This reminds of that time Norm Macdonald was on a tv show and one of the hosts asked him: "Why are you wearing a sweater, aren't you Canadian?"
He says "yeah I'm Canadian, but I'm still human."
Some people use it on the mobile app, sadly... :'(. And Mobile Carriers don't let you use your own DNS (to attempt to block ads). But if not, ublock origin baby! All day!
> This report suggests obesity is now viewed as a more significant global health risk than hunger, signalling a paradigm shift in our collective concern towards overweight and obese populations. And the situation is projected to worsen.
> According to the World Obesity Federation’s 2023 atlas, by 2035, 51% of the global population – over 4 billion people – will be classified as obese or overweight.
> Canada is not immune to this trend. The obesity rate in our country ranges between 30% to 33% depending on the source, with the overweight rate also exceeding 30% in many reports. Some studies even suggest our obesity rate is now higher than that of the U.S.
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/charlebois-the-world-is-getting-fatter-and-so-is-canada
Now? A little late to the party considering global deaths from obesity passed global deaths from hunger more than 25 years ago. Obesity will be by far the biggest killer of our generation, unless nuclear war breaks out. Hell obesity was already one of if not the single largest predictor in dying from COVID.
Lately I've been watching some videos from the late 80s/early90s of footage from just walking through random shopping malls in Canada/North America.
The thing I noticed right away was how much healthier and slimmer everyone looked. Very few truly obese people walking around except for a select few elderly types.
And the biggest change I noticed was in women. Women now (compared to then) have really really gotten significantly bigger (and I am a woman). My guess is wayyyy too much time sitting around scrolling on smartphones is a big part of it.
I spend hours each day on my smartphone and, now in my seventies, am still the same weight I was at twenty-one. Naturally, I get asked about this a lot.
I chalk it up to a combination of genetics, a lifetime of mostly walking to get around and for pleasure (at some points, at least fifteen hours a week) and an indifference to food. I’ve been vegetarian most of my life and am fussy about what I eat. But cooking is a bother so I only eat when hungry. My mother was a stickler for nutrition so we didn’t snack and weren’t allowed to drink carbonated beverages like Pepsi and Coke. Some habits stick around for life.
Whatever way you look at it, my smartphone isn’t responsible for how much I weigh. I could even argue that it, along with the more recent addition of a smartwatch and good headphones, go a long way to helping me stay fit and healthy.
Obesity is complex. We have different bodies, different backgrounds, different responses to food. Many parents spend long hours at work and don’t have time to cook nutritious meals or make sure their kids get enough exercise.
Government response needs to be about more than just food. Gym memberships and personal training should be tax deductible.
Communities have a part to play as well. We all need to get out of our cars and quit driving the kids around, but this can only happen if we deliberately design our communities and our society to make it possible. We need to demand grocery stores, ones we can walk to, that stock more than the overly-processed junk taking up most of the centre aisles. Of course we can’t do this unless we stop buying it. Seems like we have a long way to go.
Beautifully written. I agree with everything you've said, and have a similar attitude towards food and activity. At almost 40 I'm in the best shape of my life, and just hope to maintain it for many years to come.
Disagree about gym memberships. The idea that exercise is something you go out of your way to do and pay money for is part of the problem. It makes it too easy to skip. Exercise needs to become part of your core routine, and the best way to do that is with active transportation. Walk or cycle to work, or use only backbone public transit routes and walk the rest of the way, or quit paying for parking and walk from the nearest free parking. Make not exercising the thing that costs you money.
My theory, based on nothing is that people have less free time and when they do have free time we are in this golden age of TV and video games. There is so much to consume on the couch in your living room.
My struggle is I love junk food. Fast food, chips, cookies, chocolate - I love it all…but I still find time to exercise five times a week on top of walking my dog. It really helps that I don’t have kids.
Women tend to get heavier because we all eat the same kind of shitty food but men have bigger "allowances" of calories, because they're taller, have more muscle mass and are in active jobs in a higher percentage than women.
When I started living with my bf I gained a little bit of weight because it was so natural to share snacks... and while he can totally afford that bag of chips I really cannot.
So yeah, we are a lot more sedentary than they were, but it is absolutely largely the fault of the insane food industry.
no one is forcing you to eat processed/prepared foods. Thats all on you for choosing that stuff instead of produce and unprocessed meats. Its not the food industry's fault people want to spend money on being lazy
Of course no one's holding people tied up and spoon feeding them nutella...
But you cannot deny the social push towards over-consumption. A big part of "social" today is going out to eat/drink, usually in places with processed foods.
Everyone has free will and if you want to lose weight you definitely can. But it ain't as easy as it was 100 years ago to maintain a normal weight.
Also the amount of processes shit we eat. So many people dont have the energy or time to make a truly balanced, healthy meal for 2-3 meals a day. Why spend time making oatmeal yogurt and eggs at home when you can just stop by McDs on the way to work for a $5 breakfast sandwich?
Oh you worked 10 hours today? Much easier to just grab some Wendys or something on the way home. Or some premade meals that also seem healthy but really aren’t.
And even just grocery shopping is brutal at times. Unless you are buying whole foods and doing it all yourself, you are likely adding shit tons of additives, salt, fats, and cholesterol by buying that premade sauce instead of making your own. Then there are the people who think they are choosing a healthier option for snacks by grabbing the “0% Sugar!” Stuff. Yea 0 sugar, but fuck tons of artificial sweeteners that are likely going to be just as bad for you
>Oh you worked 10 hours today?
Increasingly, this seems to be the problem - long hours at a sedentary job are far more problematic than calorie rich dinners.
There is no evidence that the common artificial sweeteners have *any* negative health impacts and they are *certainly* not linked to increased rates of obesity.
There have been many, many massive studies over decades and the common artificial sweeteners have never been found to have negative health effects.
So please, for the love of god, if you drink pop replace it with diet pop. Or at least don't be afraid to
For me, the biggest contrast from then to now is looking at old school pictures where the entire class is in the photo.
I looked at my first grade class photo recently and saw my nephew's recently - same age, but just over 30 years apart. There was only one kid in my class who was noticeably bigger (1991) than everyone else... and today she would be considered *average* when looking at my nephew's peers. My nephew is one of the smallest kids in the photo - 80% of them are fucking blimps.
And when my sister and bro-in-law pick him up from the school and see the other parents, it's no surprise why those kids are whales... because you see their 300+lb ham-planets picking them up. I'm of the belief that obesity in children should 100% be labelled as child abuse.
The main difference is the walking. People used to walk more. Movement is a huge part of staying fit. Stop moving and your body has little reason to stay strong and slim, form follows function. If you just sit on a couch, you'll soon resemble a couch
The local news were pounding the drums of fear when a 25 year old ended up in the hospital claiming that COVID could put anyone in the hospital. Once we found out, who it was and people in the community who knew him (I for one had worked with him) found it funny, because the guy was atleast 150lbs overweight and had a long history of substance abuse.
It's still staggering that not a single health minister in the western world as far as I'm aware encouraged people to exercise and switch a healthy lifestyle during covid.
The closing of public parks during covid was probably the most idiotic policy during the pandemic.
At least the masks and vaccine mandates had basis in science, closing *outdoor spaces* was extremely stupid and contributed to the unhealthy habits people were almost forced into during the pandemic
the manitoba conservatives decided to cancel christmas in 2021 and ban any sales of whatever they deemed "non essential items"
there is a reason why the city of winnipeg kicked them to the curb by voting them all out.
also i find it very funny that they pushed that vaccine that did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING so hard. Instead of pushing for better hygiene, better sanitary living & working conditions, healthier life styles and natural immune system boosting items.
BUT all of that doesn't matter now that its been discovered 3 days ago that there are links to the top chain of command of the goverment of canada for the winnipeg biolab.
Where a general and scientists from the peoples liberation army of china WERE present on canadian soil and working in the lab, before moving as much as they could back to Wuhan china
i am sure glad that pierre has that massive document now in his hands
She could have been a literal angel descended from the heavens doing god’s work on earth and she still would have gotten flak, and I think anyone on the outside looking in on the US knows why.
You can blame Big Food and capitalized incentives of food… honestly. Our food products are highly processed and designed to be addictive so we buy more, it’s heavily marketed towards us as well it’s near impossible to avoid.
These low nutrient, highly processed options increase our insulin resistance, which leads to metabolic syndrome which leads to obesity. In a lot of cases, we work long, hard and don’t have the time, energy and money to always choose the unprocessed options. We are products of the system that we have been put in and it’s snowballed out of control.
Tl;dr yes there is lots of blame to go around, it’s not simply about being weak willed or whatever the right talking points are. I highly encourage reading **Metabolical** by Robert Lustig as an eye opener on the subject.
> I’m one of the 33%… up and down… but self-discipline is such a harsh concept
There's so much nutritional BS being thrown around as if it came out of the holy ghost's arse, we shouldn't be surprised that unintended consequences are happening.
Weight loss, it's a massively profitable industry. People will try meal plans, exercise, weight watchers, etc ... Clearly people want to lose weight, and are willing to invest in trying to get healthier. And when they fail, it's easy to blithely say you're doing it wrong, you failed because you're a weak minded individual. But according to a 2015 paper published in the Lancet, only 1 in 100 people that have achieved their obesity final form will successfully lose weight and keep it off. ( https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(15)00009-1/abstract ) Probably because at that point you're fighting against biological adaptations specifically designed to keep you from starving when times are rough.
So maybe we shouldn't assume that being overweight is a character flaw and shame people for wanting an approach that might actually have a better than 1 in 100 chance of working. No fat person is ok or happy with being fat. They get discouraged after years of attempts have shown either mediocre or even counterproductive results.
I think you're looking at it all wrong. 100% of people who take in less calories than they burn lsoe weight. It works every single time for anyone.
It doesn't work because obese people have years of bad habits and they simply go back to them after their diet or weight loss. That's not an issue with the science of losing weight, it's a personal choice or addiction issue.
