Eat More, America, Eat

A film at the Sundance Film Festival is making it's way to mainstream cinema. That's good because it has me curious. It's a documentary (a la Micheal Moore) called Super Size Me. For more info, here's the link:

http://festival.sundance.org/filmgui...spx?film=F5331

The theme of the film got me to thinking; why do Americans love fast food? It's full of fat, starch, cholesterol, and sugar. The way fast food joints market this stuff is unbelievable. If you just get a hamburger a la carte, it's not enough. Fast food chains want you to make a "combo" out of it, adding a large fries and a soda (even more fat and sugar). The thing is, we fall for it. Making it a "combo" is only $2 more and for some reason that's worth it!

Americans are fat, fatter than they've ever been. Even children are targeted by fast food corporations. Special kids "meals", that aren't healthy, are added to the menu in an effort to squeeze out the parental dollar by emphasizing a "toy". These kids meals aren't nutritious---not one serving of veggies--instead it's a meal that consists of something fried including fries, and a soda.

Americans are fat. Is it because of fast food? I mean fast food chains are almost as ruthless as the tobacco industry, no?

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I have been formatted to fit this screen.

r66-The member who always asks WHY?

Reponsibility lies with the individual, marketing is always about money: SUV's, alcohol, fast food, gambling, sex, etc... If you dont want to eat fast food, then dont, if you dont want your kids to eat it, then dont let them. Moderation is the key, live it, teach it. A key quote you mentioned is "We fall for it." No one to blame here but those who "fall for it."

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“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

I actually heard the other day that in 2003 for the first time ever more americans died from obesity than from smoking.

I definately think the comsumer society has something to do with this problem. Everything is based on the theory that the more the consumer consumes, the better for everyone. The idea with fast food isn't to provide the customer with a delicious and exclusive meal and a complete restaurant experience with good surroundings and wine and the works. The idea is to provide as many customers as possible with fairly cheap meals and to make sure that the customers come back again and again and again. And of course the fast food chains want people to prefer the junk food than make their own dinner. They want the customer to get in, perferably on Drive-In, get their food and then vanish to make room to the next costumer to consume.

The biggest problem though is that people don't seem to know what is unhealthy for their bodies. How come americans in particular are so fat? I have never been in US but I guess there must be something in your food culture that differs from where I come from, which is a rich industrial western country as well. You always hear that in american diners and restaurants the portions are always enormous. Everything in US is BIGGER! Another thing that I have thought about is what is served in the school cafeterias. Again, I have never been in America or an american high school, but I know when I watch american films that I always think that it is odd that the kids seem to eat burgers and fries for lunch all the time. Now, I am sure that this isn't exactly reality but when I went to school the school food was a big deal. Just like everything else in school the lunch break was meant to be educational in a way. To learn how to eat right. Is this where the problem might be in USA? That people are brought up eating fried food and thinking that that is the equivalent of a healthy and nutritious dinner?

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

yes and i happen to agree...

I've just come back from the crazy yet wonderful country that is the USA, and i must say i was gobsmacked at the food you guys eat. Walking around your supermarkets, there were rows and rows of cream cakes and Glazed donuts and massive gateaus and containers full to the brim with Gigantic sized tubs of Peanut Butter all laid out for the people to fill their trolleys with. i was amazed.
i think Pidd has the most reliable take on why this is. just to gain money. poeple like food. and poeple like tasty food, regardless of whether it is good for you or not. And you American food makers know how to make incredibly unhealthy, tasty yet reasonably cheap food. And poeple will buy it more and more becasue of the two latter reasons. i know i did whilst i was over there and have bought back a case of double cream oreos, potato chips and honey glazed cashews.

