Why are Americans so goddam fat?

You may find this thread of interest.

Because most Americans can't stop shovelling "food shaped" processed garbage into their mouths OP. This is amply evidenced by the amount of fast food threads on DL.

Fast food has supersized them.

Do you travel to Europe terribly often?

Poverty, food deserts, working too many hours so they don't have the time/energy to feed themselves and a car-centric society that makes exercise something you have to actively seek out instead of something that naturally happens.

I've never believed the bullshit about Americans being to stupid or lazy to be fit.

R5 This part. Americans have fewer days off than any European countries. Most have to fight for maternity leave. And yes, poverty is usually correlated with obesity and lack of healthy and affordable food options. Most don’t have the privilege to take vacations to Europe and come back to shit on their countrymen when they return.

also, you’re old, OP. Using words like “fatso” and making weird al references; honey you sound like that toxic mean girl in the 80s who turned into a nasty bitter Karen. You may not be fat but youre an old bitch.

Little houses! All of them! Little houses!

[quote]Most don’t have the privilege to take vacations to Europe and come back to shit on their countrymen when they return.

It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you apply yourself, get an education, and fuck other men in the ass instead of getting your high school girlfriend pregnant.

I was in France in July and I made a thread about how shocked I was that all the men still have their hair in their old age. It’s not just about being fat, it’s about overall deterioration. French people are fit and age well despite the fact that they all eat bread and SMOKE.

R10 is this basically the gay version of Ayn Rand

[quote] about Americans being to stupid

The irony

My fat daughter is addicted to Hostess, Little Debbie and Dolly Madison! Her triglycerides must be through the roof!

R5 I think this is a contribution but a cop out.

American food is deadly. Southern food is deadly. People who live in rural areas of the country have some of the worst obesity rates and it’s not cause they’re driving to McDonalds, it’s what they’re cooking on their stoves.

McDonalds is EVERYWHERE yet there is a huge difference in obesity rates from New England and the South. The New England meal is much healthier than a Southern meal. You know who eats Southern food in New England? Black people and they have high obesity rates in New England.

driving everywhere

R15, respectfully and earnestly, I do not follow your logic

It's called a typo, r13. You really thought I didn't know the difference between to and too?

Your mother should have driven to the abortion clinic after your uncle impregnated her but she was too lazy. See? Not hard.

Funny, I was driving through town with my husband yesterday and noticed how many young and middle-aged people are overweight or obese nowadays. Both my husband and I feel that it got worse here over the past 25 years too.

So, maybe it's just a question of time until Europeans are just as fat as Americans...

good thing for ozempic though, right?

I've been seeing fewer obese people over the past year or so. I wonder if that's because of all the new weight loss medications. Or maybe I'm just leaving my house less frequently...

R17 How so?

White Northerners aren’t as fat as white southerners. Black northerners are as fat as white southerners. The link is white southerners and black northerners eat southern food.

Semaglutide, Tirzepatide, etc. are certainly a good development. However, let's not forget that people lose only about 10% body weight on average from ozempic, if I remember correctly. A lot of it lean mass (i.e., muscles) as well. So, it's far from perfect.

Processed food is designed to be addictive.

New England is the least fat area in the US. There’s fast food and poverty. The rednecks in Maine and New Hampshire eat BAKED or boiled fish, it’s not deep fried with sugar and salt like in the South.

I’m mixed race, I don’t eat southern food and I’m the fittest one on my black side and don’t have the same issues they do. I wonder why.

R21 You’re leaving your house less frequently.

But surely even home cooked southern food is better/“healthier” than ultra processed fast food?

There is a fundamental difference in the quality of food here in the US in comparison to other countries. OUR country allows all kinds of shit to be put into food, additives, preservatives, chemicals, hormones, dyes - all kinds of crap that is illegal in other countries.

This is purposeful. Corporations are all about making money, and the way to do that is to addict you and/or make you sick so you have to seek treatment, take medication, etc. It's ridiculous. We are a mere shadow of the people we used to be and lives we used to lead. It's like someone said upthread...everything in this country has been made to make us car-dependent, fatter consumers. Nobody has to really do anything remotely physical anymore unless they actually WANT to. It's ridiculous that you have to seek out opportunities to exercise - you have to make a concerted effort. And even then, it's all about the money - go to this health club, buy this equipment, pay for these exercise classes, buy this supplement, etc. etc.

Wake up, sheeple.

I'm old and I remember when fat people were considered an aberration. You just didn't see many.

I remember back in the 90s, my grandmother said to me one time, “you used to pay money at the circus to see the 400 pound lady. Now they’re everywhere.”

Britain is fat as fuck now.

France still smokes. It’s all Arab now anyway. Europe is flooded with refugees and immigrants. They come with their own food and customs.

Fat and sugar used to be expensive and we ate less of them.

Now they’re cheap and we eat more of them.

They’re what our bodies crave

It isn't the sugar. If RFK only managed to ban high fructose from our products obesity would drop by at least 25%. It is shocking to see how many products have it as one of their main ingredients.