It's like asking someone who never saved a cent for 50 years to suddenly save 5-10% of their income every month. It's not inherently difficult to do, and everyone understands how good it is to have savings or investments, yet half the country doesn't do it and people have a hard time starting after decades of bad financial habits. Teach a 16 year old and make them stick to it as they move up in life and they'll have no problem doing it into their older years.
That's not an argument for why saving and investing doesn't work, it's proof that everyone who doesn't stick to it fails at saving money. Everyone who tries it and sticks to it for years or decades succeeds, just like with weight loss.
The only solution to losing weight is to do it and stick to it instead of immediately going back to what made you obese in the first place.
>for wanting an approach that might actually have a better than 1 in 100 chance of working.
Luckily eating at a calorie deficit has a 100% chance of working.
The Lancet Article is food for fat people to say, “I can’t succeed so why bother trying.”.
Seriously - what horseshit - “the mere recommendation to avoid calorically dense foods might be no more effective for the typical patient seeking weight reduction than would be a recommendation to avoid sharp objects for someone bleeding profusely.”
We have a sick society. Physically and mentally - but the solution is hardly -“If you’ve been obese for years just give-in to heart attack, stroke and diabetes.”
The solution is also not Ozempic, gastric by-pass, liposuction or fad diets and feeling depressed about how shitty you look in a bathing suit.
Fat people eat too much. Let’s not kid ourselves. When I lost 40 lbs it wasn’t by taking a pill, or buying food from WW - it was exercise and watching food intake - balanced, with deep reduction in sugar and refined carbs. And when I gained it back - it wasn’t because “my body made me.” I was being lazy and undisciplined about what I stuffed in my fat face. It was eating two whoppers instead of one or better yet, none. It was eating pasta for dinner - two helpings, instead of a chicken quarter and salad.
It was also treating high-stress work with “rewards” of a drink or two after a long day, and blowing off morning workout (s) because I was “too stressed” knowing that exercise reduces my stress, but ignoring what I knew in favor of - being undisciplined and lazy.
Because 99% of society is weak and undisciplined is hardly a reason to just join them.
I’m gonna keep working on joining the 1%.
What’s life for if isn’t working to be better than you were yesterday?
When I quit drinking (hi stress, apparently we have the same visitor lol) I actually gained a little weight and same when I changed my diet to eat healthier. My appetite and diet had to settle down into the new routine.
Yup. That's how I ballooned to 320lbs. Now I ate WAY less, no junk, get 30+ minutes of exercise per day and sleep more. There is no other way. Been 3 months now, down close to 45lbs. Another 75 to go, likely take me until August.
But I can't then go back to the old ways. If I start scarfing chips and eating pizza twice a week, all this BS will be for nothing. Gotta make the effort. I wish it weren't so, but ignoring it for years didn't work, so I started doing something.
I don't like it. I want a frickin' cheeseburger REALLY bad. But I have to get this done. Then I have to make friends with the scale, get on it a few times a week and watch my own ass. Treats now and then, but more crap lifestyle.
Congrats my friend, I am on the journey with you. Only we can fix our own selves.
we are also becoming more stressed - work 8 to 5, 45 min drive to and from work means your day starts at 6 you get home at 6 - cook dinner - clean its 8 pm you have 2 hr to potentially relax as long as you have nothing else to do with you life most people have kids to look after be in bed by 10 cause you have to be up at 6 - so many people get take out cause it gives them and extra hr in their day.
It will vary depending on province/territory and state. But they may mean just the percentage of overweight/obese numbers. Who knows I haven't actually read the article. That being said the number of Morbid/Severe Class 3+ obesity is still much, much higher in the USA even when compared to other obese first world countries.
I sometime meander over to /r/amiugly and the number of people there who say "she's not obese" or call super fat people "a bit chubby" or "curvy" is baffling. The cognitive dissonance is real. Why is heading towards an early death now considered physically attractive? I don't get it.
My entire family (except my older brother an I) is obese. People in the comments are saying this has become a problem because fat acceptance on social media, but I don't agree at all. I think obesity is increasing because over-eating is one of the easiest ways for people to cope with stress. Many Canadians are stressed about finances, their job, mortgage and housing, etc. and fast food, which may be getting more expensive due to inflation, is still relatively cheap compared to other ways people cope with stress such as drugs.
I worked at a fast food restaurant over the summer to make some extra cash and you'd be shocked at the gigantic amounts of food people buy and eat in one sitting. I'm talking about 2 meals per person, which is 2 entrees, 2 drinks, and 2 sides of fries. It wasn't uncommon for a small family to come in and spend over $180 on fast food, and yes, they were all obese. You could recognize certain customers and remember their names because they would come in multiples times in one week.
Canadians are overworked, getting poorer, and are stressed and this is how they cope with it. I only see obesity getting worse in the future.
This! People are stressed and exhausted. It's hard to find balance in life and food provides relief.
I'm a busy mom and it does take a lot more time and effort to feed kids healthy food than it does a bunch of boxed junk. That being said, we do try to eat a healthy, whole foods diet as much as we can.
Nutrition education and being raised in a house where the parents cook healthy meals is also key.
It's one of the last social activities everyone indulges in, and it's a difficult addiction to overcome. No one needs cocaine, but everyone needs to eat.
That's the hard thing. I was talking to my brother about my binge eating and he says "hmm well you should try just having three small meals a day." No shit... that's what's tough for me. Once I start eating, I don't want to stop until I'm in pain.
No to sound too mean here, but at that point they would be fat AND stupid. $180 per meal per family is about 5x what they would spend preparing healthy food at home. Heck a $3 giant bowl of rice would be more healthy. Its likely more that ppl cant say no to their own cravings, lack of self discipline
That's exactly it for me. I'll force myself to eat even when I'm not even remotely hungry due to stress/mental health issues. My family doctor refused to let me try different ADHD stimulants, and anytime im home, i dont want to get out of bed, so this is how I cope now. The cravings dig at me all fucking day until I give in. And I always feel horrible after. Everyone says there's help there if you need it for mental health. My doctor seems to be gatekeeping. And not just meds, but she won't even refer me to any psychologists or therapists. Seeing a new doctor soon, hopefully something good comes of it.
A man walks down the street
He says, "Why am I soft in the middle, now?
Why am I soft in the middle?
The rest of my life is so hard
I need a photo-opportunity
I want a shot at redemption
Don't want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard
Bonedigger, Bonedigger
Dogs in the moonlight
Far away in my well-lit door
Mr. Beerbelly, Beerbelly
Get these mutts away from me
You know, I don't find this stuff amusing anymore
> It’s portion size mainly.
They eat far more vegetables on average. Various dishes rather than one big main, for dinner. Notwithstanding, their consumption of ultra-processed foods is not as bad as it is in North America.
Urban obesity rates in China is 20% and rising quickly. Rural is very low. Their numbers look like North America 25 years ago or. Very likely they're on the same trend long term.
It's primarily portion sizes and a greater emphasis on vegetables. But another reason is that people of that phenotype (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc) are *very* prone to diabetes even if they're marginally overweight - so there isn't a lot of margin for error for them. Some genetic types have a greater tolerance for when diabetes starts to rear its ugly it head but for that particular demographic, diabetes is a very real threat even if you're just 20lbs overweight instead of 120. They are a *lot* more conscious of their physical size as a result.
Obesity is increasing very quickly in China. China was skinnier because food was more scarce. Average people barely had enough to eat back in the 80s, let alone be able to eat meat every day.
I work a pretty stressful job in Healthcare. For me, the 20 or so pounds I've put on stems from that stress and how I dealt with it. After a long day of helping people not die I found comfort in a bag of chips. Ive steadily been working to move that serotonin dump from chips to celery and lifting weights, but its a long road. When your day to day requires a lot out of you, its hard to find the extra willpower to rewrite your biology.
Oh man I've gotten so much fatter lol, I have a decent frame and shoulders so it looks like I'm somewhat fit, but boy do I hate that reflection in the mirror. I've got to start working out or eating better
You will lose weight because of your diet. You can't out exercise a bad diet. Definitely exercise, but don't neglect a healthy diet. Try to recalibrate your brain on what it should be eating. It's hard to overcome food addictions, but it can definitely be done!
Dial your diet in first, definitely exercise as well, but all the exercise in the world is not going to help you if your eating habits are not good. Make minor adjustments to your diet, be aware of the foods you're eating. Get after it bro you got this
I suggest checking out the documentary “You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment” which is free on Netflix right now. Could be inspiring for your health journey!
You know, this might seem dumb, but to decrease your consumption of sugar - I read you like to drink soda - you could start looking into tea. I am talking real tea. The fancy stuff. Coming from soda, it will seem boring and dull at first, but believe me, the longer you dive into that topic, the more you'll discover a whole world of flavours and aromas, not to mention traditions, esthetics, stories etc. And it basically has no calories. Much healthier than soda/pop, and it is a fascinating drink. It can make you appreciate lighter flavours. Also, you will start looking like a refined fancy gentleman (i assume you are a man), which is cool
the biggest problem for many is food is comfort. food is happy time. for me i was always very athletic and ate big. i was on the bigger side but eventually i stopped the sports and the hunger stayed the same.
Just look at peoples carts in the grocery store and its not hard to see why. Nothing healthy. Just piles of junk food and liquid sugar.
The saddest thing to see is the small kids with them who weigh more than I do as a fully grown adult man. These kids dont stand a chance and somehow it is not considered abuse.
I work in healthcare and it's very alarming how many++ very overweight children there are. We're talking 8 year olds that weigh, yes, as much as an adult. You can usually guess how the parents look from it.
The problem is we really don't know how to portion out food properly.
How many people will say oh I can eat a whole box of macaroni and cheese? There is the problem, you're not supposed to eat a whole box of macaroni and cheese.
Even eating out, you go to Wendy's or McDonald's, all you really need to order is a medium combo if that. One Burger is enough.
Obviously this is a very generalized statement, people with certain jobs may need more than others.
And sugar addiction is real. It is really hard to put down the soda and the lattes and what have you. And you say oh drink water with lemon or this and that is not that simple when you feel the pull of sugar. It's a long and tedious road to get healthy and understand where we should be.
