Why are sooo many Americans so overweight?

[phil]

Don't take a Bozo to figure that one out ... !

Too much food - too much meat - too much refined sugar
Too much salt - too much processed stuff - too much "bad" fat

Not enough fresh produces/grains - not enough exercise !!

[phil]

Oh ! That too ...

Let them eat cake

They don't diet and they don't spend hours panting round the gym. So how can French women put away as much ice-cream, rich pastries and steak frites as they want and yet stay so slim? Mimi Spencer gets her teeth into the 'French paradox', which has baffled the world's best scientific brains for a decade

Sunday November 7, 2004
The Observer


Bofinger, in the rue de la Bastille, is the oldest brasserie in Paris, the haunt of presidents and ministers, Chiracs and chevaliers. It is also my favourite place to dine in the whole world. Bofinger is a shrine to food, staffed by mustachioed waiters in black waistcoats and white aprons, waltzing around the various rooms bearing platters of fruits de mer, wobbling crème caramels, great tureens of bouillabaisse. Bofinger is noisy and vivid, thick with the stew of soupe à l'oignon, foie gras, steak frites, choucroute, butter sauces, andouillette, sticky confit de canard, towering coupes des glaces topped with turrets of crème Chantilly.
It is also one of the best places in the world to lose weight. According to established lore and several new books (the latest is French Women Don't Get Fat by Mirielle Guiliano), if you really want to kiss your ass goodbye, you should take a lesson from the French.

Despite a diet stuffed with cream, butter, cheese and meat, just 10 per cent of French adults are obese, compared with our 22 per cent, and America's colossal 33 per cent. The French live longer too, and have lower death rates from coronary heart disease - in spite of those artery-clogging feasts of cholesterol and saturated fat. This curious observation, dubbed 'the French paradox', has baffled scientists for more than a decade. And it leaves us diet-obsessed Brits smarting.

In Chic and Slim: How Those French Women Eat all that Rich Food and Still Stay Slim, Anne Barone seeks to unravel the puzzle. As it turns out, it's all about knickers. 'Never underestimate the power of a black lace garter belt,' she writes. 'Even French women's lingerie helps to keep them slim, [it's] a constant reminder to make choices that pay off in slimness. Their belief in this principle is demonstrated by the fact that there are almost as many lingerie shops in Paris as bakeries.' Vanity, it seems, is a very useful vice if you want to fight the flab.

'Forget diets,' continues Barone. 'They are no fun and don't work. What I learned from French women is that ultimately staying slim is not about counting calories or fat grams. It is not about exercise exhaustion. It is really about personal style.' True, the French women I know tend not to get too hung up on 'dieting'; I have never witnessed a Parisienne performing the calorie or carbo calculus that bedevils so many British meals. But they do enjoy a sensible, sensuous way of eating. Just watch them, dipping mussel shells into mariniere broth at any brasserie in Saint Germain. They savour their food. They are passionate about food. They have a national heritage devoted to and founded upon food. France is, after all, the home of the great chefs, from George Auguste Escoffier to Paul Bocuse - men whose creative juices still flow through the many kitchens and cooks of the land. For them, it seems, eating is life-enriching exploit, not a chore, and certainly not a guilt-trip. Ironically, the people most likely to be 'on a diet' (12.8 million of us in the UK) are the least likely to be slim.

A recent survey conducted by the French government's Committee for Health Education (CFES) found that eating is still very closely linked to a national heritage of consuming good food for pleasure. In France, 76 per cent eat meals they have prepared at home; the favourite place to eat both lunch and dinner is in the home, with 75 per cent eating at the family table. In the UK, by contrast, we like to eat our meals (a) standing up, (b) in front of Coronation Street , (c) at a desk while catching up on emails or (d) by the side of the M40.

Whereas the French typically spend two hours over lunch, we bolt down our food in the time it would take them to butter a petit pain. Nutritionist Dr Francoise L'Hermite believes that the French secret is to sit down with friends or family for a meal, and to eat three times a day at regular intervals. She points out that the French don't eat in front of the television, and they eat slowly, enjoying both the food and the company. How very civilised.

'For France, a meal is a very particular moment, in which you share pleasure, the food as well as the conversation,' says L'Hermite. 'From an Anglo-Saxon point of view, food is just fuel to give energy to your muscles. If you have no pleasure in it, you are breaking all the rules of eating.'