Fructose is a sugar

Americans feel a subconscious right to enjoy life without limit, and bounteously, meaning that to "go for it" in all ways, including eating, somehow feels downright patriotic, a celebration of American freedom, the land of plenty, and the open frontier of much of our history. Seeing skinny Europeans registers not as "Wow, healthy lifestyle!" but as "Those poor things--they'd eat more if they had more."

They wouldn't walk everywhere or ride bikes if they had our big cars.

there is always a "go big or go home" mentality as well. Everything has to be big: serving sizes, homes, cars, trucks, EVERYTHING. You can't buy a small truck anymore, because they ALL have to be HUGE! And the lack of exercise as well...not regular bikes, now E-BIKES! Not REGULAR skateboards, now hover or motor-driven boards. What...you want to take a walk in a neighborhood? Hopefully your neighborhood actually HAS sidewalks instead of just a shoulder or bike lane which you really aren't supposed to walk in. It's unbelievable how everything seems to revolve around trying to make it so we expend the LEAST amount of energy and ingest endless amounts of calories.

It annoys me to no end when I get a waiter or waitress who can't wrap their head around the fact that I've only eaten 1/3 or 1/2 of what was served when they come back to ask if we're considering any dessert. Inevitably, I always get "was there something wrong with your entree?" question and I have to reassure that it was fine, it was just too much and I'd like to take the rest home.

Consume, CONSUME, everyone!!!

The big plate is the better deal. Even if it's only big from cheap carbs.

It's not all about processed food or bag bad corporations. Americans don't get off their fat asses and walk like most people in Europe. In Italy, even with all that pasta, they are a lot thinner than a lot of American Italians in the US. Why? Because they walk and have portion control.

In some of those old villages on a hill, you still see Nonas walking up and down hills with hundreds of steps on a daily basis just to get some groceries. When they make a bowl of pasta, it's for the entire family at the table not as a huge bowl as an entree for one person like they do at Olive Garden.

Even is the cities, they have a custom of doing an evening stroll around the neighborhood every day called la passeggiata.

Keeping us in a docile stupor on our couches is by intent

R27 No. In the South, eating at Grandma’s could be worse than eating at Mcadonalds.

Without the preservatives and maybe less sodium

I frequently go hiking at Coyote Hills in Fremont, California. I can guarantee you there are no fatsos there.

I’m in the UK, and it’s in the same upward weight trajectory but probably 20 years behind. I’ve lived in both countries and travel back and forth. As mentioned, US portion sizes are ginormous and everything there is somehow sweet as well. Many people who move to the US and eat the same diet claim to gain weight because of the sweet factor. I notice even things like desserts are often cloying compared to what you find with similar things in other parts of the world. Speaking of desserts, don’t forget the constant liquid calories in drinks especially the blended coffee drinks that are now ubiquitous. Americans seem to eat one long meal that starts in the morning and ends when they go to bed. Snack culture is a relatively modern phenomenon thanks to marketing. People now eat at the slightest pang of hunger or boredom.

Thousands of years ago, people were hunter-gatherers. This took a lot more energy than sitting in front of tv, computer and phone screens. People used to pound their clothes clean on rocks at a river, beat the dirt out of rugs with a device and sweep their homes out with a broom or carpet sweeper. All of those physical activities have partially or totally been automated.

Back in the hunter-gatherer days our diets probably were healthier in the sense the food we ate was less refined and had more fiber in it. Sugar is a food where most of the base food has been removed. This and other imbalanced sweeteners have been introduced into a lot food we eat by corporations. These same companies also manufacture diabetic supplies. It only makes sense that they should make food that makes us sick and things that make us "well" so they can sell more of it.

We need more exercise. I have recently (since late May) upped my exercise regimen. Go to the gym 3 times a week and have done that for years. About 5 or six times a week I do one or the other of stretching programs shown on PBS. I'm saving them all as that network's days may be numbered. My car became disabled a while back and I was without transportation. Have bad knees and a bad hip so walking is not an option. Bought a bike and take to that a few times a week. My diet is rather basic and most of it is unrefined. Some of the stuff I eat, like potato chips and once-a-week yogurt with sugar in it is not good. I'm not seeing big results from the changes I've made. It's taken a while to get into some of the bad health I have, but I'm in it for the long haul.

It does vary a lot within the US. And it shows up much more among low income people. Every Black-majority US city and the entire state of West Virginia (almost all white) have only those two things in common: high poverty and high obesity. WV is the fattest US state and one of the 5 poorest.

because they can't afford an ozempic prescription

[quote]It's not all about processed food or bag bad corporations. Americans don't get off their fat asses and walk like most people in Europe.

True. Even though obesity rates are rising in Europe and in much of the world, there remains a great gap between Europeans and Americans.

The percentage of people living in urban areas is roughly the same between the two regions, but that includes a significantly larger and different suburban pop in the U.S. leaving many more Europeans to walk to their grocery store/s. Europeans also have the habit if shopping almost daily or at least several days of the week, buying food with one or two days needs in mind - and walking (and none of those fat mobiles to careen about inside the shops.)