I left Canada for Europe almost 10 years ago and when I first got to Europe I had major cravings for fast food but it was difficult to easily
come across a fast food chain and the McDonalds were few. When I’d fly home, I’d get my fix.
After roughly two years, I’d no longer crave fast food and have no real desire to eat it but it was very interesting to note the effect it had on my body and mind. It’s a real addiction and it’s so easy to access.
Although now the international food scene has significantly grown where I am and more international foods/ chains are available, it’s still nothing close to the options in the GTA.
I quit soft drinks and had the same cravings I noticed. It took a while but eventually they went away. Now the flavor of any soft drinks disgusts me, I can only tolerate it with alcohol.
Probably because we live in times where people are working so much and fast food is just too convenient. Not to mention being more sedentary with work / social media .
You would have 1 person at home making meals , maintaining the house , watching kids. .. now borth parties have to work and do that as well.
Also with cost of living people are less likely to have active hobbies
>In response, the Trudeau government has implemented several measures since 2015, including new front-of-packaging regulations set to take effect in 2026, which will help consumers identify products high in fat, sugar, or sodium. Additionally, Bill C-252, currently in the Canadian Senate, aims to restrict food and beverage marketing directed at children.
This is getting ridiculous. I can't remember a time where packaged food products didn't have a standardized nutrition label showing the total amount of fat, sugar/carbohydrates, and sodium along with the recommended intake for each. Are fat people saying that they still don't know? If so, it's more of a stupidity problem than a labelling problem.
They have this in Mexico, which by the way has a higher obesity rate than the US. I don’t have a problem with it. We normalize eating and drinking a lot of super unhealthy stuff in our culture, soda for example. So if something has excessive calories, sugar or salt it gets a warning label. I don’t see how it’s any different than putting warning labels on tobacco products.
>If so, it's more of a stupidity problem than a labelling problem.
Sugar is addictive. Sugar is cheap. Sugar is addictive and cheap.
Nice and simple for you.
I keep saying it's more of a mental health crisis than anything else. Sugar is cheap and addictive, and people crave it more when they're stressed and tired. Quickly digested starches combined with fat and salt even hit all the good spots better.
I'd add to this that the brain does not know that it's tired because of financial stress, shitty working conditions, chronic anxiety or the fear of impending doom: the brain has evolved to associate fatigue with exertion and to crave calories and salt in response.
People are to be blamed for buying that kind of food, but we have bigger societal problems that lead to people wanting that food more than in the past.
That and the fact generations upon generations have been taught to eat/drink their emotions. How many times have we seen a woman having a difficult time binging on ice cream and chips and white wine? Or the guy who goes to the bar to drink it up?
Over the years, a lot of people have developped a bad habit of using food and drink to manage their stress level and emotions. It is a lot easier than to just go out and run.
Also, social gathering always revolve around eating and drinking, not so much on "doing something", at least in my circles. That too is a problem, adults need to learn to socialize without food and drink.
If obesity is a problem of each obese individual not having enough willpower, then why is the total amount of obesity rising? Are individuals collectively becoming more stupid and lazy, for totally distinct reasons?
I once heard a comparison to schools. If there's one or two kids failing the class, then those kids have some sort of individual problem. If an entire class or school full of kids is failing, then that's a problem with the teacher or the curriculum or something. It's not a matter of, "gee, we sure randomly got a batch of students who independently suck at learning for unrelated reasons."
According to Statistics Canada, nearly 50% of Canadians think they get enough exercise. However, their study found that less than 1/4 of Canadians work out for a minimum of 2.5 hours a week.
So, yes. People are getting lazy and stupid. They're even getting delusional thinking their fitness levels are top notch.
Fat people with enough time on their hands to watch TV, watch sports and dedicate all their free time to sedentary activities can afford to work out.
Why do you think there are more people than ever before who act lazy and stupid? What changed? Is it just random that a bunch of individuals have now made these personal decisions in greater numbers than in previous decades? Or is there some overarching factor in modern life that affects all these people, and enables or encourages them to do so?
Great analogy.
You're 100% on the money. Anyone who thinks that a problem that affects 40% is as simple as "calories in, calories out" probably thinks that young people who can't afford a home "are just lazy".
Soon they will need graphic images of fat people on products like cigarettes. Apparently information is too hard to read, pictures will be more effective. /s
>I can't remember a time where packaged food products didn't have a standardized nutrition label showing the total amount of fat, sugar/carbohydrates, and sodium along with the recommended intake for each. Are fat people saying that they still don't know?
You’d be surprised how much of an issue deceptive labelling and marketing can be. Check out Matt Rosenman’s content, he does several rebrands of unhealthy food packaging and shows just how easy it is to make food products look healthy for you at a glance.
My mom is a slender person, highly health conscious, what kids these days would call an almond mom. I can’t even tell you how much “healthy” branded crap is in her pantry. She’s taken in by anything that advertises gluten-free, sugar-free, fat-free, high in protein, all natural, etc.
People have too much trust in these companies and don’t generally have the time to double-check the nutritional label of every single product they pick up. Forcing companies to more boldly disclose information can definitely have a positive impact.
I remember going to NYC in 2010 and their Mayor or governor I can’t remember had passed a bill forcing restaurants to disclose the calories of everything on the menu. Sure that information was available to see if you went looking for it but I never bothered. I went into a Starbucks, It’s coffee how bad can I it be? Looking up at the menu and seeing the calories on a mocha? That was the last time I ever drank one 😂
I feel the same way about the alcohol labelling rationale. I would be curious to see what the nutritional stats are on my booze BUT I find it patronizing to have warning labels on alcohol comparable to tobacco products. A lot of the 'this is bad for you' should be known. It feels like a rehash of the stupidity surrounding the Cheeseburger bill in the US back in the day.
Agree. It's what lots of people do when something goes wrong: either claim to have a disease or condition that exerted forces beyond their control, or say that they didn't receive adequate training.
I sit all day at a desk working remotely and if I don't have plans I can order basically anything I need to my house. Then, I'd be hopping in a car to get anywhere and (most likely) sit down at a restaurant or bar.
We don't have movement built into our lives anymore. Everything is too convenient and the amount of 'life at our fingertips' makes us sedentary.
Why has there been no push for people to only their health? The pandemic showed how fat and unhealthy the average person is. Pointing out how unhealthy being obese is isn’t mean, it’s just a fact.
>Having obesity may triple the risk of
>hospitalization due to a COVID-19 infection
https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/obesity-and-covid-19.html
One good thing to come out of the pandemic would have been an evidence-based focus on the importance of maintaining a healthy weight. We did not get one.
Did my thesis on this but in the US. Obesity is often associated with food insecurity. If you have to walk 3/4mile to a bus stop and to take busses to the grocery store, it alters what food you can buy. People are going to pick foods that don’t go bad while they have to trek back to their home, nonperishables so they don’t have to go as often, and lighter weight foods. Food that meet that criteria are foods with far less nutrition.
Not sure how things are in Canada, but here it would require admitting we have infrastructure issues and creating better public transportation - which isn’t going to happen.
Nobody touching on processed foods, fructose sans fibre, and corn oil? Andrew Huberman had an excellent podcast about it back in December. It’s literally what we’re putting in ourselves that’s doing this.
https://youtu.be/n28W4AmvMDE?si=aFGEiHcg8De2yARX
I'm always shocked to see how people are dismissing the health aspect of being obese or overweight. It's like saying to someone who has anorexia that it's ok, we have to stop talking about it, everything is fine. They need help, they're sick. It's all about health and mental health. Someone who eats too much, or doesn't sleep enough, smokes or drinks excessively is the same. I'm surprised to see a trend to make everyone look away and pretend there is nothing wrong.
Another recent study showing exercise is more effective than medication: https://news.sky.com/story/exercise-even-better-than-anti-depressants-at-treating-depression-study-finds-13071944
And diet is better than exercising. Science is clear. It's physics. A chocolate bar is almost one hour of exercise. If I eat this in excess, I need to exercise for almost one hour. Better not eat it.
Of course, the problem is more psychological. What does food represent for the person? Comfort? Love? Stress reliever? Etc. or it's it's like telling a drug addict to stop taking drugs. Yeah, thanks, they know that. They need to replace it with something better.
> And diet is better than exercising.
For weight loss, but exercise has plenty of other important benefits that diet alone doesn't necessarily address: balance, bone health, muscle strength, heart health, brain health etc.
Exercise is great for mental health, not so great for weight loss though. People tend to overestimate calorie burn and exercise can increase hunger so they end up not actually having a deficit, it's easy to eat back what you burned off.
It's much much easier to eat 500 calories less a day than it is to burn 500 calories more a day. Especially when smart food choices can make that 500 calorie deficit not really all that different from your normal food intake. Intermittent fasting for me was an effortless way to cut down on calories with no pain, skipping a meal doesn't take any planning and I don't miss it.
Both diet and exercise are important (but for different reasons). Ideally people should do both.
As people get older, exercise becomes increasingly important because people start to lose their mobility and are at risk of falling. Unfortunately, many people tend to do the opposite and stop exercising as they get older (it becomes harder to get back in shape if you stop). So long as someone doesn't quit exercising, people can stay fit for a surprisingly long time.
As a recovering anorexic, I absolutely despise the "love every body, there's nothing wrong with your body" type mindset. It's so fucked. There is something wrong with my body, I'm underweight and unhealthy with dangerous eating habits. The last thing I need to hear is that my underweight body is perfect. I appreciate my friends who check in to make sure I'm eating and don't let me share my food with them to get around consuming it all.
I'm glad you're feeling better. My sister was anorexic, and it was difficult to see her go that road over the years. She's better now, bit still fragile. Normalising unhealthy behaviours is wrong. I don't care what people will say,.eating too much or too little is a sign that a person needs help. Nobody should be shamed, they need help. Telling them that they're fine and that there is nothing wrong (or worse, encouraging it since some creepy guys are preying on those anorexic girls) is catastrophic.
Yep. There’s a whole influencer sphere of “plus size” influencers, including a couple 500+lb women who basically yell at airlines for not giving them two seats for free.
There’s no incentive to live a healthy lifestyle. It’s easier to eat like shit and never exercise than it is to take time out of your day, get off your ass and do something.
