“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”
–Mark Twain
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Personally, I’ve never had a struggle with me weight. Some would claim I’m blessed with a fast metabolism. On the other hand, I haven’t eaten at McDonalds in over thirty years, generally avoid all fast food unless in a crises, and am health conscious.
“Staying slim is as important for the planet’s health as for our own, a new report reveals. Countries with normal rates of obesity (3.5%) consume almost 20% less food and produce up to one gigatonne fewer greenhouse gases than a population with a 40% obesity rate, concluded the article published in the International Journal of Epidemiology (IJE).”
America has a rate of 64.5% overweight or obese! (http://xpress.sfsu.edu/archives/news/004551.html)
This issue is tied to economic performance, mental health, health costs in general, societal stigma, and a whole plethora of other side effects.
It’s another example of a non-sustainable situation that neds to be addressed.
Oi’ve had a great deal of trouble with me own weight, laddie.
Seriously – thanks for bringing this up. It is a major issue but one that will be very hard to address because of all the special interests for whom getting Americans to shovel tons of cheap,k greasy, processed junk down our gullets is extremely lucrative.
That was a pretty eye-opening statistic.
It’s complicated and I can’t recall it all – nor do I know if anyone has a good counter to it – but Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma has a lengthy description of how government policies, including but not limited to subsidies, have led to an explosive growth in corn production; tied in with biological theory that says increased biomass (in this case, more corn than we know what to do with) must be consumed, and you have a picture as to why our waistlines are so much bigger than they were just 40 years ago.
I have no solutions (indeed, if I can’t even articulate the case better than this I’d be foolish to propose any) but we need to address this problem.
of how government agricultural policies such as subsidies can have catastrophic unintended consequences, read “The Worst Hard Time” – a recent book about the Colorado/Texas/Oklahoma Dust Bowl years. Simply astonishing.
Both of my parents spent their youth in the Dust Bowl and the stories they’d tell were simply fascinating. Mom grew up in the Texas panhandle, Wheeler County, Dad, in far southeast Nebraska. I told them several times that they should put their experiences to paper. Maybe I should record what I was told before it is completely forgotten. Thanks for the tip.
“Life has got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it like you find it. You got to change with it. If a day goes by that don’t change some of your old notions for new ones, that is just about like trying to milk a dead cow.” –Woody Guthrie
It’s human nature. I may lip service to greenhouse gases…..until I smell that ribeye.
But looking at my own weight and all the issues with it when it is high motivates some people. It’s very obvious, but not all.
But you will be glad to know that I’m doing my part to save the polar bears, Robin. I’m down 35 pounds from mid-April. I saw 248 on the scale yesterday for the first time in probably 13 years. I’m back up today, but the trend is there. Aiming for +/-200 by New Years.
As a kid so skinny that it devastated me and retarded my social development, to looking good in my 30’s and 40’s to fatty, if I can lose weight, anyone can. It took changes of habit and tackling it with lots of time, just like anything worthwhile. BC me, if anyone wants some help. paulv at paulv dot net.
Bet you’re feeling great. At late middle age, it becomes both a health and a vanity issue:-)
I can’t believe that recuing damsels in distress won’t get me in their good graces like it used to…my how times have changed!
it might make people think twice about being careless with their weight (how many people still sew their own clothes?!).
.
than it is about hunger. In my opinion.
.
Kids used to spend as much time running around outside as they did in school while TV time was strictly limited by moms who didn’t want you underfoot messing up the house instead of getting some healthy fresh air and there were no video games etc.
At the same time, we ate loads of real cookies and brownies and rice crispy treats made with plenty of sugar, eggs, butter etc but between growing and running around few were chubby and an obese child was rare.
More adults had jobs that involved physical work in factories, on farms, etc. Fewer two car families meant kids and adults both didn’t get in the car for every little visit or errand. More kids in urban, small town and suburban settings walked to school, walked or rode bikes to get to the park or visit friends. The middle class didn’t use lawn services when they had able bodied kids to help with yard chores. The list goes on and on.
If the combination of unlimited access to cheap high calorie food and little physical activity, not even walking, as part of everyday life is here to stay, so is obesity. The isolated blocks of supervised activities that we’ve substituted for what used to be constant activity for kids doesn’t come close to making up for the loss.
