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dogma wrote:

Da Boss wrote:Man, some of the food on that thing...

You gotta wonder why obesity is rampant in some countrys but not so much in others. I mean, the food in the UK is pretty fattening on the whole, and while the UK has an obesity problem, it's not as bad as the US by a long ways. Ireland seems to run on beer and fried breakfasts, but again, while we're one of the worst in Europe for obesity and heart disease, not as bad as the US.

A lot of it is food costs and portioning. I can get a large deep dish cheese from Giordano's for ~20 USD. This pizza has 8 slices, each slice is 550 calories. They claim the pizza serves 3-4 people. Its basically 2 days of food for 1 person, so about 10 USD per day for what is, essentially, a near luxury food.

When I was in Spain it cost me about 30 USD per day to get ~2000 calories per day with food of similar quality.

That said, I think the bigger issue is just the way different nations look at being fat. No major nation I know of likes it, but some of them seem largely indifferent to it. I imagine that climate plays a significant role, as do the nature of traditional foods. For example traditional Japanese foods are quite healthy, as are most traditional Spanish foods.

Japanese food is inherently lower calorie than European because they use less fat and oil in the cooking. The emphasis on fish over meat, and small portion sizes, also has a healthy effect. I always lose weight when I'm in Japan. In fact I'm losing weight pretty steadily at the moment, since my wife cooks Japanese food most evenings.

Another thing about Japan is that there is a national cncern with weight. All restaurants print the calorie values in their menus, and there is a government programme to avoid obesity. Since most workers have an insurance health check every year, Japanese doctors have plenty of opportunities to tell you off for being fat.

Japanese women are obsessed with being thin, to the degree that it probably affects their fertility. Half the adverts in Japanese women's magazines are about weight loss.


Portion Size
I remember a study done a few years ago that investigated why the French do not have an obesity problem considering their diet consists mainly of cheese fried in butter, served with cream. The conclusion was that French portion sizes simply are smaller than US.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Another thing about Japan is that there is a national cncern with weight. All restaurants print the calorie values in their menus, and there is a government programme to avoid obesity. Since most workers have an insurance health check every year, Japanese doctors have plenty of opportunities to tell you off for being fat.
.

Right, they have the same thing in Korea as well. I heard that the UK government was going to bring in the same thing, but the rather naive politician responsible for implementing it made it optional than a requirement. As a result, practically every eatery has just said, "erm.... no thanks"

Interestingly, I read recently that the UK has overtaken Mexico to become the second fattest nation on earth. Certainly, after spending a lot of time abroad it is always shocking to return to the UK and see about seemingly 50% of the population is overweight.

Although I'm not sure how far the US is still ahead.. watching a tennis tournament from Miami last week is was incredible to see 18-wheeler ball kids and line judges stampeding around the side of the court. One line judges legs in particular must have had their own postal code, I'm attributing that distraction to Andy Murray's loss in the final

dogma wrote:
Obesity is funny. I was obese when I was 18-19 at 5'9 250, but it was mostly muscle. The idea that muscle weight doesn't contribute to obesity needs to be considered carefully.

Mostly muscle? Sure. Wladimir klitschko would have to put on weight to be that heavy and he's six foot six.

My missus and I got all these wrong, I always thought the fattest places would be in Mississippi and Alabama and places with poor educational achievements and large African American contingencies.

But Texas is where all the fatties are nowadays? :S

mattyrm wrote: My missus and I got all these wrong, I always thought the fattest places would be in Mississippi and Alabama and places with poor educational achievements and large African American contingencies.

But Texas is where all the fatties are nowadays? :S

These studeis are usually a joke and not actually based on, you know, fat people, but nonsense like the total miles of bike lanes a city has.

Frazzled wrote:

mattyrm wrote: My missus and I got all these wrong, I always thought the fattest places would be in Mississippi and Alabama and places with poor educational achievements and large African American contingencies.

But Texas is where all the fatties are nowadays? :S

These studeis are usually a joke and not actually based on, you know, fat people, but nonsense like the total miles of bike lanes a city has.

