The overweight on the overweight

"Dusty Bleher" wrote in message
...
"Lass Chance" wrote in message
...
...
FYI, obese folks arent the reason for obese kids. McDonalds is.
I beg to differ. Obesity is caused by bending one's elbow while there's
food in the hand attached to it. Surely choice of said food is
important, but that's only a contributory issue...

Hypothyroidism. PCOS. Impaired glucose tolerance. Diabetes. Depression.
Physical impairment. SAD. I'm sure there's many more.

Nicky.

--
A1c 10.5/4.5/6 Weight 95/77/72Kg
1g Metformin, 100ug Thyroxine
T2 DX 05/2004

"Nicky" wrote in message
...

"Dusty Bleher" wrote in message
...
"Lass Chance" wrote in message
...
...
FYI, obese folks arent the reason for obese kids. McDonalds is.
I beg to differ. Obesity is caused by bending one's elbow while there's
food in the hand attached to it. Surely choice of said food is
important, but that's only a contributory issue...

Hypothyroidism. PCOS. Impaired glucose tolerance. Diabetes. Depression.
FWIW; "PCOS. Impaired glucose tolerance. Diabetes. And depression," all have
the same roots. Too much sugar!

Physical impairment. SAD. I'm sure there's many more.
True. But look around you. How many of those you see fall victim to those
kinds of maladies? All of 'em? I. Don't. Think. So! A few percent of
the population I'd say. What's the excuse for the rest of 'em? Say what
you want, but while there are certainly a few exceptions, the primary reason
that folks are overweight is "knife & fork" disease. And no amount of
coming up with other "excuses" is going to resolve that issue...


DustyB



Nicky.

--
A1c 10.5/4.5/6 Weight 95/77/72Kg
1g Metformin, 100ug Thyroxine
T2 DX 05/2004

"Dusty Bleher" wrote in message
...
"Nicky" wrote in message
...

"Dusty Bleher" wrote in message
...
"Lass Chance" wrote in message
...
...
FYI, obese folks arent the reason for obese kids. McDonalds is.
I beg to differ. Obesity is caused by bending one's elbow while there's
food in the hand attached to it. Surely choice of said food is
important, but that's only a contributory issue...

Hypothyroidism. PCOS. Impaired glucose tolerance. Diabetes. Depression.

FWIW; "PCOS. Impaired glucose tolerance. Diabetes. And depression," all
have the same roots. Too much sugar!

All of them have a genetic predisposition. Plus the chance of developing
them through disease or medication.


Physical impairment. SAD. I'm sure there's many more.

True. But look around you. How many of those you see fall victim to
those kinds of maladies? All of 'em? I. Don't. Think. So! A few
percent of the population I'd say.

Well, it's currently pushing 1 in 10 in the US for diabetes/IGT, to rise to
1 in 4 by 2030.

Nicky.

--
A1c 10.5/4.5/6 Weight 95/77/72Kg
1g Metformin, 100ug Thyroxine
T2 DX 05/2004

"Fat people ingest too many calories to be thin. A negative caloric
intake will make
fat people thin. What's hard to understand about all that?
Pastorio"

Id say your grasp of the obvious is absolutely underwhelming. Since they
teach this fundamental fact in fourth grade science, at least it does
serve to prove you did make it thru fourth grade.
Congratulations---your mom must be SO proud.

However, to begin to understand why Americans are the fattest people in
the world begs a bit more of an in-depth inquiry into the mores of the
American culture.

"They eat too many calories" is is an over-simplification that sheds no
light on the subject towads the answer as to, "WHY and/or HOW do they
eat these 'too many" calories?"

Ask any two-year-old where they like to eat and the chances are, (if
they're verbal yet), the answer will be, "McDonalds!"

That mega corps such as Mickey D's hire staffs of comercial
psychologists to plan their advertising campaigns, coming up with the
cute packaging (Happy Meals) the free toys, Ronald, the slides and
monkeybars outside in the "play area" are generally known facts. The
purpose is clear---to seduce the very young. Get the kids screaming for
a Happy Meal and mega bucks roll in.