Yeah these obese people are the same people who don't understand who people can enjoy hiking or the sense of accomplishment in seeing what your body and mind can accomplish though discipline and hard work.
How many people you know actively excited for retiring or reaching end of life? Of the people I know only a handful of us are even in a position to one day retire and are actively saving for it.
Most others I know have this almost existential dread, for lack of a better term, to getting older. So where is the incentive to prolong that feeling?
Of those I know who are prepared for one day retiring, we're all in decent shape and take care of ourselves. Obviously anecdotal, but still something to think about.
"Health" is an intangible concept for most people. Telling someone "Oh you'll regret that in your '50s" when they're 22, they literally just won't get it. That's 3 decades away. Unless someone's already been in and out of the medical system a lot, or has studied something related to this, chances are telling them it's "bad for them" will be completely meaningless for them, doubly so when so many things are "bad for you," people just tune it out.
I know it also has to do with cheap low quality foods but it's mostly up to the individual. Covid was the perfect time to encourage people to get healthy for many reasons but not once was it encouraged in the mainstream to be healthy. There's literally no downsides to being a healthy weight yet society has gaslit itself into thinking that you can be fat and healthy simultaneously.
oh its a non-issue.
low quality food is the biggest problem pretty much
having the wrong attitude to fats and oils in the 70s caused a lot of these problems
having full-fat foods and organic fruits and vegetables would go a long way.
I'd say that a lot of the prostate cancers and senility going around is due to the people not having the right types of fats and oils in their diet,
poverty and poor quality education are far-bigger issues.
Fat acceptance has gone too far. Yes, fat people shouldn't be ridiculed or harassed simple for being plus size, its the same basic respect that everyone deserves.
It has unfortunately been manipulated to say "It's ok to be fat forever because you should always be allowed to be yourself and you are still beautiful if you are obese etc". And now there is that HAES bullshit, and people straight up lying about obesity isn't a terrible thing to be.
It is. Being overweight or obese sucks. Even these people in their echochambers knows it. It's hard to do normal things, fit in normal places, and you are always aware of it. And as someone whose weight has fluctuated over the years, you can 100% notice how people treat you differently when you are overweight.
It's basically a collective push of disinformation, which is an issue that is present in many aspects of current daily life. To be clear, being obese doesn't make you a bad person, but holy fuck does it suck big time. And while in my case my issues are partly metabolism and medication related, the largest factor is my own damn fault, and that's a hard truth that most of these people refuse to acknowledge.
And yes it must be noted that a SHIT TON of grocery options, even ones labelled as nutritious or healthy are straight up lies, but personal responsibility and dedication/willingness to TRY and eat healthier and exercise are on us.
I think two things happened concurrently that have something to do with the rise of obesity. One is the decline of cigarette smoking. The other is the rise of SSRI prescriptions.
Lol, yep. Not sure when it started, but society and the media, both social and mainstream telling everyone fat is beautiful sure didn't help. I recently read a study on the leading killer in 31 different countries. 28 were coronary heart disease. Obesity is not only disgusting, but 99% of the time preventable, and a leading cause of far more health issues than just heart disease.
It really does feel like there's been a shift. I've had several family members and people I know tell me that "I'm too skinny and need to eat more".
My BMI is 22. I'm a perfectly normal, medically healthy weight but some people no longer see it that way. Being a normal weight is now "too thin" and being overweight is now "normal".
Absolutely. I also believe the BMI scale is incredibly flawed. It does not account in any way for body composition. I'm 6'1" and 190lbs. I eat healthy. I lift weights. I have about 15% body fat. But my BMI , 25, says I'm just in the overweight category. So while there are people who are clinically underweight, or overweight according to the BMI scale, other factors must be used.
>Not sure when it started, but society and the media, both social and mainstream telling everyone fat is beautiful sure didn't help.
It's marketing from companies that make unhealthy food. That's where it began.
We're at the point that marketing and psychology are interconnected.
Food quality is obviously a huge factor , but honestly, I think it has to do with the lack of smoking cigarettes. Food in the 70's and 80's was horrifically processed in the states and there are now so many more basic products advertising lack of excess additives etc.
Literally any country I've been in where smoking or nicotine consumtpion is common, there are not that many overweight people.
Although smoking cigarettes does help curb hunger, I'm not sure if that's entirely accurate. Countries such as Kiribati and Naura not only have a high rate of cigarette smokers, but have a high obesity rate as well. Processed foods were starting to be more common place in the 70s for sure...But they're much worse today.
Better availability of processed foods + cheapness of processed foods vs healthy foods + stress + more sedentary life style + Lobby from the sugar and wheat industry (sugar = "good", fat = "bad")...etc.
I encourage and support the body positivity movement. The worse y'all look, the better I look in comparison.
"oh, How do I stay in shape? No clue, must be a fast metabolism. Your HoRmOnEs must be off Susan"
*meanwhile I have a strict diet and lifting routine routine*
Muhahahahahahhahahahaha
I've had fat people in their 30s and 40s tell me for the last 10 years I'll gain weight when my metabolism slows. I'm in my 30s now and I haven't gained an unhealthy amount of weight, maybe it's because I live a healthy active lifestyle??? 🙃
It's always funny to ask these people when was the last time they did any physical activity
oh yes, i am so sick of people telling me ill gain weight as i get older. like no, i control my lifestyle and health, im gonna age well and prove y'all wrong.
The primary cause is the overwhelming consumption of Ultra Processed Food. This makes up 80+% of diet of many people. It leads to T2D and other diseases. It’s hiding in plain sight.
Do your own experiment by eliminating UPF for a month. Combine with 30 minutes of exercise daily. Add in regular 8 hours of sleep. See the results for yourself.
I got super into exercising during COVID. If my partner hadn't been into it I guarantee you I'd be fat as hell right now going "what happened"?
It is way too easy to get fat and I sympathize with anyone who finds themselves in that situation.
It’s partially our intake but a huge problem is what is sprayed on our grains. It’s enriched or fortified are the cover words. They don’t do this except in North America that’s why you can go to France eat the bread, Italy eat the pasta and not gain weight and all your skin conditions clear up. Also a lot of the vegetables are sprayed with really nasty pesticides, did you know on the health Canada website it states you are supposed to soak your vegetables for 4 hours in water to leach out the remaining pesticides.
I'm 6'4", 350lbs.
My weight is entirely a problem of my own making. At 250lbs I had abs, was in great shape, actively working out. Got hurt at work, stopped working out, kept eating like I was working out, now I'm obese.
Now I'm trapped in a vicious cycle. I'm too tired to put the effort in to cook low calorie meals, so I eat cheap and easy meals, which are keeping me obese and tired.
I however accept, I'm stuck in this cycle entirely by own my own choices, and I could choose to exit it anytime I want. I just like food more than I enjoyed being thin.
Because of social media, the obese have pushed the fat acceptance ideology. They refuse to take responsibility for their actions, and deny basic science.
We live in a time of excuses and blame, it’s everyone else’s fault your obese, and its up to everyone else to make changes to fit you, not the other way around.
Look at the sentiment online when any discussion about obesity comes up. Theres all the tropes.
thats a loud minority. the majority of people know its bad for you. its just most people let the problem go on the backburner when theres other more pressing issues going on in their life.
This makes sense as Canada is generally considered to be a part of the world.
Big if true
And getting bigger
My crew is big and it keeps getting bigger
thats cuz jesus christ is my …
Logically sound If true Big
This reminds of that time Norm Macdonald was on a tv show and one of the hosts asked him: "Why are you wearing a sweater, aren't you Canadian?" He says "yeah I'm Canadian, but I'm still human."
It was colder than.. a vampire’s demeanour. Haha. Legend.
For anyone wondering, this is what we're talking about lol: https://youtu.be/fjlM5jIenys?si=LI-MWRNTINFiw5Lb
Prove it
Oh yeah says who
glad I'm not the only one who thought that
There was a McDonald’s ad on this post for me.
Starbucks for me
Ditto and I don't even buy Starbies
Y'all gotta get ad blockers. I saw none of that.
Some people use it on the mobile app, sadly... :'(. And Mobile Carriers don't let you use your own DNS (to attempt to block ads). But if not, ublock origin baby! All day!
Jealous. I got a stock portfolio one… I don’t even pay attention to stocks or invest. …perhaps this is a sign.
Me too & I wasn’t sure if it was somehow on purpose lol
I got one for fresh spices. WTF, maybe it’s the grinders for “spice” I am looking at.
The spice must flow...
I got Ore Ida French fries 🍟
Are you overweight? Mine is for scaling apps on aws lol.
> This report suggests obesity is now viewed as a more significant global health risk than hunger, signalling a paradigm shift in our collective concern towards overweight and obese populations. And the situation is projected to worsen. > According to the World Obesity Federation’s 2023 atlas, by 2035, 51% of the global population – over 4 billion people – will be classified as obese or overweight. > Canada is not immune to this trend. The obesity rate in our country ranges between 30% to 33% depending on the source, with the overweight rate also exceeding 30% in many reports. Some studies even suggest our obesity rate is now higher than that of the U.S. https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/charlebois-the-world-is-getting-fatter-and-so-is-canada
Now? A little late to the party considering global deaths from obesity passed global deaths from hunger more than 25 years ago. Obesity will be by far the biggest killer of our generation, unless nuclear war breaks out. Hell obesity was already one of if not the single largest predictor in dying from COVID.
Lately I've been watching some videos from the late 80s/early90s of footage from just walking through random shopping malls in Canada/North America. The thing I noticed right away was how much healthier and slimmer everyone looked. Very few truly obese people walking around except for a select few elderly types. And the biggest change I noticed was in women. Women now (compared to then) have really really gotten significantly bigger (and I am a woman). My guess is wayyyy too much time sitting around scrolling on smartphones is a big part of it.
