Male Obesity

i don't believe that at all. if you look at the poorer parts of the countries i think you'd find obesity is far higher. look at the kids in the clips i added...they couldn't tell the difference between a tomato and a potato. that there my friend is education. it doesn't take a real conscious effort to eat healthy at all, it takes the desire to want to and to know how.

 

Poor kids can't afford healthy eating it has nothing to do with education. Again everyone KNOWS what to eat but few practice it. There isn't a soul anywhere who doesn't KNOW that vegetables are better for you than junk food but the junk is more accessible andcheaper than healthy food

 

if you don't know the difference between and tomato and a potato, there's a huge problem and that has everything to do with education. buying an apple for a snack is far cheaper than buying fries. spreading peanut butter and jam on your white bread is not as good for you as spreading avocado on wholemeal and slicing up a tomato. jamie oliver proved that you can eat healthy cheaply, i don't know if you've seen his shows. i've educated my children about good food and bad food...they know the difference, i doubt that all kids do though. how would a kid who is always fed junk food know that it's not healthy if that's all they've ever had...??? get them in school, change what they are served and things will change

 

You're debating ignorance to what's healthy and that's simply untrue. Take kids out of equation and you're left with a ton of adults who've known since elementary school that vegetables and fruits are far better for you but simply choose fast food because its more accessible(that's what I mean by cheaper. You don't have to search for it. French fries are easier to get than vegetables at least here in the US)
It may be different in OZ but here in the US I still argue we go fitness first and slowly try to chnge food habits.

 

we have macca's, hungry jacks, pizza, kfc, red rooster & subway, which i know is far less that what is available in the us. there's not even a macca's, kfc or hungry jacks in my suburb. i don't know if the us has cooking classes in school, but i think that's a great place to start the ball rolling. show the kids that cooking is fun & easy and team that with fitness which is already mandatory at school

 

Our kids would much rather play video games and tweet. Fitness is the bigger problem. People are so lazy and they won't want cook if they always feel so tired. Its unrealistic to think the same class of people who allowed themselves to become obese are going to start cooking for themselves. The main reason why so many are overweight is they lack the patience to actually sort the food and cook it. They want the gratification now now now.

 

that may be true, but wouldn't that also apply to fitness as well though...??? i think if you showed them how to cook quick and tasty food that's good for them & changed the food that's served at school so at least they're having one decent healthy meal a day things could change. i involve my kids in the cooking of meals and they love to help out. they cut up the cucumbers and tomatoes, stir the pasta sauce. i'm serious, get them into this kind of activity young to make things change

 

You greatly under estimate American laziness and entitlement my friend. The great thing about fitness is it can be masked by making them games. The food thing has to be gradual. Kids shit adults for that matter don't want to come home to cook. They want it prepared already that's how we got here.

 

man...that's just sad.

 

MF, I think the issue is far bigger than people realize. We didn't end up here overnight, and we sure as hell aren't going to fix it.

I do think Tarshi has a point- education is definitely key. I'll use myself as an example here.

Growing up, we knew that veggies were good for you and stuff like that... BUT consciously, I had no idea HOW to eat those things. We had nutrition units in health class, but all we did was look at the food pyramid (piece of shit that thing is, btw) and answer how many servings per day we needed of everything. They never said how much a serving was, though!

I continued to gain weight throughout high school, but evened out around a 14/16. I was pretty much OK with it. I didn't really think I was that big then either. Then, I got to college....serving sizes? What serving sizes? I had no idea about calories or what my intake should be. I spent my junior and senior years at the gym in college- I'd run on the treadmill for an hour almost every day and I wasn't getting any smaller. I couldn't figure it out. And by then, I was HUGE.

Now, it wasn't really until my big hoorah into being serious about losing weight that I FINALLY realized- at 24 years old, mind you- that my problem all along had been calories in/calories out and making healthy choices. Sure, I'd eat celery sticks..but I'd dip the hell out of them in bleu cheese. Sure, I was running every day, but then I'd go to the dining hall for breakfast and eat waffles, bacon, eggs, and homefries! I just had no frickin' idea.

So many people just don't get it, and I know it's difficult to understand if it's something that you are familiar with (and even me now? The idea of someone NOT getting it makes me go WTF?!). I think education is key, especially because if kids ask for things, parents generally try to comply. Ever been grocery shopping and seen the epic battle of Cap'n Crunch going on down the aisle with a parent and child? If a kid was asking for celery for a snack, or had a favorite apple they wanted packed in their lunch- most parents would go out of their way to make sure they would do that.

