Americans scared of their dinner?

[Chris Amirault]

When I was grossly obese, it was because I didn't care what I ate.  I ate anything that tasted good, and huge portions of all of it, thus I became very very fat.  When I started actually looking at what I was eating, and cutting out certain things, and finding a regimen that worked for me, I was able to lose the pounds and regain a normal body size - anyone can do it, it just takes some willpower and sacrifice. 

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The question I've taken to ask is, "Is this _____ really good enough for me to eat?" Prevents a lot of shite from making its way into my mouth (Dunkin Munchkins, say) but allows me the indulgence when it's up to par (RI's own Allie's Donuts, say). Another I sometimes wonder (a la Supersize Me!) is, "Who benefits if I eat this?" When it's a friend saying, "You'll love this!" I'll oblige, but when it's Mickey D's shareholders.....

[Behemoth]

We used to think that people who were depressed should just exercise personal responsibility and stop being depressed -- that they should choose to be happy. Now we know that most depression can't be addressed that way. Some people respond to psychoanalysis or to the "just choose to be happy" approach, but not many. We now have better scientific knowledge that tells us fairly conclusively that people who are depressed have a disease and need medicine to cure it -- that it isn't their choice, that it's most likely a chemical imbalance or physical condition that is in turn most likely genetic.

So let's not tell fat people "just choose to be thin" until we have a similar level of knowledge. Because right now we don't. We know there are a few people who choose to be thin and it works. We also know that 90+ percent of fat people say they really want to be thin but can't seem to make it work.[...]

Just to play devil's advocate here...the typical response would be that depression has always existed, so it is reasonable to look for genetic causes. But while there have presumably always been people who are overweight, the percentage of severely obese people has increased in the last 50 years, so it makes more sense that the causes would be environmental, rather than genetic.

Edited November 6, 2004 by Behemoth (log)

[therese]

Just to play devil's advocate here...the typical response would be that depression has always existed, so it is reasonable to look for genetic causes. But while there have presumably always been people who are overweight, the percentage of severely obese people has increased in the last 50 years, so it makes more sense that the causes would be environmental, rather than genetic.

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So I'll devil the devil's advocate:

Assume you've got somebody who is genetically predetermined to be overweight, but that person's caloric intake does not exceed his caloric expenditure, because that much food is simply not available and/or producing it (or doing whatever other work is required to get through life) is so strenuous that whatever calories are consumed are burned off. So what you've basically got is a fat person living in a skinny body.

Obesity is closely linked to affluence: increased caloric intake, decreased caloric expenditure.

[mrsadm]

<snip>

Just about all of the French women in my entourage (I eat and discuss food with various members of a regular group daily) are continually obscessed with their weight and constantly share methods to keep it under control amongst themselves - they consider it a symptom of their species, and accept this openly behind closed doors. Add a man to the group and all discussion of the topic stops.

French society puts strict moral codes around a woman's size, as a definition of her self control.

<snip>

How fascinating, thank you for posting this! I have wondered often about this when I travel to Paris. The women seem so incredibly thin. I remember one woman whose knees I swear had a diameter of 2 inches or less!

Do the French women have eating disorders like we do here in America?

[phlox]

Do the French women have eating disorders like we do here in America?

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[Behemoth]

So I'll devil the devil's advocate:

Assume you've got somebody who is genetically predetermined to be overweight, but that person's caloric intake does not exceed his caloric expenditure, because that much food is simply not available and/or producing it (or doing whatever other work is required to get through life) is so strenuous that whatever calories are consumed are burned off. So what you've basically got is a fat person living in a skinny body.

Obesity is closely linked to affluence: increased caloric intake, decreased caloric expenditure.

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"genetically predetermined" is an interesting statement. One could argue that most people are genetically predetermined to become obese if they eat like 18th century farmers and lead a sedentary lifestyle.Which would sort of support your second statement, about affluence, which is an environmental cause I guess...

[Fat Guy]

Just to play devil's advocate here...the typical response would be that depression has always existed, so it is reasonable to look for genetic causes. But while there have presumably always been people who are overweight, the percentage of severely obese people has increased in the last 50 years, so it makes more sense that the causes would be environmental, rather than genetic.

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Some experts, such as Dr. Jeffrey Friedman of Rockefeller University (who was the subject of a New York Times profile earlier this year), disagree with this interpretation of the statistics. What Friedman essentially argues is that the number of obese people relative to the population has not really increased. Rather, he argues, a similar set of obese people has gotten more obese. In other words, all this increased availability of high-calorie food and the creep of sedentary lifestyles has not made any thin people fat. (“At the lower end of the weight distribution, nothing has changed, not even by a few pounds. . . . Only with the massively obese, the very top of the distribution, is there a substantial increase in weight. . .”) That is a much stronger argument for genetics than for environment.