Yeah whenever I have read about the obesity issue or watched stuff like 20/20 it has been based around the biological fact that African Americans are more at risk of obesity, I recall reading that In 2009 the US government paid for a minority health survey and African American women were 60% more likely to be obese than Non-Hispanic White women.

And also areas with poor educational achievements are more at risk, which makes sense as well seeing as ignorance about health and nutrition must surely be another big reason for weight gain?

As I said, common sense makes me sceptical of that survey, I don't think we guessed one right from the whole top ten!

I'm currently doing a stint in Mobile Alabama, I moved here after doing a year in San Diego. The difference in health is night and day.

San Diego is pretty healthy, great food options from eating out to grocery. There is a giant push in San Diego for locally owned restaurants serving locally sourced food which helps keep things healthy. I think because of this push you actually get a lot of great options at really good prices. The local cuisine is a combination of Mexican and seafood. The Mexican is about the best I have ever had, maybe not the healthiest stuff, but not too bad either. There is an abundance of great seafood options. While you could certainly blow a few hundred dollars on dinner in San Diego you did not have to. The amount of mid level restaurants serving excellent food in San Diego is one of the things I loved the most about living there. Half priced Sushi happy hours became my bread and butter.

On the completely other end of the spectrum we have.

Mobile, Alabama is so disgustingly unhealthy, its absurd. The grocery stores here are terrible, mostly consisting of Wal Mart grocery stores, with very limited selections, almost none of them healthy. Trying to find low fat anything in a grocery store in Mobile is an exercise in futility. To top it off grocery is more expensive here than in San Diego. I would kill for a Trader Joes right now! Eating out is for the most part a non starter. The city is completely dominated by chains, from fast food to dinners and restaurants it is almost completely corporate. You can literally see from one waffle house to the next its so bad. The local cuisine basically consists of lard fried lard. Your only healthy options are very expensive restaurants, there is no middle ground here, its either TGI Fridays (2 for $20) or NOJA (2 for $200). I've recently started my quest for the farmers markets, but these are so random and out in the cut, that it might as well be a second job. AND IF I SEE ANOTHER GIGANTOR ORDERING SWEET TEA I THINK I"M GOING TO KILL THEM......TRY SOME EFFING WATER!

I wouldn't hold the Japanese up as the pinnacle of a physically healthy society or even consider them a worthy model to copy. Simply being a 'normal' body weight doesn't mean you're healthy.

Andrew1975 wrote:I'm currently doing a stint in Mobile Alabama, I moved here after doing a year in San Diego. The difference in health is night and day.

San Diego is pretty healthy, great food options from eating out to grocery. There is a giant push in San Diego for locally owned restaurants serving locally sourced food which helps keep things healthy. I think because of this push you actually get a lot of great options at really good prices. The local cuisine is a combination of Mexican and seafood. The Mexican is about the best I have ever had, maybe not the healthiest stuff, but not too bad either. There is an abundance of great seafood options. While you could certainly blow a few hundred dollars on dinner in San Diego you did not have to. The amount of mid level restaurants serving excellent food in San Diego is one of the things I loved the most about living there. Half priced Sushi happy hours became my bread and butter.

On the completely other end of the spectrum we have.

Mobile, Alabama is so disgustingly unhealthy, its absurd. The grocery stores here are terrible, mostly consisting of Wal Mart grocery stores, with very limited selections, almost none of them healthy. Trying to find low fat anything in a grocery store in Mobile is an exercise in futility. To top it off grocery is more expensive here than in San Diego. I would kill for a Trader Joes right now! Eating out is for the most part a non starter. The city is completely dominated by chains, from fast food to dinners and restaurants it is almost completely corporate. You can literally see from one waffle house to the next its so bad. The local cuisine basically consists of lard fried lard. Your only healthy options are very expensive restaurants, there is no middle ground here, its either TGI Fridays (2 for $20) or NOJA (2 for $200). I've recently started my quest for the farmers markets, but these are so random and out in the cut, that it might as well be a second job. AND IF I SEE ANOTHER GIGANTOR ORDERING SWEET TEA I THINK I"M GOING TO KILL THEM......TRY SOME EFFING WATER!

