Why Does It Seem Like There Are More Obese People Now?
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against heavy people! As a matter of fact I can easily empathize with them. It's so easy to gain weight; especially after 40.
Food is everywhere, and it's tempting. The Pizza smells as good as it always does whether you're dieting or not. It may even smell better!
It's so easy to go to the refrigerator and serve yourself some pleasure!
Here's what I can't understand. Every year the weight loss industry grows, the supplement industry grows, and the fitness industry grows.
Each year there are more gyms and they are filled with people doing cardio, weights etc.
So, what's going on? Is it the additives in food? Is it simply people's lack of self control? It's a terrible dilemma for society as obesity is an epidemic! Even worse is childhood obesity!
If you have a logical answer to this vexing problem; please let me know. I can't seem to figure it out; it doesn't make sense!
Thanks
EDIT: 7/9/18 One of the response below mentioned GMO's. I think this definitely plays a role here. Also, we eat refined foods and processed foods.
Even good restaurants use processed foods so you can never be sure your diet is free of these.
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Just noticed John hasn't logged in for 3.5 months - wonder if he's alright?
It is very simple actually. Americans eat unhealthy and excessively. Our portion sizes are astronomical compared to Europe. Our food quality is horrendous. We over indulge on unhealthy processed foods that contain harmful ingredients that are banned throughout the world. The FDA is heavily influenced by corporations. It doesn't have our best interest in mind. Americans are addicted to sugar and high fructose corn syrup. They consume meats and dairy products full of hormones. They are lazy. Our society revolves are convenience may it be drive through, curb side pickup and delivery. Americans as a whole don't enjoy exercising. They rather take a magical pill and hope for the best. The problem won't get better. Fat people want to be accepted for their unhealthy lifestyles. They want the world to believe being fat is beautiful. This isn't the mentality of people who want a positive change.
Here is a view from the Asian/Middle Eastern perspective. Many people in these geographical areas were undernourished, lived in poverty and simply subsisted. As these countries have gradually developed from 3rd world towards first world, the availability of food has increased - but not to the extent that everyone is well fed. There is still abject poverty in many areas of these countries. As a result an attitude, which has become cultural, has developed whereby a chubby/fat person is regarded as 'well-fed' and prosperous. S/he has the means to eat however much they desire. That becomes an aspiration for so many poor/middle income people. Advertisements on television show very overweight kids eating junk food and the people think they are cute and want their kids to look the same. The obesity epidemic is not a Western phenomena - it's world wide - but for different cultural reasons.
John, don't post a post just to point to this post, it's redundantly stupid and self promoting. It has been deleted.
I apologize. I was trying to let the site know the great answers our members came up with. No harm intended.
was trying to
This only happens in America and Western EU. I travel a lot to eastern EU and Russia and most guys there are either jacked or healthyly thin, and the girls are smoking hot. Its rare to see a truly morbidly obese person down there, just dads with beer bellies at most
I love this post, so many intelligent answers. Just goes to show you that healthy body equals a healthy mind. I always preach this to my kids.
Yes; so many great responses!
Funny how people are bringing up poverty as a factor for obesity. Used to be poor people would be skinny because they couldn’t afford to eat enough to make them fat.
Just shows you how easy we have it as humans nowadays.
Everyone’s got an excuse.
I have to agree with there's a lack of exercise and diet. But we can't rule out lowered testosterone from all the chemicals (phthalates, BPA, ect.) that leach into food from processing or packaging that act like estrogen. I read some studies that showed mens testosterone fell 17% from the 1980's to 2000's (Thomas Travison PhD, of the New England Research Institute). Even though the study was just about men's test level drop, I believe there's so much toxicity in what we have grown up eating that society has already been handicapped to the fight on obesity among other things (diabetes, cancer, ect..). This cld be a big part of the prob.. imo
Laziness and crap food, to much tv and games consoles the list is endless
Where I live kids get taken by car to the bus stop.......
Excellent point!l
AnonCause merica'
The ladies prefer “ thick” , or curvy now. The guys just say they’re chubby, and compensate by growing a beard.....