I think an experience i had whilst watching the Tv in the US sums up the countries attitude to feeding these 'unhealthy' problems. i was watching an advert and it showed a guy sitting at the table rubbing his head and looking like *****. In walks his wife who asks whats wrong, to which he replies "Oh this stinking hangover, i feel terrible" to which she replies with a fresh smile, "well i feel great and i drank you under the table last night till i was unconscious and choking on my own vomit!!"(or something to this affect ) he then asks her how this is possible, to which she replies that she takes 'Blah blah Blah' (company name) pills that help battle those hungover feelings allowing you to get on with your day right as rain! Now, instead of showing an advert that would put the public off drinking, (like those smoking adverts you have,) by showing the horrible effects it can have on you, a product is made and advertised that battles the effects of drinking excessively allowing people to continue to do so hangover-less until their livers dissolve. Bravo!

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Pumpkins scream in the DEAD of night!

Wow, I wasn't aware of such a product......*mental note* buy these pills.


Now for a serious contribution, does anybody know where the people on the other side of the spectrum are from? the healthiest people?

According to a recent article I've read in the local newspaper, that country is Japan - McDonalds tried to expand their franchise there not too long ago and I think that may have been the time where the company reported losses instead of profits.... because no one in Japan were willing to buy their junk food. I think thats what we are doing wrong here in North America - Countires like Japan knows that junk food is bad for you so they don't "fall for it" in the first place. Here we sell you the junk food at Rock Bottom prices, only to gouge you of your money 5 years down the road with expensive excercise equipment, cosmetic surgery, weight loss medicine, and diet programs stuff you wouldn't need to buy if you saw the grand scheme of things.

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And like that .... he's gone

Some blame can be put on lack of parental control. In this current age of constant working and less time for food preperation a take-away meal can seem so much easier then cooking from scratch and as time becomes a rarer commodity parents are passing on this attitude to their children. Children are being raised on a fastfood culture and through lack of time commitment are being weaned through their entire childhood on convenience food. They are then pre-desposed to choose a meal from a fast food outlet then try cooking a meal they have never tried before. Their tastes leaning towards the unhealthy junk.

I live in Engalnd, not too far from the American lifestyle and have seen this increasing trend grow and grow. I too have been munching on junk food all my life but I have also had the opportunity and been prepared to try different foods. In comparison my older brothers and sister have had a more singular eating experience inherited from my mother who cooks from the oldstyle of using fatty and entirely unhealthy meals. They have preferences towards chips, burgers etc.

Those in the east have grown up differently. Mothers are more oft to stay at home and have been raised to learn how to cook, to a few of them eating and drinking is more then just a nessecity but rather an art.

In the end the main reasoning is down to cultural and inherited lifestyles. In each country we are raised differently and have grown up in some form or another to follow in the habitual eating habits of our parents and by the variation of our living and morality and idealogy.

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kaiser's on the right track: it's all about the big picture. I don't have loads in the way of life experience yet, but all that I have experienced thus far indicates to me that the postponing of immediate gratification is one of the most important components in leading a happy life, be it in regards to food, money, or even sex.

Food here is indeed, from all accounts I have heard, generally bigger and sweeter than abroad. I can only surmise that this has a lot to do with our standard of living. In other words, I don't believe we're collectively overweight due to genetics, but rather to due to culture and (especially) circumstance. I'm convinced that strugging with weight gain is a (mostly) inevitable consequence of any wealthy society. Admittedly, though, our culture probably plays a role. Americans work, live, play, and eat big in all we do.

We're fortunate in the sense that we're among the first societies in history to have more food than we need. This presents us with the bizarre problem of eating less food than we have, something the human body doesn't appear very suited to. It's pretty ironic that our bodies crave food so that we will survive, but that that same craving (thanks to our ingenuity and efficiency in food production) has begun to hinder our survival now that we've reached a certain standard of living.

Pid was nearly correct: obesity is not yet the #1 cause of death for all Americans. It's yet to surpass tobacco...but some believe it's only a matter of time. I agree, but think that a counter-movement in the form of low-carb diets and the like has already begun. I do not think the problem will escalate indefinitely, because the same intelligence which brought us such an abundance of food is surely capable of bringing us better and better solutions to the problems that have come with it.

