I no longer wonder about the focus on childhood obesity

[Red Storm]

You're quite simply wrong. Processed food is far cheaper than fresh food (in a calorie per cent fashion).

This. It's not about the price of healthy food, it's that unhealthy foods are cheaper. Those parents who don't deal with kids going to bed hungry though are totally at fault with no excuse.

 

[shortylickens]

I'm not around kids very often but today is "bring your kid to work day" and there are 60 kids from ages 6-14 here. I'm shocked at how many of these kids are OBESE. Not a little heavy, not "big-boned", but OBESE. Easily half the kids are noticably overweight. Is it like this everywhere? Now I get why there's so much talk about childhood obesity and controlling the calories in school meals, etc.

I'm not one to really take note of how people look but I couldn't help but notice when I saw the whole group of kids together.

pics?

 

[Anubis]

I get tired of hearing this lie. Healthy food is not expensive. Do you honestly believe that the price of raw fruits and vegetables is more than those same fruits and vegetables after processing into french fries and other unhealthy crap?

Healthy food requires preparation. It takes time. The problem is laziness, not cost.

when was the last time you were in the store? fresh fruit veggies and meat is a lot more expensive vs a TV dinner

 

[Fausto]

when was the last time you were in the store? fresh fruit veggies and meat is a lot more expensive vs a TV dinner

Yes, and no. Meat is pretty cheap if you buy something like a whole chicken vs. boneless, skinless breasts. Veggies are pretty cheap unless you want something out of season. Fruit can be spendy or cheap and you have the spoilage factor.

At any rate, prep is the big thing. You always pay more for something that required processing.

 

[Fausto]

I don't totally disagree. but when you can get a bag of chips for $3 and a watermelon cost $6 that is part of the problem.

Right, but as per my previous post, you can get a whole chicken for $6 as well. That's easily protein for a family of four plus stew/soup meat for the next night, plus bones for stock later if you're really industrious.

 

[waggy]

Right, but as per my previous post, you can get a whole chicken for $6 as well. That's easily protein for a family of four plus stew/soup meat for the next night, plus bones for stock later if you're really industrious.

Oh i agree.

but snack food is far far cheaper then natural stuff. My kids favorite snack is a mix of watermelon and red grapes. It last a day or 2 tops and cost like $10 to make. With that 10 bucks i can get a huge bag of chips, ho ho's etc etc. and they have a week worth of snacks.

i think that is the big issue with people.


I agree a whole chicken is cheap and you can do so much! to bad so many are lazy.

 

[OutHouse]

I get tired of hearing this lie. Healthy food is not expensive. Do you honestly believe that the price of raw fruits and vegetables is more than those same fruits and vegetables after processing into french fries and other unhealthy crap?

Healthy food requires preparation. It takes time. The problem is laziness, not cost.

I got 3 teens, I can tell you buying healthy food to feed 5 is hands down way more expensive. Its no lie, ive done the math while grocery shopping many many times.

 

[Doppel]

Healthy food per cal is more expensive, this is really a solved debate.

It is not like healthy food is particularly expensive though, but it is if is is low on the priority list and this that is used as an excuse. Grapes have never been nor ever will be cheaper than corn chips.

 

[DougK62]

Parents are to blame but I feel the problem goes much deeper than that. A lot of people are under the impression that eating more is good for you and that is the mindset that i feel needs to be changed. Before the invention of the light bulb, humans only ate once a day. These days , we are taught that eating 3 or more meals a day is healthy and that under eating will cause a metabolic slowdown. The problem with eating 3 meals a day is that the human body does not have a calculator to divide how many calories you eat at each given meal which causes most people to go over their daily calorie allowance after lunch, so whatever the average obese person eats during dinner time is just excess calories. Many fitness pros will preech that you should drink one full glass of water before each meal to trick your body into thinking that it's full but most people don't follow that rule.

