Why Are So Many People in America Fat? page 8

[JoanieL]

At 35, I was happily married, more or less. My bp was <120/80. My heart rate was <68. I had great dental care. My bloodwork always came back great. I didn't smoke. I only drank on occasion. I rode my bike for about an hour every day. I swam a lot because I lived three blocks from the Gulf of Mexico. I even taught a senior aerobic class and sometimes substituted other (non senior) aerobic classes. We went out to eat once a week and it was at a real restaurant, not some golden arches clone. I worked part time and had virtually no chronic stress in my life.

I weighed 185 pounds at five foot five. Considering my lifestyle, I should have been a 120 pound hottie. But I wasn't. I don't know exactly what was wrong, but something was. CW? SAD? I was doing everything right and I was still fat. It's not about lack of character. It's not about being lazy.

Someday, we'll find an answer why some people remain thin and others are fat unless they almost starve themselves. I'll probably be dead by the time there's a definitive answer. All I know is that in order to stay at a decent weight, whether SAD or PB, I have to eat a very low calorie amount. So call me lazy and stupid if you will, but I know different. I know that if some folks had to eat as little as I do to stay at a normal weight, they'd be the biggest fat asses on the planet.

[Annieh]

That's probably what makes the issue so challenging to fix because the CW alternative to eating Fast Food and other crap keeps you just as fat.

Yes, exactly.

[Daydreamer]

I think there are many interesting views on this thread

Joanie, have you ever checked your hormonal system ? Like your thyroid hormones levels and everything ?

[anna5]

I spent some time in Amsterdam and I was struck by a couple of things:

1) Most of the people I saw were fit looking
2) Almost everyone was walking, biking or taking mass transit
3) I saw a parking garage next to an office building but it was for bikes
4) Fast food places were rare and seemed to be mainly being used by Americans (you can always tell an American tourist)
5) Food sold at sidewalk walk-ups (non fastfood) while maybe not PB appeared to be high quality food

Also speaking as a Texan, a lot of our cities are so spread out walking or biking to, say work, is not practical. Poor mass transit and work that is 10 miles away pretty much means you have to drive. An believe me, damn near everyone in Texas has a car.

Well, there are things you didn't see (yes, knowledge does matter) - greater security - security of job, security of medical care, security of affordable education, security of retirement, security of rest etc. For those who don't know, greater security means lesser stress. And yes, stress, chronic constant stress affects every aspect of life, health and weight including.
Seems to be obvious. Why is this not seen or rather not known?
I am always irritated when I hear Americans who wined and dined in Europe (and only that) complain about how horrible and horribly expensive life is in Europe ("coffee is more expensive there" whined some retard).

[catdance62]

I travel to Central America a lot (in fact, live there part of the year) and there are a lot of fat people there too, but there are not a lot of fat kids. Seems the weight comes on with age. Especially in the Maya population--the girls are usually slender, but the women are often roly-poly. That said, they often work HARD, doing physical labor all day often times. I think it is genetics more than anything that keeps them thicker. I don;t know what the life expectancy is there, but I see old, old people doing hard manual labor very often. I think they die from other things than what the US population dies from, although diabetes etc is on the rise there (probably due to the increasingly common occurrence of sodas and whatnot)

[texas.grok]

Well, there are things you didn't see (yes, knowledge does matter) - greater security - security of job, security of medical care, security of affordable education, security of retirement, security of rest etc. For those who don't know, greater security means lesser stress. And yes, stress, chronic constant stress affects every aspect of life, health and weight including.
Seems to be obvious. Why is this not seen or rather not known?
I am always irritated when I hear Americans who wined and dined in Europe (and only that) complain about how horrible and horribly expensive life is in Europe ("coffee is more expensive there" whined some retard).

Agreed, what I saw was nothing more than a snapshot but it was still a major contrast with what I see in the USA and other countries I have been in.

[magnolia1973]

At 35, I was happily married, more or less. My bp was <120/80. My heart rate was <68. I had great dental care. My bloodwork always came back great. I didn't smoke. I only drank on occasion. I rode my bike for about an hour every day. I swam a lot because I lived three blocks from the Gulf of Mexico. I even taught a senior aerobic class and sometimes substituted other (non senior) aerobic classes. We went out to eat once a week and it was at a real restaurant, not some golden arches clone. I worked part time and had virtually no chronic stress in my life.

You sound like me and so many of my friends. And most people will say "mmmm, thyroid" and there often isn't. People don't get that we feel great and have amazing energy. I do think people like you and I probably ruined our metabolism with chronic dieting and probably for people like us, the issue was more about food sensitivity (IE, going to bet that sugar and grains made us fat). When I fully eliminate processed sugar, fat drains off of me. I honestly think my body just kept inflaming and adding fat to protect itself from a bad food and no amount of dieting without eliminating was going to change that. The good news for me is that I can eat quite a bit of whole foods, calorically if I keep the wheat and sugar out.

In terms of my bodies response to a small amount of wheat and sugar- for my birthday, I gained 7lbs of water that took over a week to get rid of. Now start eating this sugar and wheat daily and your body just keeps ballooning.