Food additives and preservatives are highly controlled in Europe. But more than that, eating habits are very different. The enormous often double-aisles of cereals, Doritos in 60 flavors and Cheetos and other junk food snacks, pudding and cake mixes and frostings in a can, 32 kinds of pancake syrup, candy, frozen prepared foods... In Europe these things barely account for the equivalent of an American end of aisle display. Not only ate grocery stores smaller, there's simply very little space given to many of the foods that are priorities in the U.S. but the odd treat in Europe. Europeans buy food at the grocery store, maybe with some American "staples" as second-thought treats. Prepared foods tend to be much healthier in their contents are shorter in shelf life. Buying a few things at the grocery every couple of days wastes lesa but also keeps the goal of a specific number of meals in mind.

Europeans don't do all their shopping at one giant grocery store in the middle of a huge parking lot, but in smaller neighborhood groceries -- supplemented by butchers, seafood shops, bakeries, vegetable and fruit shops, and often a variety of neighborhood shops that offer prepared foods of high quality, a different menu daily, from which you can augment your own menu or compose one in full. It's more a series of different habits and different tastes that results in very different hauls of food brought into the home.

Big bulk stores and mega grocery/department stores exist in Europe, but I do t know anyone who goes to them on a regular basis --.American expats accustomed to buying an electric car sized pack of Scot Select-a-Size paper towels and 42 portions of frozen onion rings, maybe.

Europeans eat dessert for dessert.

Americans eat dessert all day long.

Irish here. Discussing food with Americans last week in a restaurant in Ireland. They talked about how the doggy bag, taking ur food home from a restaurant is normal. We asked if they were generally disappointed by the size of meals in Ireland, they said No. In America, why not cut prices and give less food. Ive been on cruise ships and while American and UK passengers are very polite, it can be a case of eat or be eaten, by the yanks. My partner was constantly surprised at the huge piles of food on Americans plates. The black women were all huge; if they were in a group they were all big. They all seemed to be well catered to also. Motorised chairs, bikes, huge clothes sizes. I Europe if u get over a certain weight no one is catering for you..so you know u have to start keeping it in check. The worst thing I ever saw was a guy who put on weight changing his car to fit better.

The time spent eating meals is hugely different in France, Italy, and Spain compared to the U.S. The former spend over two hours at it, while the Americans are done in half the time, barely an hour.

I live in Spain and even if it's just my partner and me eating simply at home, it would exceed 2 hours. Special occasions or meals involving friends or family would far exceed that. There's a parallel in styles of drinking where, in Spain, everyone drinks but it's rare to see a drunk who isn't a foreigner. It's bad form to get sloppy drunk and have to have one of your friends escort you home and to bed; to do so is to break interrupt the social chemistry with selfish disregard. Meals, likewise, have social expectation beyond chowing down. Enjoying good food is part of it if course, but even if it's two people eating a simple meal at home there's a different expectation for dinner conversation and an expectation of enjoying the moment and the company at least as much as the food. To hurry a meal just seems wrong whereas in the US it's the norm. If it's all about filling the stomach in a hurry...

[quote] It does vary a lot within the US. And it shows up much more among low income people.

It’s jarring how fat poor people are. It calls into question how much food we as a society are giving low income people access to.

Are grocery carts the same in Europe or smaller? Full-size American carts seem designed to encourage a lot of excess at the grocery store. A fat woman could clear off a display table in the Bakery section into her cart and still have room for quite a few gallons of ice cream.

R53 It calls into question the intentional malnourishment of the most vulnerable amongst us.

Smaller, R54. Typically a bit larger and wheeled cart a bit bigger than the hand-basket form with bail handles usually found in US stores. Often a store will have two types of the same approximate size.

People buy for one, two, three days plus some miscellaneous things so carts are smaller. The checkout process involves a lightning fast cashier, there's rarely more than one person ahead of you at the many available cashiers, and you bag your own stuff (quickly!), pay with your card, and move out of the way for the next shopper.

Larger carts of more of the typical American sort and size exist, but they are typically used for just two things: people buying for a party or event, or for store staff to deliver groceries. If you spend over €10 or have mobility issues or simply request it, delivery is quick and free.

r15 there are lots of very overweight people in New England.

[quote]It does vary a lot within the US. And it shows up much more among low income people. Every Black-majority US city and the entire state of West Virginia.

In Los Angeles, most Black people are thin, as are most White and Asian. It's the Hispanics that are typically more obese than not. That's definitely a food thing even though it's mostly home made. Plus that culture tends to be more about family and vast amounts of tasty food that revolves around family gatherings. Much like Italians on the East coast used to do. Abundant food is part of the cultural heritage.

Can we address the underlying facts that many, many Americans live in places where you cannot walk to a grocery store without the risk of bring run over by a lot of Bufords in their Ford F-150s and that American "your life belongs to your employer" work standards mean that, even if they wanted to, Americans would never have the time to spend 2 hours lingering over meals lovingly-prepared with food they purchased by going to the shops every two days. People are fucking exhausted here.