You know the Civil War started because some Yankeee impugned the greatness of sweet tea...barbarian.

I think a big problem with the obesity rates in the US, especially amongst children are due to the school food programs. Sooooooo much frozen & highly processed crap.

Hell, I felt sick after eating once at my high school cafeteria, I can't imagine what I'd have done if the school actually forced me to eat that kind of every singe day. (I'd have just sucked it up and starved unill I got a proper meal at dinner.)
Hell, I hated the food at my daycare way back when so much, my parents just packed me off with a proper meal every day, even though they were still being charged the weekly 'food costs' by the daycare. And so many of the kids at that daycare were turning into little butterballs eating 3-4+ sandwhiches all slathered in cheap & unhealthy crap like No Name brand butters, jellies & sandwhich meats.

I tend to just shake my head everytime I see fat people walking into fast food places and ordering the super-sized fries, 2-3 burgers, fried chicken & 'uber large pop.

Yes! A crappy list St. Louis isn't near the top of! That's something you don't see every day

You know the Civil War started because some Yankeee impugned the greatness of sweet tea...barbarian.

In the US we have clean water available at the touch of a faucet in almost every home in America. This is a luxury that most of the world would kill for. For the most part we piss on it. I know people that personally will not drink tap water. They come in two varieties, ones that only drink flavored beverages loaded with sugar, and the ones that will only drink bottled water. Battled water is a completely unregulated wasteful marketing scam. I can't tell you how often I have had people ask me for water at my clubs, and as I go to fill a glass FOR FREE from the gun, they ask for bottled water. We charge $3 for bottled water, our tap water is municipal water that we run trough an additional filter, still they want the bottle. For a long time I refused to carry bottled water, but the customer is king and money talks.

It amazes me that people are willing to pay upwards of $8 for a gallon of water. Hell, when I bought my last club I inherited cases of BLING water, they used to sell it for $30 for 8 oz bottle because some rapper endorsed it. I dropped it all off at the homeless shelter. Its no wonder the oil companies feel they can charge $5 for a gallon of gas.



Sweat tea is bad but look what happens when you mix Mountain Due and Appalachia. People are putting mountain due in baby bottles. This is by far worse that cigarettes, and there is little to no warnings or education about it.

Andrew1975 wrote:

You know the Civil War started because some Yankeee impugned the greatness of sweet tea...barbarian.

In the US we have clean water available at the touch of a faucet in almost every home in America. This is a luxury that most of the world would kill for. For the most part we piss on it. I know people that personally will not drink tap water. They come in two varieties, ones that only drink flavored beverages loaded with sugar, and the ones that will only drink bottled water. Battled water is a completely unregulated wasteful marketing scam. I can't tell you how often I have had people ask me for water at my clubs, and as I go to fill a glass FOR FREE from the gun, they ask for bottled water. We charge $3 for bottled water, our tap water is municipal water that we run trough an additional filter, still they want the bottle. For a long time I refused to carry bottled water, but the customer is king and money talks.

It amazes me that people are willing to pay upwards of $8 for a gallon of water. Hell, when I bought my last club I inherited cases of BLING water, they used to sell it for $30 for 8 oz bottle because some rapper endorsed it. I dropped it all off at the homeless shelter. Its no wonder the oil companies feel they can charge $5 for a gallon of gas.



Sweat tea is bad but look what happens when you mix Mountain Due and Appalachia. People are putting mountain due in baby bottles. This is by far worse that cigarettes, and there is little to no warnings or education about it.

I'm sure you have a point here.

Lots of fatties in Canada, too. I work in Ontario and I'm always amused at how fat they are, just like Americans. Gotta have that Tim Hortons extra large donut! And poutine...mmmm yummy poutine.

Poutine sounds so rank. I can't believe people eat stuff like that.

Then again, when I was in university, once a week I'd down 6-8 pints of guinness and slouch to the chipper for chips with cheese and curry sauce on top.

