Perspective on the Obesity "Epidemic"

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2004-08-02 04:00am

Master of Ossus wrote:Incidentally, I have trouble being sympathetic to the morbidly obese as a group. I feel sympathy for individuals, like Glocksman and for the guy in the article, but for some reason I find it difficult to see truly overweight individuals as a group deserving of sympathy (the way I see, say, Native American tribes). I'm not real sure why it is, but I tend to tell myself things like, "One does not wake up one day and find themselves 30kgs overweight." My thoughts on the really out-of-shape people I meet tend to run along those lines. It's probably short-sighted of me, but that's really how I feel. Should I try to change my opinion by devoting much more thought to this issue?

No. You say "as a group". I hate all these special interest groups who get together and wail "Pity me!"

I can't speak for everyone who's overweight, but for me personally, I consider it a severe character flaw in myself. One can make every excuse under the sun, but the fact is, moving around more than usual and cutting your food intake will make you lose weight, no question.

I was sick as a dog for a week once, and couldn't even get out of the house. I ordered a pizza, and it lasted me the whole week. I lost 12 pounds that week, laying in bed, and eating pizza! Of course, I don't recommend this! Take the Jared guy from Subway. He ate one 6" and one foot long veggie sandwich, and two bags of Baked Lays for a year, and lost 200+ pounds. Does Subway have magic food? Nope. He just cut his food intake.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2004-08-02 09:47am

i'm what is probebly termed fat, not obese, at 65kg for 160cm, its due to my own character flaws,and the fact, that exercising for me outside of 'school' is hard, doubly hard in school, as I'm not as good as other kids, and get ridiculed for this.

The best I can say is, which worked for my friend, determination and work with the family, which started going out on daily bike rides all together, for him and his obese brother.

Elfdart · Post by **Elfdart** » 2004-08-02 10:02am

Hamel wrote:
Alyrium Denryle wrote: Flat out BS. Fruits and veggies are dirt cheap at a supermarket like safeway, or Wal-Mart. jesus christ, produce is cheap, only thing cheaper per lb is ramen practically.

You're full of crap. If my family bought all our veggies from the store, we'd be broke by now. That's why we have a garden.

Amen. I earn fairly good money, but a trip to the supermarket can be a wallet-buster. The real ass-kicker is that the soil in this part of Texas is so unforgiving that the only things most gardens here produce are squash, pumpkins, zuchini and horseshoe-shaped cucumbers -so a garden doesn't help a whole lot. It was only after spending thousands of dollars importing soil, peat moss and cow shit, that I've gotten anything worthwhile from the garden. I do have the good fortune of my brother and his in-laws bringing me bison and elk they hunt in Colorado and Wyoming. I'm the only one in the family who can make something from them other than sausage (the wild game, not my in-laws

).

And people wonder why TV dinners and fast food are so popular. In many places, it's cheaper to feed the kids at McDonald's than a decent meal cooked at home. Double cheeseburgers are only a dollar apiece! Also, parents have to work longer hours, which leaves little time for cooking proper meals, as the Glocksman described. Arby's plain roast beef sandwiches are more or less fat free and cheap, so there's at least one type of fast food that's not a lard omlette.

I kind of lucked out, in that my mom was (and still is) such a bad cook that I took matters into my own hands and started cooking by myself (To this day when we go to her house at Thanksgiving, I roast the turkey.). In fact, I'm a little too good at it because I put on weight working in a restaurant and being asked by friends and relatives to cook for them at home. Nobody trusts a skinny chef, right?

For inner city families, the only thing I can think of is to have several families get together and share cooking duties. On one night, "Jones" will cook for everyone, "Smith" the next. Or they all work together every night. Just a thought.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-08-02 10:40am

I've found that eating out at fast food joints is far more expensive than just making your own food at home. When I go out to eat, I spend something like $5. If I do that every day, that's $35/week. I could buy a lot of groceries with that money by just sticking to the generic brand stuff, and those groceries would last me longer than a week.

For example, a sub at Jimmy John's usually runs in the area of $5. I could buy 2 loaves of bread, a pound of turkey and a pound of cheese at the deli for about $15, and it'd last me a hell of a lot longer than 3 days, and it'd make a lot more than 3 sandwiches.

When I do eat out, I try to limit it to places like Subway, Jimmy John's or Quizno's. Though sometimes I spoil myself with a nice, jumbo chili dog.

