How did we (Americans) get so fat?
There is a natural tendency to gain girth as we age. We lose muscle-mass. We become less active. We can afford richer foods. I weighed 133 when I graduated from high school. I weighed 144 a year after I married (age 28). I now weigh 200 pounds. Like trees, we tend to gain girth as we age.
But why are the young people so fat?
I remember being distinctly grossed-out sometime around the year 2000 when our family was at Michigan Adventure, a water-park, and I saw a 16 year-old girl (I estimate) from behind. And when she turned around, she had a beer-belly.
No, not a baby-bump. A beer-belly.
Paying a little more attention, MANY of the younger people had Dunlop's disease (where their belly done lop over their belt-buckle).
Fat Land
There is a book titled Fat Land that very plainly lays out some of the major causes. It was published in 2004 and the situation is more dire now than it was then.
The book points out the growth in portion sizes, the substitution of "sweetened" drinks for water and parental dread of correcting destructive behaviors in their children.
The author points to France as a good example. Mothers regularly pull the plate away from their greedy children if they heap too much food on the plate. "Stop being a pig. Nobody wants a fat person for a friend!" the mother will chide her child.
Somehow, Americans swallowed the BS of "Reverse Psychology" hook-line-and-sinker. We believe that if we tell our children something like that, that our child will defy us and go in the opposite direction.
I heard as much from a very nice lady where I attend church. She is about 5'-3" and weighs about 200 pounds (which is not huge by today's standards). Her mother bird-dogged her over-eating and the nice-lady says she ate even more than she would have otherwise. Frankly, I doubt it.
She decided that she would not subject her sons to that treatment because it didn't work.
Her sons now weigh 350 pounds which even by modern standards is getting a bit hefty for men who stand 5'-11"
In her mind "it didn't work" when in fact it probably did work but it made her feel bad. And, in a misplaced sense of altruism, she decided that she would not exercise tough-love with her kids.
The fact is that we cannot live life twice. We cannot choose a mother who bird-dogs us and then be reborn to a mother who says "eat what you want. Snickers bars are very filling. You will probably eat fewer calories eating 15 Snickers bars than if you ate chicken, sweet potatoes and green-beans." We lack a "control" to determine if what our mothers did worked or, in fact, was counter-productive.
Home Economy
Mrs ERJ graduated from high school in a very small, rural, "backward" community. They still offered Home-Economy classes.
She learned to sew and balance a check-book. She learned the fundamentals of nutrition and balancing the diet by color (red meat, orange and green vegetables, white carbs).
Fashion being what it is, skill-based programs like "shop" and "home-ec" became an embarrassment. Theory was "cool". Applied science was for dirt-people. Teaching (mostly) girls how to run a household was deemed sexist and demeaning.
The 25-year-old man of today has the body of the 40-year-old man in the 1980s. The same pear-shape. The softness in the middle and the stooping posture and sallow skin. Not all of them. But far too many.
How did we get so fat? I believe it is because we lost sight of the importance of the basic blocking-and-tackling of health. Eat right. Avoid poisons. Move in many different ways. Get some sunlight. Eliminate toxic people from your life (digging holes is great exercise).
We out-sourced the raising of our children to Kraft's Mac-n-Cheese and McDonald's and frozen pizza.
One huge thing you can say about the military is that it compliments the Home-Ec that women received by exposing men to the same concepts of nutrition, exercise and maintenance skills (sewing buttons, for instance) while their minds were still plastic and moldable....and as a percentage, fewer and fewer young men choose to join the military.
Calgon, take me away! People got their minds filled up with advertising that implied
ReplyDeleteIf you're going to be happy, you must have luxury. If you're not getting hours of Ass Time every day, your life sukks, and society lost the love of accomplishments. Riding a bicycle is too hard. It's Hot.. Getting eight or ten boys in the yard with a football was not a problem in 65..These kids are bored and boring.
How can we fix it?
DeleteOK, I realize that much of what needs to happen is beyond the scope of our control. But what IS within our control?
How can we make "Sweat" cool? Bruises? Sore muscles? How do can riding a bike be "heroic" like in the movies Breaking Away and Premium Rush?
The oppression (hate using that word) Boys have been subjected to since someone decided not wanting to sit at a desk for hours on end while some screwball demanded their undivided attention as they Pretend to tell them Important Stuff has taken its toll. They outlawed frikken Dodgeball fercryinoutloud... The presidential fitness award? Gone. The commies have been running the schools for decades. Toxic masculinity,, seriously??
DeleteAs I contemplated your question I felt a deep, uneasy feeling,, because I saw I was about to say something I haven't before.
The time it would take to wrest control away from the people who have power and authority and replace the lefties who were lied to and misguided by their college professors and get society back to respecting Right is just more time than we have.
