Obesity, A Southern tradition.

[MossRoad]

... Money and wealth buys obesity and sloth?

Go back and look at that link I posted earlier... 8 of the 10 states with the lowest household incomes are in the top 10 states for obesity. Money and wealth apparently buy good food and fitness.

 

[LMTC]

Go back and look at that link I posted earlier... 8 of the 10 states with the lowest household incomes are in the top 10 states for obesity. Money and wealth apparently buy good food and fitness.

That could be true if you assume cause (low income) and effect (obesity due to inusfficient income for good diet) in that order. OTOH, perhaps those people with more self-control, better discipline over their immediate wants, etc. tend to be more successful financially due to the same attributes that help them avoid obesity.

NOTE--the following is in no way to be construed as a political comment, but rather an historical perspective. Where I stand on the issue(s) is irrelevant. Thank you.

We've had 40+ years of school lunch programs, school breakfasts, and a large array of social programs supposedly designed to alleviate malnutrition (those old enough know that this began in earnest with the "Great Society" under LBJ), yet as a society we have gotten fatter. It would seem the causal effects are myriad, and only to a degree the result of income. I personally know many obese people who are quite well off (yes, mostly technical occupations), and I know some scrawny folks who just get by financially.

 

[Redbug]

Good points Moss and Lmtc. That blows a hole in my thinking. So in general, people with more control and discipline live up north or out west? Life is easier down south... seems like it would be the other way around. Lotsa smart people live down south. It must be a cultural thing, tied into income and race. I don't think education has much to do with it...

 

[Volfandt]

Well, since we're playing w/numbers and tying it to geographic regions, lets look at other types of abuse, assuming obesity is considered a form of abuse.
Chapter 4 State Data
These findings seem to point to the west and north having a higher propensity for alcoholism ......

Seems no region of our great country is problem free .....

 

[LMTC]

Good points Moss and Lmtc. That blows a hole in my thinking. So in general, people with more control and discipline live up north or out west? Life is easier down south... seems like it would be the other way around. Lotsa smart people live down south. It must be a cultural thing, tied into income and race. I don't think education has much to do with it...

Not necesssarily. I was just pointing out that it is all too easy to assume cause and effect based on a set of numbers. The classic cause/effect argument given us by a prof in a logic discussion went like this: People who eat poison die; everyone who ate the tomato crop of 1814 is now dead. Therefore the tomato crop of 1814 must have been poisonous.

Obviously absurd on it's face as no one alive in 1814 would have been living at the point he made that silly cause/effect statement, but similar thinking is often used in linking causes and effects, and it bears caution. I suspect on this current issue there are literally dozens of factors, including genetics, environment, culture, and to some degree expendable income, all of which effect individuals to different degrees.

For me the bottom line is that we don't really know enough in many areas to draw definitive conclusions.

 

[MossRoad]

For me the bottom line is that we don't really know enough in many areas to draw definitive conclusions.

I think we can draw some conclusions from the studies. People with low income buy the food they can afford. Unfortunately, the cheap food is not the healthiest food.

 

[LMTC]

I think we can draw some conclusions from the studies. People with low income buy the food they can afford. Unfortunately, the cheap food is not the healthiest food.

From a very literal standpoint that is of course true. I worked in the public sector for over 33 years, and often had occasion to be in a county building where many low income (defined as below the federal poverty level) people frequented. The volume of soft drinks and bagged snacks I saw was staggering. Now from a literal standpoint, obviously they could afford this food, as they had indeed purchased it. Was it a prudent choice? A nutritious choice? It most certainly was not a choice forced upon them by income limitations, as I often watched them buy them from the vendor on the sidewalk outside the building at the inflated prices one normally pays at such locations.

I will be the first to acknowledge that even though most of the people I saw were very low income, they may well not be representative of that overall income demographic. My point however is that they were buying junk and could have made that money go a lot further on several pounds of uncooked whole grains or other items. We go to Wild Oats (or whatever they are now) about every 3 months, and buy probably 20# or so of assorted whole grains for an average of around $1/# (some are less, some more). These, mixed to our liking and cooked in hot water, make for a hot breakfast about 3-4 days each week. That's the price of about 4-5 boxes of pre-sweetened boxed cereal. From my own observations [Please all note the caveat...MY observations, I am not claiming this as documentable, irrefutable fact] in all those years what I saw had at least as much to do with poor nutritional knowledge and just plain bad choices as it did with limited income.

 

[Gravdigr]

I think we can draw some conclusions from the studies. People with low income buy the food they can afford. Unfortunately, the cheap food is not the healthiest food.

Exactly. Go to the grocery store some time and buy a bunch of produce, fresh meat, and bottled water. Now go out to the same grocery store and buy a bunch of frozen dinners and a couple 12 packs of pop.

Take $6 to mcdonalds and you can get 2 double cheeseburgers, 2 small fries, and 2 small drinks. Now take that same $6 and try to buy 2 salads and bottled water.

It costs way more to eat healthy in general.

Not only that, it takes more time to prepare a healthy meal as opposed to convenience food. And in this day it's hard to find the time...hey, there's a (insert fast food restaurant here)

And the BMI is not accurate at all as it does not take muscle mass in account. My DI in basic found this out after they wanted to put me on a restricted diet program and I bench pressed 300 lbs in front of him. According to the BMI I am obese at 6' 230lbs. The fact that I am built like the proverbial brick poophouse doesn't matter. I routinely move granite blocks weighing twice as much as I do with hand tools, and hand mix and pour more cement in a year than the average american in a lifetime (I think last year I hand mixed around 10 ton of cement). But I am considered obese?

 

[Bird]

In 1966-67, I became the Dallas Police Department's first active recruiter visiting colleges, small towns, and USOs near military installations. One thing I learned early on was that I could not recruit a college football player. The city's maximum weight limits for different heights were too restrictive. Any college football player, regardless of how fit he might be, was too heavy to meet the city's requirements. And I had no luck in getting those requirements changed because the old doctor who was director of the health department would say that they're in good shape now but when you put them in a squad car, they'll quit working out and get too fat.

I think most folks who read this thread will conclude, as I do, that there are really too many factors involved for there to be a simple answer as to why some (or so many) people are overweight.

 

[jinman]

I think most folks who read this thread will conclude, as I do, that there are really too many factors involved for there to be a simple answer as to why some (or so many) people are overweight.

While I think it is not simple to figure out why some people gain more than others for the same caloric intake, I'm pretty certain I know why there are so many overweight people. I'd say it was the easy access to soda, snack foods, and high calorie fast foods.

For example, Bird, you have mentioned that your father had a gas station when you were a kid. Did that gas station have a whole convenience store inside with a walk-in cooler of soda and beer? Did it have aisles of chips, candies, cookies, and snacks? How about a fast food joint or sandwich shop? I think we are bombarded with opportunities to choose the wrong things to eat. Heck, most kids don't think of fruit for a snack because they are surrounded by salty snacks and quench their thirst with soda. Our schools are full of vending machines like the ones LMTC mentioned at the county building. The easy choices are from vendors with high calorie foods, and these vendors know that habits learned early are habits learned best.

...now what did I do with my bag of pretzels?