Obesity map of the United States

[Amby 490]

when I hear the word obese I associate it with news storys or shows on obesity so I think that you guys are right. BMI is important! Don't they say even if you just lose 10% of your body weight it will make you healthier and lower your risks?

[♥JP♥ 5]

when I hear the word obese I associate it with news storys or shows on obesity so I think that you guys are right. BMI is important! Don't they say even if you just lose 10% of your body weight it will make you healthier and lower your risks?

I agree that BMI is important as well. But the images I get of obesity do not involve anyone that is 50lbs overweight.

[Amby 490]

mine don't either! I think that's why marilyn and I both said that we thought obese was 100lbs+ overweight

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

It probably depends on your height, muscle mass and bone structure

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

I believe the idea is that what we, as laymen, think is obese does not necessarily match up with the medical definition of the word.

ETA-I'm not a doctor so...I know nothing.

[Amby 490]

I think you're right troll. I mean people keep growing and growing in size so as we see more and more people one size they think of obese as larger (I think). Does that make sense to anyone else?

[no name 1]

I think you're right troll. I mean people keep growing and growing in size so as we see more and more people one size they think of obese as larger (I think). Does that make sense to anyone else?

your perception might be changing, but sadly, (obese) reality ain't!

Check out a size 8 dress from 1960 & one from now. HUGE difference. Sizes were scaled to accommodate growing figures.

Edited February 13, 2008 by devilette

[Ban Hammer 13,340]

I believe the idea is that what we, as laymen, think is obese does not necessarily match up with the medical definition of the word.

ETA-I'm not a doctor so...I know nothing.

we knew that

[Alex+R 0]

The sucky thing is that even though 30 pounds or so overweight doesn't "sound" obese, it is medically. And the medical definition of BMI 30 isn't arbitrary; it means you're much more at risk at that point for all kinds of health problems.

I read a study where they asked normal weight, overweight and obese people to put themselves in the right category. Most normal weight and overweight people were able to correctly categorize themselves, but most obese were not.

The only problem with the whole BMI thing is those with lots of muscle mass weigh more. A lot of pro athletes are overweight or even obese by the BMI scale, and obviously it's just because of muscle.

[caybee 21]

What happened to the stigma associated with eating poorly? Since when is it acceptable to have a fourth meal at Taco Bell? Every time I turn on the. TV I see a stop smoking or anti-marijuana commercial. Where are all of the public service announcements regarding healthy eating?

I couldn't find any I could imbed, but there are links to several obesity-prevention PSAs here,

on the right under "campaign material." Personally, I think the humor and the positive message in these are more effective than ostracism since poor food choices are often a reaction to strong emotions (even good ones), isolation, shame. Many obese people heap a whole lot more shame and self-loathing on themselves than anyone on the outside could do to them.

[SnowyTater 0]

I knew the right medical numbers for what's considered overweight and obese and all that, but I'm not convinced that weight is the top priority at all in someone's health. I think it's a lot better to be maybe ten or twenty pounds over your 'ideal weight' and eat a balanced diet, make sure you get all your vitamins and minerals and all that good junk, and be at least moderately active, than it is to be ten or twenty (or 30, or 40, as some of these people are) pounds UNDER their ideal weight yet not really pay attention to the quality of what they eat (other than it's low calorie) or exercise ever (probably because they don't have the energy...)

On the flip side, I don't think it's healthy at all to lose weight really fast either. I see tons of girls lose 30 pounds in 3-5 months and I just worry when someone hits the gym for three hours a day and then only eats the bare minimum 1200 calories a day, if that...I think the weight epidemic in the country goes both ways. Obviously there's tons more obese people to worry about, but I think with young girls especially now someone needs to be shoving steak down their mouth sometimes.

The sad reality is that the caloric recommendation doohickeys say men get to have like...2400 calories a day, 2800 if they're really active, kids should get 2000, and women in their 30's and 40's should get 1600 or so (unless they're realy active by which they mean REALLY active rockclimbing on the way to work or something) :\ Those sorts of numbers make me not CARE if I'm a bit pudgy because dang it I want chocolate cake too!

[rebeccajo 14]

Sit at your TV all evening and your computer all day, and it ain't gonna matter if you're eating lots of veg.

Your a$$ is still gonna get big.

Not everybody has access to fresh, inexpensive produce all year long. Even if you can get it at Krogers, they've drowned it in pesticides.