If the government didn't like what the schools are producing, they would change it. They absolutely unilaterally did that in 66 or 67. They announced the schools were broken, demanded authority to make changes. They made changes. The next standardized tests showed Lower Scores. They demanded more changes. Instead of UnDoing the changes that Caused the drop in scores, they made more changes.
I was in the sixth grade and knew it was intentional, because I knew that if I wanted the mower to run right, and I turned the mixture screw and it ran Worser,, I Had to UnDo what I had done. And try the other way.
What a crap sentence..
Deletesomeone decided not wanting to sit at a desk for hours on end while some screwball demanded their undivided attention as they Pretend to tell them Important Stuff has taken its toll.
Okay,, they are diagnosed and treated with speed,I guess, but just being a boy is not okay. I believe the vaccination schedule is wrecking them. They Know they are being indoctrinated and school isn't Really going to Prepare them to go and carve out Their place in the world. Of course they don't want to sit still for the Bullschitt they are being Taught.
The loss of recess was huge.
DeleteBack when I had a desk job, my productivity slumped if I didn't take a "walk-about" every hour or so.
And yet we tell fidgetty kids that they have to be immobile for three hours...30 minute lunch...then immobile again.
It totally wrecks the boys and isn't much better for the girls.
We used to play outdoors for hours at a time, just us kids with no hovering adults. If you allow pre-teens to do that now they will be gone with CPS in hours and the parents arrested for child neglect.
ReplyDeleteSafer to keep Johnny in the basement glued to his video games.
My impression is that most CPS people have bigger fish to fry. Threats of calling CPS because you gave your kids shovels and left them in the back yard are hollow threats.
DeleteThe bigger problem is that most child-molesters were handled on the down-low when we were kids. A dad or two (or cops) gave them a Louisville Slugger Shampoo or helped them fall down 28 flights of stairs.
Body-cams and Ring door-bells makes that harder to pull off. Not impossible. Just harder.
Another and probably more important factor is the abomination called the Food Guide Pyramid. "Eat lots of carbs and sugar, some fruit and veg, less meat and hardly any fat at all". That isn't how we ate in the past, my mother and father were raised in the 30s and 40s with beef, potatoes with gravy, and a green vegetable at every dinner. Dad made it to 91 so they were doing something right.
ReplyDeleteYes, the Rockerfellers flipped the food pyramid upside down about 100 years ago. Then also, today most things that people stuff into their mouths is NOT food - it is a food like substance and they think that it is food. BobT
DeleteGonna be one heck of a shock when it gets sweaty and stinky and spicy and surreal. Woody
ReplyDeleteAs kids, we had to have a "Hoover plate" to get dessert after dinner. I couldn't figure out if it was named for President Hoover during the depression or if it was from the vacuum cleaner company of the same name.
ReplyDeleteSeed oils.
ReplyDeleteAnd HDPE plastics mimicking estrogen.
DeleteI was raised eating two veggies and a potatoe with every meal, I still do today but when we travel to friends or relatives we’re constantly struck by the almost total absence of vegetables offered. Why? If we cook for them they usually eat all the vegetables we put on the table yet won’t bother to buy and prepare them for themselves. I don’t get it.
ReplyDeleteMy Dr. told me when I hit 35 that the average American man gains a pound a year after age 20, I don’t think he was far off but it may have doubled since then.
ERJ
ReplyDeleteWe’re blessed to live on a small homestead. Most everything our kids eat comes from our place or is bought from a neighboring homestead. Processed food from a box is a rare treat around here: egg rolls, crackers, and such. Our kids help with chores and roam free in the “neighborhood” of adjacent small farms. It keeps the kids fit and tired at the end of the day.
My main point is that parents need to make tough choices that benefit the rising generation. Anyone can raise a few plant or fruit trees in a subdivision.
Teach your children the way they should go and when they are old they will not depart from it.
John
Kaw River Valley
Dunno as I'd ever consider food from a box as a "treat" and would be very wary of characterizing it as such; more like an anomaly " we eat this only because of extenuating circumstances"
DeleteBoat Guy
I see the problem as a lack of exercise combined with a surfeit of food, processed for consistency and low cost above all else.
ReplyDeleteI am suffering the effects of a desk job and am still more active and on better shape than most people around me unfortunately.
I'm working on changing that...
Jonathan
Processed foods are a major factor. Many people go WEEKS without eating an actual vegetable. Sugar is now found in virtually every food sold. It's the worst kind of calorie, easily converted to fat. Even actual fat is better for you than sugar.
ReplyDeleteA couple more things to add to the list:
ReplyDelete- Obesogenes, which are chemicals found in our foods that disrupt fat metabolism.
- High fructose corn syrup, which is in almost everything.
Man, you pick simple topics to dive into, don't you?
ReplyDeleteI think all the comments here are great observations. I fall into the camp that feels any one of the changes discussed would have a similar effect. When all lumped together at once like they have been... well, frankly we're probably lucky we're not worse off (see the movie Wall-E)!
