We're too fat! Give us more money!

[Lace Neil Singer]

Personally, I don't feel that obesity really counts as a disability in the way that, say, having arthritis in your joints or being paralysed would. These people are not fat cuz of genetics or cuz they woke up one day and they'd gained 10 stone. They are fat cuz they eat too much. The end. So why should the taxpayer fork out so that they can sit about all day stuffing their faces? If they don't want to work, then their benefit should be cut off. Perhaps if that happened, they might be motivated into getting off their fat arses and finding some work. Even voluntary work would show willing.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

But in order to eat healthy AND cheap - you have to cook. Which, I imagine, is the problem here. Heck, I have that problem - I'm pretty much superbusy all the time, I don't have time to cook dinner every night. Sometimes I don't have time to do a big cookup on the weekends. It is really hard to do healthy and fast and cheap.

I'm assuming that this is because you work. Four unemployed adults in a house I am figuring can squeeze 30 minutes of food prep into their busy day of Play Station and twinkie eating.

I'm not busting on them for being overweight. I'm busting on them for being trifling and lazy.

[Slytovhand]

Pasta dishes are also cheap for the basics.

Sorry Raps, gotta fail you on that one... pasta is pretty much pure carbs. If you're not exercising (which, I presume, they're not), all it's going to do is add to the problem.

But otherwise, yes, what you said is quite true - it's usually a bit cheaper to eat healthy (if you don't go organic)... and usually tastes better too!

(and personally - I prefer a nice yellow or red curry... course - the coconut milk/cream won't help either I hope you're putting in some kaffir lime leaves with it!)

[Rapscallion]

Well, it's healthy if you work the bugger off...

Rapscallion

[Lace Neil Singer]

Wholemeal pasta would be healthier. In any case, it's still a damn sight healthy than ploughing thru masses of pie and chips.

[kiwi]

Sorry Raps, gotta fail you on that one... pasta is pretty much pure carbs. If you're not exercising (which, I presume, they're not), all it's going to do is add to the problem.

I respectfully disagree

pasta can be a part of a healthy diet, there is a reason the Italians are among the healthiest people in the world and their diet is rich in pasta. Any food, carb or not can be healthy or unhealthy, it all depends on how you consume it

If you slather pasta in butter or oil and then eat it with a cheese sauce of course it is going to be unhealthy, if you eat more than you need then it's going to be unhealthy (but then so is a freaking carrot!). If you eat a proper serving of pasta with a tomato based sauce it can be one of the best meals nutritionally that you can get.

Carbs are not evil, refined processed carbs are very bad for you, but so are refined processed proteins and fats. Carbs can be a very cheap and healthy way to fill up or bulk out a meal to make it cheaper.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I respectfully disagree

pasta can be a part of a healthy diet, there is a reason the Italians are among the healthiest people in the world and their diet is rich in pasta. Any food, carb or not can be healthy or unhealthy, it all depends on how you consume it

If you slather pasta in butter or oil and then eat it with a cheese sauce of course it is going to be unhealthy, if you eat more than you need then it's going to be unhealthy (but then so is a freaking carrot!). If you eat a proper serving of pasta with a tomato based sauce it can be one of the best meals nutritionally that you can get.

.

The reason Italians (living in Italy) are among the healthiest in the world has nothing to do with their pasta consumption. Pasta in Italy is a side dish, not a main dish. They eat lots of vegetables, they eat meats, they eat fats, including a lot of olive oil. And they walk everywhere. Italians might be healthy, but they do tend to get a little tubby, especially over in the States. This is because we eat crap over here and don't walk anywhere.

Slathering pasta in butter and cheese sause does nothing more than make the butter and cheese sause stick to something that is going to keep you from burning off the fat you just ate.

No, carbs are not the enemy...but in this country, they comprise FAR too large a chunk of our diet. We are fat because we consume them as if they are a staple, which they should not be. They should be a side dish.

There is a very good reason that people over here eat pasta and rice several times a week trying to lose weight. They drizzle a little dab of olive oil or broth over it, eat it, stay hungry and then wonder why they stay fat.

It's really freaking tragic. Those people have been very badly mislead.

[kiwi]

Pasta in Italy is a side dish, not a main dish.

sorry I should have written that more clearly, I meant that pasta is their main form of carb (along with bread of course)not a main part of the meal like you can get in the USA where the Italian food is about as authentic as the Mexican food is from taco bell......

[Seshat]

These people are not fat cuz of genetics or cuz they woke up one day and they'd gained 10 stone. They are fat cuz they eat too much. The end.

(The following question excludes those who are overweight due to genetic, health or metabolic reasons.)

Why do these people eat too much and/or exercise too little?

There has to be a reason. It may be cultural, psychological, even physiological. It may even be city design!

My husband did some work in the States - and discovered that despite his hotel room being very close to the workplace, there was no way to walk from one to the other. No safe footpaths (sidewalks), a major road between him and the workplace, and the nearest crossing over the major road was half a mile away.

He's used to walking to a nearby shop for bread and milk and other small shopping trips. Two weeks in a place without safe footpaths and he put on a few kilos!

If he'd had safe footpaths and a way to cross the major road, he'd have done extra walking for those two weeks (to and from work as well as the mini-shops) and he'd - well, he wouldn't have lost much fat because he didn't have much, but he'd have put on more muscle.



Anyway: I don't like to just say 'they're lazy and ignorant'. I want to know why so many people are putting on weight.