Dr Andrew Hill, senior lecturer in behavioural sciences at Leeds University, agrees. 'I suspect that the French paradox has something to do with our differing core attitudes to food and eating. French food is real food - prepared in the kitchen, with time taken to choose, buy and prepare meals. In other words, there's space for food in the daily routine.

Eating in France is a social activity. There are several but small courses, with plenty of time between courses for the physiological feedback to kick in. In England, we eat more pre-prepared foods and ready-meals; we eat fast food both in and outside the home. We have single, large meals, and family members will eat different foods at different times... Fast food is, by definition, eaten fast, so there's no time for that physiological feedback.'

The unhurried approach to eating extends even to France's Big Mac generation. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found 'from observations in McDonald's, that the French take longer to eat than Americans_ ironically, although the French eat less than Americans, they seem to eat for a longer period of time, and hence have more food experience.'

Food experience. Now there's a phrase. Compare our 'food experience' to that of the French: the time that the average British family takes to prepare a meal has shrunk from two hours to 15 minutes in the past few years. And, while we are speed-eating, cramming in a Kingsize Mars before the lights turn green, the French are taking smaller mouthfuls, resting their cutlery between bites, discussing the food - often because it is worthy of discussion.

Few of us who have holidayed in Provence or weekended in Paris could dispute the fact that the French tend to aim for quality over quantity. Almost every village in the country boasts a bustling market featuring local sausages, patties of farm-made chevre, figs and fennel in the appropriate season or truffles dug from a wood down the lane. It's not just a choice available to the moneyed middle classes, but somewhere for everyone, every day. There is a national pride in the nation's produce and, until very recently, a typically Gallic antipathy towards imports (which is why the English still pack Heinz Baked Beans, Marmite and PG Tips when they head off on their annual gite holiday in the Dordogne).

Instead of an addiction to 'invented foods' full of hydrogenated oils, E numbers and preservatives, the French way, even today, focuses on the careful preparation of unprocessed foods. It's why French women ration themselves to one rich, dark square of real chocolate rather than hogging-out on a preservative-laden, pre-frozen, half-chemical wodge of pseudo-foodo. Snobbery, alongside vanity, is an asset in the war against weight. (Consider, by contrast, the disheartening fact that the market for ready meals in the US grew by 39 per cent from 1999 to 2003; the $3 billion market for 'food bars' is expected to more than double by 2007.)

When they get those enviable produits du terroirs home, French people, it seems, naturally exercise strict portion control. In their study of why the French remain so much slimmer than Americans, the researchers from the University of Pennsylvania came to the remarkable conclusion that it was because the French ate less. 'Based on observation in Paris and Philadelphia,' they wrote, 'we document that the French portion sizes are smaller in comparable restaurants, in the sizes of individual portions in supermarkets, individual portions specified in cookbooks, and in the prominence of "all-you-can-eat" restaurants in dining guides.'

The figures - both physically and statistically - back this up. Mean portion size in Philadelphia was about 25 per cent greater than in Paris. Philadelphia's Chinese restaurants served 72 per cent more than the Parisian ones. A supermarket soft drink in the US was 52 per cent larger, a hotdog 63 per cent larger, a carton of yoghurt 82 per cent larger.

'A croissant in Paris is one ounce,' notes Chris Rosenbloom, a professor of nutrition at Georgia State University, 'while in Pittsburgh it's two.' America is indeed the land of giant pastries. I remember being overwhelmed by the sheer girth of a muffin I once bought at a coffee shop in New York - but, like all of the dead-eyed cows in the joint - I worked my way through it under the wayward assumption that it constituted a 'portion' and therefore ought to be finished. 'If food is moderately palatable,' says Paul Rozin, one of the psychologists on the Pennsylvania study, 'people tend to consume what is put in front of them, and generally consume more when offered more food.' Interestingly, hamsters do much the same thing.

As a consequence of all these mighty meals, the average calorie consumption in the United States weighs in at 3,642 a day, against 3,551 in France - a small difference, but one that can add up to a five-pound weight gain in six months.

Not only are our servings bigger, with more 'deep fill', 'big eat' and 'mega deals' both here and in the States, but between bucketfuls, our propensity for snacking is extraordinary. Run your eye along the snack aisle at your local supermarket and be amazed by the breadth of choice. Tandoori Doritos. Teriyaki Kettle Chips. Scotch-egg bars. Soon, you'll be able to buy a 'Christmas-pudding Flavoured KitKat' (Lord knows how we coped without it). The UK snack industry is worth £9 billion a year, with speedy growth in such crazy sectors as 'hand-held snacks', 'snacks on the go' and 'snack kits' to service our new grazing, table-less culture.

