Obesity

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Somewhat. However, drug dealers are selling a physically addictive product; some of the drugs have the potential to kill the user with one bad dose; and dealers tend to "target" teens, whom aren't adults, and cannot be treated as such.

Not to mention the turf wars, gunfire, and general unpleasantness that frequently accompanies drug dealing.

 

Agreed Aldeth, but still there is the element of the fast food industry systematically belittling the fact that their food is not healthy, period. Yet I still eat it, from time to time.

Think about that wonderful movie "Supersize Me", where the author in a polemical and strictly non-scientific way pointed out the bloody obvious - that you cannot eat McD all day without physical exercise and remain healthy, in stark contrast to their merchandising promises claiming the opposite.

So it's strictly a thing having both elements. You cannot blame it purely on McD or the stupid customer, they both bear responsibility.

A strictly non-scientific observation I have made while shopping is that there is a correlation between parents and kids. Fat parents have fat children, because they hand over their unhealthy habits, and genes as well. But not everything there is genetics, most certainly not. Just look in their shopping carts and shudder in awe -- softdrinks with tons of sugar, deep fried ready meals, teeth melting sweets and so on. They got no one to blame but themselves.

Insofar, I like that doctors blunt and in-your-face approach: "You are obese! Do something!" When that lady was insulted in face of such a "hurtful, not helpful" statement, what does she say to her mirror?

That Doctor was just stating the bloody obvious. However, and here starts the interesting part, she made him an offender and herself a victim, retaining her inner ballance. That is a familiar psychological mechanism to deflect unpleasant realities. One can live with that quite comfortable, I presume. It only usually collapses when it eventually encounters a reality that cannot be ignored, like a wall, heart attack or whatever - than the 'hangover' starts

IMO the solution to the problem is education anyway - but even though you can trade the American Way of Life (tm), with all the conveniences for a healthier and less confortable one, dont expect the people to make the unconfortable choice.

That'd be unrealistic without a more general change of mind, that is IMO unlikely to occur because the fatsos get no pity or comfort from the slimmies -- and to see them as 'victims' of their own bad habits is somewhat far fetched indeed.

[ August 25, 2005, 12:10: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Fat parents have fat children, because they hand over their unhealthy habits, and genes as well.

Spot on. There is also a fair degree of denial, and a lack of understanding about the energy in / energy out equation amongst the general (Western) population.

BTW, regarding the odd post re laziness being contributary - the amount of walking required to lose weight if you do not also change your eating habits is around 10km per day.

 

Recently there was a news article about a woman who has been on a McDonald's diet -- she does not really exercise much and has eaten only McDonald's food for a month and lost 35 pounds. An individual chooses what to eat and when. If a person chooses the supersize over the salad every time that their fault.

 

We all know corporate America would NEVER do that...

This is the result of drugs being illegal. Take away cigarettes and the result would be pretty much the same. During prohibition the results were generally the same.

 

People make their own decisions as to what to buy, what to it and all and they need to take responsibility. This is true. But it's also true that corporations use specially designed luring techniques in advertising and they are conscious of what product they are selling, so they need to take responsibility, as well. If they get sued, they get what they are asking for. You can't really tempt someone and then say he did it, not you.

 

The violence comes more often with the stronger more expensive stuff which I would never ever want to see leglised, no matter how bad it would get.

As for obesity, I personally don't see why the corporations should be responsible for selling their products. On the other hand I think they should make it perfectly clear that their food do not contain all the nutrients required from a "decent meal", and if there was an EU directive about them being forced to put of signs that say it I would fully support it. All these lawsuits however are complete BS in my opinion, especially when the compensation is money. If the corporations should be forced to compensate in any way I think a paying a personal fitness trainer and the usage of a gym for a year would be more than enough.

 

At first glance it looks total bull****, but as you say, there are things they don't make clear or perhaps even try to hide. Then again, people aren't dumb enough to think Mac won't make them fatter. And if they are, then getting fat from Mac is the last thing they need to worry about...

As I said before in this same thread, I don't eat burgers. Sometimes I would take the chicken bits or French fries but I don't remember when I last stepped my foot in Mac. Probably a couple of years now. I don't understand the mysterious force that compells people to eat burgers and get fat from it. It isn't even addictive like cigs are.

 

People do get addicted to the strangest things. I read in newspaper some time ago about being let out from ther military service because of computer addiction. A more common addiction is of course alcohol which as far as I know contain no addictive substances in itself.

 

Alcohol per se is addictive - taken daily in quantities that vary between individuals it causes a physical dependence. Hence the "DT's" - the physical withdrawal from alcohol.

 

Morgoroth is from Finland, he has to take this point of view

[ August 26, 2005, 11:17: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

The problem is that people think they should have restaurant sized portions at home, insteading of seeing the monthly trip out as a 'teat'.

