Every single person inside was obese. It was actually embarrassing trying to squeeze by people on my way to find the end of the line, and we decided to just have one person order the food instead of all three of us contributing to the awkwardness of the human body version of bumper cars. I'd never seen anything like it in my life.
Living in Austin, I would wonder where exactly this 73% of the population lived. But after that rest stop in McDonalds, it was obvious that they simply live everywhere between the urban centers.
Our society is failing its people tremendously and on so many levels.
IMHO, the problem is wide-spread. (No pun intended.)
I wonder how much of it is just down to urban Americans walking places, and rural and suburban Americans less so.
I did also notice that there was added sugar in virtually _everything_.
The added sugar in the US is a shame. Just this year, the nutritional labels are mandated to show added sugars in products now. I hope that helps.
Kind of shocked how in the US an issue that is obviously a health issue is treated as a personal failing.
If you want sugar in your food you're free to add some after the fact, or buy it from a non-food store. Warning people that all the food they have access to is poison is not a solution to anything.
It sounds like you are suggesting all food in American grocery stores is equally bad when it comes to sugar. Perhaps I misunderstood you, as that is obviously absurd. While I do wish there were more healthy options, I can assure you that the mainstream grocery stores (Ralph's, Safeway, etc) contain many products with low or no sugar.
Empowering people to make better decisions is actually one of the best things we can do. What is your alternative proposal?
I read nutrition labels, looking at the sugar content. I eagerly await the requirement to list the amount of added sugar, as it will inform my food purchases.
Ban over the counter sale of processed food, the same way heroin stopped being sold as Mr. Jims Magical Cure All.
It's not like banning additives that have proven detrimental to health is a radical new idea. We have killed hundreds of industries that killed people before, most of them in much smaller numbers than the food industrial complex.
>Empowering people to make better decisions is actually one of the best things we can do.
Looking at the state of the US, it really isn't. Taking advice from Americans on food is like taking bathing advice from Catholics in 900AD.
I think most people will think your proposal is very extreme.
As would most heroin addicts in 1890.
When 73% of your country is losing between 5 and 20 years of life expectancy drastic measures are in order.
Post stomach cancer, I can't eat sugar without becoming ill. So I stopped. Regular fruits are now very sweet, and a chocolate bar is inedible.
What struck me as weird was the sugar in products where I'd never have expected to find it in the first place. In particular bread (most non-absurdly-expensive brands seemed to have added sugar, which would not normally be the case here).
In fact, an Irish court recently ruled that Subway 'bread' wasn't actually bread at all (important for VAT purposes here); too much added sugar.
I'm sure it is _possible_ to get food that doesn't have added sugar in the US, but it does seem to be the default to add sugar in some quite weird places.
Edit: One way to regulate this, less draconian than actually banning added sugar, would be to regulate naming (for instance, banning sale of a bread-like product with added sugar as bread).
I remember how much everyone has to do some (or a lot) of walking in London, New York, and other cities where you use public transport to get around.
I suspect that daily walking makes a huge difference.
Most of weight is diet. Exercise helps a tiny amount but is more for your cardiovascular health and strength. Running for an hour burns far fewer calories than half of a muffin.
As a guy who runs pretty hard and weighs over 200 lbs, I burn nearly 1000 calories in an hour of running (~11km distance). I've tried a few different models to estimate this and they all more or less agree.
A lightweight person jogging at low intensity for an hour, maybe.
A bold claim indeed.
Not everyone who exercises is trying to lose weight.
For reference, Olympic athletes only manage to burn 30 calories per minutes at their best. I would put most people’s capacity at 10 to 15 calories per minute sustained.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/sports/olympics/cross-cou...
You get a lot more calories than you can physically burn in one day. A donut can be something like 500 kcal. Skipping on snacks is more much effective than exercising no matter how you look at it.
However AFAIK fit and moderately overweight is better for your health than unfit and skinny.
I don't know if I do, since my weight has been pretty constant for a few years. But I'm sure some people do. Are most people in a state of constantly increasing weight?
Most people that are actually overweight though, have a much higher surplus in their caloric intake. Strenuous exercise like running over 10km isn't possible for many of these folks... and even if it were, it certainly wouldn't be possible every day. Cutting out the 600cal breakfast sandwich in the morning or the 200cal soda every day at lunch will have a bigger impact for most folks and is a lot more feasible.
Just wanted to address the exaggeration/overgeneralization in GP comment.
High Fructose based drinks like Soda, Mass produced Tea's, etc combined with decades of government "education" around the high carb diet is the main source of the Mid Wests Obesity problem
When you are drinking 1500-2000 calories a day, and eating mainly pasta / potato heavy meals that is going to kill your weight.
Fried Chicken is not the problem...
Fried food doesn't help either ...
That said, it was shocking coming back to the US to see how fat and tired everyone was. I remember one of the TSA people who was just enormous. Literally wider than tall. Having been out of the culture for so long, I was a bit stunned at the size of that person and most of my countrymen too. I remember think to myself: how did this happen, how did we allow it to get so bad? That, and for being on a red-eye, most of the people in the US were more tired looking than the people that just got off the plane.
The combination of fatness and exhaustion was, obviously, quite memorable.
My big question is then: What is this doing to our society? Sure these changes must reflect in our education system just as they are reflected in our food system. Where else do they reflect? How have our politics been effected?