Summary: I'm not worried...yet.

I think you should be:
Obesity Statistics (2001)

Even if I agree with you 100% that this problem is cultural rather than genetic (of course) your theory about "the richer, the fatter" doesn't really hold all the way. My guess is that obesity is a greater problem within the working class than in the upper class. And the food surplus isn't something unique for USA. You see it in the entire industrial world.

I'm still not. I'm not operating under the delusion that we're not, as a group, very fat. I'm merely confident that we'll collectively respond before things get too much further out of hand. If people start keeling over left and right, it's not as if we won't do anything about it. There are countless weight loss movements in full-swing already, and I'm becoming more convinced every day that the low-carb diet philosophy is going to continue to catch on.


That's true, but I'm willing to bet that, while we're fatter than most, that the richer nations are probably fatter than they used to be, too. I don't think individual wealth leads to weight gain, so much as collective wealth. A rich nation will probably put on some weight, because, frankly, it can afford to (isn't that what determines all luxury? Whether or not you can afford it?), but naturally, as the problem progresses, solutions to counter the excessive obesity will evolve, and the wealthiest among the wealthier countries will tend to have earlier and easier access to them.

It's only a matter of time, of course, until most of these products come down in price, and become available to all. I suspect the wealthier element of American society is simply on the cutting edge of personal fitness "technology."

There are such a surplus of myths about what is good for you and what isn't, it seems rather silly to focus in on fast food. I run into very few people who actually think a Big Mac is good for them. We should start working hydrogenated oils out of our diets, and then move on to getting rid of real milk. And weight can be maintained if people would simply get 10,000 steps a day.

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You're not hopeless...

Ahhh, statistics the site looks highly crediable so I'm not going to doubt it and none of us on MoFo really doubts the trend ISN'T there.... but since I'm someone in the field I am just itching to tell you that information can always be presented in a way that, although true can mislead people... at face value "perhaps" (beacuse I don't have the data) you are right.... there must be a lot more working class than upper class therefore 1 upper class obease person influences the percentage more drastically than 1 skinny working class person... So the fact that the percentage of upper class obease people is still LOWER than working class... is very impressive.

However, there has been studies done that show healthy people (meaning not obease) perform better at school, on the job and are more moviated which is only logical.... so is it wealth that causes obeasity or it is obeasity that causes lack of wealth?

more information is always needed

I think you view it differently because you are living in the middle of it all, so to speak. Again, I have never visited USA and base all my knowledge on news on tv and in papers as well as on films and tv shows. But a lot of my friends have been in USA. My roommate visited Boston last august and told me that reality exceeded all the myths about "fat americans". [Being fairly anti-american (thanks to Bush and Ricki Lake) he admitted to be pretty impressed with other things though ]. And another friend of mine who's travelled several times to and in USA told me the same things yesterday. Another buddy of mine had an american (thin) girlfriend and when she was asked what her lasting impressions of swedes were she said "Everybody's so thin!". Sure, you're not fat as a group if you're not willing to view all americans as a group. But if you are willing to do this you can't deny that americans are the most obese people in the world.

Here in Sweden the doctors have rang the alarm because the problem with overweight among kids is growing rapidly and we are not even close to the figures that you have over there.

And the weightloss movement has been in full swing since the 70's or the 80's. That will not do the trick. The problem that should be addressed, and in this case fiercefully attacked, is the way people are eating and what they are eating so they don't become overweight and then obese.

Hey, even Dr Phil agrees with me!