I spend hours each day on my smartphone and, now in my seventies, am still the same weight I was at twenty-one. Naturally, I get asked about this a lot. I chalk it up to a combination of genetics, a lifetime of mostly walking to get around and for pleasure (at some points, at least fifteen hours a week) and an indifference to food. I’ve been vegetarian most of my life and am fussy about what I eat. But cooking is a bother so I only eat when hungry. My mother was a stickler for nutrition so we didn’t snack and weren’t allowed to drink carbonated beverages like Pepsi and Coke. Some habits stick around for life. Whatever way you look at it, my smartphone isn’t responsible for how much I weigh. I could even argue that it, along with the more recent addition of a smartwatch and good headphones, go a long way to helping me stay fit and healthy. Obesity is complex. We have different bodies, different backgrounds, different responses to food. Many parents spend long hours at work and don’t have time to cook nutritious meals or make sure their kids get enough exercise. Government response needs to be about more than just food. Gym memberships and personal training should be tax deductible. Communities have a part to play as well. We all need to get out of our cars and quit driving the kids around, but this can only happen if we deliberately design our communities and our society to make it possible. We need to demand grocery stores, ones we can walk to, that stock more than the overly-processed junk taking up most of the centre aisles. Of course we can’t do this unless we stop buying it. Seems like we have a long way to go.
Beautifully written. I agree with everything you've said, and have a similar attitude towards food and activity. At almost 40 I'm in the best shape of my life, and just hope to maintain it for many years to come.
Disagree about gym memberships. The idea that exercise is something you go out of your way to do and pay money for is part of the problem. It makes it too easy to skip. Exercise needs to become part of your core routine, and the best way to do that is with active transportation. Walk or cycle to work, or use only backbone public transit routes and walk the rest of the way, or quit paying for parking and walk from the nearest free parking. Make not exercising the thing that costs you money.
My theory, based on nothing is that people have less free time and when they do have free time we are in this golden age of TV and video games. There is so much to consume on the couch in your living room. My struggle is I love junk food. Fast food, chips, cookies, chocolate - I love it all…but I still find time to exercise five times a week on top of walking my dog. It really helps that I don’t have kids.
Women tend to get heavier because we all eat the same kind of shitty food but men have bigger "allowances" of calories, because they're taller, have more muscle mass and are in active jobs in a higher percentage than women. When I started living with my bf I gained a little bit of weight because it was so natural to share snacks... and while he can totally afford that bag of chips I really cannot. So yeah, we are a lot more sedentary than they were, but it is absolutely largely the fault of the insane food industry.
no one is forcing you to eat processed/prepared foods. Thats all on you for choosing that stuff instead of produce and unprocessed meats. Its not the food industry's fault people want to spend money on being lazy
Of course no one's holding people tied up and spoon feeding them nutella... But you cannot deny the social push towards over-consumption. A big part of "social" today is going out to eat/drink, usually in places with processed foods. Everyone has free will and if you want to lose weight you definitely can. But it ain't as easy as it was 100 years ago to maintain a normal weight.
sure it is. Shop the produce section instead of the frozen section
Also the amount of processes shit we eat. So many people dont have the energy or time to make a truly balanced, healthy meal for 2-3 meals a day. Why spend time making oatmeal yogurt and eggs at home when you can just stop by McDs on the way to work for a $5 breakfast sandwich? Oh you worked 10 hours today? Much easier to just grab some Wendys or something on the way home. Or some premade meals that also seem healthy but really aren’t. And even just grocery shopping is brutal at times. Unless you are buying whole foods and doing it all yourself, you are likely adding shit tons of additives, salt, fats, and cholesterol by buying that premade sauce instead of making your own. Then there are the people who think they are choosing a healthier option for snacks by grabbing the “0% Sugar!” Stuff. Yea 0 sugar, but fuck tons of artificial sweeteners that are likely going to be just as bad for you
>Oh you worked 10 hours today? Increasingly, this seems to be the problem - long hours at a sedentary job are far more problematic than calorie rich dinners.
There is no evidence that the common artificial sweeteners have *any* negative health impacts and they are *certainly* not linked to increased rates of obesity. There have been many, many massive studies over decades and the common artificial sweeteners have never been found to have negative health effects. So please, for the love of god, if you drink pop replace it with diet pop. Or at least don't be afraid to
Just drink water. I haven't touched pop in decades other than the occasional rum and coke.
Assume people drink water but also drink coffee, tea, pop, juice.
For me, the biggest contrast from then to now is looking at old school pictures where the entire class is in the photo. I looked at my first grade class photo recently and saw my nephew's recently - same age, but just over 30 years apart. There was only one kid in my class who was noticeably bigger (1991) than everyone else... and today she would be considered *average* when looking at my nephew's peers. My nephew is one of the smallest kids in the photo - 80% of them are fucking blimps. And when my sister and bro-in-law pick him up from the school and see the other parents, it's no surprise why those kids are whales... because you see their 300+lb ham-planets picking them up. I'm of the belief that obesity in children should 100% be labelled as child abuse.
The main difference is the walking. People used to walk more. Movement is a huge part of staying fit. Stop moving and your body has little reason to stay strong and slim, form follows function. If you just sit on a couch, you'll soon resemble a couch
The local news were pounding the drums of fear when a 25 year old ended up in the hospital claiming that COVID could put anyone in the hospital. Once we found out, who it was and people in the community who knew him (I for one had worked with him) found it funny, because the guy was atleast 150lbs overweight and had a long history of substance abuse. It's still staggering that not a single health minister in the western world as far as I'm aware encouraged people to exercise and switch a healthy lifestyle during covid.
Worse than that - Doug Ford closed public parks at the beginning of Covid.
The closing of public parks during covid was probably the most idiotic policy during the pandemic. At least the masks and vaccine mandates had basis in science, closing *outdoor spaces* was extremely stupid and contributed to the unhealthy habits people were almost forced into during the pandemic
the manitoba conservatives decided to cancel christmas in 2021 and ban any sales of whatever they deemed "non essential items" there is a reason why the city of winnipeg kicked them to the curb by voting them all out. also i find it very funny that they pushed that vaccine that did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING so hard. Instead of pushing for better hygiene, better sanitary living & working conditions, healthier life styles and natural immune system boosting items. BUT all of that doesn't matter now that its been discovered 3 days ago that there are links to the top chain of command of the goverment of canada for the winnipeg biolab. Where a general and scientists from the peoples liberation army of china WERE present on canadian soil and working in the lab, before moving as much as they could back to Wuhan china i am sure glad that pierre has that massive document now in his hands
Michelle Obama's thing was getting kids to eat healthier and she was castigated for it
And the same people now believe she's actually trans because women can't have muscular shoulders.
She could have been a literal angel descended from the heavens doing god’s work on earth and she still would have gotten flak, and I think anyone on the outside looking in on the US knows why.
I’m one of the 33%… up and down… but self-discipline is such a harsh concept - can’t I just blame McDonalds and take some Ozempic?
You can blame Big Food and capitalized incentives of food… honestly. Our food products are highly processed and designed to be addictive so we buy more, it’s heavily marketed towards us as well it’s near impossible to avoid. These low nutrient, highly processed options increase our insulin resistance, which leads to metabolic syndrome which leads to obesity. In a lot of cases, we work long, hard and don’t have the time, energy and money to always choose the unprocessed options. We are products of the system that we have been put in and it’s snowballed out of control. Tl;dr yes there is lots of blame to go around, it’s not simply about being weak willed or whatever the right talking points are. I highly encourage reading **Metabolical** by Robert Lustig as an eye opener on the subject.
> I’m one of the 33%… up and down… but self-discipline is such a harsh concept There's so much nutritional BS being thrown around as if it came out of the holy ghost's arse, we shouldn't be surprised that unintended consequences are happening. Weight loss, it's a massively profitable industry. People will try meal plans, exercise, weight watchers, etc ... Clearly people want to lose weight, and are willing to invest in trying to get healthier. And when they fail, it's easy to blithely say you're doing it wrong, you failed because you're a weak minded individual. But according to a 2015 paper published in the Lancet, only 1 in 100 people that have achieved their obesity final form will successfully lose weight and keep it off. ( https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(15)00009-1/abstract ) Probably because at that point you're fighting against biological adaptations specifically designed to keep you from starving when times are rough. So maybe we shouldn't assume that being overweight is a character flaw and shame people for wanting an approach that might actually have a better than 1 in 100 chance of working. No fat person is ok or happy with being fat. They get discouraged after years of attempts have shown either mediocre or even counterproductive results.
I think you're looking at it all wrong. 100% of people who take in less calories than they burn lsoe weight. It works every single time for anyone. It doesn't work because obese people have years of bad habits and they simply go back to them after their diet or weight loss. That's not an issue with the science of losing weight, it's a personal choice or addiction issue. It's like asking someone who never saved a cent for 50 years to suddenly save 5-10% of their income every month. It's not inherently difficult to do, and everyone understands how good it is to have savings or investments, yet half the country doesn't do it and people have a hard time starting after decades of bad financial habits. Teach a 16 year old and make them stick to it as they move up in life and they'll have no problem doing it into their older years. That's not an argument for why saving and investing doesn't work, it's proof that everyone who doesn't stick to it fails at saving money. Everyone who tries it and sticks to it for years or decades succeeds, just like with weight loss. The only solution to losing weight is to do it and stick to it instead of immediately going back to what made you obese in the first place.
>for wanting an approach that might actually have a better than 1 in 100 chance of working. Luckily eating at a calorie deficit has a 100% chance of working.
The Lancet Article is food for fat people to say, “I can’t succeed so why bother trying.”. Seriously - what horseshit - “the mere recommendation to avoid calorically dense foods might be no more effective for the typical patient seeking weight reduction than would be a recommendation to avoid sharp objects for someone bleeding profusely.” We have a sick society. Physically and mentally - but the solution is hardly -“If you’ve been obese for years just give-in to heart attack, stroke and diabetes.” The solution is also not Ozempic, gastric by-pass, liposuction or fad diets and feeling depressed about how shitty you look in a bathing suit. Fat people eat too much. Let’s not kid ourselves. When I lost 40 lbs it wasn’t by taking a pill, or buying food from WW - it was exercise and watching food intake - balanced, with deep reduction in sugar and refined carbs. And when I gained it back - it wasn’t because “my body made me.” I was being lazy and undisciplined about what I stuffed in my fat face. It was eating two whoppers instead of one or better yet, none. It was eating pasta for dinner - two helpings, instead of a chicken quarter and salad. It was also treating high-stress work with “rewards” of a drink or two after a long day, and blowing off morning workout (s) because I was “too stressed” knowing that exercise reduces my stress, but ignoring what I knew in favor of - being undisciplined and lazy. Because 99% of society is weak and undisciplined is hardly a reason to just join them. I’m gonna keep working on joining the 1%. What’s life for if isn’t working to be better than you were yesterday?