That many children's 'first vegetable" is a french fry from MD's is a
sad comment on the results of this seduction.

Currently, much of MD's advertising is aimed at the young teen--"I'm
lovin' it!" exclaims the 15 year old, waving his pancake/sausage/eggs
sandwich....containing some 500 calories and enough grams of fat to
sustain an adult male doing hard physical labor for a few days.

Whether or not you choose to acknowledge it, American kids are captured
and held from early childhood, thru the teens and into adulthood as they
begin to have kids of their own by this uniquely powerful and persuasive
advetrtising, which gets them IN the door and the over-abundance of fat
and sugar in the food, which KEEPS them coming back.

Another conributing factor is that most large city school buy the food
for their lunch program from the same folks who package and sell prison
food---their aim is to provide low-cost, "filling" food to large numbers
of people with little or no prep other than heating the food up. For
"filling
and cheap", read: high in carbs.

In the last fifty years in America, (for the first time since Rosie went
to work during WWII) women are less and less likely to be found at home
preparing meals and more and more likely to be in he workplace until
5...then off to pick the kids up, get some kind of food down their
necks, get the homework done, into the bath, then bed.

For too many, this means stopping by the fast-food drive-in on the way
home, picking up MORE of the high fat, high sugar, high carbs food the
kids had for lunch, often being the second fast-food meal of the day for
the parents, as wel.

YES, Americans are fat because they eat too many calories. This is the
surface. But a closer look reveals a sociological phenomenon---the 'fast
feeding" of the WRONG kind of calories to the American public.

Perhaps no one is literally "holdng a gun to their heads". But working
mothers lacking the time it takes to shop for, prepare, serve and clean
up after dinner.....combined with a car full of kids screaming for their
faveorite fast food, is mighty close to the same thing.

That Americans NEED quick, affordable food is not the question. The
question is, WHY cant they sell us HEALTHY fast food?

In a recent documentary film called, "Supersize Me", a 30-something year
old man ate three meals a day in McDonalds, "supersizing" everything. He
gained over 30 pounds in one month---while almost destroying his liver,
increasing his blood cholesterol and sugar levels into the "danger
zone", becoming lethargic and developing a chronic headache prior to his
daily MD 'fix".

It doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure a person shouldnt eat ALL
his meals in Mickey D's. And, thakfully, MOST people dont. However, the
average family of two adults and two kids will and does consume
considerably more fast food than the "not more than once a month"
reccomended by nurtition experts.

LassChance


Start LC~5-16-05
202-195-165
(i only weigh on Sunday)

Dusty sez...
"I beg to differ. Obesity is caused by
bending one's elbow while there's food in
the hand attached to it. Surely choice of
said food is important, but that's only a
contributory issue...
DustyB"

gee. Another keenly astute observation. By "bending one's elbow while
there's food in the hand", you mean, "eating"? In other words, eating is
the cause of obesity?

Now...there's some earth-shaking news.
Clearly, the cure then, is to NOT EAT?

"choice of said food is important, but that's only a contributory
issue... "

Since NOT eating isnt really an option....the choice of food is the ONLY
important issue.

You can "bend your elbow" all day long if what's on your fork is salad
greens with no dressing...OR you can "bend your elbow" once a day at a
fast food joint and gain weight.

It isnt about the elbow bending. It's about what's on the fork.


LassChance


Start LC~5-16-05
202-195-165
(i only weigh on Sunday)

455 sez...
"you so damn ugly I bet Mommy had to tie a steak around your neck to
get the dog to play with you."

I thought this was kinda funny back in 1970 or so, when I first heard
it.

cant come up with anything new in 35 years?

LassChance


Start LC~5-16-05
202-195-165
(i only weigh on Sunday)

"Nicky" wrote in message
...
....
Hypothyroidism. PCOS. Impaired glucose tolerance. Diabetes. Depression.

FWIW; "PCOS. Impaired glucose tolerance. Diabetes. And depression," all
have the same roots. Too much sugar!

All of them have a genetic predisposition. Plus the chance of developing
them through disease or medication.
True enough, but that shouldn't be a "catch-all" for relief of poor habits
or lack of self-disciplin.

