environmental causes of obesity?
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sonnylax
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 Posted: 10/21/04 - 14:47 Post subject:
| RexRacer wrote: | | Little Kings Cream Ale. |
Ahhhhh.... Fond memories of my higher educational pursuits at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Those fine little green bottles from Cincinnati, Ohio. Might have to drop by my favorite adult beverage store on the way home from work to see if I can partake some for the long weekend.... Good thing I don't have to take three bus transfers to buy food or drop by daycare to pick-up the kids that I can't afford! 
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robp
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Posted: 10/21/04 - 14:49 Post subject:
| RexRacer wrote: |
But no doubt you can get Little Kings Cream Ale. Which, I'll have you know, Michael Jackson (the international beer guru not the pedophile) gives his highest rating, actually. Good stuff and wicked cheap. And having lived in both TX and OH, I can tell you it's gobs better than Lone Star! |
I've drank a few gallons of Little Kings over the years. A long time ago though.
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cherylpf
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Posted: 10/21/04 - 14:52 Post subject:
| phillycat wrote: |
I vote for education. Both at home and in the schools. I think that schools should also provide only heathy options and portion control. There was something to this point mentioned in Supersize Me. |
I'm currently taking a nutrition class, several of my classmates have kids in school and we got to talking about this, so several have brought their school lunch calendars in to look at. Atrocious. I know schools have some things they have provided they have to use: milk, cheese, eggs, etc. But the menus were filled with things like pizza, nachos, cheeseburgers, fries... the fact too that there are 20 oz bottles of fruit juice (liquid sugar) available, sodas, snack machines is appalling to me as well.
But education is big too, I really think there are a lot of people out there who have no idea what and how much makes a healthy diet, and how much a poor diet can affect health.
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cherylpf
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Posted: 10/21/04 - 14:53 Post subject:
| sonnylax wrote: | | Good thing I don't have to take three bus transfers to buy food or drop by daycare to pick-up the kids that I can't afford! |
careful
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phillycat
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Posted: 10/21/04 - 14:54 Post subject:
Education is key. I was just at a resturant the other night and they had just started putting all of the nutritional information on their menus. It was frightening. Really makes me not want to go out and eat anymore. I would rather be in control of what I prepare so that I can make healthy well balanced meals.
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robp
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Posted: 10/21/04 - 14:57 Post subject:
| cherylpf wrote: |
Good point.
What is the problem and solution? Education? Self control? Home Ec in schools? Less crap food for sale? This guy getting paid millions isn't telling us what we don't know. |
Problem: obesity and poor eating habits in US of A
Solution: Self control is the number one answer. I'd be willing to bet that the majority of people in line at McPossum's are aware of the fact the stuff is bad for them. I think we as a country are educated enough on the benefits of healthy eating habits and exercise. It's taught in schools every single day. If we choose to not put that education to good use then we have no one to blame but ourselves. And I agree, the guy in the article that spawned this thread isn't telling us squat that isn't already common knowledge.
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RexRacer
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Posted: 10/21/04 - 14:57 Post subject:
Michael Pollan wrote a very good piece relating to this topic in last Sunday's NYTimes magazine.
It's at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17EATING.html?pagewanted=1&oref=login
The article concludes:
But how we eat, and even how we feel about eating, may in the end be just as important as what we eat. The French eat all sorts of ''unhealthy'' foods, but they do it according to a strict and stable set of rules: they eat small portions and don't go back for seconds; they don't snack; they seldom eat alone, and communal meals are long, leisurely affairs. A well-developed culture of eating, such as you find in France or Italy, mediates the eater's relationship to food, moderating consumption even as it prolongs and deepens the pleasure of eating.
''Worrying about food is not good for your health,'' Rozin concludes -- a deeply un-American view. He and Fischler suggest that our anxious eating itself may be part of the American problem with food, and that a more relaxed and social approach toward eating could go a long way toward breaking our unhealthy habit of bingeing and fad-dieting. ''We could eat less and actually enjoy it more,'' suggests Rozin. Of course this is easier said than done. It's so much simpler to alter the menu or nutrient profile of a meal than to change the social and psychological context in which it is eaten. (There's also a lot more money to be made fiddling with ingredients and supersizing portions.) And yet what a wonderful prospect, to discover that the relationship of pleasure and health in eating is not, as we've been hearing for a hundred years, necessarily one of strife, but that the two might again be married at the table.
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RexRacer
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Posted: 10/21/04 - 14:58 Post subject:
| robp wrote: |
I've drank a few gallons of Little Kings over the years. |
That must've been an awful lot of those 7 oz pony bottles I recall it coming in!
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sonnylax
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Posted: 10/21/04 - 15:00 Post subject:
| RexRacer wrote: |
That must've been an awful lot of those 7 oz pony bottles I recall it coming in! |
The beauty of Little Kings was that you knew very few people would steal your beverages at parties.