And what Jaimie Oliver is doing is revolutionary because he's teaching people how to cook those fresh items. My brother had a friend, Matt, who'd come over and watch my mom cook and he literally had NEVER seen celery before. He didn't know carrots didn't come diced and frozen. He didn't know garlic came in any other form but POWDER. And he was serious! It is SO important for people to know how to cook for themselves to be able to utilize those whole ingredients. I cook for myself constantly. I make a batch of vegetable soup from scratch every.single.week....but there was a time I'd have ordered a small pizza and just eaten it throughout the day thinking that it wasn't that bad for me.

Anyway, like I said, this isn't a simple problem. I do like the work that Jamie Oliver and Michelle Obama are doing to try to increase awareness and education of how to eat healthy and what that means.

 

I'm with tarshi if you are never educated and all you see around you is people eating junk, you are more likely to grow up making bad choices. I am always amazed at how many people think corn is a vegetable.

 

thank you ladies... :smt003

 

I still reject that. Most people know how to eat but choose not to. We know an apple is better than a candy bar we know that broccoli is better than potato chips but the bad stuff tastes better so we choose that. People aren't as ignorant as you and Tarshi think they are just too lazy to make good choices for themselves. Ordering a pizza is easy going to the drive thru is easy boiling vegetables and preparing baked chicken takes longer and doesn't raste as good. Most Americans long for a good meal in front of the tv after school or work.
I think the nutrition change has to be very gradual because we are LITERALLY addicted to bad food but like I said physical activity can be done tomorrow. Quicking crack cold turkey is always disasterous my friend.

 

So let me get this straight. You guys honestly believe people don't know what healthy eating is and because of that fact they eat garbage?
Are you people high?
There's not a soul who doesn't understand that green stuff is good for you but they opt for the salty sugary food because it tastes better and is far more accessible.
Its addictive as fuck and that's why so many eat it. You guys act like people in this country are dying for nutrious food and just can't find it so they're left with bad foods.
Eating in this country is literally for entertainment we stopped caring about nutrition a long time ago.
When we celebrate we eat, when date we go out to eat, when are depressed we eat, when we're happy we eat. Our culture revolves around food and we want it quick and right now.

 

Im with Tarshi also. I was raised eating fried foods which got me into this mess Im in today.

Back in my day something called LARD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lard) (pig FAT) was used to fry foods. I consumed much of that without even thinking about is it bad for me or not. Heck... my mom cooked for me so why should I worry??? I should have!!!

LARD becomes solid at room temperature as I have watched it do that. Our body is above room temperature (98.6 degrees) but the lard did play a big part in my life and not in a good way.

Even though I was educated to not eat fast food and why, I still developed problems with my arteries over the years from home cooked food. Im from South Carolina and all we had was food with FAT. Chomping down on those ribs, etc. tasted GREAT!!! But it was bad for me and I never saw it that way because I was raised on that stuff.

I never took a serious interest in eating right because I was so used to eating wrong. I thought my diet was okay. Hey... it didnt kill granny so why should it kill me I thought. Damn I was so wrong!!! I would have been better off eating junk food than what my family cooked for me.

I got so lucky to meet a vegetarian (Unique4ever on this site) who taught me all about eating healthy. I followed her lead and today Im way better off than I would have been if I kept eating foods that Im used to.

Its still too late in the game for me but at least I will not die because of my poor eating habits.

I support your comment because I am one of those people who saw others eating junk and never questioned it because it was family. I grew up eating junk (FAT).

 

Dude you even admit to knowing that there was better food out there and you chose to eat bad so again its not ignorance its choice.

 

i know that's right, playboy

lol

if i fry anything, i try to use the healthiest oil I can find, regardless of price. I wouldn't be caught dead otherwise. Although, I really don't eat fried foods when I think about it. I bake a lot of stuff, eat deli lunch meat like Turkey(that doesn't contain a shitload of sodium) and so forth.

 

As I have lived in the US and in Sweden I do think there are some differences in the food cultures. For example i remember my brother was thrilled he got hamburgers and fries everyday over there, for like one week. Then he started to miss Swedish school lunch with more variety AND salad.. haha, here no school could never serve that unhealthy food! The parents are angry that the food isn't cooked from scratch at all schools

I also remember one time we were out fishing and when we were going to cook the fish the Americans screamed when we wanted to use some salt on it. It wasn't healthy, but 5 minutes later they happily started eating chips like it wud have been carrots.

and in sweden subay is viewed as unhealthy food, but I have gotten the impression that it's almost health food over there

now these are only a few examples but there are way more.. and i don't think anyone want's to be obese if they cud chose, so no i don't think anyone is obese by choise..

 

compared to what MOST Americans consume on a daily basis (this country is leading the charge with overweight and out of shape people), Subway is very healthy lol