None of that is the fault of individuals; we live in an inherent unhealthy society.

True, Americans don't all live in cities where they can walk to a grocery store, but that said, Americans in more rural or suburbs can have a garden and grow their own vegetables. My grandfather did this and he still had a full time job. How much time do Americans spend surfing the internet or watching TV? A healthy meal does not take 2 hours to prepare. A fresh salad and some chicken on the grill less than 30 minutes.

These threads always ooze with insufferable smugness.

Cheaper food options are often the unhealthiest. It's not great when fresh fruit and vegetables are more expensive than a quick and easy ready meal/TV dinner.

Lack of exercise does also matter. I mostly work from home now, so I have to make a conscious choice to go for a walk/gym etc. Back before covid I was in the office 5 days a week which involved at least 20 minutes walking to and from my car/office and then I'd be up and down the stairs to meetings, I'd walk at lunchtime, so I was easily racking up an hour of exercise a day just by going about my business.

Poor Europeans in Western and Eastern Europe are getting fatter, too. Just look at any reality TV show from the UK lately. I just got back from Finland, and a majority of Finnish people over 40 are booze- and bad food-bloated.

It really has changed over 40 years. Back in the early to mid 1980s, when I was in high school in a Northeast suburb, there were maybe 5 to 10 truly obese* kids out of our graduating class of 200. (*depending on where you think the definition begins)

A friend showed me the 2024 yearbook and I thumbed through it… so many changes but one that leapt to my eyes was the number of obese kids; it had tripled or quadrupled.

Americans always have to have an enormous refrigerator, and often an enormous kitchen to go with it. Then they go to Costco and Walmart buy enormous quantities of food as if they are prepping for the apocalypse. Then they still go out to eat, through a drive thru, or they order Uber Eats. All of that junk is loaded with oil, salt, fat, etc.

The majority of Europeans have a tiny fridge and go shopping for fresh ingredients just for a few days at a time, very little processed crap or convenience foods. Yes, there's fast food in Europe too, but it's something you eat once in a blue moon, not multiple times a week. They walk to the shops that are two blocks away instead of driving their giant SUV.

[Quote] all the men still have their hair in their old age.

That’s genetics, not lifestyle.

Same, r64. When I was in high school in the early-mid 90s there were only a few overweight kids. Now overweight kids are pretty common.

[quote]How have obesity rates changed over time? In the early 1960s, roughly 13% of people were considered obese by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines. Recent figures suggest that a current national obesity rate closer to 43%.

[quote] In addition, nearly 10% of all Americans were morbidly obese during the 2017–2018 survey, compared to less than 1% in 1960–1962. Childhood obesity rates tripled from 5% in the early 1970s to more than 19% by March 2020.

Our food is bad.

Our food is bad.

Our food is bad.

R55 no, we must restrict food allowed to the poor. That’s the ticket

[quote] The majority of Europeans have a tiny fridge and go shopping for fresh ingredients just for a few days at a time, very little processed crap or convenience foods. Yes, there's fast food in Europe too, but it's something you eat once in a blue moon, not multiple times a week. They walk to the shops that are two blocks away instead of driving their giant SUV.

We live in a car-centric society by design. That is not the fault of individual Americans. As I stated above, most people do not have time for this kind of shopping because a lot of folks are stuck commuting hours to their 40+ hour/week jobs. The average work week in France is 6 hours less than the US.

This thread is fascinating. Post after post all saying that it's everybody else's fault except the person shovelling the gargantuan quantities of food into their mouths.

That sort of answers OP's question I guess.

The French barely work at all.

Educated people make better choices. Look at a list of the fattest and fittest states and then a list of the states where the highest % of people have a bachelor's degree and you'll see what I mean

Not all of us, r74

People used to be thinner in the US when more of them smoked. They reached for a cig instead of a Little Debbie's, and the cig also killed their appetite. Europeans smoke more, hence more of them are thinner.

r74 that's definitely true. Being overweight is a big class issue.

I was surprised to learn how many kids don't walk to school now. I worked with a woman 10 years ago who lived about a mile from the high school, and her husband picked up their daughter every day from school and drove her home. If he couldn't, she left work to drive her home. This would have been very unlikely when I was in high school. I walked to school the whole 12 years of public school.

*Thinking about it, it was more like half a mile.

I went to a concert of a band that has a decent amount of younger fans. I was kind of surprised at how fat a lot of them were, and the girls wearing outfits they thought were sexy, with these thunder thighs and jelly rolls.

r78 that's been going on since I was a kid in the 80s. Child abduction worries.

[quote] The time spent eating meals is hugely different in France, Italy, and Spain compared to the U.S. The former spend over two hours at it, while the Americans are done in half the time, barely an hour.

But that was also true when Americans were thinner.

