I watched the video, I agree with you. It is our responsibility to take care of us, not the state, but the states could do more involving insurance, prescriptions, (advertising), local programs for education etc. I have noticed that the price of meds have gone way up since they began advertising in the media. It is you have to have this, or that and yes it is good to know about the different meds available, but who is paying for these ads?

30 years ago there was no education, 50 years ago.
People werent as obese, right?
too many poeple want bigger government to take care
of them... it's been called
the "nanny state"... I live in one. Peeps
need to take some personal responsibility

One of the major problems in the country is the unwillingness of people to accept blame for anything. We all have personal responsibility for our actions. Too many people depend on the government to take care of them, when they need to focus their efforts on taking care of themselves. And I wish this country would stop sending money to other countries, until such time as no American child goes to bed hungry. JMHO

Interesting discussion! I'm agreeing with everything said so far!!!!!

I agree 100%...we are unwilling to take responsibility for our actions...blame it on somebody...just don't blame me ,is the motto .

I couldn't agree more, it's all about personal responsibility. NO ONE can force anyone to overindulge in anything. I get so tired of hearing the message that 'if we educate people enough, then we'll have no obesity, addiction, suicide, you name it'. People who think the government should control what everyone thinks, eats, etc. should try living in a communist country or one that is governed by a dictatorship. As for me, I don't want to be a sheep who lets someone else do all my thinking for me. This is one of my hot buttons...

OK - I blame ....let's see....Iowa.

Does it have top be a state we live in?

It just seems like we've become a nation of babies and we expect the government to provide everything for us - then we can blame them if anything goes wrong.

Amen to all of the above.

I agree with y'all 100%. Too many times I see women bragging about what they are eating, knowing full well they are already obese, but doing nothing about it. So many health issues are garnered from eating too much of anything. From convenience food (have you seen what is in that stuff? If you have,,, do you actually know what it is? ) I am as guilty as the next person and that bad habit landed me under a surgeons knife. Too many of us sit in front of a television whatching programs such as the Doctors, of Dr. Oz, etc. while munching of a slice of cake or pie or something that is just plain not very good for us.

I myself have a heart condition brought on by my own horrible eating and excercise habits... which I have worked very hard to change. Although I can never regain lost heart muscle, I can keep what I have remaining strong and alive and if I keep my weight down and don't eat junk food very often, then it should serve me well. Nobody hated excercise like me. But now I love walking every day at least a mile or two... and using hand weights for arm strength...

We are all responsible for our own bodies.. but parents have a responsibility to teach our kids how to eat and live healthy lives.

I have my heart condition coupled with arthritis my hands, spine and now my feet, so It is imperative that I keep moving.. because if I don't.. then I will stiffen up and become dependent on the kindness of strangers...so although it isn't easy, I do what I must to keep a high quality of life going for myself healthwise..

Currently I am overweight by about 25 pounds which I am going to work very hard to get rid of during this coming year. Yes, I have been eating too much of a good thing. I admit I am guilty as charged... but I accept responsibility for my own actions..

The point is that we all need to and quit depending on our government to "fix us when we break".

Carolyn

I don't want anymore government regulation regarding health. It's time for individuals to take responsibility for their own actions.

Agreed!

Couldn't agree more - in my opinion the fall (as in rise and fall) of the U.S. is underway thanks to lack of personal responsibility and accountability. Too many people want someone else to take responsibility for making their life better - be it the government, others who have more money, etc. Other societies where people are more willing to work hard to make personal gains - whether it be in health or wealth - will prevail. Too many have lost the American work ethic.

You don't want government agencies to police public health and food and drug safety? REALLY? You want cartels to decide where to set prices for everything you use or consume? You don't like your public roads, libraries, police and fire departments?

IMO the government should outlaw ads for prescription drugs, as all other nations but New Zealand have done. I'm pleased to see some government crackdown on MD's accepting 'incentives' from drug companies -- strange, isn't it, how the AMA lets that go on? (More failed self-policing.)

It ain't too much gubmint, folks, it's unbridled CAPITALISM. If someone (here or abroad) sees a way to make a profit on *anything*, they can produce it, advertise it, and YOU will buy it. Ship me more of that cheap drywall and the lead-painted toys, please. Let farmers and ranchers decide if what they produce is safe to consume.

Is that what you want? I don't think so.

The "entitled generation" rears its head, once again.

If you don't know by now that fast food places on a regular bases is not good for you, sodas with lots of sugar and prepared foods with lots of additives are not good, smoking and excessive alcohol is a no, no, you must be from another planet in which case, you're an illegal alien and the government should not be responsible. P.S. Just making a joke...don't mean to stir up a political discussion on illegal aliens.

Ever wonder why the average antibiotic that you ladies used to take 20 years ago doesn't work/does exist any more? Who ever needed Z packs 20 years ago?

It just can't possibly be because the cows and chickens you eat are loaded with antibiotics so that they can be packed into pens, fed corn (just a tad bit of sugar), and are forced to gain weight/mature super quickly to get to market.

The only ability I have to take personal responsibility is to not buy southern raised Tyson and Perdue chickens and WalMart beef (other chains, too) but instead pay up to buy organic.

One thing we overlook, which can or not help us and the medical field is the sales people who try to get the doctors to buy THEIR pills. No ones fault, dr is busy, does not have time to review every pill, sales people get big bucks for selling pills, and give Dr. pens, pencils free samples (which is good) but this all goes along with higher medical bills and prescription cost.

It's pretty complicated. I realize I have a unique viewpoint that few people share, but I feel pretty strongly about it. I apologize if I offend any of you and it's not meant personally and I'm not intending to start a debate.

I don't believe in eating meat. That's an ethical choice for me, but it's also a health choice, especially in recent years. I believe it harms the body. Hundreds of years ago, people hunted for their food. It was active, the animals were wild and eating their own intended food. And meat wasn't the main portion of the meal. I honestly don't really have as much of an ethical problem with that.

Today, we waddle down to the local supermarket to pick up the $2.99 pound of hamburger that is loaded with antibiotics, pesticides, hormones, fecal matter, adrenalin, preservatives and who knows what. These animals are kept in awful conditions, fed unnatural food and experience fear, which you end up ingesting. As Patser mentioned, it leads to antibiotic resistance, little girls are developing faster than ever from the hormones and the role of meat has changed. In the land of Atkins and super value meals, the meat has become the meal, usually with some sort of starch and maybe a side of vegetables. Maybe.

I feel the same way about dairy. We're the only species who drinks milk past infancy. We're the only species who drinks other species milk. I don't believe it's healthy for you. Many people get upset stomachs and they're "lactose intolerant" and need to take medications in order to keep consuming the dairy. Doesn't that mean something? When we ingest something we aren't supposed to, the body vomits it as a preservation measure. However, we're taught from childhood that milk is essential to thrive.

So this is where my issue with the government "education" lies. I've seen countless ads showing "scientific" studies on the benefits of of consuming this and that. There's one saying you will lose weight if you add 24 oz of milk a day to your diet. However, these ads are usually sponsored by some sort of large interest group. There's rampant corruption among special interest groups and the national nutritional standards.

Have you seen those recent commercials about high fructose corn syrup, saying it's natural? They want to call it corn sugar and they claim it's the same as regular sugar. It's pretty much one of the worst things that you can put in your body and my issue is that the average public BELIEVES what they're saying.

So while I do believe in personal responsibility, I also think that many, many people are mislead by special interest groups who support these "studies" that they present to the public to make them feel better and healthier for consuming their products. I think there should be stricter standards for advertising such claims because profiting from encouraging poor nutrition choices is just wrong.

Thank you chi83. I agree 100% with you.

It was stated that obesity was less 100 years ago; I believe that was due to our life styles back then. Think about it. The food we ate 100 years ago was not as healthy as what is available to day. In the 1940s, I gres up on a farm and was more or less remote to the rest of the US. We are too much salt pork and potatoes; the beans were healthy though. From September until May, there were no fresh vegtables. Fresh fruit was available until freezing weather neared and then that went away. But our life style was very active! Much physical energy was spent just in preparing and preserving food for the winter. To make a batch of black berry jelly, Mom and several kids spent the morning picking berries (from 8am till 1pm) and that was after you milked the cows, fed the chickens, and watered the hogs. Wood was split for the kitchen stove, a fire was laid, the the canning process began. The lid on the last can was screwed on just in time to milk the cows again, gather the eggs, and prepare supper. I estimate that on such a day, one walked 5 miles and carried weight part of the time. In the evening, it was off to the river to take a swim to rinse off the day's dirt and sweat. This was typical Monday. There were 5 more days in the week filled equally filled with calorie burning activity - we rested on Sunday, but played games after church.

I estimed that 50% of our summer hours were spent in growing food, food preparation and storage.

In 1900, farmers walked behind horses, mules, or oxen tilling the soil while tussling with hand held devices. By 1940, most were riding tractors.

With a regiume like this, obesity was held in check, but the population was not disease free. For example, I saw cases of goiter and today, that is a rarity. A lot of people lost many of their teeth by the time they were 40; By age 60, 50% of the male population had died. Today, that number is 77+. Today, we are seeing more age related diseases partly because we live long enough to encounter these maladies. Low physical activity is a major contributor to obesity.

Chi.. I agree 100% with what you said. I agree with the rest of you as well. In my family we had no obese people at all, and I had not one overweight friend all thru school. My mother served what I now think as highly caloric meals but they were very nutritional. As was typical in that time, meals were meat or chicken, potato, salad and vegetables of some kind. Always a dessert. But I did walk at least four miles a day back and forth to school. Never rode a bus. Walked in all kinds of weather. In high school we even walked to town after school to hang out.. another two miles. Processed foods were not in my house. We had pretzels as a snack and ice cream but everything was made from scratch. I had a favorite aunt who bought me Tastycakes when I visited. My mother wouldn't buy them. It 's funny when I think of it. My mother's chocolate cupcakes were so much better in retrospect. I stopped eating meat 30 years ago and neither of my kids and their families do either. I don't drink milk, soda, or alcohol. A small glass of wine if I'm out. I weigh about four pounds less than I did in high school. I'm obsessive about exercise and ran, later speed walked two/three miles a day since 1977. I was still verging on osteopenias so I joined a gym and do two more miles a day. This has reversed the bone loss and I'm now in the plus side. It's all about quality of life. Some days I hate the thought of the boring gym but hey...I suck it up.

That's a great point Jem. They didn't have access to the wide variety of healthy food that we have today. That's why it's such a shame that we are unhealthier than ever when really we should be thriving like never before.

It's because all that healthy, bountiful food is not only much more expensive than junk food, but it's hidden behind the extremely addicting sugar/corn syrup/white flour/chemical/preservative snack foods. It is VERY addicting. I used to eat it a lot, and when I went vegan, I went through a very uncomfortable detox. But I feel so much better now.

I shop mostly at Whole Foods because I like to eat organic when I can, and I don't like the quality of organic at the regular grocery stores and I don't have access to a farmer's market most of the year. It's much more expensive though and I really feel it. I've paid $2.99/lb for organic pears, and maybe 4 ended up costing over $8. Apples are the same price. Kale, one of my favorite foods, is $2.99 a bundle. It just adds up really fast. So you either pay through the nose for quality produce, or you pick cheaper options. And more often than not, those cheaper options come in a box or a can with either a fraction, or none, of the nutritional value. In this economy, it's easy to understand the choice. I'm willing to sacrifice for my food budget but a lot of people aren't.

I DO wish the government could support our farmers and make it a little easier for them to survive. I wish that the ones who do farm would stop spraying their crops to death with harmful pesticides. I wish some of this land being used to produce food for the cattle could be used for farming fruits and vegetables, but that would drive up the cost of meat and the meat industry won't have that. It would also involve people wanting to eat healthier and be willing to pay for it, but most people would rather spend a dollar on a big bag of chips than an apple. It's just how it is.

This is a really interesting thread, and thank you for all of the thoughtful responses. I think I am going to have to change the way I live, the way I feed my family. Very eye opening. I don't eat a lot of meat anyway, and will not eat veal due to the treatment of the calves, but they are not the only animals suffering to feed us.

Lily, you rock!! I love your attitude.

The great thing, so far, is that we have the freedom to choose to live a healthy lifestyle or not - to be overweight or not - to exercise or not - to invest in organic foods to fuel our bodies or not - to take prescription drugs or not - etc. In my mind it would be ideal if the government did not subsidize any one choice over the other because then the taxpayer ends up subsidizing the choice of someone else sometimes at the expense of their own.

We ARE paying for the illnesses of people who *choose* to become obese and/or smoke and those who drink to excess. We're paying now in increased costs of our medical care, and we'd be paying if we had a national health system. (A national health care system would, however, be able to negotiate pricing -- as the VA does now.)