It's the gluten & flour we eat that's changed more in the last 40 years than the last 400 years. Our bodies can't process it.

18:19 here

8 hours is too long to go without eating. I am not overweight. I workout every day and wear a size 2. I also eat every two-three hours, or I find myself losing concentration, getting angry/irritable, etc. The only time I go about 8 hours without eating is when I am asleep.

Adding to the point about walking. People have very little time to play and relax. It is faster to get to places in the car, not just more convenient. I'd love to walk to work, except I do not have extra 30 minutes to do it. Vacation is measly 2 weeks a year at best. People are stressed and sleep-deprived. If rest is not an option to recharge, food is obvious alternative. In stress situations body craves junk food. Constant stress = constant carb cravings.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"So schools are supposed to prevent children from being fat, as well as educate them in academic subjects? Isn't anything the parents' job nowadays? You'd like the schools to serve as fat camps as well?

No it is not the job of the schools."

Of course it is. Why do you think we adopted universal free education in this country? It wasn't just to educate people in academic subjects; it was to form good citizens to benefit our society and shore up our democracy.

In any event, I'll throw in another culprit, which is how our food is grown and processed in this country. It isn't easy to eat really clean food - food that hasn't been genetically modified, hasn't been processed with chemicals. Think about cooking oil - the molecular structure changes when it is made through a warm pressed vs. cold pressed method, which is the cheapest and most common way to do it. So even people cooking from scratch made be using oil that has been processed in a way that our bodies are not used to. Same with so many other ingredients. Grain fed vs. grass fed beef differ nutritionally. My theory is that we're not getting the nutrients we need, which makes us crave more/eat more food in general. Couple that with the wide-scale availability of foods that we know are not good for us but we want anyway, and it is really hard to maintain a normal weight.

Schools can serve healthy food, talk about nutrition, and run kids for hours, but when the kid comes to school with a Coke in one hand a bag of Cheetos in the other (bought by a parent at the hot dog stand down the street), the whole "healthy food" message is diluted.

I don't get it why American schools serve any food to begin with. It really amazes me. I am an immigrant and went to school in Europe. There was no kitchen in my school. Some students ate snacks during recess (that they brought from home or purchased in neighboring stores) but most children didn't eat anything. You ate before you go to school and then when you get home. It's not like you anybody starved though there were very few (like 1 per 30) overweight children.

My kids get on the school bus at 8:30 am and off about 4 pm. I can't imagine not feeding them for 7.5 hours...

But why? What would happen if they didn't eat for 8 hours?

They would be so hungry they wouldn't be able to concentrate on their work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"So schools are supposed to prevent children from being fat, as well as educate them in academic subjects? Isn't anything the parents' job nowadays? You'd like the schools to serve as fat camps as well?

No it is not the job of the schools."

Of course it is. Why do you think we adopted universal free education in this country? It wasn't just to educate people in academic subjects; it was to form good citizens to benefit our society and shore up our democracy.

In any event, I'll throw in another culprit, which is how our food is grown and processed in this country. It isn't easy to eat really clean food - food that hasn't been genetically modified, hasn't been processed with chemicals. Think about cooking oil - the molecular structure changes when it is made through a warm pressed vs. cold pressed method, which is the cheapest and most common way to do it. So even people cooking from scratch made be using oil that has been processed in a way that our bodies are not used to. Same with so many other ingredients. Grain fed vs. grass fed beef differ nutritionally. My theory is that we're not getting the nutrients we need, which makes us crave more/eat more food in general. Couple that with the wide-scale availability of foods that we know are not good for us but we want anyway, and it is really hard to maintain a normal weight.

Schools can serve healthy food, talk about nutrition, and run kids for hours, but when the kid comes to school with a Coke in one hand a bag of Cheetos in the other (bought by a parent at the hot dog stand down the street), the whole "healthy food" message is diluted.

I don't get it why American schools serve any food to begin with. It really amazes me. I am an immigrant and went to school in Europe. There was no kitchen in my school. Some students ate snacks during recess (that they brought from home or purchased in neighboring stores) but most children didn't eat anything. You ate before you go to school and then when you get home. It's not like you anybody starved though there were very few (like 1 per 30) overweight children.

