How can some people not get why they are overweight?

[thatchicktrish]

this thread made me a little sad because I've dealt with weight problems my whole life. I was born with hypothyroidism, while it's not an excuse to be fat, I do find it a lot harder to control my metabolism and weight and my doctor has also told me it's why it will be harder for me to lose but I really don't factor that in when planning my diet/what I should be eating. I honestly DO know what I should be eating, it's just very hard to A. afford those things (fresh produce and fish) and B. be content with not having food that I like/eating food I don't even like for the rest of my life. I'm picky when it comes to food and have a hard time being content eating things I consider tasteless and disgusting for the rest of my life.

About 2 years ago I did weight watcher's and lost about 20lbs, my goal was 40lbs BUT after 2 months (of huge grocery bills for all the food WW required I eat) I kind of slacked off on the plan, it got expensive and tiring. I kept up on some of the important aspects of the plan (exercise, water intake, no soda, etc.) but all the weight came back. A year went by and I decided to quit smoking because I knew how unhealthy it was for me. So yay! I quit smoking (been quit for 1 full yr now) BUT in the process...I gained 30/35 more lbs, high blood pressure, borderline high cholesterol, acid reflux, bad kness and even worse self esteem... which doesn't help because I am an emotional eater, as well as a "bored" eater. Being quite blunt and honest here...there are days that I really regret quitting smoking, I didn't need this 35lbs, I was having enough trouble losing weight before quitting smoking. After gaining back the 20lbs I lost on WW I went a whole year without gaining/losing anything, then I quit smoking and BOOM I gain a huge amount and it's discouraging and upsetting not to mention that exercising is twice as hard now because my knees are killing me. There are times that I am very angry and think "ok well I won't die from emphysema or lung cancer since I quit smoking but I'll probably a stroke or heart attack now because my BP is through the roof." I have to ask myself sometimes What kind of life is this? I do one thing to be healthier but in the process gain 4 other disorders/health problems, seems like I can't win. I realize now that I traded one addiction for another and that smoking was an apetite suppressor for me but what do I do about it? I still drink my 2.5 quarts of water a day that I've been doing for 2 years straight now, I actually measure my water out in my own pitcher I keep in the fridge. I continue to cut out soda except for a diet coke once in a while, I exercise about 4 times a week for atleast 40 minutes. If I traded smoking for food, what will happen if I give up food? What addiction will take it's place? At this point, I've kinda given up on losing weight, I just want to be healthy.

While I agree that obesity is a problem in this country, please do not think that all overweight people you see are not working on their situation, it's hard to deal with emotionally and physically. We are not stupid, most of us know what we're doing wrong and how to change it, it's up to each individual to do what's right for them.

*sighs* I guess I hadda vent lol sorry it's so long.

 

[panfan]

Please don't get mad anyone......
But I have one question.....

For those who say eating healthy is too expensive....I am curious as to what you are referring too. What are you eating that is cheaper ?? It seems that processed/bad for you food would be more expensive than eating "Real" foods that are healthier for you ?? Although I do realize the fast food places make it really easy to eat a lot of food for very little $$$. I'm sure that can factor into the equation big time.

Just remember....you don't have to buy expensive pre-made or pre-pacaged "diet food" or "low-cal-low-fat" foods to eat healthier. In fact I think it is better to just try to stay as close as possible to eating REAL FOOD.

Just some thoughts

 

[Crankyshank]

Please don't get mad anyone......
But I have one question.....

For those who say eating healthy is too expensive....I am curious as to what you are referring too. What are you eating that is cheaper ?? It seems that processed/bad for you food would be more expensive than eating "Real" foods that are healthier for you ?? Although I do realize the fast food places make it really easy to eat a lot of food for very little $$$. I'm sure that can factor into the equation big time.

Just remember....you don't have to buy expensive pre-made or pre-pacaged "diet food" or "low-cal-low-fat" foods to eat healthier. In fact I think it is better to just try to stay as close as possible to eating REAL FOOD.

Just some thoughts

Fruits and veggies are expensive. I just spent $4.25 on a small bunch of asparagus. It's at least $8 for 3 chicken breasts. When you are dealing with limited funds it's a lot cheaper to get a $2 jar of marinara sauce and spend $.50 on a box of elbows or $.30 on a box of mac & cheese and $3 for a package of hot dogs.

 

[golfgal]

Please don't get mad anyone......
But I have one question.....