As the Times article (“The Fat Epidemic: He Says It's an Illusion,” June 8, 2004, by Gina Kolata) explains, “the curve of body weight has been pulled slightly to the right, with more people shifting up a few pounds to cross the line that experts use to divide normal from obese. In 1991, 23 percent of Americans fell into the obese category; now 31 percent do, a more than 30 percent increase. But the average weight of the population has increased by just 7 to 10 pounds since 1991.”

In a devastating analysis of the conventional wisdom, Dr. Friedman gave the Times reporter the following analogy:

"Imagine the average I.Q. was 100 and that 5 percent of the population had an I.Q. of 140 or greater and were considered to be geniuses. Now let's say that education improves and the average I.Q. increases to 107 and 10 percent of the population has an I.Q. of above 140.

"You could present the data in two ways," he said. "You could say that the average I.Q. is up seven points or you could say that because of improved education the number of geniuses has doubled."

He added, "The whole obesity debate is equivalent to drawing conclusions about national education programs by saying that the number of geniuses has doubled."

Dr. Friedman may be wrong. But I'm going to keep an open mind and not be so quick to embrace the conventional wisdom. Because if Dr. Friedman is right that “When it comes to eating, free will is an illusion,” then telling obese people to just choose to eat less is perverse. I'm always wary of those who might wish to use genetics as an excuse for lack of personal responsibility, but reality doesn't conform to opinion. It is what it is.

[Behemoth]

Dr. Friedman discovered Leptin -- I remember reading the Science article a year or so ago. (Old copies lying around in the gym -- gotta love grad school )

I think they were hoping it would be a silver bullet in figting obesity, but it didn't work as well as they'd hoped for most people.

But in any case, this:

But the average weight of the population has increased by just 7 to 10 pounds since 1991.

A 10 lb shift across the whole population in just over ten years is no small number, no matter which way you slice it... I wonder what the change has been in the last 30 years. Interesting stuff, anyway.

[Mabelline]

I have so many thoughts about this, but Fat Guy mentioned something that has always lurked in my mind. Okay, suburban lifestyle, McJunk, and anorexic public figures notwithstanding, I am not convinced there are more obese folks than 100 years ago. I have seen many pictures of predecessors who were "right round and jolly"--except for perhaps ancestors who lived on real junk on reservations. But my point is that I think we have this bombardment of opportunity to gorge like zoo monkeys, and then worry 'bout it tomorrow, because everything anymore is a quick fix. Hell, we can't even keep our minds focused on a major news topic for longer than 72 hours, it seems.

I think that moderation, and healthy products, prepared from scratch (no mono-oxy-zoxy-whatever) are as good to the SOUL as the gullet(sorry), and more life-extending in the long run.

The pace of our lives have become downright frenetic. Form follows function, and fast-livin' generates fast food. Such a shame. We are nice people, actually, and we need to love ourselves more in order to love others in a meaningful way.

Sorry about sermonizin'...

Edited November 7, 2004 by Mabelline (log)

[Pan]

It may be hard to reach a consensus that obesity is primarily caused by behavior rather than genetics in the U.S., because we haven't changed from a primarily agrarian society characterized by hard labor and walking long distances to a society of sedentary workers and car owners who walk to the car, from the parking lot to the mall, and back to the car, in one generation. By contrast, I look at Malaysia. It was very rare to find fat Malaysians less than 30 years ago - essentially, a generation ago. Why? Because few people owned cars or even motorcycles, so they walked and biked long distances. Also, most people were poor peasants or proletarians who did hard labor for a living. A generation later, have people's genes become fatter? Or is it that they're wealthier, eat more (including more sugar), own cars and motorcycles, don't walk or bike much (generally speaking, with some exceptions in places like Kota Bharu where a nightly walk is part of the local culture), and have legal and illegal aliens do the hard labor for them? It's undeniably true that I haven't done a scientific study, but the empirical evidence is very difficult to gainsay. Our genes may help make us obese, but the evidence seems to me to clearly point to the likelihood that it's our behavior that really causes the obesity in most cases. I have no doubt that there are some exceptional people on the margins, what with hypothyroidism and the like, but I also have little doubt that this accounts for a small percentage of a general increase in obesity.

