Obesity and healthcare costs

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It is mostly blacks and Hispanics whom are obese

To be honest, the lower the IQ, the greater the obesity. Stupid people don't know better and probably don't care.

Childhood IQ in relation to obesity and weight gai... [Int J Obes (Lond). 2006] - PubMed result

 

[auditor0007]

Good topic. Obesity is the driver of much of the country's health care costs.

It would behoove us to consider why the country has become more obese.

Here's why: Big government dietary policies and agriculture programs which result in a much higher concentration of the typical American diet consisting of corn, wheat, rice, and soy. More of the American diet is comprised of convenience foods which are chockful of additives and refined ingredients. This food can be considered "predigested", and is converted into blood glucose at a much higher rate than Real Food.

Food companies are making bigger and bigger portions.

For example 20 years ago, two average slices of pizza contained approximately 500 calories. Today, the average slice of pizza is 850 calories. ...

It’s not just pizza either. Bagels are double the calories they used to be, from 140 calories for a 3″ bagel to today’s 5″-6″ bagel that carries a whopping 350 calories. The 8 oz. Coke bottle of yesteryear that contained 97 calories has been replaced by the 20 oz. Coke at 242 calories. Even our plates are bigger now. Twenty percent larger in fact. In 1990 the average plate size increased from 10 to 12 inches. If the plates are 20% larger, you would most likely be inclined to put 20% more food on that plate and eat it all. I know I did. Serve me a full plate of food I like and I’d clean it up. Not only that I may go back for more later when no one was paying attention to me.

Portion Sizes for Real People | Fit to the Finish

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Portion Sizes: Then and Now

The simple fact is that food companies squeeze more profits out of each unit by making portion sizes bigger. They pour billions of dollars into marketing and testing to understand the innate triggers which cause people to want to eat. When you see this

It creates a deep-seated physiological stimulus to want it. You are hard-wired that way. In a population which is presented with such stimuli, more will be consumed. There isn't much worse for you than bacon, but there isn't much better tasting either! If its out of sight, its out of mind. But if stimuli can be created - marketing, cooking bacon while you're around - you are more likely to respond and consume and thus buy from the companies that are selling to you.

We are getting fatter. But eating bacon is not making people fat. If we ate more bacon we'd actually lose weight. It is grains, bread, cereals, rice, sugar, and processed foods that we eat with the bacon that's killing us. That, and the awesome job that the food industry has done to convince people that they need to eat 3-6 meals a day - starting with a "healthy breakfast". That is such Pure bullshit. Do you think cavemen had access breakfast every morning? Let alone eat 6 meals a day? Hell no! Yet in spite of going sometimes weeks without food, the human brain grew at a phenomenal rate. All by eating lots of wild meat, fish, nuts and berries- sporadically at best. We benefit from missing a few meals now and then and feasting at other times. Once we started eating grains and "three square meals a day" our brains shrank and we started dieing of cancer. We became fat slobs. Connect the dots people , this shit ain't too hard to figure out. If you are fat you are eating too much grains, pasta, rice, and sugar! Don't even get me started on High Fructose Corn Syrup!!!! GRRRRRRR!!!

The truth is you can eat all you want and never get fat if you eat REAL food. Food that our hunter gatherer ancestors ate for millions of years. Odd thing is that once you start eating this way - your energy levels will go way up and your waistline way down. Eat pasta and cake and ice cream and all that shit - but just limit it to one day a week at most. You'll lose weight and improve your health.

I agree with you 100%. While some carbs are good, Americans eat way too many carbs. On top of that, they don't eat nearly enough fruits and vegetables. Meat is generally not the problem unless one eats only high fat meats.

We eat plenty of meat and fish. We also have vegetables and fruit almost every single day. As for carbs, we eat them too, but they are not the prime source of our nutrition. My teenage boys have a BMI under 20, and mine just went over 20 in the last couple of years.

As for sugar, I don't buy anything with artificial sweeteners, but I try to stay away from HFCS as much as possible. There is more than enough evidence out there that the body does not process HFCS as efficiently as it does natural sugars.