Being Fat or Smoking: Why is One Worse Than The Other?

Very true Bella..
obesity has risen to enormous amounts in less then 100 years.
that equals our generation, our parents, and grandparents. Thats it.
And that is why I say it has more to do with the quality of foods allowed to be served today then anything else.
Genetics make it easier to gain andkeep weight on..
but lack of education about food contents make it harder to loose it.
How can you loose weight when you truly dont know what you are eating in the first place and just trust that it is healthy?

BBC news

I agree. I do believe that genetics plays a part because I have an aunt who owns a farm. She works her ass off and well, her ass doesn't come off. She is heavy.

What I guess I am saying is that people try and blame everything on something else instead of taking the responsibility of saying "I need to do something. I need to exercise. I need to eat right."

here is a website that gives % of the population for obese residents. I will type it out so it is easier to see the info

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/hea_obe


Country Description
Definition: Percentage of total population who have a BMI (body mass index) greater than 30 Kg/sq.meters (Data for 2002).

Amount
1. Slovakia 22.4%
2. United Kingdom 22%
3. Czech Republic 14.8%
4. Iceland 12.4%
5. Finland 11.8%
6. Sweden 10.4%
7. Netherlands 10%
8. France 9.4%
9. Norway 8.3%
10. Switzerland 7.7%
11. Japan 3.6%
Weighted Average 9.93 %

<points to previous posts ^^^^^^^ about why now and not earlier>

I don't know that many obese people, but everyone I do know is well aware -- and just can't lose the weight or keep it off, for a variety of reasons.

on a more serious note, while i agree genetics can play a major role as linklat said, i still have to think that if we (me esp.) could control what i put in my big mouth, i could control my weight better. as a competitive swimmer from the time i was 8 until 22, i never thought twice about what i ate, mainly because i was training about 5 hours a day (except sat-3 hours- and sunday-off).

now that i am sedentary behind a desk 8 hours a day, i have to watch what i eat and after so many years not caring, i have trouble with my willpower. i am only speaking from personal experience, if i don't have that person (coach) yelling at me to get my butt in gear, it hardly happens.

my weight boils down to willpower. just like with many people smoking boils down to willpower. i realize there is addiction involved and i think there is a case to be made for emotional addiction to food (not physical so much as nicotine addiction is).

but back to the question...why is ok to tell someone not to smoke and not ok to tell someone not to eat? i have to agree again with most here. second hand smoke is proven to be worse for you than the inhalation of a cigarette so smoking affects your own personal health. someone else eating doesn't unless they are producing an unusual amout of gas which can put a hurting on ya.

I mostly agree with that, Bella, but again most everyone I know (especially my mom, who is a nurse) knows these things, and just can't. I wish she could, and I worry about her, but she just can't.

And the thing is that while some people can say that and do it -- according to the study last page, some 5-10% of the population -- it's just not as simple as so many people think. People extrapolate from their own experience and their own bodies, while many of those people are 7'2" sneering at the 5'2" person for not being better at basketball -- ya know?

You are considered obese if you are 20-40% over your ideal weight.

So a man with a medium frame at 6' who weighs 204 lbs is considered mildly obese. I know a lot of guys who could fit that profile.

I know soz. I stuggle with eating. I am a comfort eater, a depressed eater and a bored eater. I eat all the time. I've been fortunate because of this hyper thyroid but now that I will be getting "normal" again, I need to re-evaluate my eating habits. It will be extremely hard because you convince yourself that you "need" to eat. I am hungry. I need satly foods. I need candy. I can't stop myself sometimes, and I am not kidding about that. I am very scared about what will happen to me after I get my thyroid fixed.

Two words: Serving Size

We eat more than we used to. Remember when we were kids and todays medium or small drinks were yeterdays larges. We have all you can eat buffets. Super Sized meals. Meals with soups or salad plus fries, the entee, a coke and dessert. We live in a world of abundance and we swallow it by the plateful.

That plus bad eating habits learned as a child make for larger people. How many of us heard the phrase "You can't leave the table until you clean your plate" when we were little? We teach our kids to eat more than they need and then let them sit in front of a tv for the rest of the day.

I bet if you just keep exercising, you'll be fine. That and don't worry about it too much. That's one other thing I observed with my mom, growing up, that I vowed not to do -- she was SO concerned with being fat and not getting fatter that food was a major consideration. Thinking, "I can't have chocolate ice cream, I can't have chocolate ice cream, I can't..." just keeps it in the forefront of your brain, and makes it that much harder to avoid breaking down and having some.

I just eat whatever I want whenever I want, and because I don't let myself obsess, I don't. (OK, that's probably simplistic, but you get the idea.) I rely on exercise for weight management, has worked pretty well for me -- but I might be 6'2" or something (to use the previous metaphor, not literally), I dunno.

