A diary originally posted on the European Tribune by Fran and slightly extended (with maps) by Jerome
This week I saw the following BBC feature repeatedly and every time it catched my attention.
US people getting fatter, fast
Americans are getting fatter at a rate never seen before, a report shows.
In the past year, the adult obesity rate rose in 48 of America’s states, and nationally from 23.7% to 24.5%, Trust for America’s Health found.
In 10 states, over a quarter of adults are now obese, despite campaigns alerting people to the dangers of over-eating.
Mississippi, famous for its calorific mud pie, ranked the highest, followed by Alabama and West Virginia.
(white means “no information” in the maps below. The colors show the percentage of obese people, per State)
1987:
1992:
1997:
2003:
I have been traveling to the US for decades now and every time I was amazed at the kind of obesity I saw. People here where overweight too, but not in the soft flappy why I got to see in the US and it was hard to imagine that it could get worse, but this is what seems to happen.
Crisis point
The non-profit organization said the situation had reached crisis point and current policies were failing.
Currently, about 119 million, or 64.5%, of US adults are either overweight or obese.
According to projections, 73% of US adults could be overweight or obese by 2008, Trust for America’s Health warned.
I do agree with the conclusion about the poor nutrition. Maybe one could even go further considering it to be starving. Nutrition is not just about calories, especially not empty calories and as long as the body does not receive what it needs for a healthy and well-functioning metabolism it will signal hunger as it starves and is hungry to get what it needs.
“We have a crisis of poor nutrition and physical inactivity in the US and it’s time we dealt with it.”
The trust says more needs to be done to tackle inactivity and poor diet, focusing particularly on schools to prevent bad lifestyle habits being learned in childhood.
But this is not just about the US. As described in the BBC feature this phenomenon can also be observed in the UK
“We have seen this year-on-year rise in obesity in the US that has been mirrored in the UK. We know we are only about seven years behind them.
“When will we in this country wake up and smell the coffee?
“The Americans have woken up to it before and clearly they are still in a state of policy paralysis.
“In this country, the government is working very hard to try and develop a strategy for obesity but at the moment very little practically is being done.
“It really is time that we got our finger out and started making real changes.
“This is no cosmetic irritation, it is a serious medical problem.”
But again it is not just the UK it seems to affect all of Europe. I wrote about above, that this soft, flabby kind of obesity was for associated with the US. Well, that has changed – I think about 5 years ago I started to see some of this here in Switzerland too, and over the last two or three years it has visibly increased.
I do agree again with the BBC feature that one of the solutions, if not the only, is education. I wanted to link to an article from the Independent about a program in French schools, which must have been published something over a year ago, but could not find it anymore. Thus, I was happy to find the following feature in my local newspaper:
Learning about food and physical exercise with «Tacco & Flip»
THE BASEL-LAND NUTRITION PROJECT AT ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS IS GOING INTO ITS SECOND ROUND
The lure of fast food is omnipresent. Fast food chains are everywhere. 30% of the kids are overweight. «Tacco & Flip» want to counter this trend.
In the USA, where fast food was invented, obesity is one of the major health problems these days. And since the fast food wave has washed across nearly every continent in the meantime, this is an increasing problem for us here, too. This makes it all the more important that the issues of lack of physical exercise and uncontrolled food intake (for which not only fast food can be held accountable) are tackled early – i.e. from birth.
Very often this works well as long as the parents are around, but not always. The following figures show this clearly: 60% of the kids have a weak or damaged posture; 40% have a weak cardio-circulatory system; 40% have muscular and stamina deficiencies; and 30% are overweight. These figures are alarming.
These are frustrating numbers and I do hope that education will help to improve the situation.
The project aims at a balanced energy exchange for kids, learning about healthy nutrition in a playful way, and adequate physical exercise – i.e. more of it again. Irène Renz, head of Health Promotion stated that obese kids are not singled out for therapy within this project. The project addresses all kids.
But while writing this, I was also wondering if this is not a more systemic problem of our society – the obesity only a symptom of its malfunction, that includes more than just food and if not tackled will have grave consequences for society as a whole.
What do you think?
Is it something genetic?
I was at the state fair the other day and couldn’t help noticing how chubby so many people looked, especially the children. And it doesn’t seem to me like these kids were simply FAT; they seemed just like big, big children — big-boned, who never lost baby fat. I know birth weights aren’t increasing, but is there something in the genetics that’s making kids put on weight, or is it just diet and activity? Are these kids destined to be large?
as if people in this country are almost afraid to be anywhere without food. I’ve seen people eating in libraries, museums and doctor’s waiting rooms. When I was a kid, bringing food into such places would never even enter your mind.
than just eating too much. People in the US used to slather on the butter, drink very high butterfat milk, eat fried food all the time — usually cooked with lard or crisco (hydrogenated transfat), and eat really big meals. A lot of people now eat lower-calorie food and watch the quantities.