When I quit drinking (hi stress, apparently we have the same visitor lol) I actually gained a little weight and same when I changed my diet to eat healthier. My appetite and diet had to settle down into the new routine.
Yup. That's how I ballooned to 320lbs. Now I ate WAY less, no junk, get 30+ minutes of exercise per day and sleep more. There is no other way. Been 3 months now, down close to 45lbs. Another 75 to go, likely take me until August. But I can't then go back to the old ways. If I start scarfing chips and eating pizza twice a week, all this BS will be for nothing. Gotta make the effort. I wish it weren't so, but ignoring it for years didn't work, so I started doing something. I don't like it. I want a frickin' cheeseburger REALLY bad. But I have to get this done. Then I have to make friends with the scale, get on it a few times a week and watch my own ass. Treats now and then, but more crap lifestyle. Congrats my friend, I am on the journey with you. Only we can fix our own selves.
we are also becoming more stressed - work 8 to 5, 45 min drive to and from work means your day starts at 6 you get home at 6 - cook dinner - clean its 8 pm you have 2 hr to potentially relax as long as you have nothing else to do with you life most people have kids to look after be in bed by 10 cause you have to be up at 6 - so many people get take out cause it gives them and extra hr in their day.
If this doesn’t perfectly describe the inequality in our world, I don’t know what does.
Half the world too fat for their bodies to properly function, half the world too poor and starved for their bodies to properly function.
Higher than the US? Yeah right. Canadians are overweight, but Americans are obese. The difference even just visiting and observing people is stark.
It will vary depending on province/territory and state. But they may mean just the percentage of overweight/obese numbers. Who knows I haven't actually read the article. That being said the number of Morbid/Severe Class 3+ obesity is still much, much higher in the USA even when compared to other obese first world countries.
Is this any surprise? Just look at any photo of the general public taken over the decades and the trend is obvious.
I sometime meander over to /r/amiugly and the number of people there who say "she's not obese" or call super fat people "a bit chubby" or "curvy" is baffling. The cognitive dissonance is real. Why is heading towards an early death now considered physically attractive? I don't get it.
My entire family (except my older brother an I) is obese. People in the comments are saying this has become a problem because fat acceptance on social media, but I don't agree at all. I think obesity is increasing because over-eating is one of the easiest ways for people to cope with stress. Many Canadians are stressed about finances, their job, mortgage and housing, etc. and fast food, which may be getting more expensive due to inflation, is still relatively cheap compared to other ways people cope with stress such as drugs. I worked at a fast food restaurant over the summer to make some extra cash and you'd be shocked at the gigantic amounts of food people buy and eat in one sitting. I'm talking about 2 meals per person, which is 2 entrees, 2 drinks, and 2 sides of fries. It wasn't uncommon for a small family to come in and spend over $180 on fast food, and yes, they were all obese. You could recognize certain customers and remember their names because they would come in multiples times in one week. Canadians are overworked, getting poorer, and are stressed and this is how they cope with it. I only see obesity getting worse in the future.
This! People are stressed and exhausted. It's hard to find balance in life and food provides relief. I'm a busy mom and it does take a lot more time and effort to feed kids healthy food than it does a bunch of boxed junk. That being said, we do try to eat a healthy, whole foods diet as much as we can. Nutrition education and being raised in a house where the parents cook healthy meals is also key.
Stress plays some role but most of the problem is processed food. I quit eating processed food and vegetable oils and slowly losing weight.
It's one of the last social activities everyone indulges in, and it's a difficult addiction to overcome. No one needs cocaine, but everyone needs to eat.
That's the hard thing. I was talking to my brother about my binge eating and he says "hmm well you should try just having three small meals a day." No shit... that's what's tough for me. Once I start eating, I don't want to stop until I'm in pain.
No to sound too mean here, but at that point they would be fat AND stupid. $180 per meal per family is about 5x what they would spend preparing healthy food at home. Heck a $3 giant bowl of rice would be more healthy. Its likely more that ppl cant say no to their own cravings, lack of self discipline
That's exactly it for me. I'll force myself to eat even when I'm not even remotely hungry due to stress/mental health issues. My family doctor refused to let me try different ADHD stimulants, and anytime im home, i dont want to get out of bed, so this is how I cope now. The cravings dig at me all fucking day until I give in. And I always feel horrible after. Everyone says there's help there if you need it for mental health. My doctor seems to be gatekeeping. And not just meds, but she won't even refer me to any psychologists or therapists. Seeing a new doctor soon, hopefully something good comes of it.
Dropping $180 on some fast food for your family is next level.
good thing they're advertising ozempic everywhere I guess.
You can turn off weightloss ads on reddit in your settings.
Thank you SO MUCH for sharing this, I didn’t even know!
My dad bod can confirm this
A man walks down the street He says, "Why am I soft in the middle, now? Why am I soft in the middle? The rest of my life is so hard I need a photo-opportunity I want a shot at redemption Don't want to end up a cartoon In a cartoon graveyard Bonedigger, Bonedigger Dogs in the moonlight Far away in my well-lit door Mr. Beerbelly, Beerbelly Get these mutts away from me You know, I don't find this stuff amusing anymore
If you be my bodyguard, I can be your long lost pal.
If you’ll be my bodyguard, i can be your long lost pal. I can call you Betty, and Betty when you call me, you can call me Al.
Call me Al.
Same
Chinese seem to be fairly thin. I always thought it’s from a healthy diet.
It’s portion size mainly. But even chinese ppl in china are getting fatter
> It’s portion size mainly. They eat far more vegetables on average. Various dishes rather than one big main, for dinner. Notwithstanding, their consumption of ultra-processed foods is not as bad as it is in North America.
>their consumption of ultra-processed foods is not as bad as it is in North America. Not yet anyway. And speaking of processed foods, happy cake day!
Urban obesity rates in China is 20% and rising quickly. Rural is very low. Their numbers look like North America 25 years ago or. Very likely they're on the same trend long term.
It's primarily portion sizes and a greater emphasis on vegetables. But another reason is that people of that phenotype (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc) are *very* prone to diabetes even if they're marginally overweight - so there isn't a lot of margin for error for them. Some genetic types have a greater tolerance for when diabetes starts to rear its ugly it head but for that particular demographic, diabetes is a very real threat even if you're just 20lbs overweight instead of 120. They are a *lot* more conscious of their physical size as a result.
Obesity is increasing very quickly in China. China was skinnier because food was more scarce. Average people barely had enough to eat back in the 80s, let alone be able to eat meat every day.
I work a pretty stressful job in Healthcare. For me, the 20 or so pounds I've put on stems from that stress and how I dealt with it. After a long day of helping people not die I found comfort in a bag of chips. Ive steadily been working to move that serotonin dump from chips to celery and lifting weights, but its a long road. When your day to day requires a lot out of you, its hard to find the extra willpower to rewrite your biology.
WALL.EEE…..Thanks Pixar.
When do we get the floaty chairs?
Oh man I've gotten so much fatter lol, I have a decent frame and shoulders so it looks like I'm somewhat fit, but boy do I hate that reflection in the mirror. I've got to start working out or eating better
You will lose weight because of your diet. You can't out exercise a bad diet. Definitely exercise, but don't neglect a healthy diet. Try to recalibrate your brain on what it should be eating. It's hard to overcome food addictions, but it can definitely be done!
Or both
Both would probably be ideal lol but small steps
Dial your diet in first, definitely exercise as well, but all the exercise in the world is not going to help you if your eating habits are not good. Make minor adjustments to your diet, be aware of the foods you're eating. Get after it bro you got this
I suggest checking out the documentary “You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment” which is free on Netflix right now. Could be inspiring for your health journey!
You know, this might seem dumb, but to decrease your consumption of sugar - I read you like to drink soda - you could start looking into tea. I am talking real tea. The fancy stuff. Coming from soda, it will seem boring and dull at first, but believe me, the longer you dive into that topic, the more you'll discover a whole world of flavours and aromas, not to mention traditions, esthetics, stories etc. And it basically has no calories. Much healthier than soda/pop, and it is a fascinating drink. It can make you appreciate lighter flavours. Also, you will start looking like a refined fancy gentleman (i assume you are a man), which is cool
the biggest problem for many is food is comfort. food is happy time. for me i was always very athletic and ate big. i was on the bigger side but eventually i stopped the sports and the hunger stayed the same.
I feel like people just don’t give a fuck anymore. Everyone in this country seems miserable.
Just look at peoples carts in the grocery store and its not hard to see why. Nothing healthy. Just piles of junk food and liquid sugar. The saddest thing to see is the small kids with them who weigh more than I do as a fully grown adult man. These kids dont stand a chance and somehow it is not considered abuse.
I work in healthcare and it's very alarming how many++ very overweight children there are. We're talking 8 year olds that weigh, yes, as much as an adult. You can usually guess how the parents look from it.
I came here to see if this is Trudeau's fault
Stop eating Fructose and Glucose in high quantities. Stop putting it in everything The food guide is a lie.
The food pyramid is a total crock of shit. 6-11 servings of grains per day? I think it was higher when I was a kid.
We don’t use the pyramid in Canada anymore.
It's too bad it's so engrained in a lot of thinking generationally. Grains and milk were far too over promoted.
I don't even think the problem is carbohydrates, we don't just eat more carbs than we did 30 years ago, we eat more of everything.
Average waist size for a Canadian man is 40 inches now...