For those who say eating healthy is too expensive....I am curious as to what you are referring too. What are you eating that is cheaper ?? It seems that processed/bad for you food would be more expensive than eating "Real" foods that are healthier for you ?? Although I do realize the fast food places make it really easy to eat a lot of food for very little $$$. I'm sure that can factor into the equation big time.

Just remember....you don't have to buy expensive pre-made or pre-pacaged "diet food" or "low-cal-low-fat" foods to eat healthier. In fact I think it is better to just try to stay as close as possible to eating REAL FOOD.

Just some thoughts

It costs about $1.99 for a bag of chips and about $6 for a bag of apples. DH bought a bunch of grapes the other night, they were $3.59, the Little Debbie snacks he bought were $.99. If you have a limited grocery budget like a LOT of people do it is hard to justify a bag of apples when you can buy Little Debbies for 99 cents. There are a lot of people living at the poverty level the just can't afford to buy good food.

 

[meandtheguys2]

Unless you have the time to start with whole foods and cook from scratch, growing what you can, it is more expensive to buy the good stuff. I can't imagine paying grocery store prices for tomatoes, zucs, green beans, watermelon and apples. Gotta buy the asparagus, because growing it intimidates the heck out of me! One place to check is a farmer's market, if your town has one. We get the best eggs from chickens whose feet have touched the ground! And whole milk, and some kids there sell sprouts very reasonably.

One thing that is nice about whole foods is that you don't need as much of them. The fiber is def. fillling!

 

[bicker]

I'm glad to see this subject discussed, and discussed so long without degenerating completely into a flamefest.

So is this just plain old denial or is the message really not getting out?

I suppose there could be a few people for whom the message hasn't gotten out to yet, but I'll grant you very few. Almost everyone either knows about the linkage between high-calorie intake and obesity, or at least acknowledges that that is the common knowledge, even if they themselves refuse to accept it. To claim to not have heard about it at all, yes, I agree, that's got to be very rare.

What can we, as a society, do better to teach the public about proper diet and nutrition?

I think the focus on nutrition only is not even the correct approach -- rather the word about both nutrition and exercise need to be propogated, together, as a package.

My ds is in kdg and has PE once a week.

While I understand the sentiment regarding PE, I don't believe that PE was the answer, even in the 1960s and 1970s. PE, at least in my memory, we never about fitness, but rather was about activity and competition, which misses the mark with respect to what's really important vis a vis fighting obesity. Simply restoring the old broken PE infrastructure would be a waste. Instead, I feel it should be scrapped completely, and classes focused solely on physical fitness put in their place, perhaps with greater frequency, but that's secondary to the need for real fitness-focused curriculum.

I think a lot of people could control their weight if they wanted to. But I also think that some people try their hardest and people still say that they are fat or whatever.

The two aren't mutually exclusive: I believe just about everyone could be fit, and yet there are many people who try extremely hard and are still not fit. That's because trying doesn't matter. What matters is practicing healthy behaviors consistently, regardless of whether you try or not. Effort is just a very small part of the issue. For example, motivation to maintain the effort matters, and motivation is either contributed to or confronted by societal and environmental factors, among other things. The point is that just trying isn't going to necessarily work. You need to decide to succeed, regardless of contrary pressures. That's something that a lot of folks aren't willing to do. Many folks feel that their job or their family takes precedence, without considering how both job and family heavily depend on whether you're healthy enough to fulfill those responsibilities. In the meantime, societal pressures beyond job and family work seem to work diligently to undercut all fitness-related efforts. Mixed messages come from many directions. The result, for many, is lack of success.

When i count calories I lose weight pretty quickly.

The more structure in place to ensure you cannot over-intake or under-expend, the more success. Practically no one, who lives alone and doesn't deliberately violate the tenets of their program, has ever failed to lose weight on a medically-supervised very-low calorie diet. The failures for VLCDs, therefore, are almost exclusively among patients who have decided to leave the program for personal reasons, rather than any failure of the program. As you suggest: It works. The problem is that it isn't a walk in the park, and treating a human body as if it was just a calorimeter doesn't work. There is a person residing in that human body, who isn't going to just sit back like a lab rat. That's why success is not just a matter of knowing what is right, not just a matter of trying, but is a matter of doing, despite all natural and normal human tendencies to direct one off of that path, regardless of what those misdirections may be.

they just somehow can't be satisfied with that lifesytle.