[quote] we must restrict food allowed to the poor. That’s the ticket

Certainly with unhealthy foods. The push to remove chips and pop from SNAP is a positive step.

R81 Yet the chance of a child being kidnapped is actually 1 in 750,000.

R83, most people who are overweight are not on SNAP. RFK Jr and co. want to declare war on the poor because that's easier than actually making our society healthier

r84 it's still a possibility. I don't blame parents for being worried.

I live in Montreal and twenty years ago it was pretty rare to see obese people here. Now every fourth person is significantly overweight. Portion sizes are now akin to the massive portions of the US. The much beloved poutine now comes in a serving that could feed five people and has toppings like gyro and smoked meat. Plus people are working an insane amount and cooking seems to be less prevalent. The number of Gen Z'ers that I know who door dash/Uber EVERYTHING is astounding. TikTok shows the exact same phenomenon. Just nuts.

R83 Something about it strikes me as wrong. I guess it's giving food assistance then dictating how it can be used. It's basically a conservative concept. Oh, you want to buy a soda once in a while, or chips? Fine, but you'll have to get off your fat ass and get a job and get off assistance if you want them. (Even though the person may be incapable of doing that.)

Basically I guess it's the whole "we can have soda and chips but we're not letting you have them" thing that just rubs me the wrong way.

[quote] Now every fourth person is significantly overweight. Portion sizes are now akin to the massive portions of the US. The much beloved poutine now comes in a serving that could feed five people and has toppings like gyro and smoked meat.

I don't understand why, just because portion sizes are huge, people have to eat that amount of food. Like, say you're growing up and you have a piece of meat and some vegetables and a potato for dinner. If your mom gives you a much bigger portion, 2 pieces of meat, two or three potatoes, etc., does that make your appetite greater? Does just seeing a huge plate of food make people more likely to want to eat a huge plate of food? Why does the appetite increase with the portion size?

More than 2 in 5 U.S. adults are obese, according to the CDC.

It's not so bad in some areas of the country. I live in SoCal and just came back from a weekend trip to Chicago. (I used to live there for 20 years, so no, it's not some 2 day observation).

There are just a lot fewer fat people in SoCal. It definitely exists - but not the slobs I saw this past weekend - many of whom were probably tourists, to be honest. (I was in River North).

You still see a few very fat people every day, but it is nothing like other cities. And we drive everywhere.

I think #1 answer is food - most people I know eat healthily here and we're active because of the warm weather. So many people have zero knowledge of calories and nutrition.

The only fat people I see in Southern California are usually Latinos. Whites tend to be thin, unlike in other parts of the US.

Almost 30% of Los Angeles is obese (29. 3, I think it is). That's about the national average. Chicago seems to be @ 32%.

R92 You must be wearing blinders. There are plenty of fat Whites and Blacks in So. Cal. Asians, however, seem to generally stay lean here.

r94 I don't see too many grossly overweight whites in SoCal.

2022 obesity rates by state

r66, indeed. You seldom see a bald Mexican (that hasn't shaved his head).

R96 is not R7.

R98 Nor are the maps identical.

R92 - I generally agree with you. I do see a lot of overweight Latinos in SoCal for some reason. Mexico has been having major obesity issues the past 15 years - I think their obesity rate is higher than the US now.

There are still some fat people among all races in SoCal - but generally, people are within an acceptable height/weight ratio or a bit on the thin side.

Now, if I had access to delicious Mexican food all day, I may have weight issues too.

But generally, there aren't a lot of fat people - but the numbers increase the more inland you go, which tend to be poorer areas.

Well, I’m 72, fucking sick of dieting and denying myself, and I look younger with a fuller face. As long as my bloodwork is in order, I’m enjoying myself.

Why are all y’all so scrawny

[quote] Asians, however, seem to generally stay lean here.

Many Asian families seem to have retained a culture of unapologetic fat shaming, for good or for worse.

[quote] Well, I’m 72, fucking sick of dieting and denying myself, and I look younger with a fuller face.

You type increasingly fat.

R104. I’ll take it. Better than your saggy sans serif.

Facebook Community News groups are the down-home version of Next Door, and when they announced the closing of the local Fatz Café those big folks were in crisis. It was like there was one honey-buttered yeast roll in Christendom and none of them got to eat it, the tears!

…because food is delicious, silly!

[quote]Why does the appetite increase with the portion size?

It does, and the reason is simple, as gain weight, and eat more you stomach stretches and gets used to wanting that amount of food to fill it and triaging the filling of being full. It's rinse and repeat. Stretch it out a little, need a little more food. Why do you think obese people have gastric bypass surgery? It so stretched out, eating a healthy portion is no longer going to stop hunger pains.

[quote]I generally agree with you. I do see a lot of overweight Latinos in SoCal for some reason.

Real Mexican food is not that fattening. Go to Mexico and you will not see nearly as many fatties as you do in the US. But American Mexican food IS fating. A lot more of it is fired, cooked in lard, lots of salt and sugar and much larger portions.