I want peoples' first reaction to be getting a medical evaluation, not going on a diet found in a magazine. I want city designers and road designers to plan for pedestrians and cyclists. I want small parks all over the place.

I want walking paths along any streams in the city, with native flora and fauna to encourage casual walking. I want kites and frisbees and tennis balls to sell as well as playstation games - and be used as much, in those small parks I mentioned.

I want bananas, apples and carrots to be as culturally accepted as snacks as cookies and chips are. I want to get rid of ads like one that appeared here: comparing a meal of crudites (slices of vegetables) and hummus (chickpea dip) to the pre-packaged expensive 'lunch' being promoted, and making the crudites and dip out to be seriously inferior. (Nutritionally, the crudites and dip was much healthier. Hummus is almost entirely chickpeas.)

[Slytovhand]

I respectfully disagree

pasta can be a part of a healthy diet, there is a reason the Italians are among the healthiest people in the world and their diet is rich in pasta. Any food, carb or not can be healthy or unhealthy, it all depends on how you consume it

I'll respectfully allow you to

Yes, I know, but it all depends on how you consume it....pasta should never be a staple main item (as RK mentioned). It it not as good for you (long term) as unrefined rice. It's not because it's 'bad', it just doesn't go well in a person who has fairly low activity rates. Lots of pasta + no exercise = big weight gain. That's all. (and these people seem to be relatively inactive (or at least, if they are exercising, they haven't worked out a good diet to go with it).


Sheesh, Seshat, you don't want much, do you?? But, I totally agree with you (for what that's worth). But it's good to hear stories where coke and 'snack foods' are on the decline in our schools... and I recall hearing of parents and schools complaining about a Macca's that opened just down the road from it (the school that is - not the parents).

[Boozy]

Why do these people eat too much and/or exercise too little?

There has to be a reason. It may be cultural, psychological, even physiological. It may even be city design!

It could also be that they eat too much fattening food because fattening foods taste good, and they find watching TV is more enjoyable than jogging. I'm prepared to put a sizable wager on their weight situation being just that simple, because it is that simple with most people.

I'm usually the first one around here to say "This problem is more complex than it seems". But an individual's weight is not one of those problems. They take in more calories in than they burn. I'm sure there are more McDonald's restaurants in their area than health food stores, but you can't blame city planning for poor personal choices.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Here's what I believe to be the reasons people over here are epidemically overweight:

1. We are told the absolute wrong way to eat healthy. We are on a government-approved and government recommended regimen of horrible, horrible eating habits. Many people, many unhealthy, overweight people just keep doing the wrong thing because that is what they are told to do and they tragically believe it. Sadly, they ARE trying, but they are doomed to start with. They are drowning, and they are being told to just keep breathing more water.

I still think this particular family is a bunch of lazy potatoes. Anyone who thinks they are too fat to work...and considering that none of them seem wheelchair bound or bedridden, that's pure T horseshit...and that they are helpless to change their situation is making excuses and wouldn't help themselves even if they could. I've known far too may of these people to buy that foolishness.

2. People do not want to change their habits. They would rather die. So they let themselves believe that they really do not have any power to change their situation. Deep down, they don't really want to believe that their problems are caused by anything they can change.

3. It IS more fun to lay around on the sofa and watch TV than is to run a treadmill or do sit ups. I freely admit that is probably true for most people, including myself.

We might live in an astronaut world, but we are still cavemen. We want our fattening foods and then we want to lay around and sleep on all that easy energy because as far as pure animal survival goes, that's the way to survive. Successful animals have extra resources, like body fat. Our metabolic systems think we are still banging rocks together.

[AdminAssistant]

Why do these people eat too much and/or exercise too little?

There has to be a reason. It may be cultural, psychological, even physiological. It may even be city design!

Thank you, Seshat.

Look, I'm overweight. Am I happy about it? Of course not. Do I know what to do about it? Yes. So why haven't I done it? Because it's not as easy as "just start eating less and moving more, ya lazy bum!!" It really is not that simple in my case...and in many cases. Emotional eating, no time for a healthy dinner, have no money....I could list reasons all day long. And being in the US with a culture of fast food and driving everywhere does have something to do with it. Being from a Southern family where everything was fried has something to do with it.

Now in this case? Yeah, the family has plenty of time and resources to do something about it. Some do not. Sorry...but I just get tired of hearing that overweight people are just lazy or want to be that way.

I do eat a lot of pasta, but whenever I make it, I LOAD it up with onions, peppers, celery, zucchini, mushrooms, squash...all kinds of veggies. So....I eat that as a main course and feel that it's pretty darn healthy.

[AFPheonix]

It's entirely possible that it is, but what size portion of that are you eating? Invest in a kitchen scale and head over to www.dailyplate.com and get a handle on how much you actually take in per day.
Once you have that figured out, then you can figure out just how much less you need to take in compared to how much energy you put out.
Something Awful's Watch and Weight forum is a reasonably good weight loss/fitness forum and a lot of previously massive posters have gotten down to a healthy weight and even gotten pretty ripped from the advice and encouragement they've received there.

[Greenday]

I think portion sizes is part of it too here. They are freaking gigantic. That's completely normal. Not quite so much in other countries that don't have this problem.

Also, dinner seems to be the most important meal. That's completely backwards. Dinner should be the smallest meal. Food = energy. Unused energy turns into fat. After dinner, most people don't go out and use up tons of energy. People relax. Energy doesn't get used so it turns into fat.