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Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

cdc.gov

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Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#151

Post by nsxwolf »

izietto wrote: post #20
3pt14159 wrote: post #8

This is directly related to the way American cities are designed. It’s a car centric culture where big houses are far away from each other. That means driving everywhere. That means long commutes. That means TV over communal activity. That means big grocery runs with shelf stable food. Then pile on hyper sweet drinks and nutritional misinformation campaigns, and of course Americans are going to be overweight. The wor…

I'm italian and I visited united states a couple of months ago. In my opinion the biggest problem is that you don't have decent food at affordable prices. Healthy food has nonsensical high prices and if you want something at a human price you don't have much choice except fast food. What a shame.

I don't get this. You'll get just as fat with "healthy" food. People aren't skipping small portions of healthy food because it's expensive - they just don't want to eat it at all, or they want to eat enough of it to feel full and satisfied, which is going to make them fat.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#152

Post by izietto »

adrr wrote: post #61
izietto wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm italian and I visited united states a couple of months ago. In my opinion the biggest problem is that you don't have decent food at affordable prices. Healthy food has nonsensical high prices and if you want something at a human price you don't have much choice except fast food. What a shame.

Healthy food isn't expensive. You can buy chicken breast for $3 to $5 a pound. You can buy a head of lettuce for $2. Oatmeal is dirt cheap. Most vegetables are less than $3 a pound.

I partially agree with you guys substaining that there were cheap healthy things, but for my experience they were exceptions. I could find very rarely vegetables at affordable price and at decent quality together. Or they were cheap, or they were decent. And a head of lettuce at 2$ is a high price. As exceptions examples, avocados were good and cheap.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#153

Post by zaroth »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #136
yodsanklai wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add that many Americans seem totally unaware that junk food is bad for them and for their kids. Even in well-educated families, I would see kids drinking soda and eating snacks all the time. As I understand it, it is also a political issue, food corporation have huge marketing power and any attempts of regulation draw big protests (free will / nanny state arguments).

My ex has a degree in biology, yet can't understand that feeding the kids box mac-and-cheese and pasta multiple times per week (because it is easy to prepare) is what's making them fat, not just the portion sizes. So yeah, what you describe is real. I'd take it one step further though - not only do most Americans not really understand the content of their food, but most can't cook. They have really no understanding o…

I would suspect most kids learned to cook because a parent was home doing all the cooking, and when they got home from school they would be expected to assist with meal prep.

With both parents working, less time to prepare meals, we are raising a generation who on average has a lot less first-hand experience with how to cook, and certainly how to cook healthy balanced meals.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#154

Post by lostcolony »

nkkollaw wrote: post #69
AlphaSite wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Veggies are not cheap here, its cheaper in the UK and even in Singapore where everything is imported than in California.

Aww, come on! How much is 1 kg of carrots or potatoes? Banana (0.25 kg) 0.63 $ Oranges (0.30 kg) 1.04 $ Tomato (0.20 kg) 0.85 $ Potato (0.20 kg) 0.60 $ Onion (0.10 kg) 0.26 $ Lettuce (0.20 head) 0.28 $ Not the best source probably, but by looking at https://www.numbeo.com/food-prices/in/Los-Angeles it doesn't seem like one can easily go broke from buying vegetables.

Yeah, all of those are single serving prices that you're looking at, and only the onion (and I guess lettuce if it's not romaine) is actually a vegetable. Potatoes are starches, the others are fruits (with higher sugar). They don't list much in the way of vegetable prices.

But, even given that; I can buy a head of lettuce for $1.40. Okay. Or, I could buy an 8 pack of little debbie snack cakes for the same amount. 5 servings of lettuce that has nearly no nutritional substance, and that I have to combine with something else anyway to make it palatable...or 8 servings of convenient, enjoyed food.

If I wanted crunch, I can get a giant bag of tortilla chips for $1, too. Why would I buy a head of lettuce for 40% more, when it takes more work, and more ingredients inflating the price even higher?

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#155

Post by pascalxus »

artursapek wrote: post #117
pascalxus wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's partly because much of the government subsides go towards subsidizing corn, ending up in high fructose corn syrup and all the junk food most people consume. It's quite sad, that everyone is so okay with this. Personally, I try to eat as healthy as possible and use my nutrient finder ( https://kale.world/c ) to find high nutrient, low calorie foods, which end up being mostly beans, vegetables and fruits.

Did you make this kale.world? It's pretty nifty.

yes. Thank you.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#156

Post by maxerickson »

virtuowl wrote: post #114
adrr wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthy food isn't expensive. You can buy chicken breast for $3 to $5 a pound. You can buy a head of lettuce for $2. Oatmeal is dirt cheap. Most vegetables are less than $3 a pound.

That is around 2 times what i pay in germany

In the Midwest chicken is often $2 a pound. Vegetables vary a lot, but $3 a pound is about right for perishable stuff other than greens (which are more expensive). Carrots and onions and the like are way less than $3 a pound.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#157

Post by jonaswi »

virtuowl wrote: post #114
adrr wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthy food isn't expensive. You can buy chicken breast for $3 to $5 a pound. You can buy a head of lettuce for $2. Oatmeal is dirt cheap. Most vegetables are less than $3 a pound.

That is around 2 times what i pay in germany

A little OT: The price for food in Germany are to my knowledge one of the lowest in the world compared to the average income.

This trend of food getting cheaper all the time has led to a real „industrialised“ agricultural sector in Germany. This effect is good for the consumer because an egg costs like 15 euro cents, but it is horrible for the environment and especially for the animals. You just can‘t produce so much cheap food without tremendous sacrifices.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#159

Post by zaroth »

dibujante wrote: post #75
zaroth wrote: post #30

If this is based on BMI, I couldn't care less. It's a terrible metric which is not fit for its purpose. "Obesity is defined as body mass index (BMI) at or above the sex- and age-specific 95th percentile BMI (based on the variable BMXBMI) using cutoff points from the 2000 CDC growth charts for the United States: Methods and development. NCHS. Vital Health Stat 11(246). 2002. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/…

BMI is a sufficiently sensitive metric for this. BMI can be relied on to confirm overweight/obesity. It cannot be relied on to confirm normal weight (that is to say, if your BMI says you're overweight, you're overweight. If it says you're normal weight, that may or may not be true).

If you spend 3 months body-building, you will know first-hand that this isn't true.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#160

Post by wutbrodo »

minikites wrote: post #108
adrr wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthy food isn't expensive. You can buy chicken breast for $3 to $5 a pound. You can buy a head of lettuce for $2. Oatmeal is dirt cheap. Most vegetables are less than $3 a pound.

Vegetables have very few calories. Look at the cost per calorie: http://www.mymoneyblog.com/what-does-200-calories-cost-the-e... Broccoli is $2.93 per 200 Calories. Doritos are 39 cents per 200 calories. That's the issue.

I don't think access to raw calories is the problem here, given that we're talking about people being _overweight_. Broccoli provides considerably more satiety per calorie than Doritos, to say nothing of the difference in healthfulness.
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