We Just Keep Getting Fatter

A news item about a week ago said that furniture manufacturers are bringing out wider chairs. Why? Because Americans are getting so fat, they can't sit on normal chairs anymore.

And airlines have official policies, now, for passengers who are very heavy and need two seats to accommodate them: the passenger now must pay for two seats.

These facts should be sobering to all of us, to put it mildly. Not to mention that we keep hearing the dismal statistics: two-thirds or Americans are overweight, and 38% are obese.

There is no mystery behind these phenomena. With the exception of a few individuals who have a glandular condition (e.g., hypothyroidism) or a genetic defect, the reason is very simple: we eat too much. Okay, to be a little more precise: we eat too many calories relative to the calories we burn. This means that we need to eat less (or eat less calorie-dense food), move around more (exercise), or both. And stop believing in any magic pills, either literal pills or magical diets.

Our food portions have gotten larger (think "supersize") and we are eating more food that is simply bad for us. I've blogged about America's overweight kids before. If you let them, kids will subsist on pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, and junk food. And then sit and play video games or tweet on their computers.

I don't know if parents give their kids 5 bucks and say "go to McDonald's." I do know that too many moms take their kids to McDonald's, for lunch and even for dinner, or bring McDonald's or KFC home for dinner. Who wants (or has the time) to cook? So goes the argument. If you care to look into it, a food item like a double cheeseburger has an astonishing number of calories. Bad enough two meat patties, instead of one; but we want to make it quite a bit worse with a slice—no, two slices--of cheese.

Start reading the nutrition information labels on the food you bring home. Request (if necessary) calorie information at McDonald's, KFC, Starbucks. Know what you're putting into your body. Besides calories, we are taking in way too much fat, sugar, and salt. These food components are in a sense addictive, and fast-food vendors and junk-food makers have made us into unhealthy-food addicts. On the addictiveness of junk food, see this link:

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/study-says-junk-food-is-as-addictive-as-heroin-or-cigarettes/19417741/

or this British article about a book by David Kessler, former U.S. Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/dietandfitness/7541646/Old-fashioned-hunger-doesnt-come-into-it.html?msource=MAG10

The nutritional advice, which (if we've been listening at all) we've heard over and over, is to eat more vegetables. And it's true. I guarantee (or any diet/nutrition professional can guarantee) that if you eat plenty of celery, carrots, and other fruits and veggies, you can't possibly be fat. Note, salad is not okay if you're going to pile on the dressing, nor veggies if you're going to drown them in butter.

Yogurt, a few decades ago, was usually eaten only by "health-food nuts." Today it is very popular. But will it help us to slim down? Those flavored yogurts are sweetened and have twice the calories that plain yogurt has. Eat plain, fat-free yogurt. Personally, I like the taste of plain yogurt. I never eat those flavored ones because I don't think that the sweeteners go well with the natural tart taste of yogurt.

People tend to think that anything healthy has to taste bad, or that healthy eating habits are too austere and their food just won't taste good. It's not true. There are plenty of books, magazines, web sites and so forth that can show you how to have tasty but healthy food.

And don't forget that eating less calorie-dense food is only half the story. The other is more exercise. I notice how many people take the elevator instead of climbing the stairs in, say, the public library. Even to go just one floor. There's the amusing but all-too-true story of the thirty-something who takes the elevator to his/her health club and then uses the stair-stepper machine. And he or she never even thinks about the contradiction there.

And don't drive around and around trying to find the closest parking space at the mall or supermarket. Make a point to park a little further away. You need the exercise. Believe me. Or believe your mirror.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein

Our Overweight Kids

Probably everybody knows that there's an obesity epidemic in America. Something like a quarter of Americans are obese and, if you add in the percentage who are simply overweight, it comes to about a third.

It's also been widely mentioned that there is an obesity epidemic among America's kids. One reason for this is thought to be kids' lack of exercise: too much time spent with TV, computers, and video games. To lump all these together, public health officials urge parents to limit kids' "screen time."

But diet has to be a factor, too. Americans' consumption of soft drinks is enormous. Liquids in our diet—probably excluding soup—don't fill us up, so they just add calories.

If they are allowed to do so, kids will virtually live on hot dogs, hamburgers, and pizza. The very large component of our diet that fast food represents has to be one reason why we've gained a lot of weight.

When it comes to kids, the question is what responsibility the parents have for kids' poor diets. Certainly when they're big kids, and they go to the mall on their own or gather with friends after school (in my day it was the soda fountain, but who has even heard of a soda fountain in the last, what? 40 or 50 years?), they are outside of parents' control. But with younger kids, I think the parents are responsible. How many moms, when their husbands are working late and not coming home for dinner, take the kids to McDonald's or some place like that? I personally almost never eat in places like McDonald's or Burger King, but if I go to the mall and eat in the mall's food court, I see parents eating with their kids. There are healthier choices, but I see them feeding their kids pizza, hamburgers, tacos, and so on.

Again, with older kids, preaching to them probably will do no good; but where parents could have a positive influence on what their kids eat, they're not doing a good job.

The consequence is that these kids may develop Type II diabetes and other illnesses associated with overweight even while they are in their teens. It's tragic. And it's all preventable.

Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein