Honey We're Killing the Kids

I've quoted this a million times now, so apologies to those who have seen it one of the previous 999,999 times, but the phrase that brought this all into perspective for me is "We are a species that has evolved to survive starvation, not resist abundance." (Atul Gawande.)

I believe that there are biological predispositions that vary, and the biology has a lot of components to it. This doesn't mean that person A, born with these predispositions, will definitely be fat; it means that person A, born with these predispositions, will have to work a lot harder to stay thin than person B, who does not have those predispositions. So it's easy for person B to say, "I just eat reasonably and exercise a bit and I'm fine; obviously if that person over there is fat it's because they're eating like a pig and never exercise." When it's a lot more complicated than that.

The article that the above phrase is from used to be available online in several places, now it doesn't seem to be anywhere. This one is different but contains some of the same information:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2002/10/21/hfat.xml

At any rate, I think that our lives are inherently more sedentary and inherently more filled with abundance than has been true for most of human history. I think there are all kinds of things that conspire -- the move to an information economy (sitting at your desk typing rather than up at the crack of dawn to keep your farm going so you can survive), the move of women into the workforce (so that the at-home-mom default is broken, and kids can't just go out the door and play outside with other kids), the move towards labor-saving devices (from not needing to scrub linens against a washboard [reduced need for physical exercise] to the additives necessary to make food both storable and palatable when it is warmed up), etc., etc. It's a whole bunch of interlocking issues.

A lot of those things aren't bad things in and of themselves, they just have to be compensated for, and they haven't been. Yet.

I'm in agreement with you soz. Like I said, I'm directly descended from 2 heavy people....

Most of my adult life I'd been a normal weight...because even though the genes are there, I would pay attention to what I put in my body (should have done that with the booze, huh) and moderately exercise.....the more the years passed, the more difficult it became....for a short while I bought into the "I've got to look a certain way" garbage, and I'll tell you what, I wouldn't go back there for all the tea in China. It's just not worth it frankly. Now, I'm not obese, but like I said, not thin. My genes havent' won out, but I balance what I look like with contentment and a daily treat of some sort.

bottem line is, you don't have to be obsessed to stay reasonably in the healthy range, but you do have to be aware, and stop lying to yourself that "oh, I didn't know"

Frankly, I can't even imagine watching a show like this for 1 minute.

Yeah, the show itself seems dumb.

Much prefer to support stuff like this:

http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/ppl_aw.html

Better link:

http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/homepage.html

Because people think "it won't happen to them" and when it does, they become victims of our fast food society and like eveything else, they won't take responsibility for it.

I understand that there are people out there that are obese and are exercersing and eating healthily which is fine -- you are consciense of it and you cannot help it but there are many people out there that just want to ignore the fact that they can work on it ...

I watched this show Monday night and thought it was very educational and motivational for families who can work at it... did anyone catch it?