I've never in my life heard that humans used to eat only once a day. Do you have any sources for this? It sounds incredibly unhealthy. Every reputable fitness pro that I've ever spoken to has said that eating MORE meals in a day is a smart move because it increases your metabolism and is just overall healthier.

 

[mchammer187]

I get tired of hearing this lie. Healthy food is not expensive. Do you honestly believe that the price of raw fruits and vegetables is more than those same fruits and vegetables after processing into french fries and other unhealthy crap?

Healthy food requires preparation. It takes time. The problem is laziness, not cost.

It is more expensive. Find me real food that is cheaper than a Hungry Man dinner which is like $2. I don't ingest that crap but the problem is subsidies. When HFCS costs pennies you can just replace real food with for pennies on the dollar which lets companies undercut and make hefty profits.

I heard something on NPR (http://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2013-04-25/michael-pollan-cooked) that said when you buy processed food about 7% (can't remember the exact number) of the money goes to the farmer. The person making the packaging gets more money than the farmer gets than this is a real problem.

Cooking and general laziness is a huge part of the problem but there are significant economic motivations as well.

 

[surfsatwerk]

I've never in my life heard that humans used to eat only once a day. Do you have any sources for this? It sounds incredibly unhealthy. Every reputable fitness pro that I've ever spoken to has said that eating MORE meals in a day is a smart move because it increases your metabolism and is just overall healthier.

Take this the Health and Fitness and let SociallyChallenged tear it to bits.

 

[mchammer187]

Hard to think of anything that is a more slippery slope. Why sodas and not candy? And why not hot dogs and ice cream too? Chicken tenders? When you draw a line there's always something right next to the line that's still allowed, and there will always be pressure to include the next thing, and the next, and the next.

Thinking about the 30 or so kids I do know (family and in our church), only a few could be considered fat. So somehow there are parents who are able to keep their kids from becoming blimps. The few fat kids have fat parents.

We do need legislation but not in the form of banning all junk food. The government as a whole needs to stop subsidies that make it easy to just add processed corn and soybeans to anything and everything at a fraction of the cost of real food. This is what makes junk food so cheap because if you are paying a few cents per pound than pretty much all food is going to be that with even more additives that are horrible for you just to make it taste good.

 

[KeithTalent]

its this and the fact that many of them just sit in front of a TV or game system all day and dont spend time outside doing stuff

When i think back about how much time i spent outside running around as a kid its staggering compaired to kids today

Yep, definitely this. Too much loafing about. I was always out of the house acting like a moron, but at least I was getting exercise without even really thinking about it or realizing it.

KT

 

[Fausto]

Healthy food per cal is more expensive, this is really a solved debate.

It is not like healthy food is particularly expensive though, but it is if is is low on the priority list and this that is used as an excuse. Grapes have never been nor ever will be cheaper than corn chips.

Right, but neither food item should be a staple in anyone's diet.

 

[Fausto]

I got 3 teens, I can tell you buying healthy food to feed 5 is hands down way more expensive. Its no lie, ive done the math while grocery shopping many many times.

Okay, but what if you extrapolate the numbers through a lifetime and factor in health care costs and quality of life? Spending your final two decades in a Rascal Scooter makes forking over the extra cash for broccoli earlier in life seem like a bargain to me. 😉

 

[Dumac]

I get tired of hearing this lie. Healthy food is not expensive. Do you honestly believe that the price of raw fruits and vegetables is more than those same fruits and vegetables after processing into french fries and other unhealthy crap?

Uh, yes. It is a commonly accepted fact that eating healthy costs more.

You aren't going to beat the price value or terrible processed food like instant ramen, macaroni and cheese, hamburger helper, or whatever poor people eat these days.

 

[OutHouse]

Okay, but what if you extrapolate the numbers through a lifetime and factor in health care costs and quality of life? Spending your final two decades in a Rascal Scooter makes forking over the extra cash for broccoli earlier in life seem like a bargain to me. 😉

Everybody will wind up in a wheelchair, your diet is not going to dtop that process. 100 years ago it was all organic and no Doritos, just ssying.