My kids get on the school bus at 8:30 am and off about 4 pm. I can't imagine not feeding them for 7.5 hours...

But why? What would happen if they didn't eat for 8 hours?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"So schools are supposed to prevent children from being fat, as well as educate them in academic subjects? Isn't anything the parents' job nowadays? You'd like the schools to serve as fat camps as well?

No it is not the job of the schools."

Of course it is. Why do you think we adopted universal free education in this country? It wasn't just to educate people in academic subjects; it was to form good citizens to benefit our society and shore up our democracy.

In any event, I'll throw in another culprit, which is how our food is grown and processed in this country. It isn't easy to eat really clean food - food that hasn't been genetically modified, hasn't been processed with chemicals. Think about cooking oil - the molecular structure changes when it is made through a warm pressed vs. cold pressed method, which is the cheapest and most common way to do it. So even people cooking from scratch made be using oil that has been processed in a way that our bodies are not used to. Same with so many other ingredients. Grain fed vs. grass fed beef differ nutritionally. My theory is that we're not getting the nutrients we need, which makes us crave more/eat more food in general. Couple that with the wide-scale availability of foods that we know are not good for us but we want anyway, and it is really hard to maintain a normal weight.

Schools can serve healthy food, talk about nutrition, and run kids for hours, but when the kid comes to school with a Coke in one hand a bag of Cheetos in the other (bought by a parent at the hot dog stand down the street), the whole "healthy food" message is diluted.

I don't get it why American schools serve any food to begin with. It really amazes me. I am an immigrant and went to school in Europe. There was no kitchen in my school. Some students ate snacks during recess (that they brought from home or purchased in neighboring stores) but most children didn't eat anything. You ate before you go to school and then when you get home. It's not like you anybody starved though there were very few (like 1 per 30) overweight children.

My kids get on the school bus at 8:30 am and off about 4 pm. I can't imagine not feeding them for 7.5 hours...

Anonymous wrote:So schools are supposed to prevent children from being fat, as well as educate them in academic subjects? Isn't anything the parents' job nowadays? You'd like the schools to serve as fat camps as well?

No it is not the job of the schools. But I am lucky I have a choice - I send my kids to a school that does not expect kids to sit for 6 hours. They have outdoor education everyday, 4 or more recesses, and gym everyday. A sport is a requirement and is done during the school day. When my oldest was having problems getting homework done I adjusted his schedule (which is not an option in the public school). I am also not poor so my kids can have homemade fresh meals for lunch - but I allow them to eat the crap at school 2 times a week.

I would like public schools to have more outside time, more recesses, better plans for discipling kids (like running laps instead of taking away recess), flexible schedules, allow kids to brush their teeth after lunch - you need a act of god to "allow" the kid to go to the bathroom when he does not need to "go to the bathroom".

I don't expect them to serve as a fat camp but I do expect them to practice what they preach.

I'm guessing your kids are not Ivy League bound. Does that bother you at all? Are you in the DC area?

Yeah, everyone has a combination of reasons listed about why they are fat. It's not as though one single thing is the reason everyone is fat.

The biggest thing is diet though. Think about it, gyms didn't even exist 50 years ago. Marathons didn't. Bike races. Look at all of the recreational sports we do know that didn't even exist then. Sure, people tossed around a football or played some baseball, but look at the entire fitness industry that we have now. The fact that we all shuffle into a gym to work out on machine is just kind of sad to me.

Yes, people did move more in the course of their lives. People had desk jobs, but they weren't tied to it all day because they had to get up to go talk to co-workers down the hall, go to the file room to get something, etc. The only reason most office workers now have to get up is to use the restroom. People didn't just plop down in front of a glowing screen at home all day. They did stuff.

But that movement cannot compare to an hour doing strenuous exercise that we all do now. They didn't have to do it. Which means that it's all diet related. Smaller portions, little to no sugar. It comes down to that.

Anonymous wrote:We're feeding our family of 4 for around $450/mo.

The responses in this thread show just the many reasons behind this and why it's such a huge problem. It's not just one thing that changed in our lifestyle.