That's very well-put.

When I talk to patients about how they lost weight, they always talk about how somehow a switch was turned on that enabled them to stop eating

Well, I bet that switch affected more than just eating. I also bet that, in most cases, that switch was in the brain, not anywhere else.

I also don't understand why alot of people don't want to take responsibility for their physical conditions.

I suppose it depends on what you mean. At the forefront, human beings tend to be embarassed by doing what they know to be wrong. Many folks believe that not eating right and not exercising is wrong. So folks who believe that way will be embarassed if they're indeed not eating right and not exercising. People are very often reticent to admit to things they're embarassed about. It's human nature.

There are other levels of responsibility though. I worry about folks who seek accommodation for their condition from others. I think it sends a very bad signal to grant accommodation on the basis of obesity -- I believe the ramifications of obesity help keep my motivation up, and that keeps me working toward keeping the weight off. Remove that, by making others share my burden, and I fear that would just be another society push away from personal accountability and fitness.

There are so many different advertisements and specialists and whatevers that are shoving different information down peoples throats these days that it gets very confusing.

True. However, what's really interesting, and important, is that there is very little disagreement about exercise. Just about every expert says it is GOOD. While there is no question that controversy and confusion regarding nutrition could complicate fighting obesity, to some extent, that shouldn't get in the way of embracing what practically everyone agrees about.

 

[donaldsgal]

Wow ... we are all so different. I admire your spirit. At the same time, I'm also 25, and gastric bypass would absolutely be something I'd be begging for under the right conditions ... I'm reasonably sure that she didn't mean to offend you.

Thanks for the compliment, but don't give me too much credit. There are days when that's certainly a preferable idea, but I just want to work to lose the weight because I think the hard work will ensure that I keep it off. The surgery would take it off for me, and I worry with my personality that it would not last.

Thanks also for pointing out she did not mean to offend. I agree - she's a good NP and certainly did not have the intention of offending me. I guess I wanted at least one other option so I felt she hadn't given up on me and was trying to communicate that the surgery was my only chance. But you make a good point.

 

[bicker]

I find it distressing that everyone has bought into blaming the "fat" for having high blood pressure and high cholesterol. It's just not true IMHO.

I'm not sure which messages you may be referring to, but to be clear: Not everyone with hypertension is obese, and not every obese person has hypertension. The same goes for any number of other ailments correlated with obesity. The point is that these ailments are indeed correlated with obesity. That doesn't mean that all and only obese folks suffer from these problems. Rather it means that being obese greatly increases the chances of suffering from these problems.

I've seen too many variations to blame fat for the ailments human beings suffer with.

I'm not sure if this is what you're suggesting, but the number of anecdotes never has any significant bearing on correlations. To deny the valid information based on the voluminous data available, due to a discrete number of exceptions, isn't well-advised. While folks shouldn't be maniacally scared that they're going to get (for example) diabetes, because they're obese, they shouldn't spite themselves by choosing to remain obese because they know of some obese people who haven't gotten diabetes (yet).

I also think the high protein, low carb faze did a number on people. They think they can have all the steak, bacon, and eggs they want!

I tried Atkins about seven years ago and it didn't that well work for me. However, it didn't make things worse, either. I agree with you to the extent that it perhaps isn't going to be the right answer for most people, but it also isn't the cause of any significant amount of obesity. At worse, a few people got a little heavier -- more likely, it was basically a wash, or perhaps society's a little (but not much) thinner as a result of low-carb.

By the same token, low-carb has had inestimable value in the broader issue of obesity, by raising awareness about the impact of insulin and the glycemic index. Most mainstream weight management approaches today owe at least a small debt of gratitude to low-carb for providing the impetus for researching these critical considerations. Even traditional stalwart Weight Watchers has changed its program and products, at least a little, to reflect what we've learned about insulin and the glycemic index.

Well what about people who are just naturally fat?

By some logic, everyone is equally, "naturally fat." Our bodies have been conditioned by tens of millenia of famine to be fat in the scarce times of plenty. Nothing in history has prepared the human species for an extended period of caloric plenty, lasting not only a few years, but for many of us, our entire life-times. The reality is that the vast majority of folks are just the same, with respect to predisposition to obesity, biologically and genetically. The difference is in how they approach the issues of nutrition and exercise, and again, that's very heavily influenced by psychology and sociology -- denying the impact of the mental aspect of the challenge of remaining healthy is unreasonable.