All the reasons listed definitely have an impact. From social standing and poverty, to convenience, laziness, and upbringing.
It is more common, and more socially acceptable. But if I get busy as hell, and lose 2 pounds of muscle, everyone makes sure to let me know they noticed. Fat bastards.... lol.
LOL - yeah - that's so true. Some chubby fuck with arms the same girth as my ol' fella will say: What happened to your arms? Makes me want to punch him in the face just to show they are still working.
lol I know the feeling!
JayD718I just want to prefice is by saying, that I was overweight at one point in my life, but I decided that it was time to get healthy, and did something about it! Also, I have an aunt that has to be about 400lbs+, and suffers from many health ailments due to it.
I think there's multiple reasons behind this growing epidemic. One of the reasons has to be all of the shit they include in the food we eat like the sugar, saturated fats, and these sugar supplements that are supposed to be good for you, when they're actually not. I also think that with prosperity, everyone can afford to stuff there faces with all of these sugar and saturated fat laden foods. Unlike in third world countries, where people can't afford to just sit around and eat all day, while watching Jerry Springer and Judge Mathis! There, they need to conserve what little money they have, so they can provide all of life's necessities. In the western world, people don't have to choose between actual life necessities and the next package of cheese Danish! Don't get me wrong, although I'm not a 600lb guy, who's literally stuck in his own house, I've been guilty of eating like a pig at times in my life, like most of us have at some point.
We as a people, have become so tolerant and accepting of all these morbidly obese people in the world, like it's not their own fault, and treat them like they're some kind of victim! In our culture we don't even use the word "fat". We're too accepting of this, and maybe if we as a people, were to criticize and make being morbidly obese a very taboo way to live, it just might discourage some people from becoming like that. I don't mean criticize, as in taunting people as they walk down the street, but just not be so accepting, and criticize that lifestyle in general, on talk shows or in medical studies. I can't stand when people refer to morbidly obese people as "big and beautiful"!
Part of the blame also has to go to the companies that put all of this terrible shit in food, and to our government(or FDA or whatever), who's supposed to be regulating these foods. I mean, obesity affects like what, 1 in 3 people the western world? If these people can't control themselves and put down the forks, then I honestly think the government should step in and do something about it! Because these morbidly obese people aren't just causing harm to themselves, but they're causing indirect harm to all of us, and we're spending lot's of money on treatments and research for ailments and diseases that affect these people, when all of it could be going to better places! I can understand certain circumstances, like if you have some type of thyroid problem, or other genuine health problem that causes you to gain lots of weight without your control. However, if you just keep eating and eating, and gaining weight and gaining weight, then that's totally on you and you should do something about it!
And the saddest aspect of obesity, is when you see these parents that are just allowing their children to get obese, and think that there's no problem with it! Those are the real victims here that I truly feel bad for. Because it's not their fault, but instead it's the parent's fault for letting them eat all of that bad shit, or whatever the parents are doing, or more importantly not doing, that's causing these childern to become obese in the first place. And when they try and make excuses for why their children are obese, and how it's ot their fault, it really just makes me sick!
I really do feel for all of you obese people out there, and I especially feel so bad for the obese children! But, I really think that society really has to change the way we approach this epidemic. We have to take off the kitty gloves, and stop worrying so much about being politically correct.
Not that I disagree with u but I’d like to add a counter argument. From a neurological and biological standpoint the stuff in modern foods actually alter our bodies.
Pleasure and reward are determined in the brain by the limbic system which releases dopamine. Sugar releases about 50 units - same as nicotine, the most addictive drug. The reason being is a short half life. Meth has an output of about 1250 but a long half life. Ever get carb crashes? Half life. Toxic hunger. When fats and salt are added to high carb processed foods (especially high GI carbs) this increases output. Glutamate is kinda like the way pleasure is remembered. It gets released as well and starts the feedback loop thru the NA and VTA back to dopamine. It’s kinda like it’s own HPTA axis for dopamine.
