Many just lack poor judgment in cooking and eating out. Just go to a buffet and watch people. Also many restaurants just pile on the food and get upset if we ask for small portions, which we do.

This is being discussed on Hot Topics, triggered by the AMA declaring obesity a disease.

I don't think it is a disease. I think it's a symptom of dis-ease in the mind. Some people are self-medicating their anxiety, anger, resentment, depression, whatever -- with food.

There has also been discussion of food addiction, fostered by 'food' products that are mainly sugars and salt; some don't even have real food values, just empty calories.

We need to reset the 'norm'. We did it with tobacco, and to some extent with liquor. Smoking and excessive 'social' drinking used to be accepted; no more.

We need to get to the bottom of WHY people are over-eating. Too much time on our hands? Unable to break an addiction to sugar and salt? Unhappy in our lives? Buying product marketing without a second thought? Believing we are 'too busy' to prepare a real meal?

It's gotta stop. We can't continue to watch obese parents turning their children into fatties.

(Let's not get into those outlying examples of the healthy fat person or the rare 'genetic' cause. That's not the big picture.)

Something just isn't matching up here. All you hear or see or read about is health and nutrition and exercise and weight loss, to the point that I'm really tired of it all. But it seems that so many people are obese, including children. The grocery store is chock full of Lite this and reduced fat that. So is the entire populace living on fast food and snacks, or what?

I have noticed that a lot of prepared foods--frozen entrees, canned foods, etc. seem these days to taste distinctly sweet. I'm wondering if they have some additive (in addition to all the sugar they contain) that tastes that way and over time causes people to crave more and more sugar.

Here is my take on obesity. For all of recorded history except maybe the last 50-60 years most people were slim because either there was never enough to eat or food preparation was difficult and time consuming added to the fact storing food was not easy. Now we have abundant food and all kinds of ways of storing it and restaurants etc. Our bodies never evolved to deal with too much food. There is no mechanism between fat cells and the brain to regulate our appetites. Our appetites still function on the outmoded idea that we should eat everything in site because who knows when the next meal will come. It is very hard to resist the feeling of being hungry when food is everywhere all around for the taking. Added to that we do not have to expend so much physical energy as in years past. Our work and lives are much more sedentary. I do not know the answer to how to correct this but it is a very complex problem.
Joann

many eat the "light" foods but they double up on it. The true flavors are lacking, so they don't feel satisfied.

More and more, I am going by the line of "if Grandma wouldn't recognize it, I am not eating it". Read the ingredients listed. Do you know what they are?

Robert and I have talked about this a lot. Clearly, there are many pieces tk this puzzle. We were both raised in a time when this junk processed food was rare and visits to fast food and other restaurants were rare. We ate breakfast and dinner around the table and lunch at school.

The food was simple and wholesome...including at school. Vegetables were a major part of our diet. Soft drinks were a rarity at home and non-existant at school.

We kids were active from morning til night. In the summer, Robert and I both had moms who rang a bell on the back porch when dinner was ready, lol. I ran around like crazy....on skates, or bike, or sneakers....all day long.

Groghunter has it right. I think it's ridiculous to put the bulk of the blame on individuals for having no self-control when never, in the entire history of the world, have we had such an overabundance of food, much of it cheap, much of it unhealthy.

I remember listening to my parents talk. They ate everything and everything they could when they were children and young adults. They didn't exercise self-control - when there was dessert, they ate it. When there were doughnuts, they ate them. When there was candy, they fought with their siblings down to the last piece. But there simply wasn't as much to eat. I would be willing to bet that this was the same for most people.

We all know that in "olden days," it was only the rich people who were fat. Why? Because no one was exercising self-control - they ate what was there, but there was more food "there" for rich people.

I agree with Chisue that obesity is not a disease. Nevertheless, I think it's a very helpful analogy, and may lead to addressing this more as a public health issue, rather than simply trying to shame and stigmatize people. And while we've had some success with cigarettes and alcohol, this is a different beast - you can't live without food.

I don't know what the answer is, and self-discipline is most certainly a piece of it. But only a piece.

In the 1970's, fat was declared the enemy and triggered the "Low fat movement".

If you remove fat, you replace it with high fructose corn syrup, sugar and hydrogenated oils.

This spawned the obesity epidemic.

Not to mention the governments "food Pyramid" is upside down. The grains, breads and cereals should be in the eat sparingly category.

Hmm...maybe, in addition to mental dis-ease, we have lives of too much ease -- and too little exercise. "Ease" also meaning convenience foods, "bite-size" snacks, stuff you can bolt down without even tasting it while you're "multi-tasking".

I don't think it's just the plenty that surrounds us. You still have to pay for what you eat. During the Depression many people were thin, and not by choice. But once that ended, people did not immediately turn into the food hogs of today. Something *else* is going on.