 

[bicker]

I think WW is a very good program and is the only commercial program that actually teaches people how to eat properly.

Sorry to disagree, Steve, but many commercial programs teach patients how to eat properly. Some provide a far more comprehensive education than Weight Watchers. Weight Watchers has the advantage of being the most well-known, and is among the least expensive. (Some of the best programs, from both a technical standpoint and from the standpoint of success rate) are among the least affordable.) With regard to other criteria, I wouldn't be so quick to put Weight Watchers forward as the hallmark of the sector.

IF food advertisers spend 2 billion a year to advertise processed and fast foods and the FDA spends 500 k to advertise portion control and nutrition, whose message is getting across to the public?

Don't forget, the USDA spends hundreds of thousands of dollars promoting consumption, too. So the poor FDA is confronted on two fronts: the private sector and from another agency within the government itself!

I would say your body thinks it is starving and has made accomodations for that.

There is no question that the human body is emmiently able to adapt to a marked decrease in calorie intake. It should be noted, though, that it isn't a linear scale, there is a threshold below which the situation won't manifest as much, and there are really other considerations, other than just calorie intake, that are relevant. For example, a carbohydrate-rich 1400 calorie diet is far more likely to cause the body to think it is starving than an protein-rich 1200 calorie diet. Also, in a low-calorie intake situation, a body in motion, especially regularly practicing weight-bearing physical activity, helps keep the metabolism working, forcing the body to switch from calorie intake to another energy source (such as stored body fat). In a nutshell, what you eat, and what you do, is in many ways far more important than how many calories you're eating.

I think so many people just want that quick fix too. Or, like someone said earlier, they want to "diet" for 6 months, then go back to the old habits and not gain back the weight.

Two great issues there. The desire for a quick fix, especially when you put it this way, i.e., as a six month diet, is emminently reasonable, IMHO. It is rather remarkable to maintain any austerity behaviors for more than six months. Sure it can be done (I spent nine months eating only medically-prescribed food, eh?) but it isn't something that folks should believe everyone should be able to "just DO".

By the same token, the realization must be, if success is the objective, that what happens "afterwards" (assuming that that six months works out well-enough) is NOT "going back to old habits." Rather, what happens afterwards must be a life-long, healthy lifestyle.

So much of what we believe to be "true medical facts" are simply a drug companies efforts to sell more product.

Perhaps, but to deny proven facts because you don't like the source, in the absence of proven facts to the contrary, isn't a good idea, IMHO. Like it or not, this is a capitalist society, and a fiscally conservative government. Private research is the primary way most things of value are discovered.

I'm saying that I think the obsession about weight and diets has caused people to gain more weight.

You were very critical, above, with respect to the peer-reviewed research published by drug companies. I hope you agree that it is reasonable for us, reading what you've wrote, to be at least as, if not significantly more, critical of your assertion. To be honest, I don't really know how much "obsession" has been counter-productive. In the spirit of community, I'd be willing to grant that it has some minor, but significant impact. However, I believe, and hope you'll be willing to grant, that that is a drop-in-the-bucket as compared to the extent to which poor eating and exercise behaviors contribute to obesity.

 

[poohandwendy]

I think the focus on nutrition only is not even the correct approach -- rather the word about both nutrition and exercise need to be propogated, together, as a package.

I totally agree. A sedentary lifestyle is harmful too. It shouldn't just be about diet, it should be about how to live a healthy lifestyle. If you live a truly healthy lifestyle (proper diet AND regular exercise, personalized to match your own needs), it is unlikely you will be obese or even overweight. People need to learn what healthy living is for their own body, age and medical issues being important factors in the formula.

It should be thought of as more a way of life, not a means to the end.

 

[momof2inPA]

Fruits and veggies are expensive. I just spent $4.25 on a small bunch of asparagus. It's at least $8 for 3 chicken breasts. When you are dealing with limited funds it's a lot cheaper to get a $2 jar of marinara sauce and spend $.50 on a box of elbows or $.30 on a box of mac & cheese and $3 for a package of hot dogs.

I just bought tons of fruits and vegetables- peaches, watermelon, apples, green and red peppers, broccoli, tomatoes, celery and cantaloupe for $25 at the fruit store. Fruits and veggies always cost me less than meat and prepared foods.

 

[bicker]

Bagels are supposed to be healthy right?