 

Well atleast alcohol is not as addictive as cigs or I'd think that most people here would be addicted to it allready.

Damn right!

Btw, I'd prefer not to be called Morgoth since he's another poster on the boards. Morg, Morgo, Morgoroth, or something like that will do just fine.

 

Oh yes, wasn't there this study that while French and American food is about as fat and potentially unhealthy, yet the French are slimmer by far? First, the fat factor is vastly overrated, sugar plays at least an as important role - it's about the calories input in general compared to what you burn. Then, the thing with American food is the portion size - portions in the U.S. are approx 25% larger, meaning 25% more calories.

The sizing can mean to offer meals with more calories than anyone, not even a high performance athlet or physically hard working person, could *possibly ever* burn.

-The Skinny on the French? They Eat Less
-Smaller Food Portions May Explain the 'French Paradox' of Rich Foods and a Svelte Population

McD's food being unhealthy is one thing. Sizing the portions of that junk quite something else. One cannot tell me that the sizing of the portions is done by accident by McD and other food chains. Considering the detailed procedures they have for flipping the burgers alone, they will have spent some thought on the sizing as well. As every modern company, food chains, too, do exploit consumer instincts.

They are hardly blameless for the obesity phenomenon in a country where people cook less themselves and go out to buy ready food instead -- one cannot easily dismiss it as a mere willpower deficit of the population.

 

Its more to do with lifestyle.

An example is Ireland, where lard, goosefat and butter is still used in our cuisine, yet the average Irish person is much skinnier than the average US citizen.

We still have all you can eat buffets here, and fast food restaurants, but we prefer to walk when we can, cycling and hiking are also very popular. You would be amazed in Autumn where you can see groups of old men jogging the toe paths along the rivers.

 

It goes hand in hand, a more physically active lifestyle means you do burn more and you thus can eat more without getting fat or obese even. Smaller portions support that and can even compensate for moving less while still eating 'heavy food'.

Insofar the convenience argument brought up earlier has merit. When leaving everything inconvenient to service providers or mashines, man reduces himself to a mere consumer in the literal sense of the word, a food dump, much like Jabba the hut.

Probably the hut state will be the next evolutionary step of the obese

 

I don't know how it is in Europe, but in the U.S. fast food restaurants, including but not limited to places like Burger King and McDonalds, are required to post all nutritional information for their products somwhere prominently in the store. While I do not eat at such places very often, I notice that most of the time the information is posted just inside the door (so you actually have to walk past it to order something) or right next to the counter where you place your order. We can't use the excuse that the fast food companies are withholding information from the customers, because all the information is posted right there. I feel that McD's fulfills any obligation to inform the public by providing this information. If you still chose to eat there, you knew what you were getting.

They also post it on their website, so you can find out without actually going to the restaurant first. For example, according to McD's website, a Big Mac has approximately 1000 calories. That's just the sandwich mind you. Add in large fries and a large Coke, and that number goes up to close to 2000 calories. Given that 2000 calories is what the FDA recommends a normal person eats every day, a single super sized Big Mac meal consumes your entire caloric allowance for the day. So if that's your lunch, you really shouldn't have eaten breakfast, and you really shouldn't eat dinner either. Now I seriously doubt that a super sized Big Mac meal has anywhere near all the nutritional requirements that a person should get in a day, but it certainly has the calories.

 

I'm not entirely sure if it's enough. I've allways felt that corporations should not be allowed to abuse the stupidity of people, atleast in matters concerning health. Now even if they have the nutrition information in numbers I do feel they should write broschueres (sp?) or something similar which actually explain what all those funny numbers mean. I have the feeling that the average man has no idea what the required calory input of the day is, so therefore just numbers won't do it in my opinion.

I do believe though that many people would just continue with their habits even if they were fully aware what the food did to them. People allways seem to start caring about their health the moment it hits them hard and not a moment before and then it's usually a bit too late to start changing your diet.

 

I had an interesting discussion with my girl-friend, who's doing an MSc in Clinical research. High Blood Pressure (Hyper-tension) and heart disease (Forget cancer, this is the worlds biggest killer) is much more of a world-wide problem than is commonly recognised - not the westernised disease it is often portrayed as. The greatest suffers tend to be Afro-Caribbeans, not helped by the fact that the most commonly used drugs for Hyper tension (Beta-Blockers) generally have a lower efficacy in the black population.

 

The 'convenience' argument doesn't stack for me because I reckon the most convenient food in the world is an apple, which requires no cooking, no unwrapping, costs about 20 cents, tastes nice, and is relatively healthy. A banana is only marginally less convenient (you have to peel it! oh no!) and a carrot is not particularly complicated to eat either.

Often, it takes MORE effort and MORE money to eat unhealthy food.