Diet I think is a huge factor. The 'food' we consume today, is hardly that at all. Artificial colors, sweeteners and flavors to make it palatable, preservatives to make it never rot, and plastics to package it all up... None of it is 'food'.
The issues brought up surrounding boys and school time recess I believe are one symptom of the greater problem - feminization of everything. Now hear me out here... when I make a statement like "it all started when we gave power to women" it sounds mysoginist, which isn't true - I'm not disparaging women, I am merely pointing to the confluence of circumstances in time.
When women were allowed a larger role in society, from schooling, to home/work relations, to parenting in general, etc... the shift happened. One could write a book, or several in fact, detailing the ways in which the causes and effects aligned. However what is not debatable, is the fact that they coincided historically. Now if one wants to attach reasons and motive to that coincidence, that might be considered discriminatory, but don't shoot the messenger for observing the connection.
Women have been allowed to vote for a little over a century now, and in that time it has become apparent that womens’ overarching political concern is that they have carte blanche to slaughter their own unborn children.
DeleteThis started in the 60's when body image became less important, People, especially women, were no longer shamed for their obesity. THe thought of being svelte and beautiful becam somehow "shaming" rather than a goal.
ReplyDeleteWomen, in general, were no loinger castigated by their parents and taught what was right, not only decent fitness, but behavior in general. They then failed to teach their children these norms and why and how to achive them.
There is no longer any shame in being 30% overweight for your body size, be you a man or a woman. Same for other behaviors that parents, expecially mothers taught their children.
Young women are today ill equipped to raise their children, and men are ill equipped to support them. Neither has been taght what to do or how to do it. Further, the men are lazy because they seldom had a model of productiveness and the women are fat and stupid because they never had a model of what a woman should be. The traditional roles have been taught as an anachronism and a bad thing.
I remember the '70's and '80's having lots of insults and shame for fat women and men.
DeleteProblem is, it is not just fat. Any remarkable difference, from hallitosis, to hearing aids or from cowlick and freckles to ugly - kids are cruel! Always have been and it is adults responsibility to tame these monsters.
That the system in place has failed to protect vulnerable children from emotional and physical bullies since ever is a strong indication that they have no intention of doing so in the future.
We have to set out a better path!
We have to set out a better path!
Delete100% Agreement.
The Gatekeepers are guarding the entrance To that path,diligently.. Teachers, government, media, all worked to herd the DumbMasses Away From that path, starting decades ago.
I have to agree with you over eating portions of peoples diets. I’ve lost 15 pounds in the last six months. I’m not in it for instant gratification with respect to weight loss. Slow and steady does it. Too many people try to starve themselves and the body shuts down the metabolism process as it sees itself starving. Obviously eating too fast is another problem. The brain can’t catch up the fact your stomach is full. I tend to eat my carbs early in the day more protein in the afternoon and evenings. I would not call it a carb free diet, though I will admit that there are times I do splurge
ReplyDeleteI heard yesterday that over half of Food Stamps money is spent on soda pop.
ReplyDeleteProcessed food is the bane of our health, simply put. Obesity is a sentence for early death. And our education system is a major contributor deserving blame, our Federal Government being the principle one. Shop the perimeter of the grocery store for the majority of your food, and shop the aisles only for cooking ingredients. Stay away from processed food. And move around, dammit !
I remember getting off the jet in Warsaw with my colleagues and meeting our driver after customs. Her first conversation was why are Americans so fat? At the time I was 165# and 5'8. The other two probably had about the same body index just taller. I was surprise by the question.
ReplyDeleteThe average Pole was much thinner than us. They eat as much carbs but walk or bike everywhere. Same thing in most of Eastern Europe. Gym class is mandatory for all students.
Our local kids are driven everywhere they go. No gym class at all.
Mom and dad both work so a lot of dinners pre prepared and heavy on fats, light on fresh fruits and veggies.
I was born in '62 and always slightly overweight. I was ridiculed and teased for it. I worked hard and grew up homesteading and working with horses and cattle. Imo it paid to have a little weight advantage dealing with large unruly animals. I learned to be a duck and let that criticism roll off my back. I am still slightly overweight and spent the years working with horses and homesteading and don't regret any of it. I also never followed the narrative. Ate meat, vege, fruit. Not much processed foods. I'm 62, don't have a personal dr, take no meds, and probably stronger/fitter than most gals half my age.
ReplyDeleteI'm 6'2'. I weighed 181 when I graduated from high school over 50 years ago. I'm up to 182 today. I dink my coffee black and unsweetened. I cannot remember the last time I ate fast food. Weight control starts in the grocery store. As a personal practice I almost never eat lunch. Your weight is your decision. There is no medical condition that will add weight you don't provide by supplying the calories. If you don't eat it you won't be carrying it. ANY claims to the contrary are lies or delusions.
ReplyDelete