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elkid
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Posted: 10/21/04 - 15:01 Post subject:
Face it folks, the average family is going to choose based on cost. Rice-a-Roni over chicken. Soda over milk. French fries over fresh asparagus. Look at your local grocery circulars - the big savings are always on the processed, prepacked, sodium-enriched crapola foods. My grocery bills, for just two of us, QUADRUPLED when I stopped buying the boxed stuff in the middle of the store and started primarily shopping the dairy, produce, and meat-dominated perimeter. Some of the problem is inaccessibility, some is laziness, some is lack of education, but a large chunk of it is financial.
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robp
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Posted: 10/21/04 - 15:01 Post subject:
| RexRacer wrote: |
That must've been an awful lot of those 7 oz pony bottles I recall it coming in! |
Yep... 8 packs of 7 oz. bottles... I drank an awful lot of awful beer back in those days 
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genie
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Posted: 10/21/04 - 15:50 Post subject:
| elkid wrote: | | Face it folks, the average family is going to choose based on cost. Rice-a-Roni over chicken. Soda over milk. French fries over fresh asparagus. Look at your local grocery circulars - the big savings are always on the processed, prepacked, sodium-enriched crapola foods. My grocery bills, for just two of us, QUADRUPLED when I stopped buying the boxed stuff in the middle of the store and started primarily shopping the dairy, produce, and meat-dominated perimeter. Some of the problem is inaccessibility, some is laziness, some is lack of education, but a large chunk of it is financial. |
I agree, but I don't live anywhere near an urban area, and our prices are just as unbalanced on the produce-vs-crap scale so I'm not sure I totally agree with the "its only the disadvantaged that are being taken advantage of" line of thinking. Granted, I don't live in the city, so I can't speak to conditions as well as those of you who do, but I don't think our prices are any better here, whether we can afford them or not. And I see an awful lot of people who supposedly earn more and can afford the "good" foods still not buying them.
I'd like to think that it's as simple as what rob said, a matter of choice, but I see the arguments Rex and PC present too, that when finances are the issue, it negates a large portion of choices. To my mind it does come back to education......but not just nutritional education, better education and training so these disadvantaged people can get better jobs and afford to either not live in the holes of the city or at least afford to buy better food. Which is why I'd much rather see welfare dollars redirected to educating, training and helping people improve their quality of life, not just giving them a free ride and enabling them to continue to NOT do anything to help themselves. I know not everyone's like that, but be honest, there are a great many in urban areas who ARE.
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elkid
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Posted: 10/21/04 - 15:53 Post subject:
| genie wrote: | | I agree, but I don't live anywhere near an urban area, and our prices are just as unbalanced on the produce-vs-crap scale so I'm not sure I totally agree with the "its only the disadvantaged that are being taken advantage of" line of thinking. |
My part of the city is pretty suburban. I was referring to the ShopRite, not the local organic market or corner store.
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genie
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Posted: 10/21/04 - 15:57 Post subject:
| elkid wrote: |
My part of the city is pretty suburban. I was referring to the ShopRite, not the local organic market or corner store. |
I know, your area is a lot like where I grew up. I was more thinking of what PC said a couple pages back about the poorer people in the really urban areas being taken advantage of. While I'm quite sure that happens, I don't necessarily agree that it happens JUST because they are poor and perhaps uneducated. I think it happens anywhere that any type of merchant thinks they can get away with it.
But something just occurred to me on the subject of produce/farming....a lot of that depends on the unpredictability of that year's weather. I'm sure this year's citrus prices are going to be higher because of all the hurricaines destroying crops in FL, no? Granted, some of that could be price gouging by the distributors, but I know people in the Midwest who make their living by farming and it really does depend from year to year. Ya still gotta eat, whether your farm was half-leveled by storms or your crops dried up or not, right? So doesn't that have some effect on prices?
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elkid
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Posted: 10/21/04 - 16:02 Post subject:
| genie wrote: | | But something just occurred to me on the subject of produce/farming....a lot of that depends on the unpredictability of that year's weather. I'm sure this year's citrus prices are going to be higher because of all the hurricaines destroying crops in FL, no? Granted, some of that could be price gouging by the distributors, but I know people in the Midwest who make their living by farming and it really does depend from year to year. Ya still gotta eat, whether your farm was half-leveled by storms or your crops dried up or not, right? So doesn't that have some effect on prices? |
Weather is one factor; federal subsidies are another. I remember a few months back RR was horrified that the price of milk went up. If you put into perspective how much a dairy farmer makes in terms of profit off a pretty cheap commodity like milk, you'd probably agree it should cost more. Almost everything that comes from US farms - dairy, meat, produce, or otherwise - is guaranteed to cost more than mac and cheese in the blue box. Yet Kraft makes a gazillion dollars a year peddling crap, and American farmers are lucky to get by. Pretty inequitable, but sadly the way the system works.
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