It’s really hard to maintain weight when kids start out overweight in the first place. Skinny kids used to fill out to average size. Now chubby kids fill out to supersize.
OK, maybe amongst some of the most obese, the most hard core, but not for the millions of merely “heavy” to somewhat obese. These folks, and I have been one, are the real problems in terms of health care costs and total impact on the globe. The real whales are still statistically low, I think. Well, for modern America.
Most obesity specialists are now mental health specialists. I find that amazing. If I have a clutch problem in my car, would I go to an autoelectric specialist or glass installer? I think not.
I have my weight loss program dialed in and here it is in brief: Record everything you eat. Cut the carbs to less than 50 grams a day, cut the sugars of any and all types. Cut the calories to a 1500 cal/day deficit from what you expend. Lots of fats to prevent insulin spiking, protein appropriate to your ideal body weight and activity. You don’t even need to exercise, although walking a few days a week has other benefits.
Off it comes.
Percentage of obese, not just over weight, Americans now 34%, more than a third:
http://www.reuters.com/article…
Food industry puts growth hormones in cattle and poultry to make the animals gain weight, lots of weight. Then, the animals are slaughered and the general public eats them….and gains a lot of weight. Coincidence? I think not. Are vegtarians fat?
No.
American vegetarians are not a good “Exhibit B” for comparison. The typical vegetarian is very health conscious. Not many smokers, for instance. I think many are on a quasi-calorie deprivation diet, whether conscious of it or not.
As much as I want to avoid hormones as the next guy, I don’t think they are the bogey man they once were, nor the cause of rampant obesity. There use is much more tightly regulated than thirty years ago and many in the industry have found that being able to claim “natural” has pricing benefits.
Gary Taubes, “Good calories, bad calories” is the definitive, scientific examination into the question of how populations who work hard and don’t eat a lot can be obese. And even die of starvation while having adipose tissue! You can go to google video and search for the above and find a fascinating 70 minute lecture that condenses a very hard read.
Our obesity epidemic has a number of causes. Plain increased calories (“Supersize that?”)and the ease of having food at the ready is a huge component. High Fructose Corn Syrup, in my not so humble opinion is a major player. Although the breakdown of glucose and fructose in HFCS is essentially the same as sucrose, the molecule is backwards! A mirror image of sucrose and our livers don’t work well with it. (And the fructose never enters the insulin dialogue and goes straight to the liver adipose tissue.)
Another huge reason for our obesity epidemic is that the official positions of the USDA, FDA, Diabetes and Heart associations is “More grain, less fat.” Well, guess what? Those of us who have buck this conventional wisdom are the ones losing weight and keeping it off. Humans did not evolve to eat grains, anymore that our cows in the feedlot did. Lesseeee….we feed unnatural grains to the cows and they get fat…..we eat lots of grains and……..WE GET FAT!
All hidden in plain sight.
Been at 285 in April, now 248 and headed for 200 by New Years. How? NOT EATING GRAINS for a large portion of the success.
Thanks for the information, pr. You are very knowledgeable and congrats on the efforts…
We need non-judgmental and non-commercial studies.. we should be funding medical anthropologists to look at eating patterns through time and space and the impact on health…..I suspect that different groups have different needs…..for example, sunlight, vitamin D and calcium absorption…differs by racial group….
However, as for grains, me and mine are in the mush for lunch bunch….easy on the teeth and easy on the digestion…..
….is that the government wing of the food business is controlled by the private wing.
“They” are looking at revamping the nutrition labels. Who is on this committee? Oh, the good folks over at Coca-Cola, the farmer’s friends, ADM, and so on. Probably not a broccoli grower to be seen.
These are the same people, ‘scuse me, corporations that have been telling us for 50 years that saturated fats are bad, grains are good. Yet 50 years of this crap and we are fatter than ever, still pretty much dying of CHD at the same rates. The solution? More!
… and now I’m an overweight omnivore.
Being overweight has much more to do with how much food you eat. In my case, I have a weakness for (vegetarian) potato chips and dairy. Too much of those = about 30 lbs overweight. (Plus, not enough exercise – I do get out and walk a few times every week, which is still good for my health, but if I want to shed the pounds I have my work cut out for me.)
