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The fast food industry has exploded over the last several decades, how long you can go without a commercial. Even countries like Ghana have an obesity and diabetes issue. Lack of exercise and eating fast food especially those sugary specialty drinks including coffee. Certainly a lack of will power.
Again, a Big Mac meal with medium Coke is about 1000 calories. Most folk would lose weight if that is all they consumed in a day.
I *dabble* in being overweight. I go in and out. It's simple. When I weigh too much it is because I eat too much. I know it and there's no mystery. I eat what I want, when I want and I enjoy the HECK out of it. But it makes me fat. I get disgusted when it goes to far and I reign myself in. Seriously, it's HARD to lose weight and keep it off, but it can be done. I stop eating too much, cut the junk for the most part and the weight comes off and I do okay.
It's a simple formula but very hard to do. I'm in my upper 50s and I am missing a thyroid gland and, sure, that makes it even harder, but I think many of us have been conditioned to believe that overweight people are victims of something they cannot help. Except for some very rare cases, that's just not true. We all just like to eat way more than we need.
That is right. The medical profession gives bad advice. The food industry provides bad food. The whole thing could be cured with sensible up to date advice on how to have a healthy lifestyle.
The fat problem is nothing more than the social media problem we have. It the same dynamics markets maximizing. We know all the problems the attention economy brings and how most of the harm gets externalize to other arenas and is often unintended. You have to be familiar with the paper clip maximizer scenarios. Salt, fat ,sugar things not abundant in nature that our body needs and seeks, its an evolutionary imperative. What happens when you apply economy of scales to packaging these things into food that is actually devoid of nutrional content, one you capture appetite, two you make people fat increasing the size of the stomachs means that the aggregate of stomach capacity is your market, so more stomach capacity more food gets consumed. Its markets maximizing.
This affects people differently, its addictive, there are a lot of cultural things to consider, I am hispanic, we celebrate with food, we reward with food, we show love with food. Its the same way for a lot of lower class people, you might not have money to do a lot but you can cook person's x favorite meal. Its a complex multipolar trap, which its not a US thing, you have very outdated Data, certainly its global problem, Indonesia India are new hotbeds for obesity which you could be obese and malnutrioned all at once.
Stuff your face with what you want but you need to carry your "weight" (pun intended) when it comes to paying for the increased health care costs of your choices. Why should your health insurance premium be the same as a normal person? Smokers pay more in health care premiums, why shouldn't obese people pay more?
Japan, with one of the lowest obesity rates, understood the connection between weight and the cost of healthcare and took bold action to do something about it, about 15 years ago.
Japan has Universal Healthcare. No two countries do Universal Healthcare alike. What they have in common is a mandate for healthcare insurance which covers 70% of the government regulated cost. Employers typically offer this insurance as an employee benefit. Many buy Supplemental plans to pay for that which their primary insurance does not.
Adults are subjected to an annual waist measure. Responsibility for this is shared by public health and employers. The government gives each employer an annual goal of a reduction in waist size. If the employer fails to meet the goal it is required to pay more into the “ sickness fund”.
The goal is for all people to maintain a very generous healthy waist size.
Food is very expensive in Japan and people tend to eat less.
The culture is oriented towards physical activity.
Comparing restaurant portions from the 1950's to now is a clear way to get a look at what was expected to compose the main meal of the day.
That doesn't mean most people eat that much at a sitting. Granted I agree we tend to overeat. Not necessarily by place setting. Just recalling when I was growing up, we had three meals a day. There was no snacking between meals. We might on occasion get a very small snack before supper if we were like 'starving" and supper was going to be late. Now many people snack throughout the day.
Exercise is SO good for you, physically and mentally.
But I think exercise is a very small part of weight loss. The huge bulk of your caloric intake go to resting bodily functions - heavy exercise moves the needle just a tiny bit. The amount of exercise you have to do to burn the amount of calories in a small piece of cake, is amazingly high.
If you want to lose weight, cut food intake, in my observation.
Not sure I agree. Looking back at the 60's 70' and even before my time people ate lots of fried foods, carbs, desserts. Look at the old food pyramid. People were also way, way more active and there was no obesity problem. My southern grands for example fried everything in lard, had huge meals but they were always working, moving, walking. They did not sit around. I noticed with myself that even just walking daily helps keep my weight down. I think its a good combination of both practical diet and exercise.
Not sure I agree. Looking back at the 60's 70' and even before my time people ate lots of fried foods, carbs, desserts. Look at the old food pyramid. People were also way, way more active and there was no obesity problem. My southern grands for example fried everything in lard, had huge meals but they were always working, moving, walking. They did not sit around. I noticed with myself that even just walking daily helps keep my weight down. I think its a good combination of both practical diet and exercise.
A lot of people worked out in the farm and needed those extra calories, plus food was grown on the farm, made their own breads, butter, etc... I still feel the preservatives are part of the problem.
Americans eat way too much sugar.
Everything has sugar. The desserts are so sweet that they almost burn your tongue.
Don't put sugar in your tea!
Don't eat meat and vegetables with sugar!
Don't put so much sugar in juice!
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