I know you were being facetious, but just for the record: No, bagels aren't supposed to be healthy.

Who wants to be deprived?

(sound of a hammer hitting nail on the head)

I think the main culprit in the last 25 years is Fast Food/Packaged Convenience foods. There are so many chemicals and additives in foods now a days that bodies weren't ever made to handle. Whole foods are much better for you and not that hard to incorporate.

There is no doubt that whole foods are better for you, but I think a lot of folks have a hard time understanding what "whole" foods really are. Wheat bread isn't a whole food. Even whole wheat bread isn't a whole food, at least not in the terms you've put it here, i.e., foods that are substantially better for you. Whole foods include whole grains, with the bran, not processed down into flour. Even steel cut oats reduce the work your body needs to do to digest, and therefore isn't technically a whole food.

By the same token, processed foods, as such, aren't really the culprit they're made out to be. There is nothing about food being processed that makes it bad -- it's just a matter that most of the processed food out there happense to BE bad: Either excessively high calorie, high saturated fat, low protein, nutritionally bankrupt, or a combination of the four. The chemical angle is often a red-herring. Arsenic is naturally-occuring and present in some food -- and it's surely bad for you. By the same token, many artificial chemicals added to food are either completely innocuous or even beneficial.

Good is good, and bad is bad. Trying to simplify it beyond that often ends up in a misdirection.

AARP had an article a year or so ago about the introduction of high fruitose corn syrup into foods, replacing sugar, and how obesity rates rose during that time.

(sound of another hammer hitting a nail on the head)

I don't think this can be over-stated. Everyone's struggling to find the "thing to blame" -- processed food, television, chemicals, low-carb, high-carb, fat, no fat, etc. Yet, here is what is practically an undeniable truth. There is a direct correlation between the rate of obesity and the amount of sugar, especially HFCS, in our food.

Maybe that hammer should be hitting us on the head, instead of aiming for a nail, eh?

 

[DawnCt1]

Sorry to disagree, Steve, but many commercial programs teach patients how to eat properly. Some provide a far more comprehensive education than Weight Watchers. Weight Watchers has the advantage of being the most well-known, and is among the least expensive. (Some of the best programs, from both a technical standpoint and from the standpoint of success rate) are among the least affordable.) With regard to other criteria, I wouldn't be so quick to put Weight Watchers forward as the hallmark of the sector.

.

With regard to Weight Watchers, it is often touted as the most successful of all of the diet programs. What helps them, and in fact probably is responsible for them acheiving that "status" is that they keep records with "weekly weigh ins" and life time free memberships which also require weigh ins. When individuals diet at home with any number of the good diet programs that they can do within the privacy of their homes, there are no statistics and so the success is actually unknown.

 

[DawnCt1]

Fruits and veggies are expensive. I just spent $4.25 on a small bunch of asparagus. It's at least $8 for 3 chicken breasts. When you are dealing with limited funds it's a lot cheaper to get a $2 jar of marinara sauce and spend $.50 on a box of elbows or $.30 on a box of mac & cheese and $3 for a package of hot dogs.

If you access to Costco or a Costco membership, a 2.5 pound bunch of asparagus is $3.99. Salmon, skinless and boneless is $4.29 a pound. Boneless chicken breasts can be frozen and often goes on sale for $1.99 lb. Again, at Costco, six heads of Romaine lettuce is $2.99.

 

[Crankyshank]

The closest Costco to me is over 30miles away so I'd rather use the money I'd spend on gas getting there on veggies.

Seriously the poster wanted examples of why people say it's cheaper to eat poorly. I was just giving examples. I didn't mean I bought the "bad things" Once the local farm stands are open, I spend less money on veggies. I still buy the same amount, I just spend less in the summer. We eat a lot of ground turkey which I stock up on at BOGOF sales at Stop & Shop

 

[disneysteve]

Sorry to disagree, Steve, but many commercial programs teach patients how to eat properly. Some provide a far more comprehensive education than Weight Watchers. Weight Watchers has the advantage of being the most well-known, and is among the least expensive.

Hi Brian. Thanks for joining in. You're correct. I meant of the common, nationally known programs. Certainly, there are many specialized programs with great plans but, as you pointed out, they aren't as affordable or as easily available.

What do all the celebs do when they need to lose some weight? They hire a nutritionist and a personal trainer and a personal cook, etc. It would be great if we could all do that but for the general public, I think Weight Watchers is a great choice.

