyone!
 
I totally agree! People need to realize that it is their choice. (I love the "automatic response" point -- what the ****?) The culture is so food-centred that people forget that (a) they don't need to give in every single time; (b) they aren't missing out on anything if they say no once in awhile!

I was thinking about this the other day while packing my daughter's lunch. She is in grade 2. She needs to take a lunch plus two snacks with her. When I was a kid in the 1960s, we had a snack (cookie and milk) in kindergarten, but by the time you got to grade 1, there was no such thing as snack time. You came to school having eaten breakfast, you had a good-sized lunch at noon, then maybe you would have an apple or something when you came home, if you were hungry. Most of the time my daughter doesn't even eat both her snacks. But I sure hear about it (from the teacher) if I don't pack two snacks for her! All kids' activities now seem to include snacks. These kids certainly aren't getting any practice in doing without food for a few hours.

Stebby
 
It's my own fault that I'm overweight, period. I have the power to say no to myself, I just haven't been exercising much self control lately. But that is all going to change starting tomarrow. But tonight I'm going to enjoy my birthday dinner that my mom invited me to, I just didn't have the heart to say no to her.
 
I personally choose to blame these two men.

Twinkie.jpg
 
Obsesity is a psychological issue as well as a physical, societal, genetic and environmental issue. I have huge emotional eating issues, and that's really just the beginning of my issues with food. Food was and is a coping mechanism for me - but for 20 years I ate it then threw it up as a corollary coping mechanism. Now I just eat it and work it off.

Of course we have free will and should take personal responsibility for the food we put in our mouths and the choices that we make. However, it is not so simple as to "just say no". Telling people like me to just stop overeating would not be in the slightest bit effective in dealing with the obesity problem and really, it's not very compassionate towards your fellow suffering human beings - because to be obese is to suffer. I don't know a single obese individual who is truly happy with their physical selves and who wouldn't lose weight if they could just figure out a way to do so that would work for them and didn't make them want to kill themselves.
 
Stebby - another problem I find with the kids in school is that they see all the junk that the other kids have and then they want it, too. All of my kids were perfectly happy with their healthy lunches until they saw what other kids brought to school. After that, it always became a battle because my kids wanted their lunches to be like the other kids' and I didn't. I'd send a "treat" and even that wasn't enough. It's so frustrating! And the teachers give out candy and there are regular birthday treats and class parties that are loaded with junk and it just goes on and on. :mad: By the way, Stebby - I don't know if you remember me or not from when we were pregnant with our dd's together on the fitmoms forum years ago. :)

Morningstar - I can totally relate to your post. I've suffered with eating disorders for as long as I can remember - anorexia, bulimia, binge eating and compulsive overeating. Eating (or not eating) has always been my way of coping.

Erica
 
I recently finished reading "The End of of Overeating" by David A. Kessler, MD, former commissioner of the FDA. It covers all of the issues ranted about here and more. I found it interesting and uniquely informative.
 
morningstar said:
Obsesity is a psychological issue as well as a physical, societal, genetic and environmental issue. I have huge emotional eating issues, and that's really just the beginning of my issues with food. Food was and is a coping mechanism for me - but for 20 years I ate it then threw it up as a corollary coping mechanism. Now I just eat it and work it off.

Of course we have free will and should take personal responsibility for the food we put in our mouths and the choices that we make. However, it is not so simple as to "just say no". Telling people like me to just stop overeating would not be in the slightest bit effective in dealing with the obesity problem and really, it's not very compassionate towards your fellow suffering human beings - because to be obese is to suffer. I don't know a single obese individual who is truly happy with their physical selves and who wouldn't lose weight if they could just figure out a way to do so that would work for them and didn't make them want to kill themselves.
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DITTO!!!!!!!!!

I am always so disappointed in myself all the time that I can't seem to get anything (escept FAT!!!) to stick. I understand it is my choices that made me this way. I don't blame fast food companies. I blame myself. However, it isn't helpful for everyone else to point fingers at me as well and tell me to blame myself!

Carrie
 
morningstar said:
Obsesity is a psychological issue as well as a physical, societal, genetic and environmental issue. I have huge emotional eating issues, and that's really just the beginning of my issues with food. Food was and is a coping mechanism for me - but for 20 years I ate it then threw it up as a corollary coping mechanism. Now I just eat it and work it off.

Of course we have free will and should take personal responsibility for the food we put in our mouths and the choices that we make. However, it is not so simple as to "just say no". Telling people like me to just stop overeating would not be in the slightest bit effective in dealing with the obesity problem and really, it's not very compassionate towards your fellow suffering human beings - because to be obese is to suffer. I don't know a single obese individual who is truly happy with their physical selves and who wouldn't lose weight if they could just figure out a way to do so that would work for them and didn't make them want to kill themselves.
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Agreed. Too many people like to take the high and mighty road and say, bad, bad, bad fat people, but there is so much involved with obesity, and honestly, putting it all on an obese person's shoulder is not going to help the problem. Some people DO gain weight much easier than others, and people who do not have metabolisms that easily burn it off just do not understand this. Those of us who try to "eat like a thin person" and barely are able to sustain a weight that is considered overweight by many should not be disdained.