Could it be that 'fast food' is both addictive and full of empty calories (unsatsfying)?. We know many things are loaded with sugar and salt. It's possible to mistake thirst for hunger. (More water! Less food!)

How often did people eat away from their homes? Is 'the working woman' part of this trend?

Every time this gets discussed, we get a little closer to finding out the WHY (or multiple contributors to the why).

Chisue, I agree with you about convenience foods, but that's what I'm talking about. They were unheard of for all of history until what, about 40-50 years ago? And they didn't explode until maybe 20-30 years ago? Same with fast food. Same with all the new foods with sugar and salt. Same with eating away from home. It's all new - that's what I was saying.

As for paying for food, yes, but in our current world, we pay FAR less as a proportion of our income than people used to, and we in the U.S. pay less for our food (again, as a proportion of income) than anyone else in the world. The cheap abundance is staggering.

I don't know what to do about that. Do we need regulation? Of what? Do we need more education? Should we have required exercise programs like we have heard Japanese companies do? (Although empirical evidence shows that exercise doesn't have much effect on weight, though it's excellent for your health in a variety of other ways.) Should we ban the sale of unhealthy foods to children, the way we do alcohol and cigarettes? Should we ban commercials for food?

I don't know what will work, but I do know that pretending it's simply a problem for individuals, rather than one for society as a whole, isn't the answer. Telling overweight people to, "put down the spoon" is about as helpful as telling the homeless to, "get a job."

I worked with a couple of way overweight women last school year.

Neither could, or maybe I should say would cut out fatty unsatisfying foods stuffs. Of course, we served such at lunch. Yuck, don't even get me started on that.

We can eat at work. Breakfast and lunch, without any cost to us. It is hard, for me to eat there some days, cause there is no way I eat what we serve then.

pkramer said it well.

More and more, I am going by the line of "if Grandma wouldn't recognize it, I am not eating it". Read the ingredients listed. Do you know what they are?

I started buying croutons for my salads, cause I liked them when I had them at my daughters.

Then I read the ingredients... YIKES! a whole bunch of stuff that I can not pronounce.

Needless to say, no more croutons at my house, unless I had the time to make some myself.

Incidentally, my daughter has quit buying them as well, for the same reason.

This is the problem. We need to take responsibility for ourselves!

Back to the two ladies... they share a box of donuts at least once a week. None eaten by me the whole school year... and I was the one riding my bike to work as well.

Yep, I guess, even though I say I don't exercise... :) I do.

Moni

Simple is best. Nobody ever got obese from eating plain foods that they had to prepare from scratch. The exception might be overdoing pasta, potatoes, etc. That being said I admit to a craving for jelly donuts and indulge myself every couple of months.

magic az is absolutely correct. Then add to that way too much food and very little exercise. I mean they've even taken exercise out of the public school for the most part. When I was a child, I rode my bicycle from can to can't...we had to exercise for almost an hour in our PE class.

Then you have most mothers working full time jobs and just grabbing fast or convenience foods for the family to eat because they are just too tired and too busy to cook a nutritious home cooked meal like my mother did DAILY and sometimes three times a DAY!

There are lots of factors but really it boils down to too much food and not enough activity to burn the calories.

A DISEASE? That's ridiculous!

I'd like to touch on that touchy subject of ingredients that you cannot pronounce...I once, not too long ago, had a woman at another forum rip me a new one because I said something about ME not eating foods with ingredients I couldn't pronounce because I'm apparently so stupid that I don't know that many of those words I cannot pronounce or just BIG WORDS(chemical compound name) for common foods that are perfectly healthy to eat. Like for instance something like sodium bicarbonate is baking soda. Just something to think about...

I have always been someone who "eats to live", rather than one who "lives to eat", so the whole realm of "Foodies" has been lost on me. I wonder if I may have misinterpreted it.

Maybe we should focus more on food. We could pay more attention to eating *good*, wholesome food. We could make time to prepare it and to sit down and enjoy it, to eat slowly.

Fast, fast, fast may be the root of the problem. "More" isn't "Better" -- or even satisfying.

Would this help?

Take enough TIME to eat. Sit down at a table. (No perching.) Drink a glass of water. (Not ice-cold, just cool.) Take some deep breaths. Relax. Eat *with* others if you can, and converse. If you're at a typical chain restaurant, push the 'plate fillers' away. Order any 'extras' on the side. Don't touch extra seasonings or condiments on the table. Chew every mouthful thoroughly. Drink more water or a glass of wine as you eat. Now that you're eating slowly enough to taste the food, it it's too sweet or salty or the actual ingredients are not fresh and good, don't eat there again!

Do schools teach home ec anymore? Maybe we need more cooking schools offering 'the basics' -- not haute cuisine or pasteries or candy-making.