[Carrot Top]

In general, I agree that there have always been people of all sorts of sizes in this world...and perhaps there are more larger people around now, but that is mostly their choice....and is made easy by the ease of which food is obtained...and if otherwise the people are healthy and happy...it should not matter to anyone.

If it does matter in ways of personal health and in ways of affecting the overall health of the society, though, then it bears looking at and thinking about.

As I said near the beginning of the thread, though, I honestly do not see a lot of people who feel guilty about the way they eat...or that they are scared of their dinner. I do see lots of people who TALK about feeling guilty...but that is certainly not the same.

Isn't this issue like so many other things that matter...a little bit of this and a little bit of that affect it?

No time to sit down and eat, for jobs and activities take more hours of the day.

Nobody at home during the day to have the time to shop and cook from 'scratch'...'healthy' foods.

Tiredness from running around and the feeling that one deserves and sometimes just plain needs...to be taken care of and fed by someone else...i.e. the closest restaurant which depending on time constraints and pocket money might be fast food or the usual set of chain restaurants that are everywhere and that cater to the idea of lots of food drenched in buttery salty sauces for immediate mouth pleasure and perceived value by the customer.

Foods in the grocery stores with higher, hidden amounts of sugar, fats, calories.

Fresh fruits and vegetables in the grocery stores that have been grown to ship and are drained of flavor.

Meats in the grocery store...that who knows where or how they invented these cuts.

A fairly stable economy with people that have paychecks but who mostly live beyond those paychecks and ample easy credit cards sent through the mail for anyone who might have come close to using up their last line of credit on...whatever. Maybe eating out at chain restaurants...

A country that...being born mostly of immigrant roots....with immigrants wishing to become part of the 'melting pot'....discards old traditional ways of cookery which might be guessed to hold some knowledge of ways to be healthy.

The omnipresent culture of quick gratification, and most particularly quick gratification of all the senses.

An intense focus on the culture of youth...where the ideal is to look seventeen years old forever.

Bottom line, though...in these situations which are massively confusing...there are choices. You can listen to all of it and think endlessly about what everyone says all the causes are before deciding what tack to take. Or you can look at the situation and decide who to blame and then focus the blame and your energetic ire on them.

Or you can decide that, with the time you've been given on this earth to try something else....to take charge of one thing that can be changed or taken control of.

The only person one can really be sure of changing is oneself.

We are free people living in a very open society with tons of opportunities to do all sorts of things. If we can not control the food we put in our own mouths...well...I don't know what to say to that....that is really sort of spooky.

It would make a great science-fiction novel, actually.

As Henry Ford said "Think you can, think you can't. Either way it will be true."

[therese]

It may be hard to reach a consensus that obesity is primarily caused by behavior rather than genetics in the U.S., because we haven't changed from a primarily agrarian society characterized by hard labor and walking long distances to a society of sedentary workers and car owners who walk to the car, from the parking lot to the mall, and back to the car, in one generation. By contrast, I look at Malaysia. It was very rare to find fat Malaysians less than 30 years ago - essentially, a generation ago. Why? Because few people owned cars or even motorcycles, so they walked and biked long distances. Also, most people were poor peasants or proletarians who did hard labor for a living.

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You don't have to go as far as Malaysia (unless, of course, you're already in the neighborhood) to see what happens to a poor agrarian population that becomes suddenly affluent.

My mother is from Appalachia, and she points out that when she was growing up (born in the late 30's, left the area about 1960) that obesity was extremely rare. In fact, just about everybody was rail thin, and pictures of family and friends from that era bear witness to this fact (my mother and her sister were positively scrawny). Even though her family was one of the wealthiest in the area (until late in the 1960's, after I'd started spending summers on the farm, they had the only telephone for about a five mile radius, and it was located on the wall in the front hall so that neighbors could use it for emergencies) they still worked very hard, every day.

Want hot water? Build a fire. And in order to build the fire you'll have have to haul coal from the coal bin (located some distance and down the hill from the house, adjacent to the road so that the coal can be delivered by truck) and split kindling.

Want stewed tomatoes in the winter? Plant them, weed them, harvest them, prep them, can them, store them.

Want butter? Rear a calf, breed her, milk her...well, you get the idea.

This lifestyle is no longer the norm, and may well have disappeared entirely from the area. So caloric expenditure has dropped drastically. At the same time food's become much easier to obtain, much of it remarkably high density calorically compared to the earlier diet.

What's amazing is that they're not even heavier.

[Carrot Top]

I live in Appalachia now. And do agree with your thoughts.