Also, our society is filled with readily available cheap unhealthy foods. It is like locking a smoker in a room filled to the top with free cartons of cigarettes and say stay in here, and quit smoking. Of course the smoker does not need to smoke to live, the obese person still has to eat.

And we are also flooded with incorrect information and not everyone is educated on what is good for them. Take a look at sugary cereal boxes and tell me which one does NOT tell you it is good for you, full of vitamins and fiber, when the first ingredient is sugar. Believe me, there are people who truly do not understand this.

Sorry, but I do get tired of the high and mighty road that fitness boards take about obesity. It is a complex problem.
 
One question that I have, is how is it that this issue is, by and large, an issue in America? You just don't see other countries complaining about these same problems. People plagued by food. Yet that's one of the top issues discussed in America. I'm not suggesting that obese people do not exist outside of the US. But it's not the plague and drain on healthcare that it is here. Why is that?

Other countries have the same access to fast food. I've been to many, believe me, it's there. They have the same convenience stores with the same snacks available. And many of them (France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, etc...) have daily diets that begin and end with white starches and butter, etc...

How did we get like this?
 
Actually, other nations are catching up to the US very quickly. The US is #3, Germany is #4 etc. Check out this link:

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/commerce/091125/obesity-epidemic-fattest-countries?page=0,0

We're exporting our poor food habits to other countries. Mexico is also facing problems w/ obesity related health problems. It's becoming a worldwide health issue.


Morningstar and others who posted that pointing fingers at obese individuals does NOT help. ITA and hope that some advances are made in better understanding why this happens. There have been so many things added to our food supply in just a generation that are intended to fatten up production sources (bigger cows, chicken, farmed fish, more corn, more soy addictives) not to mention HFCS!

Scientists for food companies have worked very hard to make food taste more appetizing just like cigaratte companies have worked to make cigarettes more addictive! The same principals are at play here.
 
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In spite of my glib post earlier...

...I know this is a serious issue. When I think back to my early 20s, I absolutely shudder. I had NO IDEA how to evaluate my diet. I had no sense of how many calories I should eat, or what was healthy, or anything. At all. I wasn't overweight, but if I hadn't gone vegan and taken the initiative to educate myself about nutrtion and fitness, I would've been doomed.

I read an article in the Washington Post this weekend about a teenage girl whose family was part of a study on obesity. (The article can be seen here on Yahoo). The family had access to a nutrtionist and a personal trainer, they were active and seemed to really be trying, but it just didn't really work out. It was frustrating for me, just reading the article - it just seemed like anything really "clicked" with the people in the study, but it was also a little unclear whether they were even getting good information or not. Sigh.
 
EricaH said:
By the way, Stebby - I don't know if you remember me or not from when we were pregnant with our dd's together on the fitmoms forum years ago. :)

Erica
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Erica ... of course I remember you! Those were the days, huh? My goodness. Your DD must be 7 now too!

Stebby
 
there is a lot more to it then self control. i just finished reading politics of stupid by susan powter,yes that susan!, the former infomercial stop the insanity queen!!! she said the politics and sneaky ways the ads fool you from everything from diet pills to "convenient" foods. she says while we have to take control of our choices she understands its not the easy when the truth is hidden and buried under tricky ways to get you to buy buy buy products that don't work. don't be fooled by many programs on the infomercials either,the creators and those representing are not allowed to say everything they want to say, like DIET counts food choices count etc. they just say "this product will" and not everybody understands that its a false claim that its all individual b/c if they told you that you wouldn't buy their product.

the work is trying to change on thing at a time to take control. one "bad" food habit at a time, one day of exercise even one minute of exercise at a time! and that work is a long journey not an overnight process. so while we can say "oh obesity is high" we don't know how many ppl have actually lost weight or trying to get healthy again. we only see the black and white numbers that in between, there is no number out their for ppl that have improved over the last year etc.

obesity is an issue i agree but there is so much more then the black and white area we keep reading about.

kassia
 
melimcn said:
One question that I have, is how is it that this issue is, by and large, an issue in America? You just don't see other countries complaining about these same problems. People plagued by food. Yet that's one of the top issues discussed in America. I'm not suggesting that obese people do not exist outside of the US. But it's not the plague and drain on healthcare that it is here. Why is that?
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We are obsessed with food. Being all sanctimonious about food is the same disease with different symptoms. We determine how worthy we are by what we eat. It's a plague. We aren't controlling what we eat. What we eat is controlling us. Feeling pious or guilty about what you eat is a waste of time. It's only food. I refuse to believe I'm special because I eat broccoli or to feel guilty because I ate a Whopper. I don't want to live my life ruled by meal choices.
 
ldy_solana said:
don't be fooled by many programs on the infomercials either,the creators and those representing are not allowed to say everything they want to say, like DIET counts food choices count etc. they just say "this product will" and not everybody understands that its a false claim that its all individual b/c if they told you that you wouldn't buy their product.
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This is one of the many reasons why I love Cathe. She doesn't sell her product by claiming I'll lose x pounds and x inches by Friday or something equally ridiculous.
 
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