 

[bicker]

I started this thread, rather, to get some input on dealing with people who aren't addressing their weight, people who may not even see their weight as a medical issue. Sometimes I'm just not sure how to attempt to get through to some of these patients.

Denial runs deep. I lost 75 pounds in 1989-90, and kept it off for about two years or so. The first hint that I had gained it all back should have been when I insisted to the customer service agent at JC Penney that their pants were defective because they split on me after just six months. I truly didn't realize -- no -- I refused to acknowledge that I had gained well over 50 pounds in six months. You're a physician, not a psychiatrist -- and I bet even a psychiatrist will acknowledge that you cannot help someone lose weight -- be healty -- when they don't even acknowledge the problem. That's got to come from something closer to the nerve. For me, it was a legitimate health scare (a diagnosis of degenerative disc disease, and a consequent back surgery). I fear there aren't any easy ways to get the message across. The spark either has to be there already, or something significant must occur, IMHO.

I heard a report the other day that this next generation may be the first ever to live shorter lives than their parents due to obesity.

I suppose it is just as well, since they'll probably also be the first (or perhaps second) generation to be less able to afford to live long in retirement than their parents were.

Has there been any medical advancement in this area besides stomach staples and gastric bypass?

I wouldn't consider surgery to be the latest medical advancements available. Indeed, as I alluded to earlier, the most recent developments have been with respect to the impact of insulin and the glycemic index. I also believe that there have been rather significant advancements in the realm of medically-supervised very-low calorie diets (VLCDs) over a bit longer timer period, say, the last ten years.

However, these advancements are all in the physical realm. What we really need are advancements in the psychological and sociological realm.

I think I would be livid! I thought with all the HIPPA hoopla, I thought most people in the medical field were being extra careful.

That's HIPAA, actually. I don't see any indication that HIPAA covers information that cannot be tracked back to a specific patient (though, admittedly, I didn't read the whole thing cover-to-cover).

Having said that, I'd rather discuss the issue, regardless of by whom it was raised and under what pretenses, than not discuss the issue and instead discuss whether the issue should have be raised this way or not. That's just my personal preference though. YMMV.

But don't think in terms of exceptions, think in terms of generalities, because statistically speaking, your overweight friends are going to die early.

Harsh, but true. Even words like "generalities" and "statistically speaking" have gotten a bad rap in recent years. These are the ways we humans can make sound decisions without the ability to see into the future.

I guess time will tell who winds up where healthwise.

The point is that if you wait until then, it's too late to do anything to change what happened. That's why recognizing that obesity is correlated strongly with so many maladies is so important, as is taking action to get fit now. I'm pretty fit now -- as my tag line says, I'm trying to get rid of that last 10 pounds again. However, over 30 years of obesity, combined with a congenital condition that I had no idea I had -- that no one has any idea they have until it manifests itself -- has left me on a razor's edge. I'm okay for now -- active, enjoying life -- but there are these dark stains all over my MRIs, that could end up putting me in a wheelchair for the rest of my days. Sure, the chances of that happening has plummeted with my weight, but they chances would be far smaller if I hadn't wrecked my body for 30 years.

I'm sorry if I'm coming across too emotional. As you can well imagine, this is a very important issue for me. If someone would have confronted me earlier with their own experience, maybe it would have made a difference to me. Maybe I would have lost weight earlier -- maybe I wouldn't have gained back that 75 pounds in the early 1990s.

I disagree in the spirit of how HIPAA laws are intended to work.

I'd rather leave HIPAA to address what HIPAA was intended to address. Trying to make it "spiritually" apply to something other than what the law says it applies to undermines the legitimacy of the law -- as if the law itself wasn't valid in its own right that it needs some external spiritual underpinning. I see nothing wrong with saying that you don't like doctors providing generic stories about things they encounter in their jobs. You're entitled to your opinion. I don't think you really need to extrapolate HIPAA to legitimize your preference.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

Maybe this has been mentioned (don't have time to read all the responses right now, but do want to), but I thought the movie Supersize Me was very eye opening. Of course that guy took the eating of fast food to an extreme, but many people do eat fast food (and a lot of it) daily. Just hopefully not for every meal.

We eat little fast food (being vegetarian) and would have what most people would consider a healthy diet, but we should make some changes. I need to cut back on the amount of junk food. The chips, crackers, cookies, and ice cream are fine for treats (which is generally how I consume them), but I have kids who would just as soon make it the major food group (my 11yo, especially).