A Chimichanga which is a deep fried burrito filled with meat and beans is an American invention. Compere that with a Mexican street taco which is a small 6 inch tortilla, not fried, with about 2 Tbsp of meat, onions and cilantro. Average 150 calories vs the burrito at 550 calories.

Don't even get me started on Chipotle and their super size burritos. One Chipotle Burrito in America is 1045 calories

Burritos are just too much. I’d rather eat a pizza (12” or less).

Don’t interrupt me! I’m fating!

R108 Good answer, but to a different question. What I meant was, why does someone seeing a larger portion of food (such as the larger portions of putine the poster was talking about) lead them to have a desire to eat more food? Not over time, but in that moment.

In other words, does seeing a bigger amount of food make you want to eat a bigger amount of food? And if so, why? Or is it that you eat more because it's just so good?

But they have perfect teeth (when they can afford it.)

Chipotle isn't real Mexican, it's just another American fast food place.

[quote]Many Asian families seem to have retained a culture of unapologetic fat shaming, for good or for worse.

You getting fat! You look like pig! Like big fat pig!

Americans are depressed and out of touch with their feelings; have been so since the 1960s.

Every last one of them!

R109 - I know you want to defend Mexican food and Mexicans - but a lot of Mexican food IS fattening.

Mexico has a higher obesity rate than the US and one of the highest in the world. And no, it's not just soft drinks.

Yes, Mexican cuisine is varied and there's so much good grilled food and vegetables, etc.

But then why the hell are they getting so fat - fatter than the US and they don't really have any cold weather to keep them inside watching TV in the winter?

I just remember that after school we used to go to the little store down the street and buy full-sugar soda and Hostess cupcakes. My parents put no limit on soda or ice cream or anything else. We drank whole milk, ate pie and cake, lots of peanut butter and sugary jelly, Marshmallow fluff, candy bars...and most of us were rail thin. We did play a lot of sports, like kickball, street hockey, touch football, baseball, whiffle ball, almost all the time, which I don't really notice kids doing these days--am I wrong?

R119 - number one, you were a kid. Number two - I bet your mom cooked most of the meals, so portion sizes were of normal size and not overloaded with fat and salt for taste.

Yes we were more active - food portions were smaller though. Americans eat 20-25% more food than in the 70s - and many popular food portions have increased by as much as 138%.

We've all seen the 1970s sized fast-food portions. The normal sizes would be considered small today.

R120 number one, you were a kid.

And a lot more kids today are obese than were obese then.

R119 - here's a breakdown.

I don't recall double cheeseburgers ever being a thing until the 80s - and it was considered excessive at first. Big Gulp was considered massive and it was trick marketing - but then people got used to that size.

12 oz. sodas are rare now - 20 or 24 oz is the norm.

It goes on and on.

[quote] I bet your mom cooked most of the meals, so portion sizes were of normal size and not overloaded with fat and salt for taste.

My mom was a great cook. But I ate a decent amount of Beefaroni, Rice-A-Roni, Spaghetti-Os, Campbell's soup, Wonder bread, Swanson's TV dinners, Gorton's Fish Sticks, canned veggies, a lot of canned fruit (esp. in the winter), etc.

I see this myth going around on YouTube videos and such that back in the 60s and 70s our moms made everything from scratch. It's not true at all. There were a ton of prepared foods, frozen meals, just-add-water things, and all the canned stuff--the supermarket was like, 50% or more, canned food.

R123 - we all did - the explosion of home convenience food and food kits in the 60s and 70s were in every US household and in many British, Canadian and Australian households too.

Doesn't mean they were huge portions though.

But I wasn't clear, so my apologies.

I meant that 'overloaded with fat and salt' was from take-out, prepared foods, eating out, etc. - where additional fat and salt is added along with larger portions of cheap, high-calorie filler foods.

But yes - we wouldn't fucking touch today what was served in the 70s. It was awful - our taste buds were really undeveloped then.

I kind of miss it, tbh. But most of it was very salty! Maybe I'm just being nostalgic but I loved the apple cobbler in the Swanson frozen dinner. And the Salisbury steak and gravy. But the portions were not big. (Then again, I was a child when I ate them.)

I think something else is going on, with the obesity epidemic, though. You have to eat a LOT to get as fat as some of these people I see at Walmart or some of these kids I see on the street. Not a scientist but it's almost like there's something else going on other than just overeating, fatty food, and not enough exercise. Hormone imbalances, hormones in the meat, pesticides, genetics, I don't know.

I do remember the tiny, flat burger we used to get, or the fish sandwich, at Carroll's, or McD's. Tiny compared to the burgers now, I mean.

R126 - tastier food (with higher fat and salt content), LARGER portions, and SNACKING. We didn't snack so much 40-50 years ago. Now it's a requirement to have 250-300 calorie snack between meals. We don't need it - and it's rarely good food, like fruit or nuts.

That's all you need - seriously. Plus we are less active because of technology. But it really is that simple.

