The Atlantic says it's because we don't walk enough. Which is true, but 1994 wasn't that long ago and I really don't think people were walking any more then than they are now. I jog and when I check my RunKeeper stats it reports that I've burned up maybe 500 calories after 45 minutes. Fast, steady walking may burn 300 calories in 45 minutes. So a lot of walking doesn't burn that many calories.I am more inclined to believe it's the sheer volume of crap we are eating. Portion sizes in restaurants are enormous compared with 20 years ago, and so much of it is laden with HFC's. I don't think corn syrup is necessarily bad, but they are mixing it with everything now in order to make food taste "good."
What do we feed cattle in order to fatten them up?
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Soylent Green is people!!
I agree. I can't see walking being the reason. We weren't walking in 1994, either.
I think we're eating more crap loaded with sugar. HFC isn't worse than "regular sugar," but it is in EVERYTHING.
Look at the food pyramid promoted by the federal government. It pushes for us to eat 6 to 11 servings per day of carbs like bread, cereal and rice. Ridiculous.
Houston has a whole lot more fast food joints and restaurants than most any other place I've been.
Convenience foods aren't that healthy usually. Plus, when you think "Texas sized" you think big portions.
Its portion size and the availability of crap food everywhere for a reasonably low price. When I count my calories and consume my recommended or just under amount, I ened up losing weight. My problem is beer and bbq . . .
I wonder if some of it is also due to the aging population. When I was young, many of the overweight people you'd see were older. Not uncommon to gain some weight after 50.
True, but then we'd expect to see lots of obese people in Japan, which is far more aged than the US.
Nice post. For a bit of light relief you might enjoy this cartoon about the food pyramid. http://caroleschatter.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/food-pyramid.html
it's the food, not the walking. here in mexico there was a recent article saying we are so fat because of all the crap food that has come here since nafta.
http://pulsociudadano.com/2012/04/regalos-del-tlcan-como-abrimos-las-fronteras-y-nos-volvimos-obesos/
stop subsidizing corn and companies will stop stuffing high fructose corn syrup into every product.
Tyler Cowen has a new book with some interesting ideas about why restaurant food is so bad:
http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/12/14/how-american-food-got-so-bad-a-new-marketplace-podcast/
He considers several causes of bad food in restaurants, including Prohibition & immigration restrictions.
The claim that "children are in charge" is interesting. I think the theory is Prohibition & the Depression wiped out "adult" restaurants. Dining out became less of a leisurely, adult thing & more of a family thing. Restaurants catered to the lowest common denominator, children. Food was made more salty & sugary. And parents, loving their kids, enjoy treating them to dinner at a restaurant.
That’s fine. Anything in moderation is fine. Where we get into trouble is when those kids begin getting the same kind of food in their daily “home-made” meals. This is a shift that occurred gradually. Our boomer parents still had some fondness for “real” food. My contemporaries (people born in the 80s) saw eating out as a treat. So they wanted home food to resemble restaurant food. They demanded sugary cereals, soda, snack cakes, chips & processed lunch meats.
I don’t believe the answer is a ban on ads targeting kids. Sweden has those, but their obesity rate is rising. They’re basically where we Americans were 20 yrs ago. Restricting freedom should be a last resort.
If "kids in charge" really is the problem, then such a trend would be accelerated by the currently fashionable anti-tobacco laws.
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