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Yes. I watched a short documentary recently in China about fat children. Their time poor parents often gave them foods like packet ramen, fried chicken, burgers and yes American style fast food (just like the children of New York ate from the 1940s to the 80s). Hopefully like the good people of NY they will ditch these "cool, spage age, modern, scientific" foods in favour of good old fashioned century eggs. organic pork, millet and donkey meat. NY children are learning to love oatmeal, liver, real milk and lard just like their counterparts did 150 years ago!!!!
Yes I’ve traveled all over the world and I can say for certain that the problem is rising up everywhere, even in nations like Vietnam where they consider that candy is only fit for children. I’m in Chile right now and there are a lot of overweight people here and last month I saw a lot of overweight people in Ecuador, a country with a smaller economy. Junk food is everywhere and the entire world is addicted to sweets. That said, I don’t see the average person in other countries being as big as the average person in the states but I still find myself staring when I see someone with a trim figure.
Some sort of discipline, restraint and an overall healthy, calorie-appropriate diet, seem to be less and less of a thing for all nations, not just the USA.
Yes, it was rising in Japan when I lived there 2003-2005. At that point, they had put whole fat milk in children’s lunches to help with osteoporosis and many more people had abandoned traditional Japanese breakfast for western pastries.
Here in the Philippines, there is a huge amount of advertising for junk and fattening foods. TV ads for food frequently portray roly-poly children as evidence of how healthy they are. Nearly all prepared foods are heavily laced with sugar, and "Philippine style" spaghetti sauce tastes like dessert.
I don't think it is a lack of discipline as much as a change in life style. Our grandparents and great grandparents worked on the farms. They didn't have all the, easy to use appliances we have. Mom stayed at home and did house work, laundry on a scrub board or an older washer, kids walked everywhere. You didn't see or hear of people eating out all the time, or buying prepared meals and until the 1950s how every heard of drive through restaurants. We are simply living in a different world. For that reason we may see, in the future different guidelines for healthy weights compared to what we see and hear today. Of course some of us will never live long enough to see these guidelines changed.
One positive thing, you see more people taking exercise classes, walking or biking on trails and more people joining gyms.
Some sort of discipline, restraint and an overall healthy, calorie-appropriate diet, seem to be less and less of a thing for all nations, not just the USA.
Food manufacturers have spent billions of dollars figuring out how to make food addictive. And they've succeeded. The muffin someone ate 100 years ago is not the same as the muffin we eat today. Even junk food is more junkier. The Fruit Loops I ate as a kid 40 years ago are not the same as the Fruit Loops today. So before people used to eat a muffin and they were good. Now people have a physical drive to eat more. Just like 200 years ago, people would smoke an occasional pipe. Then they added nicotine, and people started chain smoking. It's a pretty complex issue.
I don't think it is a lack of discipline as much as a change in life style. Our grandparents and great grandparents worked on the farms. They didn't have all the, easy to use appliances we have. Mom stayed at home and did house work, laundry on a scrub board or an older washer, kids walked everywhere. You didn't see or hear of people eating out all the time, or buying prepared meals and until the 1950s how every heard of drive through restaurants. We are simply living in a different world. For that reason we may see, in the future different guidelines for healthy weights compared to what we see and hear today. Of course some of us will never live long enough to see these guidelines changed.
One positive thing, you see more people taking exercise classes, walking or biking on trails and more people joining gyms.
The USDA food plate is a farce, no less active person needs to be consuming 2,400 calories a day or eating seven servings of grains. Complete idiocy.
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