Problem is no doctors will ever say "geez, maybe it is something you aren't processing", just an assumption that you are an out of control fat ass. I think gluten and sugar sensitivity are big problems especially for women and would take a bet that if more of the "fat/fit" people fully eliminated those that would take a chunk out of that population.

Living without those two chemicals is SO EASY that it is clear for me that my issue was never calories in/calories out or even a diet too high in carbs. It's a straight up chemical reaction that packs on weight and makes me unhealthy.

[Energy!]

Obesity is caused by malnutrition (per Gary Taubes, Why We Get Fat.)

Lack of nutrients
Excess carbs that cause insulin spikes
Eating bad foods including overly processed, toxic (such as "vegetable" oils), too many raw goitrogens, etc.
Eating too often, thus disturbing leptin function

If you eat crap food you don't have the energy to exercise. It all starts with the food. People here are very ignorant about how their bodies and diets work... I know I was. They don't realize how bad certain foods are because they're ubiquitous, so they must be okay, right? People no longer know what quality food should taste like. They don't know how to cook real food.

One thing that applies in the USA at least are the subsidies that distort food prices terribly. All these political types that preach about free markets won't touch the sacred cows of sugar subsidies, corn, etc. Heaven help a food product that isn't grown here, like coconut oil, it will be demonized.

[sbhikes]

At 35, I was happily married, more or less. My bp was <120/80. My heart rate was <68. I had great dental care. My bloodwork always came back great. I didn't smoke. I only drank on occasion. I rode my bike for about an hour every day. I swam a lot because I lived three blocks from the Gulf of Mexico. I even taught a senior aerobic class and sometimes substituted other (non senior) aerobic classes. We went out to eat once a week and it was at a real restaurant, not some golden arches clone. I worked part time and had virtually no chronic stress in my life.

I weighed 185 pounds at five foot five. Considering my lifestyle, I should have been a 120 pound hottie. But I wasn't. I don't know exactly what was wrong, but something was. CW? SAD? I was doing everything right and I was still fat. It's not about lack of character. It's not about being lazy.

Obesity is caused by malnutrition (per Gary Taubes, Why We Get Fat.)

Lack of nutrients
Excess carbs that cause insulin spikes
Eating bad foods including overly processed, toxic (such as "vegetable" oils), too many raw goitrogens, etc.
Eating too often, thus disturbing leptin function

Bingo. That lady on the left of my avatar? She had just come back from one of her regular 3000 foot elevation gain/loss hikes. She rode her bike to work. Ran 3-5 miles at lunch. She didn't eat out very often and when she did, it wasn't fast-food. She rarely ate red meat. She avoided fatty foods. She was fairly addicted to things with flour and sugar, though, thinking they were okay to eat. After all, about 15 years ago she lost a lot of weight hiking every day and eating pastries for breakfast. Why did it stop working?

And please, the fat acceptance movement? Have you ever seen any evidence of it in real life or is it just some sensationalistic news item you saw on TV? I have never seen any evidence their "movement" has had any effect on anything or anyone in any way, shape or form. Stop the average person on the street and I bet they've never heard of such a thing. I know they do exist, but they've done nothing to effect any change whatsoever. Discrimination against fat people continues. They're still the one safe target to vent a lot of bigotry. And I have yet to meat a single overweight woman who thinks it's okay to be fat.

[Philosopher Dan]

Bingo. That lady on the left of my avatar? She had just come back from one of her regular 3000 foot elevation gain/loss hikes. She rode her bike to work. Ran 3-5 miles at lunch. She didn't eat out very often and when she did, it wasn't fast-food. She rarely ate red meat. She avoided fatty foods. She was fairly addicted to things with flour and sugar, though, thinking they were okay to eat. After all, about 15 years ago she lost a lot of weight hiking every day and eating pastries for breakfast. Why did it stop working?

And please, the fat acceptance movement? Have you ever seen any evidence of it in real life or is it just some sensationalistic news item you saw on TV? I have never seen any evidence their "movement" has had any effect on anything or anyone in any way, shape or form. Stop the average person on the street and I bet they've never heard of such a thing. I know they do exist, but they've done nothing to effect any change whatsoever. Discrimination against fat people continues. They're still the one safe target to vent a lot of bigotry. And I have yet to meat a single overweight woman who thinks it's okay to be fat.

Actually, at my school, there have been a rash of theater productions which could be classified under the "fat acceptance" movement. I've been to conferences where people gave papers which could also fall into this area.

I even had a case study in a textbook I use in my business ethics class where an obese woman sued a gym franchise because they wouldn't hire her as an aerobics instructor, because she didn't "look" fit (apparently, she was able to pass relevant fitness tests for the position).

I don't think it's registered a nation-wide collective consciousness - yet. But if the majority of Americans are overweight/obese, it wouldn't surprise me to see something like this gaining steam over the years - particularly if life-spans stay more-or-less where they are at and the medical industry continues to produce treatments which mitigate the most severe effects (diabetes medications, etc).