Watch out for sweeping generalizations, dwyer.
Although to be perfectly accurate I was talking about
vegtarians, not vegetarians. A minor point, perhaps:)
Now then, I’d check out that dairy if I were you…
…that I was referring to the morbidly, super obese as still somewhat rare and of less financial consequence to the health care system than the millions of “regular obese.”
The definition for obese is pretty tight. IIRC, at 6’3″, I rate that definition at something like 220 pounds. Other than the health Nazis, I doubt if many people would call that obese, even skinny folk. I look my best at 195-200, which is like 14% body fat. Not much tolerance to skew the statistics.
Of course for the very buff with lots of muscle mass, weight has a different meaning but that’s not relevant in the case of couch potatoes.
All I know is, it was clearly a lot easier to maintain a healthy body weight without draconian calorie counting back when most people got off their asses and moved as a normal part of every day life, especially kids. You can also be thin and flabby and in poor condition. Hard to see how a sedentary lifestyle can be good for anyone and not part of the contemporary lard ass equation.
I never disagreed with your observation about activities.
I first made the observation that the super giant obese people are not the ones causing our health expenditures to, er, balloon. That the latter effect is from the many more less obese, but obese people in America.
Now I’m being held to the fire again for something I didn’t disagree with.
?????
PS, not the first time I’ve seen this phenomena with you, BC. Nor the second or third.
Ok, Ritter has put a freeze on hiring and the small number of exceptions makes it clear it’s real. When someone quits, that position stays open.
If every state employee who thinks taxes are too high and we have too many people working for the state quits – that will significantly reduce the government payroll and reduce government spending.
And because those open positions will stay open, it’s a real reduction. So nows your chance GOP – step up and encourage your members to turn their words into actions.
Everyone knows that all state employees are entrenched, socialistic, bureaucratic Democratic leeches who’ve never done a day’s worth of honest work in their entire lives. Right?
What good would it do, David, if four State employees quit?
(Obviously not counting elected officials).
whose living is based on government bureaucracy are Republicans. Randians, to be precise.
My brother worked in a factory that produced nothing but government forms. He wants to outlaw the state.
Can we have a discussion about hypocrisy – by posters here?
Exhibit 1 – everyone (including me) piled on Jared & Betsy for their proposal to not increase taxes on S corps. But who here has been supportive of proposals that will raise their own taxes? Yes you can always find reasons why taxing someone else is better – but there’s an awful lot of self interest in that too.
Exhibit 2 – everyone who could get hit with the late registration fee thinks it’s a terrible idea. If instead registration became mileage based everyone who drove a lot would be upset. What we have is evaluation based on what it does to me rather than on what is sensible.
Anyone here willing to speak up for tax or fee increases that impact them? (And increased taxes that then increase your pay don’t count.)
“driving a lot” is not a personal choice.
…to live in a rural area.
I will speak up for that.
And as one who has been late more than a couple of times with registration, I still support those increased late fees. It’s my own damn fault, after all: the expiration date is right there on my license plate.
The neighbor’s 8 MPG Lincoln Navigator with the snow tires still on it does a lot more damage to the roads and generates a lot more pollution on her 5-mile solo trip to work than my little compact car that weights 1,600 pounds and gets 33 MPG.
And let me step up as the person probably driving the most miles of anyone in this group – I’m for a mileage (and weight) based registration fee. I’m also for a higher gas tax, as this corresponds to carbon emissions – the Lincoln Navigator’s damage to the environment goes well beyond some weight*mileage calculation by sucking it in at 8MPG…
Like I say, snow tires still on it. I can hear her coming from a mile away and I’m not even on the ground floor!
I’ve put just over 140K on the wrecker since I started with the current job last April.
My wife and I put on about 50k per year on our primary vehicle between commute and trips. Plus another 20k on the other car.
Still, as non-commercial use goes…
I am undertaxed. My income taxes at both the state and federal level need to be raised. We need to raise gas taxes to build and maintain roads. We need to raise social security and medicare taxes to keep the systems from going bankrupt.
Satisfied?
For starters the state personal income tax rate is too low. Property taxes are also too low. I’m all for increasing some taxes AT THE SAME TIME that we continually look for and implement ways to cut unnecessary government spending.