While I don't have a ready reference, I'd read some time back that less than
a fraction of 1% of folks fall into that catagory. That means that 90% have
no excuse or reason at all...other than "knife & fork" disease. I oughtta
know...BTDT!

....
True. But look around you. How many of those you see fall victim to
those kinds of maladies? All of 'em? I. Don't. Think. So! A few
percent of the population I'd say.

Well, it's currently pushing 1 in 10 in the US for diabetes/IGT, to rise
to 1 in 4 by 2030.
Yep. But to be honest, you have to separate out the T1 from T2 diabetics.
T1's *do* have a genetic cause...but T2 is almost always caused by
eating/lifestyle habits. While the T1 folks can only deal with their
maladies, the T2 folks caused an entirely preventable malady.


Later all,
Dusty
....

"Lass Chance" wrote in message
...
Dusty sez...
"I beg to differ. Obesity is caused by
bending one's elbow while there's food in
the hand attached to it. Surely choice of
said food is important, but that's only a
contributory issue...
DustyB"

gee. Another keenly astute observation. By "bending one's elbow while
there's food in the hand", you mean, "eating"? In other words, eating is
the cause of obesity?
Without mentioning the medical "fringe cases", would you be so kind as to
cite for me any other reasons?

Now...there's some earth-shaking news.
Clearly, the cure then, is to NOT EAT?
Well, you can take what I wrote any way that pleases you. But that's NOT
what I either said or implied, and certainly NOT something that's helpful.
**THOSE WITH MEDICAL ISSUES ASIDE**, that are obese, got that way from what
they ingested.

As another poster here said very succinctly, your weight will ALWAYS be the
result of (calories IN) - (calories OUT). Since a pound of body fat
represents about 3,500 calories, you can do the math yourself in order to
find out HOW MUCH you have to trim you input in order to achieve your weight
goals (provided that your excess weight is indeed in fat). Now look, I'm
not a huge fan of "calorie counting". A "calorie" is a somewhat fraudulent
measure of the food value to the human organism of the item being tested.
It is, however, a ubiquitous standard and has gained wide acceptance as
such. So we use it. It will be close enough for our efforts.

If you are overweight, you MUST cut your intake. You can take drugs and
chemicals that will alter your ability to absorb certain nutrients; you can
take drugs or chemicals that will alter your body chemistry (amphetamines
and related drugs come to mind); you can ingest alternative things (such as
faux ice-cream like those either low-carb ones or the low-fat ones, etc.);
you can eat low nutrient foods (like celery, etc.); you can eat less
(portion control); or you can do a combination of all of the above.

Each one of us reading here has their own method or mentality to apply. I
slavishly followed the "eat low-fat!", & "eat high-carbs" (in lieu of
"fats"), and IT DIDN'T WORK! It wasn't until I made a trip to Europe in '88
and visited long unseen relatives that the light began to glimmer. I ate
with relatives that were eating things that to my "low-fat!" mind-set were
simply suicidal. Funny thing was, they were all slim & trim... Now how
could that be...? *I* was doing all the *right* things, at least according
to my MD and the FDA...yet I was getting all the wrong results. I chalked
it off to getting older and genetics...(it's always easier if you can come
up with an excuse or otherwise foist the blame on someone or thing else...).

Getting smarter took a little longer. Remember all of those things we used
to hear? "Eat more grains and foods from the 'Food Pyramid'!" "Reduce your
intake of fats & oils!" "Eat three meals/day, or you'll be hungry and begin
an eating binge." Remember any of them? Well, now we know that THEY'RE ALL
WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!

This "low-fat" mentality we've been living in is going to get a generation
of folks so physiologically screwed up that no amount of anything will help
them. And we have a government managed "food processing industry" that
helps them to put out this fraudulent message. Fats (in the form of fatty
acids) are an ESSENTIAL part of your body's dietary requirements. Our
bodies WERE DESIGNED and refined and honed by millions of years of evolution
in order to eat those things that were available to said organism. The
"french fry" was NEVER intended for consumption when our digestive design
was undergoing evolution (no matter how much I might like them).