Da Boss wrote:Poutine sounds so rank. I can't believe people eat stuff like that.

Then again, when I was in university, once a week I'd down 6-8 pints of guinness and slouch to the chipper for chips with cheese and curry sauce on top.

Sounds almost like chili cheese fries.

I smoke, I don't abuse tobacco, I smoke 4-5 cigs a day, unless I'm drinking, then it can sky rocket, but I don't drink so often anymore either. I eat fast food, maybe once a week. I also lift weights and run regularly. Most everything is ok in moderation. It's when crap becomes your main diet and you rarely eat anything healthy, combined with not moving except to stuff your face, that is when it really becomes a problem.

Well in the words of the immortal bard: "I picked a bad week to quit sniffing glue."

Frazzled wrote:Well in the words of the immortal bard: "I picked a bad week to quit sniffing glue."

Do you like gladiator movies?

Andrew1975 wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Well in the words of the immortal bard: "I picked a bad week to quit sniffing glue."

Do you like gladiator movies?

Mobile, Alabama? Immobile, Alabama more like.

Kilkrazy wrote:Mobile, Alabama? Immobile, Alabama more like.

Well in their defense, you need to be large, else you'll get blown away by the next hurricane/tornado.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17585734

64.1% of American women are obese? I find that a little difficult to believe.

ifStatement wrote:
Mostly muscle? Sure. Wladimir klitschko would have to put on weight to be that heavy and he's six foot six.

WK couldn't bench 500+ lbs.

Of course, I'm wasn't WK fit when I could put up 200. At 5'9 180 I'm approaching his composition.

Is Dogma seriously claiming to have benched 500+ LBs at 18/19?

I'm struggling whether to picture him as a chubby Arnold Schwarzenegger or...

Amaya wrote:Is Dogma seriously claiming to have benched 500+ LBs at 18/19?

Yep, and I was ~250 at the time, put on 20-30 lbs in about 2.5 months. When you spend 2-3 hours in the gym every day (still do that, but much more cardio is involved) its certainly possible.

ifStatement wrote:I'm struggling whether to picture him as a chubby Arnold Schwarzenegger or...

Why are you assuming I was toned?

That makes no sense, and speaks to the standard "gamer" understanding of fitness.

I was no Ryan Kennelly, but the basic approximation of body type was similar.



Over the course of 5 years I cut down to a more reasonable weight of 180-190. There's a picture of me floating around here somewhere, and some Mods have seen me post mono (ie: after I could barely sit up for 4 months) in person.

The fact I said CHUBBY Arnold Schwarzenegger aside, I'm not assuming anything of the sort. If you want my own opinion I'm going to call bull on the whole idea that you were a 250 pound 18 year old who was obese but with "mostly muscle" and could bench press 500 pounds.

ifStatement wrote:The fact I said CHUBBY Arnold Schwarzenegger aside, I'm not assuming anything of the sort. If you want my own opinion I'm going to call bull on the whole idea that you were a 250 pound 18 year old who was obese but with "mostly muscle" and could bench press 500 pounds.

Yeah, totally, dropping a cartoon character that is noted for being fat absolutely lets us all know that you meant to characterize me as a power lifter, and not as a fat kid. I believe the phrase is "Come off it!"

Either way, its the probable result assuming being mostly composed of muscle means not being obese. A common mistake.

dogma wrote:

ifStatement wrote:The fact I said CHUBBY Arnold Schwarzenegger aside, I'm not assuming anything of the sort. If you want my own opinion I'm going to call bull on the whole idea that you were a 250 pound 18 year old who was obese but with "mostly muscle" and could bench press 500 pounds.

Probably because you're assuming being mostly composed of muscle means not being obese. A common mistake.

No more to do with your nack of posting tidbits of information about yourself which is never in the least bit modest or self deprecating and also never asked for before hand. It's usually to the tune of 'your wrong about that here's what I just read on wikipedia. Did I mention I was a well hung lady's man with a doctorate who can bench press 500 pounds and has a job with a six figure salary?' In my experience people who whine on so much about themselves in such a manner usually talk a load of crap.