 

[Fausto]

Everybody will wind up in a wheelchair, your diet is not going to dtop that process. 100 years ago it was all organic and no Doritos, just ssying.

Not putting crap in your body and getting a reasonable amount of exercise sure as hell will delay the onset of wheelchair usage.

 

[shortylickens]

http://images.fattyamerican.com/files/2011/08/fatty-american-088.jpg

 

[radhak]

Parenting is tough, and the toughest part of it is to avoid 'killing with kindness'. Soda, chips, cookies, juices, ice-cream - treating kids with these seems kindness, but they'll kill your kids. Not right away, not tomorrow morning, but they take their toll inevitably.

Early on as parents, my wife was the nag and I used to get irritated with her for being the spoil-sport at every turn, pointing out stuff the kids should not consume, and hence we should not either. But when a warning letter came in from the school for my older daughter when she was 9, we tested her for cholesterol, which came out bad, and I realized I was in denial.

Now I have stepped in to ban everything 'fun' from the kitchen, and have taken on the villain's cloak. We don't have any soda in the house; we get limited quantity for parties, and get rid of them immediately. Packaged juice is rare, and only those with nothing but actual fruit juice, and with pulp, are allowed. We have at least 4 types of fruit on the counter and the mandate is that all of us (kids and parents) have to eat at least 3 of those each day (like one apple, a banana and an orange or a cup of berries or grapes). At no point is a cookie or a muffin or an ice-cream is considered a 'snack', so none of us eats a whole muffin or cup-cake - we share. At the movies we get popcorn but no drinks other than water. At restaurants we get just water, even in company of others getting soda and lemonades.

We buy material for salad (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, olives) from the farmer's market and eat large salads every day right after we get back from school/work : our default 'snacking food'. I have become an expert in cutting salad for everybody in minutes 🙂.

Along with all that, we walk around the block (2 miles) at least 4 days a week. I nailed a hoop above the garage door to shoot hoops every evening, and now both my girls are better at it than me! We roller-blade, we cycle.

After 4 years, now the kids are themselves experts in finding the healthy part in every setting. It helps their self esteem when adults are shocked to see them eat raw broccoli, or prefer to get the house-salad instead of the cheese-sticks.

The first six months of all that was really exhausting for all of us, taking away a lot of our time and energy. But now it's our way of life, and the kids have just accepted that's how we live.

So I can't accept that we need more laws to make us healthier. We can' definitely use as many role-models as we can find. When the first lady (or any other celebrity) talks in the same vein, it's easier to get young kids motivated. But all of this falls on parents. We got these kids in the world. We own the responsibility of putting them on the right path too.

edit : I can't believe the cost of food can dictate any choice! While produce in a big grocery store is expensive, there are farmer's markets and others such that keep them down. And, if I had to cut down costs, I'd get rid of the TV and save on cable fees before I feed any kid chips and cookies in lieu of healthier options.

 

[Aharami]

Our culture is fucking crap. We had a birthday at work and they were giving out cake and I declined and was asked mockingly if I was on a diet. That is a problem, just the assumption that yes of COURSE I want a 500 calorie piece of cake in the afternoon (and by God I wanted it on a visceral level 🙂). Eating shit is so natural now that when a lean person own eating it THEY are the outlier.

this fucking drives me insane! I am not on a diet, but I try to watch what I eat. My friends and family aren't fat, but I still get mocked for being on a "diet" every time I refuse a piece of dessert or choose to eat half the portion and take the other half home

 

[jupiter57]

Yea, it's ridiculous. When I was coming up through school, I could literally count the fat kids on one hand. That's k-8 cumulative, and using a liberal definition of fat. Now the schools are filled with little piggies.