I've long since done my own research and come to my own conclusions...all
reading here are welcome to ignore what I've found. In fact, I urge all of
my fellow readers to undertake their own research. Each of us must LEARN
about the real way our bodies work. Don't, and you're at the mercy of the
"apparent truths" we're bombarded with each day (eat low fat, eat more
grains, eat 3-times/day, avoid sunlight, etc...).

I used to eat a "healthy" breakfast, according to the USDA "Food Pyramid",
and was so hungry by lunch time that I'd have eaten the paint off the wall
if I could'a gotten an edge loose. Now I eat an egg (fried in butter or
hardboiled), piece of cheese, or some cheese and meat slices rolled
together. On most days it isn't until around 1600 that I event think about
my getting hungry. I usually miss "lunch" because I'm simply not hungry.
And since I'm more or less retired, I don't have a social necessity to join
and eat with others.

When I first embraced a relatively low-carb WOE (long before I heard of Dr.
Atkins), I used to look for "replacement foods" for those things I craved.
In those days there was no low-carb ice-cream or chips or bread. So,
instead of pining for them, I just gave them up. And instead of feeding my
cravings run-amuck with fake stuff, I just don't use them. Then, once in a
long interval, I'll have some ice-cream, just because I now can. And, as an
added benefit, ice-cream goes back into the "once-in-a-while-treat"
category, as opposed to the obligatory pile of ice-cream & goodies every
afternoon...

My research found that sourdough bread has far fewer carbs than "regular"
bread. And it tastes so-o-o-o-o much better than that crap they peddle as
"bread" for the carbohydrately challenged. So I bake my own SD bread. Not
only is it satisfying (as a project), it tastes wonderful! I slice it thin,
and just don't eat as many slices--piled wonderfully high with pate',
cheeses, or sliced meats--as I'd like.

"choice of said food is important, but that's only a contributory
issue... "

Since NOT eating isnt really an option....the choice of food is the ONLY
important issue.
True enough. But I'd submit that "only" is too limiting. There are other
issues as well. There's not enough nutrition in a lettuce leaf to sustain
you. Yes. Eat them. But eat other things with it as well. Cheese, ham,
tuna, chicken, and so on come to mind...

You can "bend your elbow" all day long if what's on your fork is salad
greens with no dressing...OR you can "bend your elbow" once a day at a
Bah! Only a cow would eat greens with no dressing! I drizzle on olive oil
and lemon juice; and alter that with the occasional one-or-more of: chopped
green onion; crumbled blue cheese; almonds, sunflower seeds, walnuts, and
other such nuts; finely sliced, fresh basil, chives, or garlic greens.
There's never a need to choke down a dry, plain salad...

fast food joint and gain weight.
To stop by a FF joint, or not, is a choice. I find that throwing a slab of
salmon on the grill and popping open a bag of lettuce (bedecked with the
aforementioned accoutrements) takes about as long as waiting in line at
mickey D's... It's all in your personal discipline...and what you're
willing to "give-up" vs. "get"...(:-o)!


It isnt about the elbow bending. It's about what's on the fork.
We agree completely.


Later all,
Dusty
....

Lass Chance wrote:

"Fat people ingest too many calories to be thin. A negative
caloric intake will make fat people thin. What's hard to understand
about all that? Pastorio"

Id say your grasp of the obvious is absolutely underwhelming. Since
they teach this fundamental fact in fourth grade science, at least it
does serve to prove you did make it thru fourth grade.
Congratulations---your mom must be SO proud.

I notice in your smarmy little diatribe that you don't make any effort
to dispute the unarguable truth of it. What you do is go off on one of
the more astonishingly ignorant and amazingly presumptive diversions
I've ever seen.

If my assertion is true, as you say, what's the point of your arguing
further...? Calories are calories. EOFS.

However, to begin to understand why Americans are the fattest people
in the world begs a bit more of an in-depth inquiry into the mores of
the American culture.

Funny how your blundering ignorance focuses only on one aspect of a
global fact. *ALL* developed countries now have an obesity issue. No
matter if they like burgers or pasta or chip butties or vegemite.

