How did the US get so fat over the last 25 years?

Interesting. My assumption would be that it has to do with more "cheap" fast food, since minorities are economically weaker on average.

 

This is true. My girlfriend teaches in the inner city and her students say she "eats like a white person" because their parents can only afford to feed them crappy fast food for dinner and she always has fresh healthy food. Time is a part of this as well.

For those of us that didn't grow up well off, there's a stark difference between what we eat now and what we ate then.

 

Home cooked food is cheaper than fast food.

 

There's so many variables involved it makes blanket statements like this pretty much useless.

 

Foods high in fat do not make you fat. Highly processed foods that are high in sugars and carbohydrates make you fat.

 

High caloric foods make you fat and that includes both high fat foods and high sugar foods.

 

It isn't that simple. For one thing you have to consider a situation where there is one parent in the household or there is both parents and both are working. It is not likely that after working 8-12 hours that they will consistently cook a freshly made dinner when hamburgers are 99 cents and available in seconds. Further there is the fact that processed foods are addictive.

There is an element of education as well. Studies have shown that poor people are in general not as well educated on diet and eating outcomes. Having said that, based on the threads I have seen concerning this issue, I believe that as nation we are not as smart about the consequences of what we eat as we should. I repeatedly see comments about calories, fat, and the evils of meat.. All of which is misplaced blame.

 

Not that simple... High carbohydrate foods and highly processed foods make you fat. Carbohydrates matter, but not nearly as much as people seem to believe.

 

For example.. In a 99 cent McDonald's double cheese burger, the two patties of meat are not making you fat, it is the bun and to a lesser extent the catsup. The meat is highly processed and high in sodium, that has health consequences for sure, but it isn't likely to make you obese.

 

And you wonder why people think you are a racist?

People in Africa aren't fat. People in mexico aren't fat. Why do you have to try derail your own thread?


Rice is a staple of many asian countries. They aren't all fat.

Cheerios don't make you fat. Eating too much food makes you fat.

 

I always suspect people who constantly bring up racism are the ones who have true race issues.
Highlighting a point about a certain race does not make you racist, whether its true or not.
He clearly pointed out minorities in the US, so Im not exactly sure what Africa and Mexico have to do with anything in regards to your reply.

 

Eskimos are fat. Isn't that a better example bigtexxx?

 

As a guy living in a developing country who somehow gets to watch "Man vs Food", i really don't find it a mystery why most Americans are fat.

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Please keep personal insults and D&D style attacks out of this thread.

If you re-read it, he was in no way referring to people in Mexico or Africa.

 

So once they move to america they come up with a whole new culture?

This will be my last post on the topic.

 

I did not insult anyone, I simply pointed out why he would want to mention that.

 

To be fair, Texxter Maddox did use the term "minorities," which very specifically refers to non-whites and their experiences in Western countries. Though the "big booty" stuff is a dumb, false meme that plays more to whites' behavioral escapism through black media imagery.

 

To the extent that the bun is more easily digested it will make you fat faster but a long term high fat diet will still make you fat. Someone brought up Eskimos earlier consider that they subsist on an almost all meat diet and still get fat, that is also due to that fat is essential to survival in an arctic environment, but that is a tangent. Calories in fat unless they are burned off are still going to be stored as fat. That is build in evolutionarily as fat like sugar are a high calorie energy source and one reason why we like the taste of fat.

 

Just to add the research regarding low fat diets versus low carb is all over the place and there is a lot to be send about each.
http://www.health.harvard.edu/healt...-or-mediterranean-which-diet-is-right-for-you

My own feeling is that something along the lines of the Mediterranean diet is best.