The French, I suspect, wouldn't let a 'snack kit' near their poodle, let alone near their mouth. Doctor François Baudier of the CFES reports that 'the French, in contrast to Anglo-Saxons, hardly ever snack outside of meals'. One reason for this is that their fat-rich diet stimulates the production of cholecystokinin, a satiety signal which promotes an extended sense of satisfaction after eating even small amounts of high-fat foods. Brie-eaters stay fuller longer.

But for how much longer is debatable. Recent figures show that the French are gradually growing fatter as they absorb Anglo-Saxon eating habits. With luck, the French will fight hard to retain their national relationship with food, their affaire of the heart and the stomach. Perhaps the Academie Française should step up to the plate. In the last instance, though, it may well come down to attitude - that Chanel vanity, that snobbery, which might just save the day. As Anne Barone puts it: 'The French woman sees herself as a beautiful woman despite her physical flaws. She is worth the effort of eating well, taking care of herself. She deserves to be slim and healthy.' And she deserves that a whole lot more than she deserves a portion of pie.

Meanwhile, if anything, we British are beginning to crave something akin to the traditional French 'food experience'. Look at the growth of 'slow food' movement; look at Nigella Lawson during the launch of her latest book, Feast : 'I want to make people think about food and the part it plays in their lives,' she said, 'Food is a great record of the emotional state of our lives.' Bringing food to the forefront of our daily routines, rather than tucking it in between all our other responsibilities, might just obviate the need for serial-dieting, binge-eating, panic-snacking and guilt-tripping. Oh, and it might just get us into a size 10 Chanel.

[maarts]

Very good point. I rarely take time to eat properly.

[phil]

Eating alone is no fun ! !

[Thorngrub]

The Early Birds

~Part One~
It is the year 2010. The greatest superpower on earth (US) is increasingly under the supervision of a fundamentalist right wing christian administration. It's a veritable "fast food nation". Education is on the downswing. Military spending on the uprise. Wars being orchestrated in the mideast over political power and fossil fuels. Terrorists wage their own war against the US, which reacts accordingly, buying into their plan, with a "fight fire w/fire" mentality (which acts as a corrosive to their very spiritual foundations, a strategy the terrorists are perfectly aware of, and succeeding at implementing, perhaps a thousand percent more than they had ever dared to imagine was possible).

In this arena, a group of forward -thinking revolutionaries and citizens of the US, begin implementing their plan for revolt: Eradicating the ingestion of refined sugar from their diets entirely. This is their "First Crucial Step" in their attempt to salvage their own previous rights to govern their own country, as originally intended: a government of the people for the people. To even begin DREAMING of doing this, they understand intuitively that ridding their bodies of the slowly -accumulated presence of stultifying refined sugar(s) must perforce be the first step.

They intend to accomplish something of the utmost simplicity (and importance): The clarity of their own rationality and energy. They have studied former revolutions, and realized that this time, an armed militia or similar violent uprising is bound to failure, if not for being outweighed by sheer numbers and/or force, at the very least for the very pragmatic reason of contributing to the already ceaseless implementation of the "cycle of violence" (the very scourge at the heart of what they ultimately hope to rise above).

They recognize that what is going on - on a mass scale in their own country - is nothing short of total control by an elite cadre of usurpers who have gradually cemented themselves into the superstructure, having been inocuously aided by the gradual increase of "opiates for the masses", of which the primary culprit is refined sugar itself, indiscriminately laced into the majority of foodstuffs the increasingly corporate -sponsored nationwide distribution network encourages.

They suspect that this "nigh - total control" by an administration bent on overt profiteering and media control - not to mention self-announced wars on "drugs" and "terror", is largely successful in an almost accidental manner. I.e, they recognize the inherent "slow movement" towards this "ideal" (or inversion of the conventional ideal) as being something that only began almost subliminally; that is, on such a minor scale at first, as to largely go unnoticed. They realize that once this "movement" began to proceed into secondary and tertiary stages of progression - shifting into higher gear, so to speak - that it began to gain a sort of collective momentum, and that at a crucial point - would continue down the vectors of that course mostly by its own generated force of numbers, and having carved itself that path of least resistance, paved a way for itself ending in a closed -loop of inevitable tragedy for most concerned.