I'll add a few things. Entertainment options, electricity. Back a 100 years ago, people ate dinner, then stayed up for a while reading or playing a game or maybe helping kids with school work, but then went to bed. When you are in a house lit only by candles or oil lamps, the dim light makes you sleepy pretty fast, plus they don't have the infinite entertainment options like we have now that enable us to stay up all night with something to do. Even 50 years ago, you had TV that went off the air at a certain hour. People went to bed early, which meant less hours awake where you could be eating. And you were less tired, so people weren't loading up on food in order to keep going all day. We are all so sleep deprived.

Portion sizes is another big one. I remember how small my grandmother's dishes where. Orange juice was served in a very small juice glass that had to have been 6-8 oz. Ice cream was served in an equally small bowl.

Soda. When soda came out, it was a rare treat to go down to the soda fountain and get the small serving. It was treated like an ice cream treat instead of a beverage to have with every meal like it is today.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"So schools are supposed to prevent children from being fat, as well as educate them in academic subjects? Isn't anything the parents' job nowadays? You'd like the schools to serve as fat camps as well?

No it is not the job of the schools."

Of course it is. Why do you think we adopted universal free education in this country? It wasn't just to educate people in academic subjects; it was to form good citizens to benefit our society and shore up our democracy.

In any event, I'll throw in another culprit, which is how our food is grown and processed in this country. It isn't easy to eat really clean food - food that hasn't been genetically modified, hasn't been processed with chemicals. Think about cooking oil - the molecular structure changes when it is made through a warm pressed vs. cold pressed method, which is the cheapest and most common way to do it. So even people cooking from scratch made be using oil that has been processed in a way that our bodies are not used to. Same with so many other ingredients. Grain fed vs. grass fed beef differ nutritionally. My theory is that we're not getting the nutrients we need, which makes us crave more/eat more food in general. Couple that with the wide-scale availability of foods that we know are not good for us but we want anyway, and it is really hard to maintain a normal weight.

Schools can serve healthy food, talk about nutrition, and run kids for hours, but when the kid comes to school with a Coke in one hand a bag of Cheetos in the other (bought by a parent at the hot dog stand down the street), the whole "healthy food" message is diluted.

I don't get it why American schools serve any food to begin with. It really amazes me. I am an immigrant and went to school in Europe. There was no kitchen in my school. Some students ate snacks during recess (that they brought from home or purchased in neighboring stores) but most children didn't eat anything. You ate before you go to school and then when you get home. It's not like you anybody starved though there were very few (like 1 per 30) overweight children.

Anonymous wrote:Ok. I am fat because I eat too much. Not every day not every week. But over the last ten years as things have gotten stressful, I will gain four or five pounds. Problem is I don't lose it. Ever. I am now fifty pounds over weight and yo yo dieting has made it worse. If you spent a month with me you would be amazed at how healthy my diet is.

I obviously need to exercise more. I do not eat a lot of sugar or processed food and am a really good cook. My caloric needs are very low.

Sad truth. Most women overweight did not gain it in a year or two. They gained 5-10 per year.

It's hard to lose weight. It requires a change in lifestyle (it's not just taking the stairs). I lost 70 pounds 2 years ago and have kept it off. Good luck.

Ok. I am fat because I eat too much. Not every day not every week. But over the last ten years as things have gotten stressful, I will gain four or five pounds. Problem is I don't lose it. Ever. I am now fifty pounds over weight and yo yo dieting has made it worse. If you spent a month with me you would be amazed at how healthy my diet is.

I obviously need to exercise more. I do not eat a lot of sugar or processed food and am a really good cook. My caloric needs are very low.

Sad truth. Most women overweight did not gain it in a year or two. They gained 5-10 per year.

Anonymous wrote:Office jobs that have you sit 80 hours a week, if not more. Most people don't walk places. Processed foods. Soda and Starbucks consumption. More people eat out and restaurants have super human portions (calories).

Exactly. Most of the country never walks anywhere, people get into their cars to pick up their mail! No wonder their waistlines and butts expand.

NP here, not sure if it has been mentioned but the HBO documentary series "Weight of a Nation" is phenomenal and it is free on iTunes. EVERYONE should watch it! There are some great explanations for this epidemic discussed in these films.