03/02: Why Are Americans Getting Fatter?
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
Americans have gotten fatter in the last decades; I know I have. There is a lot of talk today about overweight children as well as adults. So, what's going on?
The following are the unscientific observations of one man who has managed to live for 50 years. I have seen some changes that could explain our "obesity epidemic." Here are my geezerly ramblings.
On the intake side:
1. When I was a kid, soda pop came in 10 or 12 ounce glass bottles or 12 ounce cans. Most of the kids I knew drank no more than one a day. Now, the most common serving seems to be the 20 ounce plastic bottle. Even assuming that kids still drink only one a day, that is an increase of 8 oz per day, or about 100 empty calories. And, my observation is that many people drink more than one/day.
2. Home cooking is on the wane, and more people eat out daily, or eat ready-to-microwave meals. While home-cooking of 40 years ago could be heavy, most resturaunt meals are pretty high fat, especially fast food. Maybe its my imagination, but resturaunt serving sizes seem larger than 30 years ago. And, many ready-to-heat meals have a high fat content as well.
3. Family home life is more fragmented/hectic, which I think leads to more snacking and fragmentary meals rather than a traditional supper of meat, starch, and vegetables.
On the output side:
1. I don't see kids play outdoors much anymore. After school and on Saturdays my generation played outdoors a lot. (It was not uncommon for the mom to chase the kids out of the house till dinner if they did not go on their own.) Now, computers and video games and television seem the prefered entertainment.
2. I see more either hired done or let go around the house and yard. Fewer calories burned.
The following are the unscientific observations of one man who has managed to live for 50 years. I have seen some changes that could explain our "obesity epidemic." Here are my geezerly ramblings.
On the intake side:
1. When I was a kid, soda pop came in 10 or 12 ounce glass bottles or 12 ounce cans. Most of the kids I knew drank no more than one a day. Now, the most common serving seems to be the 20 ounce plastic bottle. Even assuming that kids still drink only one a day, that is an increase of 8 oz per day, or about 100 empty calories. And, my observation is that many people drink more than one/day.
2. Home cooking is on the wane, and more people eat out daily, or eat ready-to-microwave meals. While home-cooking of 40 years ago could be heavy, most resturaunt meals are pretty high fat, especially fast food. Maybe its my imagination, but resturaunt serving sizes seem larger than 30 years ago. And, many ready-to-heat meals have a high fat content as well.
3. Family home life is more fragmented/hectic, which I think leads to more snacking and fragmentary meals rather than a traditional supper of meat, starch, and vegetables.
On the output side:
1. I don't see kids play outdoors much anymore. After school and on Saturdays my generation played outdoors a lot. (It was not uncommon for the mom to chase the kids out of the house till dinner if they did not go on their own.) Now, computers and video games and television seem the prefered entertainment.
2. I see more either hired done or let go around the house and yard. Fewer calories burned.
photognome wrote:
As you know I have been 'experimenting' with the impacts on fatness of energy expenditure and intake for over 30 years now ;-)
The past few weeks I have been updating my wellness education library, looking at 'state of the art' knowledge comparing the impact of exercise/activity vs diet/nutrition. For the sake of encouragement it is good to note that the impact of fitness/exercise level is about twice the magnitude of the impact of being overweight or even 'obese'. If health is our goal most all of us stand a better chance of increasing our exercise to desirable levels than we do of getting our weight in the right range.
On Intake recent publicatio from Great Britain (http://www.bmj.com/cgi/cont...) presents some very interesting data:
In hte last third of the 20th century the prevalence of obesity in Great Britian more than doubled. Over this time the average calorie intake decreased more than 20%. If I read the graph correctly the absolte calorie contribution of sodas more than doubled during this period. Snack and 'sugared bicarbonated water' portion size and frequency have increased greatly but this does not seem to be the main culprit.
Energiy expenditure - Harder to measure this one, but during this same period:
Cars per household more than doubled
Hours of television wathching more than doubled.
I saw some research a few years ago that TV watching requires less energy than sleeping (gues I do toss and turn more while sleeping than while sitting on the couch)
We are getting fatter
We are eating less (and much less balanced)
We are a lot less active.
We haven't figured out how to get into better balance of energy intake ad consumption