They understand that absolutely NOTHING can be done about it w/short -term results. This Beast must be properly deflated by reversing the impetus which generated it. And the only way towards that goal, is to WAKE UP to this insidious reality that crept up on them all while they were busy working, raising families, and otherwise participating in their own society as best they could. Seeing the bigger picture as being something now beyond the control of any individuals, they vow to spearhead a movement by maintaining a kernel of the populace dedicated to the process of fully WAKING UP to the impending realities of globalization and mass distribution of prioritizing profits over health, and a veritable tangled cluster of seemingly inextricable variables all feeding off each other to create the downward slide of tyrannical possessiveness which has been allowed to go on unchecked enough that it has been granted a life of its own.

They have dubbed themselves THE EARLY BIRDS and have begun to assemble meetings one night a week to further study their aims and goals, and the chances (and nature) of their potential success.

During one of THE EARLY BIRDS latest meetings, it occured to some of them that an additional variable may be at stake in this process. They have compared notes, made correlations, and become increasingly concerned about the nature of this conundrum their country has gotten itself into. They each suspect that the problem is one of multiple dimensions, or variables, all working together in concert to effect an unprecedented dilemma in the history of the human race.

One theory The Early Birds are working on, is the idea that the US fosters an inherent sense of CHILDISHNESS in the fully operational and functional - even literate - adult. They have perceived a gradual dissolution of literacy in the populace, in each subsequent generation, as the now-inverted ideals of a once - earnestly Christian nation trump old-standing creeds (such as "Love your neighbor", "Turn your cheeks to the enemy", and "Thou shalt not kill"). This hypocrisy is noted by the Early Birds and earmarked for further study.

They have also duly noted the success with which the current administration's "Newspeak" media -manipulation tactics (along w/the various modalities of "opiates for the masses") work together to keep the populace largely entertained, dulled, or in one manner or another completely subservient to the caprices of the establishment.

[Thorngrub]

The Early Birds

~Part Two~

Having had quite enough of this obsequiousness, The Early Birds vow to get to the heart of the matter, strictly out of humanitarian concerns. They figure if their own "elected" state officials cannot place the needs of humanity over their own selfish concerns for power and wealth, then by jove The Early Birds will start a movement of their own based on ensuring the accomplishment of this simple objective.

It is curious to note that these various phenomenological traits engendered and commissioned by the short-sightedness and greed of a power-hungry elite seem to have resulted in a sort of retardation of the ordinary mass-growth process of a clustered humanity. I.e, it occured to The Early Birds during one bright sunny meeting, that if humanity as a whole could be seen (more or less) to have yet to fully emerge from the post-pubescent stage, then it was easy to see that when broken down into seperate factions or enclaves, well it made sense that perhaps some of these groups or tribes of humanity may indeed have "grown up" and successfully entered a mature, functional adulthood; while on the other hand, some factions may yet to reach "puberty" as a whole; and still others may be currently engaged in a struggle to get through this oft -difficult stage.

The symptoms of their own culture in the US seem to indicate a particular dilemma in having become largely "stuck" in this post-pubescent phase, and due to a host of ever complicating variables, more or less encouraged and/or nurtured to remain there. It began to make sense to The Early Birds that their country's penchant for entertainment, be it through the medium of movies or video games (to name just 2 examples) may have grown so out of proportion, that it has managed to stultify the otherwise normal growth process of their country, into a nation of more or less needy, spoiled, immature, and not-yet-fully sentient beings.

There came the day when some of the more astute Early Birds questioned the veracity of being able to literally do anything about this seemingly out-of-control dilemma. One of them pointed out the fruitlessness of getting through to a populace so disenfranchised, that only a particular subset of that populace has even conditioned themselves to vote. It seemed as if the nature of the 2 -party system and its simple-minded options (usually of "a lesser of two evils") was stuck in such a stale -mate, that no amount of planning could "sway" the populace into a more reasonably educated voting contingency.

That is when one of the Early Birds came up with the following idea: Acknowledging that "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink", this eager young Early Bird suggested the notion of simply competing with major advertising (itself perceived as part & parcel of the emerging threat to the collective) by virtue of espousing nothing less than the elimination of refined sugar from the diet. He argued that only in that way could there possibly be allowed an opportunity for the masses to assimilate all the variables present in choosing to elect a state official. I.e, that if The Early Birds merely set the precedent of achieving a notably healthier, more vibrant, energetic, lucid and exciting state of being for themselves, then this, in effect, would serve as a form of automatic advertising extolling the virtues of a refined-sugar-free diet. They could leap and dance, and cavort about exclaiming for all to hear, "Look at us! Our eyes have opened, we can see clearly now!"