How many people drink more carbonated beverages than water? Most. Yet drinking lots of water is the first thing you can do to promote weight loss plus flush toxins from your system.

[SnowyTater 0]

I do that whole student budgeting thing actually. Not fresh vegs but frozen is a hell of a lot better than canned, and catch these things on sale and even the brand name bags of veggies aren't that terribly expensive. Going cheap though, what it is it like...store brand 16 oz of most veggies like a buck, at least where I live. Not all that sodium and preservatives and stuff nearly as much in frozen.

Not to mention if you have a yard it's ridiculously easy to just grow your own veggies...again at least where I live. That's probably not true up north I guess.

It'd be great to be able to buy all organic food and then like...buy brown unbleached paper and toilet paper and coffee filters (well I use instant anyway), and replace my cleaning fluids with a soap and vinegar mixture, all that stuff to get rid of the toxins, but yeh can't afford it just now - besides I'm buying my splenda yogurts and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they find out that splenda's just as bad and cancerous for you as all the other sugar subs, and I'm still exposing myself to...aluminum or whatever so I guess I'll get alzheimer's even if I dodge all the cancers along the way.

Yeh, I mean, if you're living in an industrialized nation, you're gonna be screwed really, you're gonna have all this in your system. People might be getting bigger as in fatter partially because of all the hormones in the meat and milk - it's certainly made us taller and our bones bigger, so why not.

I drink only water and hot uncaffeinated teas. I have one cup of caffeinated coffee in the morning and if I have cereal or something I drink organic skim milk (DO splurge for the organic milk because it's fresh date is so much longer yay happy cows ). I watch my sugar intake to a ridiculous extent and do all that 'eat several smaller meals less than 500 calories at a time' whatever nonsense and stay between 1200-1500 calories a day and get a pretty fair amount of exercise jogging and walking and biking and swimming and if I was at home hiking in, etc...my point is I'm STILL a bit of a fata$$ And I'm not complaining, not doing that 'oh it's my genes' or anything thing. I'm just saying I WANT to be a bit of a fata$$ because I think if I were to get sick or something, my immune system would suddenly appreciate those cushy pounds a good deal

I don't know...I DID read somewhere once though that just sitting, you burn like...50 calories an hour. Whereas sleeping, you burn 100-120 or so. So theoretically if you want to lose weight but don't want to eat any differently OR get off your butt and go for a walk then you can just sleep ALL the time and be good

Oh yeh but talking about the expense thing with quality foods and all that, it IS true. Study I saw once talking about why it seems like poorer people on welfare are often actually more overweight than middle aged counterparts - well, yeh. I grew up ENTIRELY on those 80 cent cans of chef boyardee and $2 boxes of hamburger helper and little debbie cakes and McDonalds and all these wonderful wonderful things.

Still want them sometimes though xD Canned beef hash and kraft mac and cheese. MMMM. The only meal me and my sister knew how to make xD

Edited February 13, 2008 by SnowyTater

[PlatyPius 5]

I guess I just didn't realize how fast it had happened. I didn't know it was just the last 20 years more or less.

Oddly, it coincides with the introduction of High Fructose Corn Syrup into every single thing that we eat in the US.

It also coincides with the explosion of personal computers.

Let's see.... body tricked with HFCS while eating a damn sausage (yes, HFCS is in MEAT products), demands more calories as a reaction to "sugar", people eat more.

Fast food becomes more and more prevalent, people eat more #######.

Many jobs entail sitting at a computer all day, people get fatter.

X-Box, Nintendo, PS2/3, etc are introduced, American kids become lard-arses.

Basically, we need to get rid of HFCS (either by refusing to buy products containing it, or ordering food from Canada - lol), throw away the damn gaming systems, get our lard butts on a bike 3 or 4 days per week, and stay away from McDonald's.

The only one that we have little control over is the HFCS thing. It's in EVERYthing.

*Hint: Aunt Millie's has several breads that do NOT contain HFCS, and are prominently labelled as such.*

[SnowyTater 0]

I didn't know all that It scares me when I see a recipe now that calls for corn syrup. I'm just like, "What, you can BUY that? WHAT?"

Just checked my bread which I'm in LOVE with, been eating a lot of sandwiches lately because just discovered it. It ain't got no HFCS but it's pretty pricey Nature's Own wheat stuff. And it's double the fiber