There have to be other factors involved. One thing that’s different is the constant drinking of sweet stuff. One can of Coke, etc., has 11 teaspoons of refined sugar. If you went to a coffee house and your date put 11 spoonsful of sugar in his/her coffee, you’d think they were nuts. And yet all the kids and adults drinking Coke, 7Up, etc., are doing exactly that.
Still, I have to wonder whether some of this is the effect of some of the thousands of organic chemicals that are now in the food, air, and water worldwide. It appears that the obesity maps to countries with the highest chemical pollution rates.
To crank the tinfoil hat a little higher, I also wonder how much of this media “obesity” obsession is just hype to sell consumers even more processed foods marketed as “low calorie”, as well as semi-scams like weight watchers, Atkins, Bally, and all the rest of the incredibly profitable “health” industry that never seems to lead to anything healthy.
I’d put Weight Watchers in the “scam” category; I’ve been fighting (and losing) the Battle of the Bulge all my life, and of all the programs I’ve tried, Weight Watchers at least made me more aware of what I was putting into my body and how much activity is necessary. I’m not crazy about them pushing all the products, but I know that they’re a business in the long run.
I think that the sugared soft drinks could possibly be a cause — since I stopped drinking full-freight sodas regularly (I still have them occasionally, but mostly stick to water, and iced tea with calorie-free sweetener), my weight has at least stabilized, meaning I’m not gaining. Another problem is portion sizes — we’ve lost all track of how much food we really need to survive. Finally, we don’t move enough; parents are keeping their kids indoors instead of sending them out to play because of fears of violence and kidnappings (and in the urban wilderness, there’s no safe place for the kids to play anyway), and when it comes to suburbia, people are getting in their cars to drive two blocks to the grocery store to buy more junk food. There are actually places in my home of Silly Con Valley that have no freakin’ sidewalks — making it difficult to impossible to even consider using public transportation to get to work, unless you feel like walking in the rain gutters…
I can think of several reasons for all this to be happening.
Letting the food industry pretty much take over our food decisions by them preparing all our food is a major factor. All those women that used to control the food intake by considering the nutrition, calorie intake, and visual appeal of the food their families ate and preparing the food from scratch with great ingredients are not doing it anymore. The food industry is only concerned with the bottom line, so nutrition, calorie intake, and health consequences of chemicals are irrelevant to them. They just want to sell more so they can make more profit, and the only way they can do that is by making cost go down by putting the cheapest ingredients in and by getting us to buy more. I think they put things in the food to make us eat more too.
Then there are the growth hormones they give to the animals, which I am sure are a factor. Why everyone assumes the hormones just “go away” when the animals are slaughtered is beyond me.
Then there are computers, computer games and other things that entertain us without us moving much at all. I know that it became much harder for me to keep weight off when I got my first computer, since it is so tempting to do what I am doing right now – sit at my computer reading all the interesting diaries, comments, news, and other things. Who wants to get up and sweat anymore? I used to go outside and work for hours on end in my gardens, but now the bugs that bite and the aches and pains are deal breakers. It’s too much fun doing this instead. Then again, it could just be from getting old. 😀
From Wikipedia
The last time I had a soft drink was July 29, 1989, on a trip to Missoula, MT. It was an aberration. As a child my mother had no colas in the house. I chugged down root beer at my best friend’s house. I indulged in the root beer in Montana for a trip down memory lane.
As a child I wanted to grow up to be a farmer. Now I am an organic vegetable grower. We grow 90% of our food, including fruit. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to jiggle with flab. Sad.
The Canadian Le Dain Commission on Drugs claimed that if SUGAR were invented today [1970] it would be classified as a drug.
Here it is described as a drug by Rotten.com.
Folks, get a grip-a lot of this is hype pure and simple. Yes the problems mentioned exist but take a look at where some of the figures come from and who profits from it. There’s an interesting article in June’s Scientific American about it. No time to quote, please check it out yourselves.
I happen to be overweight and as I look back at 100 years or more of family photos, I see generations of pudgy people who were active and healthy and for the most part lived long lives. I also know that part of my weight issue has to do with being abused as an adult and wanting to be large and strong (I am, at least horizontally) and wanting some armor against controlling men who’ve been brainwashed by the media and/or popular culture. Might be interesting to see if other women (and maybe men too) have dropped out of the “beauty contest” either consciously or unconsciously.
is just a hype or not, I think there are two important things — the quality of the food we put in our bodies (going with healthier stuff, not all the junk food), and getting more active. The spouse and I are currently on vacation in Southern California (yes, I brought the laptop!) and we didn’t rent a car so we’re walking and taking transit all over the place. My feet are killing me, but it’s in a good cause…