Yet even within this area, there are differences that can immediately be seen within the population(s) that can not be explained by affluence alone.

At the moment, I live in a small city with a large university population. Fairly affluent, very well-educated population. There is some...obesity...as you look around, but it is not the norm, either among the adults or the children in the schools.

For four years previous to this, I lived in an area that was intensely rural (about a hours drive from here) that by anyone's standards would be called modern rural Appalachia. There was less affluence there than here...much less. And a much lower education level and a much lower education level expectation for the children. It was a rare child whose parents intended them to go to college...and even rarer, that money could or would be saved for such a thing.

Obesity was rampant there. Among the adults and among the children. It was actually rare to be in a group of people where three out of ten would be considered of such a weight level to even be 'healthy'. The gym teacher in the elementary school was always unhappy for it was hard for him to manage to get the kids to be able to be flexible enough to do a situp.

This is solely an observation, and I will make no claims for the whys and hows. Just that it seems to not be just the level of affluence that causes this.

[Susan in FL]

I was not going to post any more in this discussion because it is on topics like this that I get myself in trouble. It is interesting to read the differing opinions, but also, I'm not eager to argue a point with an attorney. Even though I am in a professional field that studies human behavior and all the causes of obesity and such conditions -- psychological, social, genetic, chemical, etc. -- and can back up my arguments, yes, I am intimidated out of debating it here.

I do want to comment that, Carrot Top, you are making some very good points. We agree with the observation that obesity is often more prevalent in rural and/or less affluent areas with lower ecomomic levels. My husband who has educational and professional background similar to mine and also has personal experience with this issue, including living in Appalachia, explains it by saying that often cheap food is highly caloric; and a large part of this population, in addition to being less educated about what to eat, when hungry fills up on large quantities of what costs the least and what is readily available. This is another example pointing obesity to environmental factors, but against the explanation of higher affluence. There are genetic tendencies and biochemical causes and all that, but less than we may want to believe or what some studies would lead us to believe.

[Behemoth]

I was not going to post any more in this discussion because it is on topics like this that I get myself in trouble.  It is interesting to read the differing opinions, but also, I'm not eager to argue a point with an attorney.    Even though I am in a professional field that studies human behavior and all the causes of obesity and such conditions -- psychological, social, genetic, chemical, etc. -- and can back up my arguments, yes, I am intimidated out of debating it here.

I do want to comment that, Carrot Top, you are making some very good points.  We agree with the observation that obesity is often more prevalent in rural and/or less affluent areas with lower ecomomic levels.  My husband who has educational and professional background similar to mine and also has personal experience with this issue, including living in Appalachia, explains it by saying that often cheap food is highly caloric; and a large part of this population, in addition to being less educated about what to eat, when hungry fills up on large quantities of what costs the least and what is readily available.  This is another example pointing obesity to environmental factors, but against the explanation of higher affluence.  There are genetic tendencies and biochemical causes and all that, but less than we may want to believe or what some studies would lead us to believe.

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I think the confusion is with the word "affluence". I took it to mean social affluence, ie the ready availability of calories, and the decreased need for hard physical labor. (Not that I think low-wage jobs aren't hard on the body, but they are a different kind of hard on the body. e.g. the difference between churning butter and standing at a cash register for 8 hours.)

In any case, social affluence is not quite the same as individual "wealth".

[Susan in FL]

I think the confusion is with the word "affluence". I took it to mean social affluence, ie the ready availability of calories, and the decreased need for hard physical labor. (Not that I think low-wage jobs aren't hard on the body, but they are a different kind of hard on the body. e.g. the difference between churning butter and standing at a cash register for 8 hours.)

In any case, social affluence is not quite the same as individual "wealth".

I think you're right, about the confusion with the word affluence, and in this point. Thanks for clarifying that for me!

[Pan]

For four years previous to this, I lived in an area that was intensely rural (about a hours drive from here) that by anyone's standards would be called modern rural Appalachia. There was less affluence there than here...much less. And a much lower education level and a much lower education level expectation for the children. It was a rare child whose parents intended them to go to college...and even rarer, that money could or would be saved for such a thing.

Obesity was rampant there. Among the adults and among the children. It was actually rare to be in a group of people where three out of ten would be considered of such a weight level to even be 'healthy'.

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How common is hard labor there? They may be poor, but are they working the fields every day or doing back-breaking labor in the mines or factories? How do they make their livings, and do they all have cars?

