Why is America so fat?

Hmm. Long-term wise though I believe there is a serious concern for your health if you mostly consume fatty foods. Cholesterol is serious enough even if you are not obese and excercise. Just my 10 cents worth though.

What the heck is wrong with starting your day with this?

Weight (g) 266
Calories 740
Calories from fat 410
Total fat (g) 46
Saturated fat (g) 16
Trans fat (g) 1
Choleterol (mg) 330
Sodium (mg) 1950
Total carbs (g) 45
Dietary fiber (g) 3
Total sugars (g) 8
Protein (g) 37

Good heavens! Almost 2000 sodium....hello diabetes.

Cuddly is good too I like cuddly, better than my son, who calls me squishy.

hehe true, I don't really recommend eating nothing but fatty crap

Well sure, that is totally insane. You gotta toss some sugar, caffeine and salt up in dere.

To give them their due, some chains are at least up front and honest about it...

Well, the US has a higher mean BMI than most countries.

A 2005 BMI comparison chart

I've never seen quite the extremes of obesity in the UK that I saw in the US on a regular basis. However, I'd say that most people were around the same size. Clearly that's not going to be true comparing the US to countries where most people don't have the same access to food.

Ooooo all this talk of food makes me hungry!

I blame some of the fattness on the whole "stop smoking" thing. What do people do when they stop smoking? Gain Weight! So you trade one bad habit for another.

OMG, i quit smoking over a year ago and i'm still battling this. it sucks!!!

I have struggled all my life with my weight. At one time this completely bothered me and I had issues about it. I guess I grew up so to speak and realized that I am who I am weather I am overweight or skinny or in between. I became seriously overweight and massively concerned about my health. I was tired all the time. I would get winded simply taking the trash out or going up a flight of stairs. I was afraid that if I didn't actually do something about it that I would be essentially killing myself. So, in December of 2004 I said enough is enough and changed my eating habits. I don't like to call it a diet because it really is a lifestyle change. I have lost quite a bit of weight since then and am damned proud of myself. And of course the reason that it actually worked and I stuck to it was because I have done this for me and no one else. I know my biggest change is no more fast food. I don't even miss it. I see those commercials for the huuuuuuuuuuge hamburgers and just shake my head. At one time I would have been right there getting one but not now. I have no desire to back peddle. What I find funny is that others think that I don't eat. Yes I do, but way more sensibly. My biggest downfall is that I want something with chocolate and peanut butter when I have PMS and I don't deny myself when that craving hits. But now instead of buying a bag of peanut butter cup minis and eating all of them in one sitting, I buy ONE candy bar and that's it.
The most important things for me are no fried foods, lots of water, low carb (I didn't say NO carb), and high protien.

There is a lot more to blame than fast food making our society fatter. The problem is that foods of convenience typically are the worst ones for you to eat. Fast food is just one of them.

Of course people being so immobile doesn't help either. Something as simple as getting out and taking a walk is far better than nothing at all.

Wow Felicity. I have to give you huge props for achieving this. It is hard for many people to break out of this lifestyle so to speak. I hear ya 100%. Keep it up! Yay!

Sucks but don't start up again - it's worth it to quit and it's slow, but it slowly goes away.

(I know because I keep telling myself this every time I want to go to the store and buy my self a pack)

Ohh, the reasons are many.
Fast lives, fast food, laziness, stress, lack of self-control...you name it.

Suburban sprawl is a big one too.
I know that living in or around the city kept me much thinner because it was so easy to walk everywhere.
In the burbs you could walk...but one trip to the store and the day is shot.

It's just years of bad habits and fast eating in a fast paced lifestyle have lead us to this point. But I think there are many more people that aware of the causes and we are starting to make some big (no pun intended) changes.

Just my 2 cents.

•America is "so fat" because of manifest destiny.
•We're not fat, everyone else is skinny.
•It's not "junk food", it's entertainment food.

Do you realize that the only reason the medical community came up with the idea that fat is always unhealthy, is because it happened to look unattractive to the majority? The first anti-fat studies were done in the 1950's and were seriously flawed, but most people believed it, and that was the foundation of more studies and statistical errors that prevail to this day.

I won't argue about some foods, or some level of fatness being unhealthy, but I will argue that everyone is different and some people can be fat with no ill effects.

I might also point out that doctors have financial motives for telling people to lose weight, namely their diet plans, books, lecture campaigns and talk show appearances. The same holds true for drug manufacturers.

It used to be that fat was considered healthy because you had some protection against a famine. Well, let's see who lives longer when we get our next famine due to food distribution problems caused by oil shortages!

This post has been made without use of the propagandistic words "overweight", "obese" and "morbid". You're welcome.

I forgot to add...

The other thing that really gets me about the whole "fast food" or "convenience food" is that it's cheap.
Try to eat healthy while on a budget. It's next to impossible.
Healthy drinks are expensive, produce is expensive, high fiber and wheat products are expensive compared to their high sugar and fatty counterparts.

The big corps. of this country sell nothing but crap to their consumers.
The problem is that we have to have the will not to support them.
We have to force ourselves to avoid convenience and spend our money on healthy alternatives.
We need to support the farmers dangit!

Because we all want to look like Buddha...

What's wrong with a nice burger for lunch?

Calories 1410
Carbs (g) 47
Protein (g) 60
Fat (g) 107
Saturated Fat (g) 45
Cholesterol (mg) 229
Sodium (mg) 2740

We all want to look like the goddess venus:

hmmm, some of us already do... just with bigger... ummm...
http://camptrc.org/03wapics/images/headlights_JPG.jpg






headlights?

The short list:

Television
Video games
The "Internets"
Grocery home delivery
Prepared food home delivery
"Super Sized" fast food
"Fun Size" candy

Feel free to add to the list.

That's one thing I have never had even when I was wayyyyyyyy overweight. Big headlights just weren't in the cards for me. Oh wells, lol.

And Gabe that hamburger looks gross.
I could tell you how many calories are in a slice of pizza but then I would probably piss everyone off.

Heh, the breakfast theory is exactly opposite what I'd heard. Supposedly in our american urban culture dinner is usually the largest meal. We're in too much of a hurry for breakfast, have to take or buy our lunch durring the day so it's not all that large, and then for dinner we eat maybe as much as the first two meals combined. The problem in that is that if you ate a big breakfast, you would immediately be using energy and so your body would not be as likely to store those calories for long term use. When you eat a large dinner then relax, your body has no need for immediate ready power which means it stores that food for future use in things like fat deposits.

Yeah, That's right! America is phat!