"They eat too many calories" is is an over-simplification that sheds
no light on the subject towads the answer as to, "WHY and/or HOW do
they eat these 'too many" calories?"

WHY we eat too many calories is a perfectly well-understood phenomenon.
We're hard-wired to eat heavily in times of plenty against the potential
for lean times ahead. How is irrelevant. The point is that we eat more
than we burn so we can store all that excess energy for times of need.
*ANYTHING* that provides more calories than we need is grist for this mill.

Ask any two-year-old where they like to eat and the chances are, (if
they're verbal yet), the answer will be, "McDonalds!"

Oh, bull****. The sheer numbers of assumptions implicit in this is
staggering.

That mega corps such as Mickey D's hire staffs of comercial
psychologists to plan their advertising campaigns, coming up with the
cute packaging (Happy Meals) the free toys, Ronald, the slides and
monkeybars outside in the "play area" are generally known facts.

LOL I guess my decades of marketing experience are meaningless in the
face of what are "are generally known facts." I think it's hilariously
interesting how most people correctly think that psychological
mumbo-jumbo is merely a modern black art unless it's about some negative
aspect of it. So going to a shrink most likely won't help because they
don't really understand what makes people tick, except when it comes to
seducing the world at large, then they're infallible wizards.

You should only work in an advertising agency for a while. Clearly, you
have not.

The purpose is clear---to seduce the very young. Get the kids screaming
for a Happy Meal and mega bucks roll in.

Oh, wait. Let me quote one of our modern deep-thinking social analysts:
" Id say your grasp of the obvious is absolutely underwhelming."

All advertising and promotion is intended to bring in customers.

That many children's 'first vegetable" is a french fry from MD's is a
sad comment on the results of this seduction.

More assumptions with only the airy shrieks of an axe-grinder for
support. So most parents don't give their kids stuff to eat except what
they get from McD's? Amazing bit of research here, complete with all
those substantiating facts...

Currently, much of MD's advertising is aimed at the young teen--"I'm
lovin' it!" exclaims the 15 year old, waving his pancake/sausage/eggs
sandwich....containing some 500 calories and enough grams of fat to
sustain an adult male doing hard physical labor for a few days.

More bull****. If you want to be taken seriously, it would be good if
you ratcheted down the empty rhetoric and produced more facts.

But at least they've let up on the Happy Meal set, huh,...?

Whether or not you choose to acknowledge it, American kids are
captured and held from early childhood, thru the teens and into
adulthood as they begin to have kids of their own by this uniquely
powerful and persuasive advetrtising, which gets them IN the door and
the over-abundance of fat and sugar in the food, which KEEPS them
coming back.

For an example of deep misunderstanding of market forces and human
behavior and for flat-out misinformation, you'd have to search long and
hard to find something more off-the-mark than this. If advertising could
so manipulate the population, the Edsel would still be around. Howard
Johnson's would be the largest restaurant chain on earth. Everyone would
own 6 cars. Everyone would look like that 50-year-old woman in teh
Bowflex commercials. Everyone would be losing weight by going to Subway...

Puhleeze. Advertising has motivational value, but if what's being sold
doesn't strike a responsive chord with the consuming public, it won't
matter. As for fat and sugar, look around you. Look in the ice cream
freezers. The candy aisles. The "luxury" foods. To hand it to McD's is
to admit failure of biological understanding and the intellectually
bankrupt process of seizing on a simplistic cause and effect chain.

We instinctively favor eating fats and sugars because of their values
for long-term survival in the primitive settings in which we evolved.
Fats are the most efficient source of calories, so we've evolved to like
the mouthfeel of fats. Bones found in middens say that early hunters ate
the fatty marrow of otherwise lean animals. We separate cream from milk
because we like it. We put butter on bread. Sugars signal ripeness in
fruits, so we like sweetness because it means the fruit is ready for
consumption and the bitterness and tartness are diminished. Early man
endured bee stings to get honey. Grapes and dates are grown for their
sugar content.

Given choices, the vast preponderance of humans will more often opt for
fatty or sugary foods than celery, lettuce, roast chicken or fish.
Desserts are customary in virtually all cuisines.