It is true that this is a problem that is common for all wealthy countries. As I said, we see it here in Sweden too. But I don't think it is the wealth per se that causes the obesity. If that really was the case, then it wouldn't make sense that the lower classes were fatter than the upper classes. But the wealth has lead to the rise of the fast food chains which make food that are available to each in every one in society, even the poor. In USA I think there are a lot of other problems as well to why you have this problem. As an example, when swedish Volvo introduces their car models on the US market they always have to upgrade them, not with better safety equipment or more powerful engines but with, to swedes, unnecessary gadgets that are considered standard equipment in US. In short, a lot of buttons to push so you wont have to get off your ass to do it yourself. (I don't want to offend americans, but you are the most important market in the world - and the hardest to suceed in - so we study you in detail). This kind of philosophy is of course spreading all over the world and is not something unique for America. Just look at how I pay my bills. Do I walk to the bank or to the post office or even to a mailbox? No, I do it at home on my pc. People don't only exercise (meaning running, playing tennis, swimming, whatever) less, they MOVE less. I could if I wanted stay home all the time as long as I have a computer with access to the Internet. But I think this kind of thinking has been reigning in USA for lot longer than in rest of the world. American comfort is world wide known. As well as the american junk food.

It is an expensive and time consuming thing to keep your body in shape if you don't get the exercise within neither your job or your free time. But it isn't a question of this. Like Henry said, if you eat right and walk instead of driving your car everywhere, then it shouldn't really be a problem. I would say that the core of the american obesity problem is in the schools. Educate the kids about this and take away the fried food from the school cafeterias and you would be on your way.

There is another worry in the US that is related to the wieght problem. Anorexia and Belimia(sp?). Some people think that it's OK to eat such high fat foods and drinks as long as they purge them from their body after consumption. This is espcially true among the younger population of women, and it's not that uncommon. The disease is usually seen as a problem anong the wealthy in America. But I think the only reason that is, is because wealthy, or at least upper-middle class parents, can afford to take little Heather to the clinic after they've finally discovered the problem.

The reporter is hot. And the sandwich couldn't look less appetizing.

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"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven."
John Milton, Paradise Lost

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Why are Americans fat?

Culture, and the fact that everything has a price.

We work longer and harder than other countries, most of our manual labor is outsourced so we sit at desks for hours at a time.

American lifestyle (as sold) requires two incomes to attain which leaves less time for exercise and healthy meal preparation.

Family time has evolved into mom and dad passing out on the couch after a hard day at work while junior(s) park themselves in front of the video game system (after a sedentary day at school).

Meals of convenience seem a natural choice. Who has time to spend 2 hours in the kitchen?

A final point which is unrelated.
Why is the diet and appearance of Americans who make up 4.5% of the world population so important to people who live outside the US? Not accusing anyone here of being overly interested but if I see 'fat, stupid American' about one more time I'm going to ratchet up my chain saw and go to work on somebody.

I still agree with most of the take I posted above a little over five years ago, but I'll add that it has a lot to do with productivity, too. I find that, when I eat badly, work has a lot to do with it. When I work hard, I feel I have less will power to exercise, or do the work necessary to eat something healthier. Fast food is more comforting after hard work, and it's almost always quicker than making something (even something simple).

The type of work matters, too. Almost all of my work is on the computer, which provides no natural physical movement. It's quite easy to eat at my desk, too. We're moving from a manufacturing economy to a service and information economy, which affords less natural movement and exercise in the work place, on average.

I couldn't for the life of me put a percentage on any of this, but I am starting to think that our attitudes about work have a lot to do with this. Which isn't to say those attitudes are wrong, so much as they simply come with caveat, and we need to learn to balance them better.

I want a "Double Down" sandwich.

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Whenever I hear a discussion on the obesity of America, I think back to this place. Only in America can we complain about the obesity of a good percentage of society, yet allow places like that to exist.

If bartenders can cut people off when they've had too much to drink, why can't this be the same for other establishments?

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"I was walking down the street with my friend and he said, "I hear music", as if there is any other way you can take it in. You're not special, that's how I receive it too. I tried to taste it but it did not work." - Mitch Hedberg