Bob the Gunslinger · Post by **Bob the Gunslinger** » 2004-08-02 05:16pm

Durandal wrote:
For example, a sub at Jimmy John's usually runs in the area of $5. I could buy 2 loaves of bread, a pound of turkey and a pound of cheese at the deli for about $15, and it'd last me a hell of a lot longer than 3 days, and it'd make a lot more than 3 sandwiches.

What the hell? Where I live, groceries like that would be more like $30 than $15. I think Costco and Foodmaxx are the only places where food is economical... and they're hard to get into without a membership.

(Well, not Foodmax, but that isn't very close to my house.)

Damaramu · Post by **Damaramu** » 2004-08-02 05:29pm

Crom!

I can go down the corner Walgreens and buy 2 loaves of bread for 99 cents (and I'm not talking Wonder Bread), a pound of turkey meat for $1.50 and cheese for $1.99..........

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-08-02 05:30pm

Well, you figure $5 for the turkey, $5 for the cheese and maybe $2 for the bread (I'm talking about the cheap, Wal-Mart brand stuff that's $0.89 per loaf). Factor in taxes, and you have my estimation.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-08-02 05:34pm

Durandal, you really shouldn't be eating turkey that's over three days old. Unless you freeze it, of course, but thawing out sandwich meat is a bitch.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2004-08-02 06:16pm

If it's preserved, it lasts longer, but I never let it sit in the fridge more than five days. I also keep it in the coldest part of our refridgerator, which actually is so cold that there's a frost spot right next to the food...

salm · Post by **salm** » 2004-08-02 06:31pm

potatoes. what about potatoes. they must be cheap in the usa.
then there´s rice. rice is dirt cheap, healthy and doesn´t make you fat.
canned tomatoes are dirt cheap, healthy and don´t make you fat either.

it´s not like you have to live solely from fresh vegetables anyway. the people who are blaming their fatness on prices of fresh food are full of shit.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-08-02 06:48pm

Potatoes are usually pretty cheap, eggs are extremely cheap, carrots are pretty cheap, cheese is pretty cheap, sandwich meat is relatively cheap as Durandal said, canned tuna isn't too expensive, there are lots of very healthy foods that are cheap. Really, all things considered, it isn't extremely expensive to eat healthy. The problem is you have to put time into it (it doesn't have to be a two-hour a day affair, but you have to spend time preparing it), and it doesn't taste nearly as good as fast food.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2004-08-02 07:01pm

Joe wrote:Potatoes are usually pretty cheap, eggs are extremely cheap, carrots are pretty cheap, cheese is pretty cheap, sandwich meat is relatively cheap as Durandal said, canned tuna isn't too expensive, there are lots of very healthy foods that are cheap. Really, all things considered, it isn't extremely expensive to eat healthy. The problem is you have to put time into it (it doesn't have to be a two-hour a day affair, but you have to spend time preparing it), and it doesn't taste nearly as good as fast food.

Hell, I will take down prices of a few select items at work. Do a cost comparison between that, and feeding your family Burger King.

And my home-made stuff tastes way better than fast food.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2004-08-02 07:16pm

Joe wrote:The problem is you have to put time into it (it doesn't have to be a two-hour a day affair, but you have to spend time preparing it),

yeah, it takes up incredible 15 to 30 minutes a day.
i mean, what is there to do?
morning:
it takes about a minute or two to prepare two sandwiches.

lunch:
see morning

dinner:
it takes about 13 minutes to cook rice. in 13 minutes you can also make stuff to put onto the rice. chop fresh vegetables and mushrooms, fry in pan, insert can of tomatoes and favorite spices (spices are dirt cheap by the way) and finished.

eat.

fast food might be quicker you´ll also take about 10 to 12 minutes a day preparing it. so you save about 10 to 20 minutes a day.

and it doesn't taste nearly as good as fast food.

only if you´re the worst cook in history.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2004-08-02 07:18pm

You have GOT to be shitting me.

You have GOT to be shitting me.

You have GOT to be shitting me.

Along comes CNN to make me very angry.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-08-02 07:23pm

YOU FUCKING IDIOT, IMPOTENCE IS A NATURAL HUMAN CONDITION, TOO, BUT FIND A MAN WHO SEEKS ACCEPTANCE OF IT OVER MAKING IT GO THE FUCK AWAY.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-08-02 07:26pm

Notice that book they're trumpeting around is not written by a licensed physician or researcher, but a law professor.