Biologically when this happens our taste buds change and healthy foods that dont possess this combo don’t taste as good. We end up only getting pleasure from high carb/fat/salt foods and further the cycle. It continues since taste buds recycle often and only certain ones replicate. Interestingly things get worse when all taste buds start to die and food just doesn’t taste that good at all. Also the gut bioflora change based on what we eat. Eating these foods often feed certain bacteria that are linked to inflammation, fat gain, and mood disorders while the bacteria that does the opposite die. Usually at this point the person looks in the mirrror unhappily and continues eating for pleasure out of pain. The cycle just keeps compounding until it’s broken.
Some people are just more susecptable to the neurological rewiring than others thru genetics and environmental factors. I feel like this is overlooked when looking at fat people. It’s like drug addiction: easier to never start than stop. Btw congrats on breaking the cycle. My uncle was over 400 lbs and finally had enough.
I think everyone summed it up pretty well but I’ll add it’s in our genetics for this to happen. Back in primitive survival times good genetics that survived natural selection were the ones that favored fat storage to use during famine. Fast forward to modern times and our genetics have not changed but food is such an easy convenience.
Fat is easier to store as fat than carbs or protein so when every meal we eat contains large amounts of fat and carbs the insulin response just packs on the fat. It’s survival.
The code-ons mentioned by Shiva do get switched on and off. In particular, if I’m not mistaken, one called BDNF is our body’s most powerful antioxidant and turns off due to our diet. Due to the high inflammation, chronic stress occurs and furthers fat gain. Actually turmeric and I think curcumin have been shown to turn this off.
Processed foods coupled with laziness are obvious culprits. Our body’s aren’t designed to be so sedentary and eat such calorie dense foods. For example, look at any processed food and there will be some sort of processed grain, usually corn. Soda has high fructose corn syrup. Makwa pointed out in his thread how fructose is so similar to sugar but so much sweeter and yet is extremely easy to store as fat. This stuff is everywhere. Add in the hydrosolised vegetable oils and even the marketed “healthy” snacks and foods become bad for us. Between advertising and just the stuff in every isle of every grocery store it’s unavoidable.
On a side note I do not believe GMOs are bad. For example, some of the the genomes of the petunia were used in crop seeds because they possess a trait that deter pests.
Excellent points!
There seems like there are more fatties because there are more fatties.
Probably all of he processed carbs/food. And the fact that iit is WAYYY to easy to live now. People in turn are lazier than ever. And full of excuses.
Plus The average American diet is full of what’s essentially poison. And our government signed off on it all.
Weight gain and obesity has such a large huge spectrum as to its causes. Shiva pointed out a lot of the causes. Its hereditary, its laziness, its this its that, its even chemical imbalances in the body, Obesity goes by many names and has a thousand different faces. Thyroid problems run in my family. My Aunt could look at food and gain weight. It become such a problem for her she Finialy went and seen a Dr about it and got the help she needed. In a year and a half she lost close to a 100lbs. My dad has problems with is but his issues are the exact opposite as hers. Some people are just born to be big no matter their diet or exercise routine and some people like myself are destined to never be big. I could eat 10 meals a day everyday for the rest of my life and its still a up hill battle to put on and maintain weight. Everyone told me my whole life, " You just wait when you hit 40 you will gain like crazy" well here I am 39 and no where closer to packing on the weight as I was 20yrs ago and I sure as he'll dont think one more year will make a differences in my gaining. Its all up in the air. If one wants to gain or lose weight its strictly up to them and the amount of time and effort that they but in that determines their outcome unless one has weight loss surgery. All the fast food we eat these days plays a huge part in obesity as well.
The list can go on and on. There is not one or multiple reason for all people, it varies. Certain chemicals in food, and once you become obese there are code-ons in your genetics that turn off and on, this can then be passed on to offspring. Genetics don't always predetermine you being obese but if definitely increases your chances, especially when you don't lead a life with proper lifestyle choices. We live in a throw away culture and want immediate results and as easy as possible. People don't want to work hard at most things and you see that manifest in their job, relationship and physical appearance. I'm not condemning anyone for they way they look here, but I do find myself judging others when they completely disregard their health and give into the easy choice and become obese.