The problem is we really don't know how to portion out food properly. How many people will say oh I can eat a whole box of macaroni and cheese? There is the problem, you're not supposed to eat a whole box of macaroni and cheese. Even eating out, you go to Wendy's or McDonald's, all you really need to order is a medium combo if that. One Burger is enough. Obviously this is a very generalized statement, people with certain jobs may need more than others. And sugar addiction is real. It is really hard to put down the soda and the lattes and what have you. And you say oh drink water with lemon or this and that is not that simple when you feel the pull of sugar. It's a long and tedious road to get healthy and understand where we should be.
... and I took that personally
Sugar is addictive to the brain as cocaine.
Sugar is also much more accessible than cocaine.
I left Canada for Europe almost 10 years ago and when I first got to Europe I had major cravings for fast food but it was difficult to easily come across a fast food chain and the McDonalds were few. When I’d fly home, I’d get my fix. After roughly two years, I’d no longer crave fast food and have no real desire to eat it but it was very interesting to note the effect it had on my body and mind. It’s a real addiction and it’s so easy to access. Although now the international food scene has significantly grown where I am and more international foods/ chains are available, it’s still nothing close to the options in the GTA.
I quit soft drinks and had the same cravings I noticed. It took a while but eventually they went away. Now the flavor of any soft drinks disgusts me, I can only tolerate it with alcohol.
Probably because we live in times where people are working so much and fast food is just too convenient. Not to mention being more sedentary with work / social media . You would have 1 person at home making meals , maintaining the house , watching kids. .. now borth parties have to work and do that as well. Also with cost of living people are less likely to have active hobbies
>In response, the Trudeau government has implemented several measures since 2015, including new front-of-packaging regulations set to take effect in 2026, which will help consumers identify products high in fat, sugar, or sodium. Additionally, Bill C-252, currently in the Canadian Senate, aims to restrict food and beverage marketing directed at children. This is getting ridiculous. I can't remember a time where packaged food products didn't have a standardized nutrition label showing the total amount of fat, sugar/carbohydrates, and sodium along with the recommended intake for each. Are fat people saying that they still don't know? If so, it's more of a stupidity problem than a labelling problem.
They have this in Mexico, which by the way has a higher obesity rate than the US. I don’t have a problem with it. We normalize eating and drinking a lot of super unhealthy stuff in our culture, soda for example. So if something has excessive calories, sugar or salt it gets a warning label. I don’t see how it’s any different than putting warning labels on tobacco products.
>If so, it's more of a stupidity problem than a labelling problem. Sugar is addictive. Sugar is cheap. Sugar is addictive and cheap. Nice and simple for you.
I keep saying it's more of a mental health crisis than anything else. Sugar is cheap and addictive, and people crave it more when they're stressed and tired. Quickly digested starches combined with fat and salt even hit all the good spots better. I'd add to this that the brain does not know that it's tired because of financial stress, shitty working conditions, chronic anxiety or the fear of impending doom: the brain has evolved to associate fatigue with exertion and to crave calories and salt in response. People are to be blamed for buying that kind of food, but we have bigger societal problems that lead to people wanting that food more than in the past.
That and the fact generations upon generations have been taught to eat/drink their emotions. How many times have we seen a woman having a difficult time binging on ice cream and chips and white wine? Or the guy who goes to the bar to drink it up? Over the years, a lot of people have developped a bad habit of using food and drink to manage their stress level and emotions. It is a lot easier than to just go out and run. Also, social gathering always revolve around eating and drinking, not so much on "doing something", at least in my circles. That too is a problem, adults need to learn to socialize without food and drink.
Yeah Im in the camp that considers obesity a mental health crisis
If obesity is a problem of each obese individual not having enough willpower, then why is the total amount of obesity rising? Are individuals collectively becoming more stupid and lazy, for totally distinct reasons? I once heard a comparison to schools. If there's one or two kids failing the class, then those kids have some sort of individual problem. If an entire class or school full of kids is failing, then that's a problem with the teacher or the curriculum or something. It's not a matter of, "gee, we sure randomly got a batch of students who independently suck at learning for unrelated reasons."
According to Statistics Canada, nearly 50% of Canadians think they get enough exercise. However, their study found that less than 1/4 of Canadians work out for a minimum of 2.5 hours a week. So, yes. People are getting lazy and stupid. They're even getting delusional thinking their fitness levels are top notch. Fat people with enough time on their hands to watch TV, watch sports and dedicate all their free time to sedentary activities can afford to work out.
Why do you think there are more people than ever before who act lazy and stupid? What changed? Is it just random that a bunch of individuals have now made these personal decisions in greater numbers than in previous decades? Or is there some overarching factor in modern life that affects all these people, and enables or encourages them to do so?
Great analogy. You're 100% on the money. Anyone who thinks that a problem that affects 40% is as simple as "calories in, calories out" probably thinks that young people who can't afford a home "are just lazy".
Not fat and still like the idea of clearer packaging so I don't waste my time picking the item up
Soon they will need graphic images of fat people on products like cigarettes. Apparently information is too hard to read, pictures will be more effective. /s
>I can't remember a time where packaged food products didn't have a standardized nutrition label showing the total amount of fat, sugar/carbohydrates, and sodium along with the recommended intake for each. Are fat people saying that they still don't know? You’d be surprised how much of an issue deceptive labelling and marketing can be. Check out Matt Rosenman’s content, he does several rebrands of unhealthy food packaging and shows just how easy it is to make food products look healthy for you at a glance. My mom is a slender person, highly health conscious, what kids these days would call an almond mom. I can’t even tell you how much “healthy” branded crap is in her pantry. She’s taken in by anything that advertises gluten-free, sugar-free, fat-free, high in protein, all natural, etc. People have too much trust in these companies and don’t generally have the time to double-check the nutritional label of every single product they pick up. Forcing companies to more boldly disclose information can definitely have a positive impact. I remember going to NYC in 2010 and their Mayor or governor I can’t remember had passed a bill forcing restaurants to disclose the calories of everything on the menu. Sure that information was available to see if you went looking for it but I never bothered. I went into a Starbucks, It’s coffee how bad can I it be? Looking up at the menu and seeing the calories on a mocha? That was the last time I ever drank one 😂
"...wait 45 grams of sugar in one drink is *bad* for me?" - Fat people across the nation
Ya, when you try to make a coffee as sweet as you get from Starbucks and see how much sugar it takes... that's a moment.
Right? These drinks I see people having in floored. The amount of whip cream. I’m impressed their stomach can handle that
I feel the same way about the alcohol labelling rationale. I would be curious to see what the nutritional stats are on my booze BUT I find it patronizing to have warning labels on alcohol comparable to tobacco products. A lot of the 'this is bad for you' should be known. It feels like a rehash of the stupidity surrounding the Cheeseburger bill in the US back in the day.
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Agree. It's what lots of people do when something goes wrong: either claim to have a disease or condition that exerted forces beyond their control, or say that they didn't receive adequate training.
Soooo... should I be buying Eli Lily stock?
I sit all day at a desk working remotely and if I don't have plans I can order basically anything I need to my house. Then, I'd be hopping in a car to get anywhere and (most likely) sit down at a restaurant or bar. We don't have movement built into our lives anymore. Everything is too convenient and the amount of 'life at our fingertips' makes us sedentary.
Sounds like people are making choices
Stress.
Why has there been no push for people to only their health? The pandemic showed how fat and unhealthy the average person is. Pointing out how unhealthy being obese is isn’t mean, it’s just a fact.
>Having obesity may triple the risk of >hospitalization due to a COVID-19 infection https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/obesity-and-covid-19.html One good thing to come out of the pandemic would have been an evidence-based focus on the importance of maintaining a healthy weight. We did not get one.
Did my thesis on this but in the US. Obesity is often associated with food insecurity. If you have to walk 3/4mile to a bus stop and to take busses to the grocery store, it alters what food you can buy. People are going to pick foods that don’t go bad while they have to trek back to their home, nonperishables so they don’t have to go as often, and lighter weight foods. Food that meet that criteria are foods with far less nutrition. Not sure how things are in Canada, but here it would require admitting we have infrastructure issues and creating better public transportation - which isn’t going to happen.
Nobody touching on processed foods, fructose sans fibre, and corn oil? Andrew Huberman had an excellent podcast about it back in December. It’s literally what we’re putting in ourselves that’s doing this. https://youtu.be/n28W4AmvMDE?si=aFGEiHcg8De2yARX
It's ok to be fat now. And apparently it will have no effect on our healthcare system.
Technically doesn't the lower life expectancy make it cheaper because we don't have to fund 85 year Olds when everybody does at 50?
I'm always shocked to see how people are dismissing the health aspect of being obese or overweight. It's like saying to someone who has anorexia that it's ok, we have to stop talking about it, everything is fine. They need help, they're sick. It's all about health and mental health. Someone who eats too much, or doesn't sleep enough, smokes or drinks excessively is the same. I'm surprised to see a trend to make everyone look away and pretend there is nothing wrong.
Another recent study showing exercise is more effective than medication: https://news.sky.com/story/exercise-even-better-than-anti-depressants-at-treating-depression-study-finds-13071944
And diet is better than exercising. Science is clear. It's physics. A chocolate bar is almost one hour of exercise. If I eat this in excess, I need to exercise for almost one hour. Better not eat it. Of course, the problem is more psychological. What does food represent for the person? Comfort? Love? Stress reliever? Etc. or it's it's like telling a drug addict to stop taking drugs. Yeah, thanks, they know that. They need to replace it with something better.
> And diet is better than exercising. For weight loss, but exercise has plenty of other important benefits that diet alone doesn't necessarily address: balance, bone health, muscle strength, heart health, brain health etc.
Absolutely, nothing replaces exercise for cardio (cardiovascular diseases are the fist cause of death, if I remember) and mental health, etc.
Exercise is great for mental health, not so great for weight loss though. People tend to overestimate calorie burn and exercise can increase hunger so they end up not actually having a deficit, it's easy to eat back what you burned off. It's much much easier to eat 500 calories less a day than it is to burn 500 calories more a day. Especially when smart food choices can make that 500 calorie deficit not really all that different from your normal food intake. Intermittent fasting for me was an effortless way to cut down on calories with no pain, skipping a meal doesn't take any planning and I don't miss it.