Another conributing factor is that most large city school buy the
food for their lunch program from the same folks who package and sell
prison food---their aim is to provide low-cost, "filling" food to
large numbers of people with little or no prep other than heating the
food up. For "filling and cheap", read: high in carbs.

LOL What a wonderful (and deeply uninformed) red herring. Federal and
state mandates say what schools can and cannot feed the kids. This
idiotic paragraph makes it sound like the manufacturers decide who gets
what. LOL Stupidly hilarious. Food manufacturers manufacture food.
They do it to specifications their customers demand. The "same folks who
package and sell prison food" are bad, bad companies like Del Monte,
Campbell's, Rich's, Ore-Ida, Dole...

Lass Chance seems to think that they can dump any old thing in there and
it'll be fine with everybody as long as it's cheap. Spoken just like
somebody who's never been involved in setting food specifications and
who has no idea how processed foods are manufactured or how school
feeding actually proceeds.

In the last fifty years in America, (for the first time since Rosie
went to work during WWII) women are less and less likely to be found
at home preparing meals and more and more likely to be in he
workplace until 5...then off to pick the kids up, get some kind of
food down their necks, get the homework done, into the bath, then
bed.

And yet, each year sees more and more cookbooks being produced. More and
more food-directed magazines. More and more newspaper features about
food. An entire TV network devoted to food issues, and other channels
also broadcasting information about food. I guess all that stuff is just
so we can cut down more trees and make more electrons run through the
wires. More cooking schools. More restaurants. More gourmet shops. More
organic farms. More Ready-To-Eat meals in supermarkets. More take-out
food from full-menu restaurants. More food delivery.

And, funny enough, more choices in school feeding. Do read a bit about
the amazing revolution in university feeding. It represents the demands
of the students. All those kids you insist "captured and held from early
childhood, thru the teens and into adulthood" by fast food who are
rejecting it. The breadth of offerings run parallel to the burgeoning
variety available in the society at large. Looks like the kids aren't
accepting your ideas, either. They're voting against it with their wallets.

For too many, this means stopping by the fast-food drive-in on the
way home, picking up MORE of the high fat, high sugar, high carbs
food the kids had for lunch, often being the second fast-food meal of
the day for the parents, as wel.

Um, how many is "too many?" Is there a number that would be OK?
Crusaders are a pain in the ass, particularly when they have this kind
of ridiculous grasp on TRUTH that everybody should live by.

300 million people in the country and this ninny asserts this kind of
unsupported nonsense. No stats. No data. Just screaming opinion as
though fact. Zany.

YES, Americans are fat because they eat too many calories. This is
the surface. But a closer look reveals a sociological
phenomenon---the 'fast feeding" of the WRONG kind of calories to the
American public.

LOL Calories are calories. They're a measure of heat. The source is
essentially irrelevant. If you eat more of your absurd RIGHT calories,
you'll still pork up. If you eat fewer of the WRONG calories, you'll
lose weight. All this diversionary bull**** serves only to cloud the
issue. And your unsupported assumptions and conclusions serve no purpose
beyond letting you mentally masturbate in public, ranting to show you can.

Perhaps no one is literally "holdng a gun to their heads". But
working mothers lacking the time it takes to shop for, prepare, serve
and clean up after dinner.....combined with a car full of kids
screaming for their faveorite fast food, is mighty close to the same
thing.

That Americans NEED quick, affordable food is not the question. The
question is, WHY cant they sell us HEALTHY fast food?

LOL Uh-oh. Now we're talking about THEM. "WHY cant they sell us
HEALTHY fast food?" They actually try, you know. But there's this
problem. People buy what they want to buy and not much else. So when the
fast food guys offer salads, grilled or roasted chicken, reduced fat or
reduced carb or reduced calorie offerings, apparently people don't buy
them in great enough numbers to suit you.

In a recent documentary film called, "Supersize Me", a 30-something
year old man ate three meals a day in McDonalds, "supersizing"
everything. He gained over 30 pounds in one month---while almost
destroying his liver, increasing his blood cholesterol and sugar
levels into the "danger zone", becoming lethargic and developing a
chronic headache prior to his daily MD 'fix".