The pharmaceutical companies and improper medical practices play a role here too. Have you read how many medications have weight loss as a potential side effect? Also consider all the weight loss medications that have been used. These medications have resulted in further damage to the body metabolically, hormonally and otherwise. These practices are still going on today with the use of amphetamine based drugs and HCG.
Most of the methods that are common interventions for weight management are poor, at best. People don't want to take the time and put forth the effort to implement lifestyle choices that actually work.
Good read...+
The 'western diet'... it's a beaut!
All of the above bro
I think soda and other sugary drinks play a huge role.
I can back that for sure. My wife now use to drink Dr.pepper religiously, I mean 6 or 7 20z bottles a day some days a little less. She started to get UTI's and passing kidney stones on the regular. She stopped drink soda she might would drink a half to one whole drink a day. After about 3months she had lost 15lbs 6mths later she's down close to 30lbs. Now all she will drink is water and sometimes a little juice. She got massive headaches for the first couple of months but she said they worth suffering through in order to shed all them pounds.
I used to be able to eat anything and not put on fat. In my late 30’s, I started drinking soda for some reason. I put on a little over 30lbs of pure lard on my frame. Once I stopped, I lost most of it. It was a hard lesson, but I learned. Now I only drink water with meals. I’ll have a cola about once every few months, but that’s it.
I don’t think anything puts fat on like soda does. Most fat people drink tons of it, along with those coffee milkshakes from Starbucks. I also think that drinking lots of diet soda will do the same to you in the long run.
I agree. The diet soda have the same effect on me as regular. Doesn't make sense but it's true. If I want something I just drink water or tea with splenda.
I switched to diet drinks when I got off sugar sodas and lost some weight, but couldn’t loose it all. Once I dumped the diet sodas, I was finally able to get down to where I wanted.
Besides the weight, sodas just aren’t good for your health in my opinion. Water, tea, etc. are the way to go. I don’t miss soda at all.
Every can of soda has about seven teaspoons of sugar!
Excellent point and It’s easy to forget that, because it’s a liquid.
I know lots of people who “diet” and never seem to loose much weight. When I ask them about soda’s, they’re all drinking it, especially diet.
Diet soda especially diet coke will make you gain weight. The Aspartame messes up your metabolism!
That's awesome.
Yea, I was shocked to know that soda could cause one to gain so much weight.
Its like someone who smokes when they quit they tend to gain weight like crazy.
Double Post.
I can personally attest my eating habits were taught at an early age. The first pop/soda I ever drank was when I was a teenager and it damn near took my breath away with the carbonation. Instead of chocolate we were offered carob and dried fruits instead of candies. But as kids we would find a way to sneak to the country corner store and get a handful of penny candies. But to wrap this up back to the original question....I think eating habits come from our parents and this gives us our foundation as we move on.
Heaze2016If you watch tv there is fast food commercials, when you drive on the highway there is fast food billboards,when you get ads in the mail there coupons for fast food. It's all around us and there always pushing there product with billions of $ in advertising. That's the issue, and peoples lack of self control and time management. It takes 5 minutes to go thru a drive thru, but it'll take you 40-60 minutes at home to cook a meal properly.
+2 you can't go anywhere without some ad for food. It's need therapy. I sit at my computer and play a game or surf and not a single want for food. I go sit with the old lady and watch TV and I am bombarded with food commercials to the point I find myself making a sandwich or grabbing a piece of chicken e.t.c. if you go overseas and watch TV you see food commercials are very limited. No obesity because it's not shoved down their throats. 9.99 a pound for a nice swordfish steak, 1.99 for a pound of processed fat with cheese.
If we still had to chase and catch our food like the caveman did, this wouldn’t be a prob.....can u imagine how many calories it takes to chase, catch, n kill a brontosaurus? .....have u ever seen an obese caveman?