And if all this is true, how come other rich countries aren't fat?

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-08-02 07:32pm

Whisky Tango Foxtrot. Full-figured fitness instructor? You're not fit, how the fuck can you profess to teach it?

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-08-02 07:32pm

Christ, what a bunch of fucking morons. My favorite part was the bit about "health at any weight" - it's amazing how people can get themselves to believe in something completely divorced from reality when they want to enough.

Elfdart · Post by **Elfdart** » 2004-08-02 07:36pm

Another solution is a slow cooker like the crock pot. You can take very tough pieces of meat (thus the cheapest), chop them up, add water, onions, potatoes, carrots, coarse salt and set it on "low" for eight hours or more. Dinner is served when you get home. It's one of the few ways to prepare venison without it turning into hard leather. Fresh roadkill deer can be the jackpot! If I can find the recipe for my venison stew (actually ragout), I'll post it. It can be used on tough beef or pork as well.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-08-02 07:47pm

I agree, there's nothing like pot roast and veggies from a crock pot (gotta trim the fat off, though), poured over fresh rice.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2004-08-02 07:50pm

Alright, guys, here's something I learned while trying to help a friend of mine with his alcohol problem: it's possible to have an effective support group that raises people's self-esteems while acknowledging that there's an actual problem that helps link people together. By contrast, it is not possible to have an effective support group by repeatedly discussing the issue as if other people are the problem and in which the members are perfectly normal.

ReinnResauq · Post by **ReinnResauq** » 2004-08-02 08:03pm

What I've found to be the biggest cause of obesity is actually something quite prevalent in today's world: the automobile. It's easy (for most of us not in driver's ed), it's fast, and it requires virtually no energy to use. Too many people drive to the nearest fast food place when it's only a mile or two away.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone can eat as much as they want as long as they work it off. Energy in=Energy out. And since working out for the sake of working out takes the mental fortitude a lot of people don't have, if people would just put down their car keys and pick up their bike lock before going to work or to the video store, they'd start to lose weight. Or, at the bare minimum, their bodies would at least be healthier.

When I lived in Seattle without a car, I held myself at 192, perfectly good on my 6'4 frame. I've gained 15 lbs in about three months driving in Michigan.

Post by **Gandalf** » 2004-08-02 08:36pm

Joe wrote:I agree, there's nothing like pot roast and veggies from a crock pot (gotta trim the fat off, though), poured over fresh rice.

I concur, my family has something like that 3 nights a week. We're all good and thin.

Elfdart · Post by **Elfdart** » 2004-08-02 08:41pm

Here's the recipe:

2-3# venison, beef chuck or pork cut into 3/4" cubes
cup red wine -preferably burgundy
1/2# diced turnips
1 tablespoon minced garlic NOT THAT POWDERED GARLIC BULLSHIT!
1 tablespoon coarse (kosher) salt
2# small potatoes
2 cups red vinegar
as many baby carrots as will fit
1/2 white onion -cut into rings
place cubed meat into vinegar for 4 hours or overnight (this step is not necessary if you're NOT using game)
drain
place onion rings in bottom of crockpot
add meat
add wine
add potatoes and turnips
add garlic and salt -stir thoroughly
add carrots and mix
add just enough water to make a few vegetable float

cook on low for eight hours or more

If the sauce turns watery, thicken with a tablespoon of white flour.

Feeds several -if you guard the pot!

Another is a bit more simple:
2# beef cubes
4 zucchinis
16 oz tomato sauce
1# dry penne rigate
2 cups beef broth or water
1-2 tablespoons of garlic (don't make me repeat myself on what kind)
2 onions -diced or petaled

brown beef cubes or grill them
cut zucchinis into chunks
cut up onions
put all of this into crock pot
add penne rigate, tomato sauce and water
basil is optional
stir

another long day for the crock pot!

In both cases, real low-fat healthy dinner is served.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-08-03 01:57am

Howedar wrote:Whisky Tango Foxtrot. Full-figured fitness instructor? You're not fit, how the fuck can you profess to teach it?

I hate the term "full-figured". It's so fucking stupid; are they suggesting that someone like Kathy Ireland has an incomplete figure? I guess they prefer it to "fat", but it's simply wrong. It's just one of the myriad literally incorrect but politically correct terms that we've become saddled with.