I became a PERAsite last year (after many years of being a PERA Hopeful). I realize that my benefits are better than most people will ever receive, including people who have yet to retire. I can’t support reducing the benefit because many PERA recipients aren’t as lucky as me; I am working in a new career, but many recipients rely on their PERA as their sole income. However, I think giving PERA recipients a 3.5% annual increase when it’s hellaciously underfunded and puts our future benefits at risk is crazy. I’ll give those up because I want the fund to be there until I die!
The NYPD pays upwards of a million dollars a year maintaining their IBM Selectrics and other assorted dinosaurs.
Here’s a thought: Computerize the property voucher form and keep boxes of Bic pens and pads of paper around as the backup for the post-apocalypse.
The U.S. spent millions developing a space pen, a ballpoint that would perform in zero gravity.
The Russians sent their guys up with pencils.
Last I heard on the topic, but like all myths, there is great truth in there.
About 13 years ago I worked for a small trucking company and Selectrics it was. All those multi-page forms used in commercial transportation.
But at some point as costs keep rising, you figure out some alternative.
Hey, I’ve seen used good ones at Goodwill for $20 or so. Buy ’em all up. Cheaper than a repairman.
http://www.snopes.com/business…
http://www.snopes.com/business…
See also a Scientific American article at
http://www.scientificamerican….
In fact, a private U.S. company – Fisher – invented the “Space Pen” and supplied them to NASA at $2.39 each, with Fisher eating all development costs! And Fisher sold copies to the Russians as well! (In fact, the Russians apparently bought more than we did.)
The problem with pencils was that the leads and shavings could float around in zero gravity and cause all kinds of problems.
Gertie, no offense, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you’re a Republican. 😉
Factual, sensible and logically….what the hell is this blog coming to, anyway.
Oh wait…
“Under the Obama administration’s economic stimulus plan, needy communities were supposed to be a priority when doling out money to rebuild highways and jump-start the economy. It hasn’t worked out that way. The rules required that states give priority to counties considered ‘economically distressed.’ Yet less than half the federal highway money announced so far is directed toward those high-unemployment, low-income areas according to an Associated Press analysis of more than $16 billion in spending announced by the U.S. Transportation Department.” (April Castro, “Stimulus Watch: Neediest Areas Not First For Money,” The Associated Press, 7/19/09)
.
using RECOVERY funds.
The point of the ‘stimulus’ wasn’t to boost the economy so much as it was to fund the pet projects and interests of lawmakers.
.
Colorado’s allotment (PDF) is pretty widespread across the state.
“The federal government is calling reports that it spent more than $1 million to buy two pounds of ham under the stimulus program pure slop.” http://bit.ly/17MIET
The Congressman is getting lots of attention here today but I figured this was the best place to post this.
” I am particularly pleased to appoint Jared Polis to the Board of Visitors given strong ties between his congressional district and the academy near Colorado Springs and his expertise in the field of education coupled with is commitment to the our national security,” said Speaker Pelosi.
Colorad Statesman July 17, 2009
WTF?!
Since when is Boulder anywhere near Colorado Springs. Might this be, but one of, the reasons Congress is a mess under Pelosi!?
You don’t have any idea what the Board of Visitors is, do you?
http://www.realclearpolitics.c…
as Bush had leaving office. As that poll reflects:
It will take a while for our President to clean up the Bush destruction. And Americans know it. Meanwhile, as Rasmussen points out:
(sorry if this screws up the format of the open thread)
Check out this New York Times article, and the helpful graph that shows that Dubya wasn’t digging just a tiny little hole, and Obama hasn’t dug three times the hole that Bush did.
An image from W3Schools:
GOP deficits GOOD! Dem deficits BAD!
I’ll rely on the CBO, though.
3 years even a stretch.
However I agree CBO’s probably better
if you look at the graph, you find that’s not true at all.
Weird how facts get in one’s way sometimes.
That’s irony, right? It’s like spoons instead of knives or something?
found this so amusing:
Does he think there are different species of human being or does he think people are marryng their pets? Farm animals?
because as difficult as it might be for Kilmeade to admit his affair with that sheep, at least he’ll die knowing he met his soul mate.
But don’t worry, he’s still going to try to learn to love his pig again.