(Inspired by the West Mall topic) If you go to another county, the first thing you will notice is how skinny everyone is. The next thing you notice is how people look at you as a big guy. Now, here in America, my 5’11’’ 180lb frame is actually quite normal (even below normal when not on campus), but I’m a big guy in other countries. It hasn’t always been this way. If you think back 15 years, a Swanson’s TV dinner was considered a full meal for dinner. Now, it’s too small for the average American male. It’s more of a snack between meals. I watched a rerun of “WKRP in Cincinnati” the other night, and it really had a profound impact. You remember the fat, obnoxious boss guy? Well, he looked normal to me. The rest of the station employees looked way too thin. Go to Wal-Mart - where the "poor" go. 80% of adults are over 180 lbs (women included). A friend from India told me why people risk their lives to live here, "I want to live in a country where the poor people are fat." I had a buddy just get out of boot camp from the marine corps, and he said "I can't believe how fat everyone is. How did I not notice this before?" I admit, when you go to "Whole Foods" (aka rich & rich want-to-be folks' store), the people are lookin' good. Crazy.
my girl and i have been sharing entrees almost all the time when we go out lately. it is really surprising how full you can get on eating half of a meal from just about anywhere these days. i remember in junior high (i am 33) going to this restaurant in OKC, the varsity grill. that was the first place that i frequented that had huge oversized portions. you know, like curly fries falling off the side of the plate and no visible portion of the actually plate itself with any meal. everyone would comment on how huge their portions were. now, 20 years later, that is the normal portion and if you don't get that much food at a chilis, fridays, etc.... you feel like you are getting ripped off.
It truly is amazing how fat we have become. i was walking to smoothie king in the houston tunnels a few months back, and was looking at how many fat people there were. I do not mean 10-15 pounds overweight i mean full fledged lard asses with a serious problem. alas, like everything else these days it isn't their fault. someone else made them that way.
While I don't disagree that America is the fatest country, I think you'll find that in another 20 years half of those countries that you go to where "everyone" is skinny won't be that way. Fast food and technology made America what it is. Cheap **** food and transportation so you don't have to walk your fat *** to the counter or anywhere for that matter leads to an obese country. I think you'll find that if you open your eyes a little more to what is around you, you'll actually see those countries have fat people. Just not the whales we have here. Give China and India 20 years with their economic boom and westernization and you'll see a completely different country I believe.
Samsung here in Austin is about 40% Korean and 60% American. Human Resources had to deal with a sensitive issue. Some Koreans were taking pictures of fat Americans "bottoms" when they entered the plant, so they could send the pictures home to Korea, because no one there believed their stories about how fat everyone in America was. The Koreans had trouble understandning that this picture taking of fat bottoms made some Americans upset.
Whoever said that they split entrees. Me and my girlfriend started doing that a couple of months ago. I'm not overweight (actually I'm about 10 lbs underweight) and shes probably about 5 lbs overweight, but spliting the entrees still gets us full, cuts the bill down so we can out more often, I don't feel overly full, and I have more room for beer
It's that increasing pervasiveness of obesity (both here and abroad) which is already coming back to haunt us in healthcare costs. Our company is facing a 30% jump for the coming year so we're looking elsewhere, and I'm sure that's the case for many others. Obesity generally equals more health issues, thus driving up the premiums for all of us. So as not to be a hypocrite, I'm about 15 pounds overweight myself, although I'm riding my bike to work all summer (since my wife is out of school so I don't have to take the kiddo to child care) - hopefully the daily exercise will help me shed my extra weight.
stabone and I agree for once! Actually, I feel very sad and sorry for people who are very overweight. What amazes me though is that so few are willing to change anything about their lives to do something about it. I am pretty much right on weight. 5' 9" and 156.6 lbs this morning. I am actually trying to get down to about 150 lbs. That is where I should be. People sometimes comment on how it must be easy for me, etc. "What do you know, you are so thin?" "That's easy for you to say." I actually have never been too overweight BECAUSE I try to work hard to not get that way. I have been up to about 170 lbs, and I worked to get back down. NOT by dieting, but through changing what I eat, and how much I eat. I feel sad for our country that we accept unhealthy lifestyles so readily.
The Koreans had trouble understandning that this picture taking of fat bottoms made some Americans upset. ________________________________________________ maybe the sensitive fat americans could lose a little weight and have some more self respect. one thing that always troubled me about really obese people, you know, the 25% or so (especially in the south) that have asses as big as chairs....is how do you get that big? like a lot of people, my weight fluctuates but whenever i got about 20lb's overweight, i would feel like crap physically and decide to lose the weight. plus, my clothes wouldnt fit like they should and i wouldnt want to buy more. but what about those popele that gover over that 20 and put on 50 or 100 or more...i dont know how they get around and i dont know how they live like that...it is sad.
general, I can tell you these days it begins with the kids..... I am AMAZED at the young kids that weigh more than I do! I don't know how parent's don't take care of their own kids. That is the MOST sad part of all this to me.
what amazes me is the whole process of getting fat. it's not like you're 6 ft 180 lbs one day, go to sleep and then wake up 6' 250 lbs. it's a very slow and gradual process. and if you look in the mirror everyday, you see the changes and have plenty of chances to do something to reverse the weight gain. it may be a mental illness, or it may just be plain laziness and lack of self respect. in any event, fat people have plenty of opportunity to do something about it. i don't understand how someone allows himself to get obese.
