Obesity. A worldwide problem?

[Khoranth]

Some of us don't have the freedom or resources available to prepare our own meals. If I wasn't so damn bereft of money - I could have a place and stock my own fridge and have my own cooking space.

That isn't the case ... so I eat to survive the best I can, which is currently about half cheap meals and about half healthy ones.

---------- Post added 2012-08-17 at 04:11 AM ----------



I gave examples... you should eat more carrots dood

Lets go again:

Pizza : two meals $5 (unhealthy)
Maccas: one meal $2 (unhealthy)
Subway: one meal $8 (reasonably healthy)
Lite'N'Easy: one meal $10 (very healthy)

The simple fact that cannot be get around is that healthy requires fresh, unhealthy does not.

Fresh costs more, and requires more preparation.

You don't need some huge kitchen to eat healthy, you can eat fruit and vegetables raw.

At my grocery store I can get:

a pound of grapes for $1.99
a pound of apples for $2.49
a pineapple for $2.99
a bag of 14 oranges for $5.99
a pound of brocoli for $3.49

If you cannot afford a small fridge get a cooler and then keep it cool with a bag of ice that costs $2.99 for 5 pounds of ice

[Gilian]

You only need glycogen stores if you're working out, if you're just losing weight there is no particular advantage to storing it.

Anyway, back to the calories in-out discussion. Thanks to the lipid hypothesis, the standard weight loss advice in the US is to a diet low in fat, low in animal protein, and high in fiber and complex carbs. On that diet, something like Special K would be a perfect breakfast. The problem is that Special K has a glycemic index of 69. Sucrose, aka table sugar, has a glycemic index of 65. This means that eating a "good" breakfast will raise your blood glucose more quickly than eating the equivalent amount of sugar. (Which, amusingly, only has .3 more calories per gram) If you combine that with, say, a piece of wholewheat toast and an orange, your body is going to produce a bunch of insulin which going to impede your ability to access stored fat. So, even though you've eaten a relatively low calorie meal, your body will be unable to burn fat effectively and that, in turn, will produce hunger. I mean, that's fucking insanity. The food recommended and advertised to people for weight loss actually interferes with your ability to use fat! The calories in calories out is just outdated and is not sufficient to describe the human body.

You can nitpick about details but it is really this simple: if you eat in moderation and work out you are not going to be obese (and that is exactly 'calories in vs calories out'). Many people have used this approach and it has worked many or every time. It's simple and you don't need to have a doctor next to you measuring your food intake etc. and advising you what to eat every day.

In the end it doesn't really matter that much what you eat. The biggest problem is people (in well developed countries) simply eat way too much and next to that, with all our technology etc, people simply don't move/work out enough. And for someone weighing 150 kg eating Special K in the morning is probably a huge step up from what they were eating before.

People should count the amount of calories they take in every day. During the week I will eat around 1800-2000 calories per day. This saturday I probably ate 2500-3000. An adult male needs 2000-2500 calories a day. I need around 2000 per day to stay on the same weight. (I'm 1.89m, 86 kg with 10% bodyfat.) Almost everyone eats too much simply because they can and food is addictive.
I once saw on television some guy who ate 20000 calories a day... If we killed him we could save 10 people who are dieing of hunger and they would be much more productive than this one guy.

---------- Post added 2012-08-20 at 02:20 PM ----------

Some of us don't have the freedom or resources available to prepare our own meals. If I wasn't so damn bereft of money - I could have a place and stock my own fridge and have my own cooking space.

That isn't the case ... so I eat to survive the best I can, which is currently about half cheap meals and about half healthy ones.

---------- Post added 2012-08-17 at 04:11 AM ----------



I gave examples... you should eat more carrots dood

Lets go again:

Pizza : two meals $5 (unhealthy)
Maccas: one meal $2 (unhealthy)
Subway: one meal $8 (reasonably healthy)
Lite'N'Easy: one meal $10 (very healthy)

The simple fact that cannot be get around is that healthy requires fresh, unhealthy does not.

Fresh costs more, and requires more preparation.

It's sad you make excuses for being fat instead of doing something about it.

I guess you don't have money for a fridge or a kitchen but you do have money for a WoW and internet subscription and a PC...

Healthy doesn't require fresh. What a load of crap. Ever been in a supermarket? You think rice from the supermarket is fresh?
I can cook a meal for € 1,50. If I order a pizza it will at least cost € 6. You are even better of eating bread with some veggies and something else. It's cheaper and healthier and you don't need to cook anything.

[ifrah]

Quite funny thing that I saw waay back then in super size me perhaps was that it's totally ok and even favorable to preach smokers how they are destroying the health of themselves and everyone around them. But mother-fucking-god if you go say that to a fat person. So as long as the general attitude towards obesity is "well... it's a problem, but excuse1, excuse2, ..., excuseN" instead of it being a big and real issue that is primarily caused by the people themselves, I doubt it's going to get any better.
Of course you have to remember the effect that parents have on their children. You can't really blame the 12year or so obese kids for being in that shape, it's the parents' job to teach proper eating habits. Not that it makes the problem any less persistent, but probably more difficult, because unlike (most) smokers I'd bet that the eating habits you learn from the very young years are a lot more difficult to shake off than the habit of smoking learned on late teens or early twenties.