How do people not take better care of themselves?

[Anonymous]

In an ideal world, you don't need a workout routine. You have a daily routine that supports movement and has access to healthy food. In the blue zones where people live to 100, you think those old folks were going to the gym? No. They had intergenerational and social support, diets based on natural local foods, and walked and moved based on lifestyle. Modern life in America is based on capitalism and selling things to make $ - that means companies prioritized instant gratification. Our landscapes are based on cars instead of walking. People live far from family and don't have social support so are strapped for time and prioritize convenience.

[Anonymous]

Where do you see 30 year olds walking with canes? Health is tied to income. Lower income Americans have jobs that are tough on the body - working retail, standing on your feet, manufacturing jobs. Job injuries cause chronic pain. Life expectancy is lower. They live in areas where medical care is not as good, or not easily accessible. Obesity. Same thing. But more importantly, our suburbs are designed for cars. Narrow sidewalks. Wide streets. Long blocks. Large intersections. No street life. Walking alone on a narrow road with cars whizzing by you isn’t appealing for most. Not excusing, just explaining. Most city people are thin bc of daily walking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With two earner families who must commute for work, I’d imagine time to buy and cook healthy food is in short supply, given all the other responsibilities that must be juggled.

Don't they sell healthy food in the same place as unhealthy food?

I get the argument that people have hectic lives, but people in DC also work long hours. And if you've got 2-3 hours to watch television, I feel like it's not that hard to scramble an egg instead of eating a pop tart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What a very privileged position for you to take.

How is being healthy privileged? I see some huge people at Disney. Disney isn’t cheap.
There are plenty of healthy low cost options available. People are just too lazy to cook at home. And don’t give me the “they work 2 jobs” BS. A bowl of grain cereal is better than fruit loops. Plain oatmeal vs sugar oatmeal. Water vs soda. Whole wheat bread vs white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, how can you be a functioning adult and not have a workout routine? It's just shocking to go out into the NoVa burbs or out into other parts of the country and see the sheer number of desperately ill people in wheelchairs, oxygen masks, people in their 30s walking with canes, etc. Didnt' we all take health class and talk about how the body works and the basics of healthy eating?

You are SO much better than they are, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Workout routines” didn’t exist before the ‘80s or so. Only muscle heads went to gyms. And yet people were thin. There are lots of us out here who are very healthy and don’t have “workout routines.”

Everyone smoked before the 1980s.

Yep. Cigs and vodka kept my parents’ generation skinny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a very privileged position for you to take.

How is being healthy privileged? I see some huge people at Disney. Disney isn’t cheap.
There are plenty of healthy low cost options available. People are just too lazy to cook at home. And don’t give me the “they work 2 jobs” BS. A bowl of grain cereal is better than fruit loops. Plain oatmeal vs sugar oatmeal. Water vs soda. Whole wheat bread vs white.

+1

I get that soda is cheap and widely available, but do you know what is FREE and widely available? Water!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a very privileged position for you to take.

How is being healthy privileged? I see some huge people at Disney. Disney isn’t cheap.
There are plenty of healthy low cost options available. People are just too lazy to cook at home. And don’t give me the “they work 2 jobs” BS. A bowl of grain cereal is better than fruit loops. Plain oatmeal vs sugar oatmeal. Water vs soda. Whole wheat bread vs white.

No, Disney isn't cheap. But some people are staying in an on-site suite and eating out for each meal and go to Disney each year. Other people go once a decade, are staying in a motel room with 8 family members and brought coolers worth of food because they only plan to go to a restaurant one night. Just because you see the fat people at Disney doesn't mean they're as well-off as you are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with you, if they are at least middle class.Poor people often live in food deserts. It is also cheaper to eat processed food.

If you are middle class or higher, you should not be obese.

Tell me you know nothing about obesity . . .

Yep. I was in shape and worked out everyday, but started gaining weight no matter what. Gained 50 pounds. Took me 10 years and a move to an area with better medical care in order to be diagnosed with Hashimotos. Lost 40 of those pounds after getting proper medication, and finding out I also have IGE allergies to gluten and dairy protein.

Then I moved to the DC area, could not find a physician who would keep me on the thyroid medication which worked, went through menopause, and gained 30 pounds back. Gave up.

Now I've found a better doctor, back on my old medication, and have to avoid most sugar as well as gluten and dairy, and finally losing weight again at one pound per month. Eating mostly vegetables and meat / fish, and working out every day, Iam losing about a pound a month.

If I had not been born in a lower income area in the south, had better doctors, and better food earlier in my life, maybe I wouldn't have had to go through all this.

Workouts help, but they don't solve everything. And I was lucky: able to graduate from college, leave, and find medical help eventually. People working two jobs just to stay afloat don't have those options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8 hour working day, 2 hour commute, laundry, cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, doctor / dentist / pediatrician appointments, get kids ready for school / preschool / daycare, drop off / pick up, help with homework, or just if lucky, maybe spend 30 minutes playing, or reading, depending on age, kids bath time, evening routine. Drop dead and rinse and repeat the next day. Add a sick grandparent, a divorce, an abusive or unhelpful or absent partner, a health condition, and basically, there is really zero opportunity for exercise.

I don’t know how you can go about life judging people from your own lens and circumstances, and priorities.

That's life, not how you wind up weighing 320 pounds and diabetic.

That's the kind of life where eventually you end up obese and diabetic because you have no time or energy to take care of yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“Workout routines” didn’t exist before the ‘80s or so. Only muscle heads went to gyms. And yet people were thin. There are lots of us out here who are very healthy and don’t have “workout routines.”

Everyone smoked

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:American neighborhoods were designed to eliminate the best form of exercise: walking. Wouldn’t it be great to walk to the places you need to be and get a healthy amount of exercise in? But we can’t in most neighborhoods.

This.

Neither my grandparents nor my parents had a workout routine. Neither was obese because what they did have was walkable neighborhoods (in Europe) and they easily got minimum 40 - 50 minutes of walking per day just going about their lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What a very privileged position for you to take.

Not a privileged position. Decades ago there were plenty of less than privileged people but they weren’t all obese. That said I do agree that the problem also lies with the fact that cheaper food is often the unhealthiest processed food and that’s what poorer people are eating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a very privileged position for you to take.

How is being healthy privileged? I see some huge people at Disney. Disney isn’t cheap.
There are plenty of healthy low cost options available. People are just too lazy to cook at home. And don’t give me the “they work 2 jobs” BS. A bowl of grain cereal is better than fruit loops. Plain oatmeal vs sugar oatmeal. Water vs soda. Whole wheat bread vs white.

+1

I get that soda is cheap and widely available, but do you know what is FREE and widely available? Water!

But water doesn’t quench thirst. You need something sweet for that, like Mountain Dew Code Red.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a very privileged position for you to take.

How is being healthy privileged? I see some huge people at Disney. Disney isn’t cheap.
There are plenty of healthy low cost options available. People are just too lazy to cook at home. And don’t give me the “they work 2 jobs” BS. A bowl of grain cereal is better than fruit loops. Plain oatmeal vs sugar oatmeal. Water vs soda. Whole wheat bread vs white.

+1
do you know what is FREE and widely available? Water!

Spoken like the American you are!