A single burger is not intrinsically bad for you. But make it a quarter pounder, or a double with cheese, with mayo and bacon - along with a side of fries that is 3x larger than what was served in the 70s - and voila.

Studies have shown time and again - if you put it on a plate, people will eat it. If you serve food and it's 40% less, afterwards people will say it was enough food. Others served 40% more also say the same thing.

[quote] We didn't snack so much 40-50 years ago.

How do you know this, though? Did people conduct polls or studies 50 years ago on how much we snacked? (They probably did, I don't know. But where are you getting the information. I remember snacking a lot.)

We used to be bombarded on TV with ads for snack food.

One of my favorites...

ANXIETY over the Trump Juggernaut sweeping through the nation and around the globe.

[quote] In other words, does seeing a bigger amount of food make you want to eat a bigger amount of food?

If you eat a lot of a big serving, you know there will still be a lot left. If it’s a tiny portion then you make do and make it last longer.

r119, kids used to have a roaming radius of an average of 5 miles with bicycles, up until maybe the late 60's, then it got smaller with urbanization and television. Then computers, stranger danger, video games, helicopter parents, phones. We used to go out in the mornings in the summer, and wouldn't come back until 9 or10pm. Kids don't even play in the streets anymore- just at home staring at a screen.

[quote] We used to go out in the mornings in the summer, and wouldn't come back until 9 or10pm.

Sight exaggeration? You didn't come home for lunch or dinner? I also had to be home *before* dark.

For R129 - yes, they have studied this and have metrics for it.

The phrase 'don't spoil your dinner' is unheard of now. And no - we didn't get snacks after sports. Now there are 'snack patrols' where a parent is required to bring snacks for an entire team on a rotating schedule.

We had granola bars (which were Nature Valley and basically cardboard), some potato chips - but we weren't allowed to eat much, only with a sandwich - not as a snack. Fruit.

I'm trying to think what else we had for 'snacks' only - we would make popcorn if watching a movie. That's pretty much it?

[quote]does seeing a bigger amount of food make you want to eat a bigger amount of food? And if so, why? Or is it that you eat more because it's just so good?

You have never had an eating problem I take it. Let me break it down for you. Food tastes good. Many have grown up being told wasting food is bad when other people in the world have none. So some parents used to make that argument to clean your plate. Even if you were full. That sets up a bad habit. Add to that cultures that celebrate food like Italians, Hispanic, etc it's what brings the family together. It's like asking why do people drink more than one glass of wine. It tastes good, it makes you feel good. And often times it's something you may never get again on a whim like "Mom's apple pie" or something of that nature so you over indulge when you can.

Many people actually are out of tune with their body and how they eat. For example, a thin person usually waits until dinner time to eat dinner, even if they have hunger pains saying it's time to eat. They understand their body sending a message. People who are obese typically never want to feel that hunger pain. They eat past being full so that even hours later they feel satisfied. That hunger pain to them means they waited too long to eat. They actually have to teach that in some weight loss programs. It's OK to feel hunger pains and not immediately eat to stop it.

R135 - oh - we would make a cold-cut sandwich. Or even a hot dog. That was my house though - my mom has always been a bit of a food Nazi.

R135 If you had granola bars, you're younger and ate healthier snacks. I remember (and many of them are still around) Cheese puffs, Cheez-its, the aforementioned cheese in a can, Chicken-in-a-Biscuit, Slim Jims, Ho-Hos, Devil Dogs, Twinkies, Klondike Bars, Whoopie Pies, Drake's Fruit Pies, Drake's Cakes, pretzel sticks, potato chips, potato sticks, Fritos....

[quote] You have never had an eating problem I tak

No. I never did. When I was a kid I could only eat so much. Any more made me kind of logy or slightly sick.

When I was about 5 years old living in Arizona the mom's around the neighbor hood would take a large tortilla, spread it with butter, cover it with shredded cheese and heat it open face in the oven to melt the cheeses. Cut into little triangles, they called that a "Healthy Snack".

Cheese, butter and carbs. So nutritious.

r112 One factor is the traditional motherly order, "Eat everything on your plate!," which for some reason would often be followed with, "Think of the starving children in China." I could never figure out how my eating everything on my plate helped the starving children in China; but such so often is the case with parental wisdom.

I suppose [italic]not[/italic] eating everything on one's plate would have been taken as a grave insult to the cook (dear old Mom), a most perilous thing to do.

Then, having been stuffed to the gills with the choice tonnage of the main course, no dinner would be considered complete (in a traditional American view) without a rich and generous slice of pie or cake or whatever.

While the above may have been most prevalent in the 20th century up to about the mid-1970s, its attitudes linger as inherent values in the American psyche.

You go to Home Goods to buy a frying pan or Staples to buy printer paper & there is a massive amount of junk food leading up to checkout.

There are 10,000 restaurants in minor towns where there used to just be pizza, a diner or Chinese food.

There would be coffee, tea or tiny glasses of juice on a menu. Now there are massive lattes and novelty drinks, sickeningly sweet.

