quote: "There are many other factors that disproportionately affect the heaviest people in our society, and that also correlate with poor health: most notably a sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, dieting-induced weight fluctuation, diet drug use, poverty, access to and discrimination in health care, and social discrimination generally."
My unscientific opinion is that the health problem has more to do with being sedentary and eating too much of the wrong types of foods. I think an "active" person who happens to be 10-20 lbs overweight can be quite healthy, even if they don't look great in a speedo or bikini.
The biggest problem I think is we're not teaching our children to be active. Instead we babysit with the tv and video games instead of encouraging them to go outside and play. Not to mention the convienience of junk food and quick fixes. And we are a nation of excess, we eat too much because we can.
When I was out of control as a child, my punishment was not to go sit in my room but to go run around the block to let off some steam. My sister makes my nephews go run around the house as fast as they can and sends them outside when they are too routy. They also take walks/ride bikes together and in the summer spend plenty of time at the pool. I think even if they go through a lazy stage later in life (teenage years?) this early emphasis on activity has to help them later in life.
As far as adults are concerned, I believe it has much to do with culture. I lived in France during college over 10 years ago, and they have quite a different perspective on eating and exercise. Of course they smoke alot and I don't think most of them specifically "exercised", unless they were involed in a sport, they were generally active. Actually walked places.
Just a few examples between their eating habits and ours:
They have baguettes (white bread) on the table, but did not eat it before the meal and basically had a few bites and used it to push salad/meat on the fork. Only time I saw them eat bread and butter was at breakfast or in sandwiches when that was the meal. We get rolls & bread at restaurants while waiting for our meal, fill up with butter and honey, and then proceed to eat our meal. When we in the US were in the "fat free" stage, they were telling me that bread makes you fat (I thought, how's that, there's no fat in bread).
They also have this concept of being "gourmande". I remember snacking on an ice cream bar at school and a student asking me if I was actually hungry or just a "gourmande", meaning am I just eating because I liked the fix or if I needed to satisfy hunger.
While pastries and deserts are in nearly every street corner, it was rare when eating a meal with a family that these were part of the dessert. Normally desert was a few pieces of cheese or fruit. Pastries were normally on special occasions. Not to mention portion sizes of the normal entrees...many times I left the table hungry when eating at the same levels as the others.
My last example is that I think the food in europe in general is fresher and less processed. They tend to shop for their meals daily rather than stocking up with processed foods that last years on the shelf. Bread and croissants (chocolate ones are my favorite) for breakfast every morning, but they would be stale the next day. The veggies are beautiful and tasty. And I believe the meat is less fatty (I about croaked when my french boyfriend added butter to ground beef when cooking it...but it was leaner and probably not overloaded with hormones). While they eat butter on their salami sandwiches, I was queried for putting butter AND sour cream on a potato. And they eat their french fries with mayonnaise. Even with all the rich foods, I think they eat overall less and use their feet more.
My 2cents thinks that these cultural differences have much to do with size & space. We are a very large country with lots of room, and we're expanding to fill up the space. We tend to have to commute to further places so we spend much more time in our cars instead of on our feet. We have room for 6 cars per family. We also have a more fast-paced society which also leads to the need for "convienience" food that is highly processed and full of preservatives and other hidden bad things.
Very similar to the renaissance & later paintings of chubby people...it was a sign of wealth & prosperity. The glories of excess...
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