I'll tell you how it happens. Plain old laziness. Period. I know because I have been there. I am pretty tall 6'4, but have a pretty lean/slight frame(kinda like Colt McCoy). At some point in my mid 20's i started gaining a lot of weight - not good weight. I got to about 250, and looked like ****. I ate bad, never exercised anymore. Part of it was having some injuries from football that to some degree limited my ability to workout, but part of it was also simply an excuse to be a fat, lazy, poozy. I finally decided no more. I lost 55 pounds and have kept it off for 10 years or so now. I stopped being a poozy and started lifting again, got a few things corrected with surgery most notably shoulder reconstruction. I am now about 220, but only about 9% body fat. I eat well, workout, etc. You just have to prioritize, control yourself, make time to workout, and stick with it. I work 60-80 hours a week, have a 3 month old kid, a wife who works as much or more than me, but we somehow figure out a way to stay healthy and workout without sacrificing everything else. You just have to sacrifice some sleep, but you get used to tthat. Bottom line is everyone can do it, but they have to want it just like everything else . Most are just too lazy to make the time, and have so little self control they cannot stop themselves.
I want to know, actuarially, whether fat people will save social security. Sure some fat people die at 45, and that sucks, especially if they leave behind kids. But if it kills people off in their 70s after they've enjoyed retirement, but before they become a burden, let them eat cake.
Cancer and Heart Disease, at one time hardly mentioned in medical books, are now the leading causes of death in the US....diabetes on the rise at younger and younger ages. One main reason is animal products. Decades ago they were consumed as a garnish due to cost...today they are the main course nearly every meal. You see the trend across the globe. More animal products = fat people.
americans are fat. british people have horrible teeth. europeans smell etc. i give equal credence to all such statements.
I can understand it a bit, because it's not exactly a piece of cake (no pun intended) to lose weight once you've noticed that you're slowly getting heavier. I'm 5'8" and 165 lbs, and I don't really need to lose weight but I could stand to convert some of it from fat to muscle, or from the stomach to the chest shall we say. I was 155 when I graduated college and it was insane how quickly that next 10 pounds jumped on once I wasn't walking several miles a day around campus, and once I got a real job a month later that didn't involve standing up for 8 hours like being an H-E-B cashier did. I realized I could no longer stuff myself with food like I was still in high school. Eating moderately good and getting an above average amount of exercise doesn't really cut it for losing weight, although it did make things plateau pretty quickly. Still, you look at something from the 1950s or 1960s (like the Star Trek "expendable redshirt" demotivational poster) and everyone looks fairly skinny, as if it is really, really easy.
I suspect it has more to do with our eating choices than GDP. I'm on the Rhodesian boervolk farmer diet. No processed foods ex ranch dressing & cheerios. By mimicking my wife's food choices (or abdicating my own choices to hers) I’ve lost 10lbs in a very short period. It's amazing how malignant all the small things are. Read this.
i can see people being a few pounds overweight. frankly, the nutrional value of what most americans eat is crap. eat processed foods will get you fat. so the crap food that is ubitiquous is much to blame. what i'm talking about is the obese. contrary to popular belief, it's damn hard work and expensive to be obese. it's hard being THAT lazy and to have that low of self respect. it's expensive always having to buy new clothes cause the ones you got 3 months ago don't fit anymore. it's hard to walk to your car and not have a stroke from the sheer physical work of walking 20 yards. it's damn hard work to be that lazy and sit on your arse. it's damn hard work eating that much crap food. again, it's not a gradual process. there are warning flags every day. you just have to work hard at ignoring them.
Count me in as fat and rich (according to some on the other thread), but don't shed any tears for me. I'm prefectly happy just the way things are. I'm 6' 4" and 285 pounds. According to a BMI chart I just checked, the "normal" weight for my height is from 156 pounds to 197 pounds. I guess that makes me at least 88 pounds overweight. Why does everyone keep mentioning self respect? What does that have to do with it? Am I somehow disrespecting myself by being overweight? I don't think so. I'm just making a choice about how I want to live my life. I know what it would take to be a thin person. I just choose a different path. I like to eat plenty of tasty food and drink copious amounts of beer. I don't exercise too much, so the pounds start accumulate. Go ahead call me lazy or a glutton if that makes you feel superior. If I weren't such a "live and let live" type of person, I'd start calling all of you out for choosing the wrong career; not being ambitious enough; getting married too early; getting married too late; marrying the wrong person; having too many kids; not haivng kids; living in the wrong neighborhood; driving the wrong car; choosing the wrong religion, etc. Oh wait, I do that sometimes. Hey, nobody's perfect. Bernard
the main difference was we played/exercised pretty much all day long in the neighborhood with no fear of getting raped. __________________________________________________ a fear pretty much created by the media...of course the predators were better hidden then. 30 years ago if someone took out a kid, that predator was simply taken out and he disappeared, now they have special interest groups and multiple lawyers to make sure they are safe to do as they please so they have come out of the woodwork in droves....kind of like roaches.