Portions are stupidly big. Bagels and muffins keep increasing. Pasta abounds.

[quote] "Eat everything on your plate!," which for some reason would often be followed with, "Think of the starving children in China."

Mine was "think of the starving children in Africa". I was a smart but snarky little bastard so I would respond, fine, then send the rest of my plate to Africa.

R134, truly I don't remember, I was a latchkey kid of parents who drank and partied.. Probably ate at a friend's or cousin's house.

in the '70's, my snacks were fruits, carrots, cheese, and deli meats (bologna or mortadella). No sugary cereals for me- Cheerios, Rice/Corn Chex.

I actually used to have an Uncle who would brow beat me and everyone else for not eating all of the food served. His wife did all the cooking but after a generous plate of food, every single time I was asked if I wanted 2nds or 3rds. When I said I was full he would continue with "you eat like a bird"....."don't you like our food"?

It was not a joke, he did this every damn time we visited.

Once when I didn't finish my meal, my mother said "That's fine. It's not as if the starving children in Africa are going to get it."

[quote] I remember (and many of them are still around) Cheese puffs, Cheez-its, the aforementioned cheese in a can, Chicken-in-a-Biscuit, Slim Jims, Ho-Hos, Devil Dogs, Twinkies, Klondike Bars, Whoopie Pies, Drake's Fruit Pies, Drake's Cakes, pretzel sticks, potato chips, potato sticks, Fritos....

r138 - I'm not r135, but I was a teenager during the 80s and (while I hated it when I was a kid) my parents didn't buy that shit, nor let us eat that crap when we were growing. I'm so glad that they were hippies and cared so much about the food we were putting into our bodies. The only time we were allowed crap food (like sugary breakfast cereals) was when we went to visit our Grandma for a week in the summer. My parents had a substantial vegetable garden, we had chickens, goats and raised pigs to be butchered for meat. We also did eat the chickens sometimes, too (hated that, my brother and I were made to pluck the roosters after butcher). Happily, that only happened about 3 times (once was a huge lot of turkeys my parents raised - and had a "turkey plucking party" - of all things!).

They were weirdos (especially during that time period), but now I'm grateful for my fairly unconventional upbringing in late 70s through late 80s (to graduation) in Southern California. Our family was a bit "different" than most in the area we lived in, but I look back and realize we had experiences and learned things a lot of kids didn't ever get to experience.

I love these fatty threads…

R138 - yeah - like I said, my mom was a bit of a food Nazi. Always had a meat, starch and vegetable with every meal. Pizza was a treat. Total, Cheerios, or Whole Wheat for breakfast. We were allowed 1 tsp of sugar to sprinkle on top.

I think all 3 of us kids went a bit crazy with some junk food when we moved out finally because it was rare and monitored. Now, I appreciate it because I don't feel like I'm missing anything.

I never did nor do buy 'junk' at grocery stores. I look at some grocery carts and it's just CRAP. TONS OF IT.

[quote] look back and realize we had experiences and learned things a lot of kids didn't ever get to experience.

Is plucking turkeys a life skill?

r150 hey, when shit gets real and you have to capture/kill/prepare/cook your own chickens or turkeys, I'll be the one eating feather-free poultry while you try to swallow a mouth full of feathers!!

[quote]When I said I was full he would continue with "you eat like a bird"....."don't you like our food"?

For what little good it serves me in some situations, I follow the late 19thC etiquette that is is impolite to take notice of how or how much others eat. Asking if someone would like more of any food is fine of course, but to press and twist arms about it is fucking annoying.

Taking a meal with friends should not be a contest to observe who can pack the stuff away and who eats like a bird. Just make people feel comfortable. Offer and make it easy for people to enjoy additional servings, fine, but don't keep a score as though it's a pie eating contest and every guest must go home his face thoroughly ringed with blueberry stains.

It's food. It's only food. We all eat it one meal at a time for our whole lives. Spare me the fat auntie who worries about don't chow down like pigs at a trough. The idea that people should eat like their peasants allowed for the first time to the banquet table is not hospitality, it's a bit disgusting.

R151 Ok, if that is what your parents told you to make you feel better.

Since you are going to be the only one surviving the great nuclear winter, in your underground silo, can you please let us know where exactly does one find a live turkey to pluck that has not been irradiated in a post nuclear dystopian world?

I commented about all the various junk foods but in the '60s-early '70s people (especially kids) often ate what they enjoyed. Part of being free range kids involved stopping at the variety store and buying the treats of your choice. But at home we mostly ate healthy, or what was considered healthy then. We also had a big garden, with corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, carrots, etc.

The thing is, somehow, you can point to how we didn't have this or that, or had to much of this or that, but we were thin.

*too much

Thomas's English Muffins have apparently gotten smaller.

[quote] in the 60s-early '70s people (especially kids) often ate what they enjoyed. Part of being free range kids

As apposed to factory famed?

Some of Warhol’s adherents at the Factory became famed.

R157 - as opposed to caged and plugged into electronic devices.

Big snark fail, R157