A perfect example of stupidity in pursuit of a buck. He did something
utterly stupid, recorded it and now uses it to promote a stupid
conclusion. He's getting rich from his abuse of his body. Funny thing
that seems to have gotten lost here. If he ate *anyplace* three times a
day picking the largest things they offered, he'd have had the same
results. Go ahead. Eat pizza. The big Subway sandwiches. Grilled chicken
breast salads with blue cheese dressing. Make sure to drink a large soda
or a milkshake with it. Have an apple pie afterward. Idiot.

All he demonstrated is that gluttony will make you fat. Wait, let me
quote something for him to consider: " Id say your grasp of the obvious
is absolutely underwhelming."

It doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure a person shouldnt eat ALL
his meals in Mickey D's. And, thakfully, MOST people dont. However,
the average family of two adults and two kids will and does consume
considerably more fast food than the "not more than once a month"
reccomended by nurtition experts.

Would these "nurtrition experts" be the ones that say we should all be
eating low fat? Or the "nurtition experts" that say low carb is bad? Or
could it be the "nurtition experts" that constructed the ridiculous food
pyramids? Oh. Right. Those "nurtition experts" who agree on all these
"facts."

It might be instructive for you to offer what you think would be a good
menu. You know, what you're in favor of instead of just what you're
against. Show us your deep knowledge about nutrition. Tell us all about
calories and fats and carbs. I note you don't mention protein. Not
necessary?

So how did you get fat? Could all this raving be a way for you to slip
out of the blame for your porkitude? It wasn't really your fault, you
were brainwashed by the Evil Calorie Empire that clouded your mind
bring sinister music up woooo woo-oo-oo...

Eat fewer calories than you burn -any calories - and you'll lose weight.
Eat more calories than you burn and you'll gain weight. Write that down.
You seem to keep forgetting it...

Pastorio

"Lass Chance" wrote in message
...
....
"They eat too many calories" is is an over-simplification that sheds no
Yes, true enough. But that simple truism is at the heart of the matter.

light on the subject towads the answer as to, "WHY and/or HOW do they
eat these 'too many" calories?"
The "how" is easy..."knife & fork disease". Now the "why," that is indeed a
far more salient issue. For instance, casting the net a bit wider than
low-carb, cigarette smoking has few beneficial properties--in fact, all
studies of which I'm aware show that it's one of the best routes towards an
accelerated end-of-life event. Yet even in this more enlightened day and
age, people continue to smoke...

Why indeed!?!

Ask any two-year-old where they like to eat and the chances are, (if
they're verbal yet), the answer will be, "McDonalds!"
Perhaps that underlines one of the differences between you and I. My
kids/grandkids don't get a vote...(:-o)!

That mega corps such as Mickey D's hire staffs of comercial
psychologists to plan their advertising campaigns, coming up with the
cute packaging (Happy Meals) the free toys, Ronald, the slides and
monkeybars outside in the "play area" are generally known facts. The
purpose is clear---to seduce the very young. Get the kids screaming for
a Happy Meal and mega bucks roll in.
Yep. All absolutely true and spot-on.

That many children's 'first vegetable" is a french fry from MD's is a
sad comment on the results of this seduction.
Nope! I completely disagree. A child of that age isn't capable of "asking"
for such a food. ONLY that child's 'adult' (?) guardian can make that call.
And your excellent description of that seduction serves to put the blame
EXACTLY where it needs to be: ON THE PARENT!

Currently, much of MD's advertising is aimed at the young teen--"I'm
lovin' it!" exclaims the 15 year old, waving his pancake/sausage/eggs
sandwich....containing some 500 calories and enough grams of fat to
True enough. The calories and fats are nearly insignificant; it's the carbs
and zero nutrition (and fiber) in the bun and the sugar carbs in the "secret
sauce" that's the culprit...and then we get into the "mind-set"...big
sigh!

sustain an adult male doing hard physical labor for a few days.
Yep. Also true...