[therese]

How common is hard labor there? They may be poor, but are they working the fields every day or doing back-breaking labor in the mines or factories? How do they make their livings, and do they all have cars?

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Just about everybody has a car, or access to a car, as everybody now works in a factory or a shop or whatever (instead of on their own farms) and that's rarely within walking distance. Public transportation is non-existent.

"Back-breaking labor" no longer occurs in factories---it's against the law. Mining, depending on the sort of job you do, may or may not be physically arduous. About the only sort of jobs that involve the same degree of physical effort seen previously are in construction---digging ditches, roofing, etc.

And yes, when I was talking about affluence earlier I was referring to the population on average, not to individuals. I live in an affluent area of Atlanta, and I can literally go for days and never ever see anybody who is even remotely overweight---like Paris, but everybody's running instead of smoking.

[Carrot Top]

My answer would be the same about the labor question as terese's, Michael...for the area I lived, but with the note added that many people did have small farms in addition to or instead of the factory jobs. Lots of people still bring in hay every year but of course there is farm equipment for almost every job now, which reduces the physical labor quotient compared to other places in the world that may not have all this equipment at hand. And the farms were for cattle, which is a less onerous sort of farming than fruit or veggies.

The only focus on physical activity I can remember was for Little League football and secondarily for cheerleaders for Little League football...

I have no idea where to take my thoughts on this. Everyone did grow their own vegetables or have family right close by that did. Lots of people put up cans of things each year. Lots of people have freezers full of their own meats...either beef or venison from hunting....or meats from someone down the road that they bought cattle on the hoof from and had it slaughtered and cut to order at the local slaughterhouse.

On the other hand, the two local grocery stores were rather grim to say the least. When I moved back into a populated place...here in Blacksburg...and again had access to places like Krogers (which I never thought of as a 'top' grocery store in other places I've lived ) I felt as if I had moved back to America from a foreign country...a foreign country with limited resources.

And the people that live there are not totally isolated nor are they ignorant, either. They have access to all modern communications devices, they know about nutrition....they are no less intelligent than people anywhere else....

I don't know.

The answer seems to me to be something more ephemeral. And to try to express it would likely sound foolish...so I won't.

Well...okay, I will. I think, in this place, in this particular place....they are eating instead of dreaming. They are swallowing certain of their hopes, whole.

[TheFoodTutor]

Just briefly adding to this topic, though it's hard to add to what therese has to say, because her opinion is so educated.

I agree totally that it's the affluence of our society, and while genetic factors are involved, obesity comes from our sedentary lifestyle. There are some hard jobs to have, and I happen to choose to have one of them, which keeps me fairly thin on top of the fact that I don't actually eat as much as it would appear that I do, because I indulge on occasions and eat lightly when I don't have time to stop and eat a full meal. And I go to the gym regularly. So I have always been thin, but I weigh less than every single member of my family, outside of my nephew who was just born this year. Everyone else in my family is somewhat heavy, and the genetic predisposition is definitely there. Some of these people are even unhealthily obese.

I desperately want to agree that people who are overweight have no choice in the matter, but all of the scientific data seems to point in the opposite direction. Atlanta, where I live, is a very overweight city, because everyone here drives to where they need to go. There is virtually no usable public transportation and bicycles are unwelcome. People don't even walk 50 feet from their cars into the mall, and you can see it in their waistlines.

But I've visited Washington, D.C., and that is one thin city by U.S. standards, let me tell you. Parking is at a premium, the public transportation is great, and people really, really love to bike there. I saw lots of sleek denizens the last time I visited.

I see a correlation. But maybe that's just me.

[Dr. Funk]

A couple of observations. The average I.Q. is always 100. If the intelligence of the entire population increases or decreases, your I.Q. will change as it is just a measure of your intelligence as compared to the entire population. Similarly, the definition of obesity has changed over the years. 20 years ago, I was not defined as obese at 5' 10" and 185 lbs., but now, according to insurance company charts, I am. I've been the same height and weight since my college days (some 35 years ago) with cholesterol of 165 or lower and they say I'm unhealthy? These are the same people who would call my 83 year old mother obese at 5'2" amd 145 lbs. with blood pressures of 85/62 and a total cholesterol of 180. It's mostly genetics and you can try as much as you like, but you can't change nature. My father was, according to the insurance company charts, perfect at 6'3" and 170 lbs.. He had high blood pressure, high cholesterol and died at 73.

[Pan]

I'd like to know what charts call you obese at that height and weight, Dr. Funk.

But obviously, there's way more to sickness and health than mere weight vs. height!