Completely stupid. Food is not the major cause of obesity. It's more closely related to medical issues (family history), Upbringing (social class and the way you are raised by parents) and of course how physically active a person is.
Yes. It is.
How do I know this? My father, and brother are obese. My father was a professional lacrosse player, and my brother is just about to enter the level of semi-professional hockey. Well guess what, he's pretty goddamn active. He also eats like shit. Butter on everything, falls asleep in bed eating, melts bowls of cheese and eats it with a spoon, etc. I'm a semi-professional track athlete, and wrestling coach, and I get only a little more excercise than he does (he also plays, or has played, volleyball, baseball, lacrosse, track, cross country, basketball, soccer, football.), we're the same height, and yet, he weighs close to 50 pounds more than me. And I have more muscle mass. (Read: A LOT more muscle mass. I weigh 140 and can bench 180, he weighs 190 and benches 110, and he's the one that needs chest strength for his sports.) He's the sports-star in my family, and he's obese.
My father was the same way, ate shit his entire life, and because of it, he's very overweight. I'm one of three thin people in my family, we're all of the current generation, and we're definitely not thin because of genetics. I can yo-yo up to 20 pounds in a week if I eat weird, and I've gone down 20 in a day before (yay wrestling). Diet really isn't that hard, you just have to WORK.
As for the predicament, I think the greatest solution would be to, as Cent suggested, tax unhealthy foods enough that they are more expensive than healthy alternatives, and b), promote mandatory military reserve service for all over the age of 18, like countries such as Switzerland and Costa Rica (The Switzerland of the South) do. In addition, physical education should be compulsory in high schools. (As a corollary, I think the current school system needs major revising. Education is too general in highschool, especially when the motivated student already knows what they want to do.)
I've gained forty pounds after being diagnosed with a thyroid disease, and I'm slowly getting it under control. Can I say that it is what I eat? No, its my metabolism. I don't eat that bad, either. (inb4 kame's a fat chick).
This makes no sense, if anything you should've gained the weight BEFORE diagnosis, not after, and once this actual illness is under control via (probably) thyroxine supplements, your weight will stableize to the same level it was before your hormone production shut down. And if you eat poorly, yes, you will still gain more weight. Furthermore, hypothyroidism is only relevant to 3% of the adult population, and has some pretty goddamn obvious symptoms, and is easy to treat. It's completely irrelevant in the conversation about what to do about obesity. (Oh, and incidentally, hypothyroidism CAN be caused by what you eat, so it is entirely possible that yes, you can say it's what you eat. And if it is, and you don't change your diet, the hormone supplements won't really help in the long run. This is the only time (in a modern country, where thyroxine is easily available) when obesity will actually be brought on by thyroid conditions, so any obese person who blames it on their thyroid is, at least partially to blame.)
Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 7 2009, 5:32 am by Syphon.
None.