We all know that diet dictates weight gain/loss....or the cals in cals used saying, right?.... well imo, obesity ( for the most part mind you) , is a combo of many factors....quality, availability, convenience, or simply the I’ll do/eat what I want mentality because I’m special....you’re taught early on in school about basic nutrition so lack of education is a bullshit answer ( for the most part ),...people CHOOSE what they put into their body, so they can deal with consequences.....I know that quality foods can be expensive and not all can afford a spot on diet, but , a can of tuna is .30....rice is dirt cheap, canned veggies .25 a can..etc.....
I’m off to Zumba class and then the doughnut shop!...
This started with the microwave. We didn't have one until my senior year in high school. Back in those days if you wanted to eat you either cooked or made a sandwich. People didn't eat out much in those days either. Then came video games. I can't remember the last time I saw kids throwing a football.
tell me about it. I have to beg my son to put down his controller and come out side and spend time with me. Most of the time if I want to spend some time with him I have to sit in the room with him to talk. I try getting into the games with him but he gets mad at me and says " dad you suck at this, please stop your killing my score" when I was young I cried because I couldn't go out side now kids cry if you make the go out. Them were the good ol days. Building forts and playing war outside. Now its all fortnight and xbox's and cell phones.
X2
Most kids have a smartphone these days and they prefer to play with that than sport etc.
When I was a kid no one I knew had a phone or video game console, we just always played football and other sports and wouldn't sit watching TV or playing with a phone all day.
Genetic modified food coupled with round-up contamination destroys the guy bacteria and nutrient assimilation.
Most grains are harvested and dessicated with round-up.
As the plant dies it shoves it final energy into seed production giving a larger harvest and thus more profits.
Do a search on round-up and wheat harvest sometime.
Television: While you're there sitting on your ass getting your 10 minutes of hate propaganda your body is wanting to fight or flight and you're not doing either.
Sitting on the ass: More than two hrs a day is deadly,and most do more than that.
I'm guilty with this computer stuff.
Cell phones.Because they stop people from doing anything else.
GMO corn syrup-fructose.Pure liver clog.
Soda pop. One a day increases cancer risk over %30.
Bad attitude.Just don't give a damn.
Delusional marxist fat acceptance movement: a subsidiary of the feminism movement that indicates the proponents can do no wrong.
Motor vehicles. Try biking instead of jamming your mufflerless all terrain vehicle through the woods where I'm trying to sleep and waiting for you to go back to your cities Sunday night.
The biggest: fast foods. That franchise burger outlet never changes it's frying oil,it just adds more detergent.
I like the taste of fast food,but get very sick now an hr after eating.Not worth it.
It's a serious cringe when I read about bodybuilders eating fast food.
Just cringe man.
Genetic modified food is correct my friend. Me and my wife raise chickens she is a chicken queen. She even shows them at chicken shows like they have for dogs anyway. We bought some chickens a few months ago we got some egg layers and some meat birds. Both the same age the meat bird grew 10x faster than the egg layers they grow so fast and get so big in till they end up falling over on their sides and they cant get back up. Its crazy how they have been breed to grow like they do. From hatching to 2months later their ready for the dinner table. I had one they grew so fast he only made it to like not even 3months old and his ass just up and died the mother fucked are his self to death. Its all the chemicals that farmers put in them to get them to grow so quick. Our nation is growning at a crazy rate so the farmers have to keep up with the demand to grow them bigger stronger and faster. Thats the very reason why middle school girls develop so much faster now than they did when I was younger. You use to never see a 12yr old girl with porn star boobs now days 12 and 13yr old girls look 20. Its the hormones pumped into they.
Good response!
Never in a million years people had an access to unlimited amount of foods. Our bodies are not used to amounts of foods we eat on a daily basis. As we know all excess foods our body stores as a fat.
All sugary food and fast carbs are like drugs, as soon as we have a bit we feel so good, so it is truly addictive like drugs. As a result all of this obesity becomes a serious problem
sexualtyrannasaurusThe answer is the economy. The poorer you are the shittier food you eat and usually fast food = cheapest and most filling.
Majority of people are now poor as fuck and the economy has deflated their money's value.
This is absolutely true. Fresh foods and lean meats are expensive. It's cheaper for a family to eat off the dollar menu at McDonalds.