Obesity in America- who is to blame? (government, gun, citizen)

[Mathguy]

Personal Responsibility.
Basically, you live with the consequences of your weight\health as it impacts everything from your attractiveness to others, your health, quality of life, lifespan etc.

If you are seriously overweight it's for a reason...live with it or make changes....you own your situation.

[happynoodleboycey]

Originally Posted by dreamofmonterey

Obesity in America- who is to blame?

I don't mean to sound harsh (no, really ) but I think that the people to blame are the ones who feed little Jimmy cheeseburgers for dinner every night, think they're being cultured and progressive by dipping their McNuggets into sweet & sour sauce and can't be bothered to haul their copious backsides off the sofa for a few minutes each day to engage the legs and get some exercise. I understand that there are some people who are more likely to become overweight due to medical issues or simply having very slow metabolisms and so have difficulty losing weight and I emphathise with them (I myself used to resemble something closer to a beach ball than a human), however it's the people who don't even try and assume that having a Diet Coke with their KFC bargain bucket will make them thin that bug me. Obviously education into healthy lifestyles is important too but you don't need an astrophysics degree to be able to tell that the pulsating slab of grease sitting on the plastic tray in front of you isn't going to do you any good. Teaching kids from a young age about healthy eating is a must but I'm afraid to say that it will require the slightly denser crowds out there to engage Dr. Braincell and the Common Sense Brigade a bit more as well.

I don't think the fast food restaurants help either though. I probably sound like a boring old fart (I'm actually 18 but I can rant like a 60 year old ) but I think that Happy Meals and the like should be banned completely. Call me a lunatic fascist health freak if you must but it surely isn't difficult to see that luring kids into burger bars with the promise of free toys with their meals isn't going to encourage them to eat and live more healthily any more than lining Marlboro packets with 10 dollar bills is going to encourage anyone to give up smoking any time soon. We live in free countries and if people want to eat crap all the time, become obese and die of heart failure before their 50th birthday then they have every right to but we must give the kids all the encouragement we can for them to lead healthy lifestyles.

When you see young adults who should be in their prime having to ride mobility scooters because their legs can no longer support their mass, you know that something somewhere has gone horribly wrong. Corporations should have a responsibility to promote healthy living to the masses but in the end I do think that the blame lies with the obese members of society too because, at the end of the day, they are ultimately responsible for having got themselves into that state and they are the only ones who can get themselves out of it. Don't get me wrong, I don't look down on 'large' people in the slightest and respect them as human beings just as much as I would respect the trimmest, most athletic person on the planet, however I do believe that if they aren't trying to change then they have no right to complain.

[SuSuSushi]

Originally Posted by happynoodleboycey

I think that Happy Meals and the like should be banned completely. Call me a lunatic fascist health freak if you must but it surely isn't difficult to see that luring kids into burger bars with the promise of free toys with their meals isn't going to encourage them to eat and live more healthily any more than lining Marlboro packets with 10 dollar bills is going to encourage anyone to give up smoking any time soon.

No, this is what PARENTS are for, not laws! Parents are responsible for what their fat little chunks of lard shove into their pieholes. Making laws banning foods is ridiculous when people should take responsibility for themselves and stop blaming everyone else for their own failures.

[Tricky D]

Originally Posted by SuSuSushi

No, this is what PARENTS are for, not laws!

The thing is that to a child the parent is the law.
But what do you do when parents, for whatever reason, don't have the best interest of the child at heart?
I find it ridiculous that people need an education (thus a license) for about everything except raising children.

[LaoTzuMindFu]

The only people who should be blamed for "Obesity in America" are the people who are obese!! No one else. Typical of people trying to find blame in external sources for the poor/lazy decisions they make for themselves.

There are plenty of healthy alternatives for food, but obese people tend to choose the bad (i.e., convenient) food. Dont try to put the blame on anyone or anything else for YOUR obesity, the one and only person to blame is the person in the mirror and to a lesser extent - YOUR PARENTS. Parents should instill healthy eating habits to their children so that they can take those highly important skills with the into adulthood. But too many times, parents force feed their babies/children bad food which leads to obesity. Now, once the children grow up (13 years old or older) they should have learned about proper eating habits, so if they still eat bad food - mental cases!!!

I also think that excluding people who are obese as a direct result of some health issue, obesity should also be categorized as both a physical AND mental disease. If you are obese and you choose NOT to do the things to fix it, then YOU ARE MENTALLY HANDICAPPED/RETARDED/STUPID - which means, this is a mental issue.

[happynoodleboycey]

Originally Posted by SuSuSushi

No, this is what PARENTS are for, not laws! Parents are responsible for what their fat little chunks of lard shove into their pieholes. Making laws banning foods is ridiculous when people should take responsibility for themselves and stop blaming everyone else for their own failures.

I take your point however how many adults do you see eating happy meals? They're specifically aimed at kids and, when you're trying to educate them on healthy eating and living, that isn't going to help. I'm not saying that kids shouldn't eat a burger now and then but when they're being bribed with the promise of toys it is actively encouraging them to eat crap food.

[MonkeyButler7000]

I think a problem is the fact that we now refer to obesity as a disease. The minute you start calling it a disease, you take it out of the realm of personal responsibility. You turn it into something that you contract, like cancer. At that point, people sit back and say "Okay, I have this disease. What are YOU going to do to cure ME." That's the wrong answer.

[MonkeyButler7000]

Originally Posted by happynoodleboycey

I take your point however how many adults do you see eating happy meals? They're specifically aimed at kids and, when you're trying to educate them on healthy eating and living, that isn't going to help. I'm not saying that kids shouldn't eat a burger now and then but when they're being bribed with the promise of toys it is actively encouraging them to eat crap food.

Chances are, your eight-year-old isn't buying his own Happy Meals. Toughen up and just tell him no.

[pitt_transplant]

Well one of the causes of obesity is processed food.
Why was canned and proccessed food really booming? (WW2)


So who's fault is it?

HITLER!

....and the fork too.

But its always coming down to Hitler....You can thank him for those computers you are playing on, your Mazda engine and inflatable sex doll (oh yes they did! LOL).

So Hitler is also the cause of all these internet affairs as well!

WHEN WILL THE EVIL END!!!????????????

[SuSuSushi]

Originally Posted by Tricky D

But what do you do when parents, for whatever reason, don't have the best interest of the child at heart?
.

So? Happens all the time. The mother breastfeeding while driving. The parents who recently allowed their diabetic daughter to die because they thought Jesus would magically heal her. The parents who put their starving child on a bus to go visit a relative, only to have him die on the trip. The parents who allowed their cancer-ridden child to stop chemotherapy because it made him feel "sick".

The government legislates far too much for the sheeple already, which is part of the reason they're stupid and dull and unable to make their own decisions and blame everyone else for their failures. It's time to stand up and take responsibility and not depend on the government to put you in bubble wrap versus life.