Perhaps this alone would serve to showcase the benefits of eliminating refined sugar from the diet. Soon others would begin to take the notion more seriously. They would begin to see that their incessant, collective imbibing of sodapops, ice creams, desserts, candies, etcetera really was putting them in a vicious loop of false energy dependence, and directly into the consequences of that cycle's inevitable "crashing". Because by having worked on this incessantly as a collective for many generations, the "energy" and "crashing" have now subsumed themselves so deeply into our everyday lives that they are no longer even noticed as such: we have merely adapted ourselves into a society largely too apathetic and fatigued to bother with important minutae (such as voting correctly or expediently).

The Early Bird's idea being that eventually- when more and more people see for themselves how alert, happy, and carefree The Sugarless have become, they will at last make the decision for themselves to throw off the shackles of their oppression. Fast forward through this process, and eventually The Early Birds hope to literally cut into the voting contingency itself deeply enough that more and more voters get to enjoy the benefits of seeing clearly and WAKING UP to the hard reality they have been led by the short hairs for too many years to count, by a blind idiot force that has managed to get the best of the populace for awhile.

So it was that the latest Early Bird's meeting was adjourned. They vowed to show the remaining populace of their country just HOW to "think for yourelf", by setting an example themselves. (They decided to set a limit on their objective, so as to curtail any possibility of their own agenda somehow getting out of control and consequently adding to, rather than taking away from, the parasitic nature of the problem they were attempting to tackle.) They felt a dire need to express this plan on a strictly personal level, and to "advertise" the level of their success to the world simply by word of mouth, by writing their senators and neighbors, by setting up blogs, and generally bypassing any "legally sanctioned" avenues ripe for corruption and/or redirection back into the formerly growing paradigm.

They decided to cut ties with that older paradigm by beginning the process of rearranging their own priorities into a more reasonable order. Because they were perfectly aware that they had to start somewhere, they decided to honor the integrity of their own independent biological systems - their own bodies and minds -- by eliminating the host of improper substances daily subsumed into them by the products generated from this overt Beast of Greed given life by a surprisingly small initial group of politicians. They made a choice to be patient and have faith that eventually, their own (wiser) choices for maintaining their bodies' integrity (hence their minds') would begin to invariably "bleed" out and affect others who took note of their gradual improved status.

In this manner it was suggested that some day soon, oh, maybe within ten or twenty years even, the tide may become turned about enough so that the pool of voters itself would begin to be comprised of more truly enlightened citizens, non-addicted, and who could actually begin thinking for themselves. Then some day in the bright future, the percentage of lucid voters would finally reassert itself into the majority, and the people of this once -promising nation could look forward to wresting control from the nearsighted tyrants currently in possession of the yoke about its neck.

[Thorngrub]

NOt that the above short story outright answers the question posited by this board,
but I thought I'd take the opportunity to post The Early Birds here in order to help
shed at least some light on the matter at hand.


It's an experimental story I wrote today. Part of my ever growing curriculum to help "turn the tide" from the direction this country is apparantly headed toward. Feedback of any sort is always helpful and appreciated.

[phil]

HÉ ! You know what they say : "You are what you eat" !!

[ClubberLang]

damn, i was hoping for a poll on this one. I would have answered,"Cause they can't put the fucking fork down!"

[limitdeditionlayla]

clubber, you sexy bastard.

[kmc]

It's not so much the fork, it's the fact that Americans eat so much of their food with their hands. It's easier to stuff yourself that way.

[rockysigman]

I eat everything with a spork.

[phil]

kmc said:

It's not so much the fork, it's the fact that Americans eat so much of their food with their hands. It's easier to stuff yourself that way.

I always have to tell the kids :"Put back that sandwich on your plate,
nobody's gonna steal it from you while you're chewing on it...

You remember how to chew, right ? Then do it !!"

[Thorngrub]

Why are sooo many Americans so overweight?


Because we are the baddest, most aggressive, powerful, dominant tribe on the scrap heap, that's why. There I said it.


*enjoy it while it lasts, suckers*

[kmc]

The answer, obviously, is because KFC and Burger King are so fucking delicious.

Obviously.