Whether or not you choose to acknowledge it, American kids are captured
and held from early childhood, thru the teens and into adulthood as they
begin to have kids of their own by this uniquely powerful and persuasive
advetrtising, which gets them IN the door and the over-abundance of fat
and sugar in the food, which KEEPS them coming back.
Spot-on. Marketing 101 at its finest.

Another conributing factor is that most large city school buy the food
for their lunch program from the same folks who package and sell prison
food---their aim is to provide low-cost, "filling" food to large numbers
of people with little or no prep other than heating the food up. For
"filling
and cheap", read: high in carbs.
Yep. Also spot-on.

In the last fifty years in America, (for the first time since Rosie went
to work during WWII) women are less and less likely to be found at home
preparing meals and more and more likely to be in he workplace until
5...then off to pick the kids up, get some kind of food down their
necks, get the homework done, into the bath, then bed.
That's a complete 100% cop-out! My wife & I both worked, yet we still found
the time to make nutritious, fresh meals for our kids and ourselves.
Always!

For too many, this means stopping by the fast-food drive-in on the way
Nonsense! Like so many things we do, it's a choice they make. Like I said
(in another post), I can throw a slab of fish on the grill and mix up a
salad faster than you can go through the line at MD's.

home, picking up MORE of the high fat, high sugar, high carbs food the
kids had for lunch, often being the second fast-food meal of the day for
the parents, as wel.
The fats are insignificant, but those sugars and carbs will do ya in.

YES, Americans are fat because they eat too many calories. This is the
surface. But a closer look reveals a sociological phenomenon---the 'fast
feeding" of the WRONG kind of calories to the American public.
Certainly true. But it takes us back to "why?" Why do folks permit
themselves to be "herded" like that? I wish I knew... Almost certainly
this kind of activity is fueled by "a lack" of: understanding, knowledge of
how the body works, common sense, discipline; or a combination of all of
those...

Perhaps no one is literally "holdng a gun to their heads". But working
mothers lacking the time it takes to shop for, prepare, serve and clean
up after dinner.....combined with a car full of kids screaming for their
faveorite fast food, is mighty close to the same thing.
Sorry. That smacks too much of victimization for me. Each of us *must*
exercise the requisite discipline to do what's right...as opposed to what's
easiest. You don't get a pass by pleading "over-worked" or "harried".

It's probably just me, but I'm not of a 'herd' mentality. I tend to do my
own thing. And I tend to do what needs doing...

That Americans NEED quick, affordable food is not the question. The
question is, WHY cant they sell us HEALTHY fast food?
Donno...I handout "fast-food" all the time. You'd be surprised how quickly
one can prepare a bunch of grapes for a hungry kid. Or an apple; a handful
of carrots; a handful of raisins; whack off a chunk of salami or a few
slices of cheese; roll a slice or two of some sort of meat in a leaf of
lettuce; smear some peanut butter into a celery stalk; hand them a (cold)
sausage; a handful of peanuts or almonds; a hard-boiled egg; a handful of
cherry tomatoes; as well as other items--the list is nearly endless...

These are "fast food" to me. I'm an American. I think they're healthful as
well. If I can find these, how come others can only find their way to
McDonalds...?

In a recent documentary film called, "Supersize Me", a 30-something year
old man ate three meals a day in McDonalds, "supersizing" everything. He
gained over 30 pounds in one month---while almost destroying his liver,
increasing his blood cholesterol and sugar levels into the "danger
zone", becoming lethargic and developing a chronic headache prior to his
daily MD 'fix".
So? I'd say he got what he wanted. Why is his "event" important to me? In
fact, why would anyone care? To me this is on par with using the movie
"Jack-Ass" as guide to adventure events for teens...

It doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure a person shouldnt eat ALL
his meals in Mickey D's. And, thakfully, MOST people dont. However, the
average family of two adults and two kids will and does consume
considerably more fast food than the "not more than once a month"
reccomended by nurtition experts.
Only if they can't find their way to the kinds of things I use as "fast
food". And therein, it would seem, lies the problem... But hey! That's
probably just me and my inability to "fit-in"...


Later all,
DustyB
....