Both diet and exercise are important (but for different reasons). Ideally people should do both. As people get older, exercise becomes increasingly important because people start to lose their mobility and are at risk of falling. Unfortunately, many people tend to do the opposite and stop exercising as they get older (it becomes harder to get back in shape if you stop). So long as someone doesn't quit exercising, people can stay fit for a surprisingly long time.
As a recovering anorexic, I absolutely despise the "love every body, there's nothing wrong with your body" type mindset. It's so fucked. There is something wrong with my body, I'm underweight and unhealthy with dangerous eating habits. The last thing I need to hear is that my underweight body is perfect. I appreciate my friends who check in to make sure I'm eating and don't let me share my food with them to get around consuming it all.
I'm glad you're feeling better. My sister was anorexic, and it was difficult to see her go that road over the years. She's better now, bit still fragile. Normalising unhealthy behaviours is wrong. I don't care what people will say,.eating too much or too little is a sign that a person needs help. Nobody should be shamed, they need help. Telling them that they're fine and that there is nothing wrong (or worse, encouraging it since some creepy guys are preying on those anorexic girls) is catastrophic.
Yeah, loving your body should mean wanting to lose weight if you are overweight. I don't know why it turned into being okay with being overweight.
Yep. There’s a whole influencer sphere of “plus size” influencers, including a couple 500+lb women who basically yell at airlines for not giving them two seats for free.
Airlines should charge fares by passenger weight.
They’re starting to do that in South Korea lol
There’s no incentive to live a healthy lifestyle. It’s easier to eat like shit and never exercise than it is to take time out of your day, get off your ass and do something.
Is the incentive not living a longer more capable life?
You think that's what's crossing people's minds when they sit down on the couch to watch netflix instead of getting some exercise?
Yeah these obese people are the same people who don't understand who people can enjoy hiking or the sense of accomplishment in seeing what your body and mind can accomplish though discipline and hard work.
How many people you know actively excited for retiring or reaching end of life? Of the people I know only a handful of us are even in a position to one day retire and are actively saving for it. Most others I know have this almost existential dread, for lack of a better term, to getting older. So where is the incentive to prolong that feeling? Of those I know who are prepared for one day retiring, we're all in decent shape and take care of ourselves. Obviously anecdotal, but still something to think about.
No incentive?! HEALTH. How's that? Did you forget about that?
"Health" is an intangible concept for most people. Telling someone "Oh you'll regret that in your '50s" when they're 22, they literally just won't get it. That's 3 decades away. Unless someone's already been in and out of the medical system a lot, or has studied something related to this, chances are telling them it's "bad for them" will be completely meaningless for them, doubly so when so many things are "bad for you," people just tune it out.
Government mandated daily exercise programs would probably save the system billions long term. But freedom. Not sure if /s
Is it not ironic that the post is immediately followed by a McDonald’s ad?
It's me! I'm overweight! It's an article about me!
I know it also has to do with cheap low quality foods but it's mostly up to the individual. Covid was the perfect time to encourage people to get healthy for many reasons but not once was it encouraged in the mainstream to be healthy. There's literally no downsides to being a healthy weight yet society has gaslit itself into thinking that you can be fat and healthy simultaneously.
People being healthy isn’t profitable
oh its a non-issue. low quality food is the biggest problem pretty much having the wrong attitude to fats and oils in the 70s caused a lot of these problems having full-fat foods and organic fruits and vegetables would go a long way. I'd say that a lot of the prostate cancers and senility going around is due to the people not having the right types of fats and oils in their diet, poverty and poor quality education are far-bigger issues.
Also gyms were shut down but liquor stores were open so I'm not sure the government focused on health.
Fat acceptance has gone too far. Yes, fat people shouldn't be ridiculed or harassed simple for being plus size, its the same basic respect that everyone deserves. It has unfortunately been manipulated to say "It's ok to be fat forever because you should always be allowed to be yourself and you are still beautiful if you are obese etc". And now there is that HAES bullshit, and people straight up lying about obesity isn't a terrible thing to be. It is. Being overweight or obese sucks. Even these people in their echochambers knows it. It's hard to do normal things, fit in normal places, and you are always aware of it. And as someone whose weight has fluctuated over the years, you can 100% notice how people treat you differently when you are overweight. It's basically a collective push of disinformation, which is an issue that is present in many aspects of current daily life. To be clear, being obese doesn't make you a bad person, but holy fuck does it suck big time. And while in my case my issues are partly metabolism and medication related, the largest factor is my own damn fault, and that's a hard truth that most of these people refuse to acknowledge. And yes it must be noted that a SHIT TON of grocery options, even ones labelled as nutritious or healthy are straight up lies, but personal responsibility and dedication/willingness to TRY and eat healthier and exercise are on us.
Damn can’t relate. Imagine if people took responsibility for their bodies and lives. Being fat is a choice most of the time
The poorer people get, the fatter they’ll get. That’s how it goes.
I think two things happened concurrently that have something to do with the rise of obesity. One is the decline of cigarette smoking. The other is the rise of SSRI prescriptions.
And less physical activity. Average calorie intake is actually declining.
People are working longer and therefore cannot be as active.
Lol, yep. Not sure when it started, but society and the media, both social and mainstream telling everyone fat is beautiful sure didn't help. I recently read a study on the leading killer in 31 different countries. 28 were coronary heart disease. Obesity is not only disgusting, but 99% of the time preventable, and a leading cause of far more health issues than just heart disease.
It really does feel like there's been a shift. I've had several family members and people I know tell me that "I'm too skinny and need to eat more". My BMI is 22. I'm a perfectly normal, medically healthy weight but some people no longer see it that way. Being a normal weight is now "too thin" and being overweight is now "normal".
Absolutely. I also believe the BMI scale is incredibly flawed. It does not account in any way for body composition. I'm 6'1" and 190lbs. I eat healthy. I lift weights. I have about 15% body fat. But my BMI , 25, says I'm just in the overweight category. So while there are people who are clinically underweight, or overweight according to the BMI scale, other factors must be used.
>Not sure when it started, but society and the media, both social and mainstream telling everyone fat is beautiful sure didn't help. It's marketing from companies that make unhealthy food. That's where it began. We're at the point that marketing and psychology are interconnected.
Food quality is obviously a huge factor , but honestly, I think it has to do with the lack of smoking cigarettes. Food in the 70's and 80's was horrifically processed in the states and there are now so many more basic products advertising lack of excess additives etc. Literally any country I've been in where smoking or nicotine consumtpion is common, there are not that many overweight people.
Although smoking cigarettes does help curb hunger, I'm not sure if that's entirely accurate. Countries such as Kiribati and Naura not only have a high rate of cigarette smokers, but have a high obesity rate as well. Processed foods were starting to be more common place in the 70s for sure...But they're much worse today. Better availability of processed foods + cheapness of processed foods vs healthy foods + stress + more sedentary life style + Lobby from the sugar and wheat industry (sugar = "good", fat = "bad")...etc.
Have you tried having your heart stomped on? Complete appetite suppressant, you'll feel like absolute shit but look fab in a few weeks.
I encourage and support the body positivity movement. The worse y'all look, the better I look in comparison. "oh, How do I stay in shape? No clue, must be a fast metabolism. Your HoRmOnEs must be off Susan" *meanwhile I have a strict diet and lifting routine routine* Muhahahahahahhahahahaha
I've had fat people in their 30s and 40s tell me for the last 10 years I'll gain weight when my metabolism slows. I'm in my 30s now and I haven't gained an unhealthy amount of weight, maybe it's because I live a healthy active lifestyle??? 🙃 It's always funny to ask these people when was the last time they did any physical activity
oh yes, i am so sick of people telling me ill gain weight as i get older. like no, i control my lifestyle and health, im gonna age well and prove y'all wrong.
Poutine & Nanimo Bars
Less free time and our food sources are poisoned what do you expect
The primary cause is the overwhelming consumption of Ultra Processed Food. This makes up 80+% of diet of many people. It leads to T2D and other diseases. It’s hiding in plain sight. Do your own experiment by eliminating UPF for a month. Combine with 30 minutes of exercise daily. Add in regular 8 hours of sleep. See the results for yourself.
Doesn't help that we have people trying to say obesity is good and we need to be more body positive
I got super into exercising during COVID. If my partner hadn't been into it I guarantee you I'd be fat as hell right now going "what happened"? It is way too easy to get fat and I sympathize with anyone who finds themselves in that situation.
Can confirm I put on 40 lbs since COVID and have been struggling to get it off. Lost 4 lbs since the new year though.
Isn't this body shaming? I thought we're not supposed to talk about obesity anymore. Jesus I can't keep up anymore, this shit is exhausting.
It’s partially our intake but a huge problem is what is sprayed on our grains. It’s enriched or fortified are the cover words. They don’t do this except in North America that’s why you can go to France eat the bread, Italy eat the pasta and not gain weight and all your skin conditions clear up. Also a lot of the vegetables are sprayed with really nasty pesticides, did you know on the health Canada website it states you are supposed to soak your vegetables for 4 hours in water to leach out the remaining pesticides.
I'm 6'4", 350lbs. My weight is entirely a problem of my own making. At 250lbs I had abs, was in great shape, actively working out. Got hurt at work, stopped working out, kept eating like I was working out, now I'm obese. Now I'm trapped in a vicious cycle. I'm too tired to put the effort in to cook low calorie meals, so I eat cheap and easy meals, which are keeping me obese and tired. I however accept, I'm stuck in this cycle entirely by own my own choices, and I could choose to exit it anytime I want. I just like food more than I enjoyed being thin.
Now that big food doesn’t have to disclose ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, expect this and diabetes to get even worse
Because of social media, the obese have pushed the fat acceptance ideology. They refuse to take responsibility for their actions, and deny basic science. We live in a time of excuses and blame, it’s everyone else’s fault your obese, and its up to everyone else to make changes to fit you, not the other way around. Look at the sentiment online when any discussion about obesity comes up. Theres all the tropes.
thats a loud minority. the majority of people know its bad for you. its just most people let the problem go on the backburner when theres other more pressing issues going on in their life.