True!
When I was in High School, we had exactly 1 "large" boy in our class (and even he wasn't nearly as overweight as most kids are now, "Patrick" was 5'7" & 195 lbs., he was also the smartest guy in the history of our School system), and not one single girl that could qualify as even "chunky"!
I do recall in the grade above mine, there were 2 "chunky" girls (Quite attractive, but deemed "fat" by the standard of the day), but there were 2 overweight guys in that grade also, still not nearly as big as "most" kids today.

Whenever I pick up my Grandson from school, I am amazed at the amount of obese kids that come out the door!

 

[Aikouka]

I was going to say that i doubt its ignorance. how could you not know that food is not healthy. but the reality is that many do not know.

I definitely think there's a bit of ignorance going on as people look at the amount of food rather than how many calories it has. I've found that the easiest way to look at it is... if it is sugary, it has a lot of calories... if it's got dairy, it has a lot of calories... if it's made from grains, it possibly has a moderate amount of calories. Junk food is listed as a 1 ounce serving size, and it isn't uncommon to see most potato chips with 150+ calories (depending on flavor) per serving.

I think a lot of the problems stem from lack of religion. I'm not judging because there are exceptions and some single parents are AMAZING. But here is the trend I've noticed.

So, if religious people aren't fat, then why does that infographic show the entire bible belt covered in the darkest color possible? 😛 Trust me... there are a lot of really overweight people down here, and my county is not even the darkest color!

Humm. My office is full of kids today as well and none of them are fat, they all look like normal weight heathy kids. Same with my kids jr high and high school, very very few pudgy kids and honedtly I have never seen a truly obease kid. Maybe because I am in colorado? I dunno.

I've only seen a few kids in the office today, but none of them were overweight.

i've been losing weight the past 6 weeks because i chose to. nothing around me has changed at all. at my job there is still a kitchen full of junk food, people still bring free donuts in weekly, there are cakes out for free to take slices of in the afternoons, etc. i simply choose not to fucking eat it. it is as simple as that.

The thing is... you can eat that stuff, but you have to treat it like an allotment. If you eat that 300 calorie piece of cake, then where are you going to cut out 300 calories out of the amount that you should be taking in depending on your size and activity level?

One of the major rules that I made up for myself was to avoid drinking calories. I'm one of those people that just doesn't enjoy drinking water. I do it when I'm working out or doing something strenuous, because the refreshing nature of it is just too good to ignore. As a side note, it's odd because as much as I might prefer other drinks when I'm not doing anything strenuous, I just don't care for them at all when I am. Anyway, I switched to drinking diet sodas, which may be chock full of fake sweeteners, but that's better than drinking the same amount of normal soda.

then on the weekends - guess what? i go out and eat chipotle or taco bell or burger king, or wherever the hell i want. at taco bell i get a quesadilla, locos taco, cheesy fiesta potatoes no sour cream, and a nacho griller. at chipotle i will get a big ass bowl of food and chips + guac.

I can usually do that because I exercise more on the weekends and don't eat as much. On the weekdays, I tend to eat more for lunch and have a smaller dinner.

 

[purbeast0]

The thing is... you can eat that stuff, but you have to treat it like an allotment. If you eat that 300 calorie piece of cake, then where are you going to cut out 300 calories out of the amount that you should be taking in depending on your size and activity level?

yeah the thing is, i'd rather have that 300 calories be something that my body will use since i'm trying to keep muscle mass while losing weight. i'd much rather have a 300 protein shake with 50g of protein than a piece of cake or candy that has none, and cut out the protein shake.

 

[BoberFett]

You're quite simply wrong. Processed food is far cheaper than fresh food (in a calorie per cent fashion).

Well no shit, that's the point. Processed foods aren't cheaper, they're more calorie dense. The point is you're supposed to consume fewer calories, fatty.

You can go to the vending machine and pay $1 for a candy bar. Lots of calories.

Or you can go to the grocery store and buy a head of lettuce. No calories.

They cost the same. Fatties just love their sugar.