Soz
i would say that it is probally more then 10% of the obese population who are obese beyond their control. Iti s a bigger problem then most know.
Again.. back to the food quality that is accepted today. Alot of the chemicals that are allowed in foods today have been linked to thyroid problems, digestive problems, heart problems... the list can go on and on..

I had a really good post going. then i got kicked off the site.. GRRR hehe

so - to shorten what i was saying then-

with the previous precentages posted, americans obese population is close to 60% compared to.. 9-12% in other nations.
Take that amount into consideration with the most popular food sources in america. Fast, fried, sweet, packaged, and processed.

That is why i feel that most ( not all ) of the over weightpeople in america are there because they just dont know enough about health.
They think calorie counting, fat grams, and carbs are the ticket to wieght loss. Yet they loose none.

They buy slim fast style foods and still loose no weight . they eat processed foods and still have mineral and vitamin depleation..
there is more to food and a healthy diet then just calories and fat. But .. alot of people dont realise that.
there is a percentage of people who can not control weight no matter what they do.. but for those who dont have that issue.. it lies in the food they are eating. The excersize the are not getting and the lack of knowledge on how to change that.

I do think education would help, of course, but I don't think it's THE problem.

I think what would help is:

a) Less abundance to resist. A few components to that, but especially children's meals at school, which Alice Waters is addressing. The whole obesity thing can be changed in childhood -- an obese child can lose weight and keep it off forever. A big problem is what's affordable -- lots of studies about for a poor family it's cheaper to eat at McDonald's then put together a good, balanced meal from the supermarket.

b) More exercise. Physical Education classes are being cut. People have infinitely more sedentary lives than they used to. I'm not sure how to enforce this, but I think it's a huge piece of the puzzle. My old hospital offered free (or covered by insurance, I forget) gym memberships and personal training assistance to people over a certain weight. Something like that -- it's one of those things where prevention, even if expensive, is much cheaper than dealing with consequences like diabetes, etc., etc.

Oh and my stats were that 90-95% CAN'T lose weight -- that only 5-10% CAN lose weight and keep the weight off for more than 5 years.

Plus no-one WALKS many places any more these days, just to get somewhere. We have cars, trains, bikes to get us there faster because we don't have TIME to walk an hour to the store and back - we are too busy with emails and working and picking up kids from daycare and trying to fit it all in. Yes people walk, but they walk as a form of exercise, not so they can get to where they are going.

When I lived in Ireland I walked to work and back. I walked to my friends houses to visit and I walked to go out socially. I didn't have a car. My parents, who still live in Ireland, came to visit me here in Boston and they wanted to scout the neighborhoods and walk around. I thought I was going to pass out because their energy and stamina was so high from walking miles every day and I was out of shape and not used to it. Those conveniences that we have are perhaps not so advantageous to our health after all.

I know people don't have time to walk to work etc. - that's craziness for the amount of time already spent commuting - but we have gotten out of the habit of using our bodies for active everyday things that cars, cell-phones and other gizmos now make these activities necessary. I remember if I wanted to drop off a sweater to a friend, I would walk around to her house and drop it off. These days I'm more likely to call a messenger service to pick it up from me and drop it off at her house because I'm too busy to bother.

<nodding vigorously>

very VERY true..

it is so much easier to drive that few blocks to the book store then walk.
easier to take the elevator then the stairs..

Oh and when I was in the ER last week, having spent all day there, do you know what the nurse gave me to eat? They were handing out meals to patients who had been there all day.

A burger! A huge bun with a beef pattie and ketchup. And a package of chips. I stared at it fully for a minute or two, not quite believing my eyes. They gave me a greasy burger and fatty chips and I had come in with chest pains!

Now if doctors are serving that up, how on earth am I supposed to eat healthy?

you were not done paying off your bill...
so they were not going to let you leave just yet..
hehe

I never had a weight problem. Granted I weigh about 5 pounds more than when I had my first child, however, I am still in the healthy ideal weight category.

I don't diet, I exercise moderatelyas my working full time and raising two small children, I get it in when I can. But I do try to eat healthy. I avoid processed foods, focus on fresh veggies and fruits and leaner meats. I make them taste better simply by adding spices - I love to cook. I do crave nasty things occasionally and do not deny myself these indulges. However when I do, I limit the portion. At McDs I will get a regular burger - no big mac, quarter pounder or other larger item. It stops my cravings without doubling or more the size. Same for any desert item - instead of eating several cookies - I eat one or two. And eat it slowing savoring the taste. That is what you really want the taste - it will last as long as double the portion and be as satisfying.