My 5yo can't read yet, but is already "reading" nutritional labels, looks at the grams of sugar and fat and wants to know how many calories and vitamins different foods have. One night we had asparagus for dinner and Jake took a bite and said he didn't like it. After one of my older kids commented on how healthy it was Jake ate all of his. He really wants to be healthy, even though he probably still consumes more junk than he should. At least he balances it out with fruit and vegies somewhat.

Steve, I thought of you today when my DD and I stopped at the vegetarian Chinese restaurant in Rockville, MD that I had mentioned in another thread to you (when you mentioned a restaurant closing near you). I couldn't stop thinking about it after that other thread and it was good as usual.

T&B

 

[donaldsgal]

I'd rather leave HIPAA to address what HIPAA was intended to address. Trying to make it "spiritually" apply to something other than what the law says it applies to undermines the legitimacy of the law -- as if the law itself wasn't valid in its own right that it needs some external spiritual underpinning. I see nothing wrong with saying that you don't like doctors providing generic stories about things they encounter in their jobs. You're entitled to your opinion. I don't think you really need to extrapolate HIPAA to legitimize your preference.

You do understand I was not referring to religious spirituality, right? I was referring to not just following the letter of the law so that "I'm allowed to say this or that because it's not a violation of HIPAA." The law in itself is valid - I don't disagree - but when we find loopholes around it, I think that's unsafe for everyone involved. I was not attempting to extrapolate HIPAA. I was stating my opinion because the HIPAA issued was mentioned by several people including the OP in defense of why he was allowed to say what he said.

 

[bicker]

It drives me NUTS that Disney only offers processed junk for children to eat - their kids meals are full of chicken nuggets, hot dogs, peanut butter and jelly, and mac and cheese. What the heck? What about children who actually dine on quality, good for you food?

I'm not sure that the children's food is all that much worse than the corresponding regular food. By the same token, a company has to provide what customers are willing to purchase. If we want Disney to change, we need to change society, and therefore what Disney's market demands, first.

Steve, surely do don't believe that YOU are going to change people's habits, now do you?
I work with Dialysis patients and believe me, there CAN BE alot of non-compliance with this group especially regarding diet, fluid intake, meds, showing up for dialysis as scheduled, etc ....

Great point. My grandfather smoked, against doctors' orders, up until he died of lung cancer. Logic doesn't prevail: We're humans.

I suspect the typical loss is probably little if any weight loss.

Folks should demand information about what is "typical". It is very hard to come by, surely. The last time an independent study was done of the success rates for the national commercial weight-loss programs was in the 1990s, I believe. Weight Watchers, incidently, came in last, at a little less than 5%. The most successful national programs were Health Management Resources (HMR), Optifast and Medifast, with success rates in the 15%-20% range. Not surprisingly, these are also the most expensive programs -- by orders of magnitude. The rest of the programs for which data was presented were pretty-much only marginally better than Weight Watchers, all around 5%-6%, and most of them were far more expensive than Weight Watchers.

There should be a law, requiring each program to report number of patients that sign-up, average number of weeks patients stick with the program, average weight-loss for overweight patients, and number of weeks within 5 pounds of the healthy weight range for non-overweight patients. I bet THAT would be SOME eye-opener!

For those who say eating healthy is too expensive....I am curious as to what you are referring too. What are you eating that is cheaper ?? It seems that processed/bad for you food would be more expensive than eating "Real" foods that are healthier for you ??

Not in my experience! Besides HMR (the program I actually lost all my weight with), Atkins was the most expensive, followed closely by South Beach Diet. Weight Watchers was among the least expensive, but still far more expensive than McDonalds and Burger King.

Stouffer's Macaroni & Cheese (12 oz) is $1.95, while Stouffer's Lean Cuisine Macaroni & Cheese (10 oz) is $2.39. I think that pretty-much says it all.

Without using any processed food, the difference is even greater! Fat, sugar and empty carbohydrates are remarkably inexpensive. Whole grains with the bran go rancid very quickly, as compared to white flour, so are commensurately more expensive.

All Purpose Flour is $1.29 for 2 lb. Whole Wheat Flour is $2.79 for 2 lb. Again, I think that pretty-much says it all.

As Jenn pointed out, fruits and vegetables are expensive, especially when compared against things like pasta and pasta sauce. Add into that what we've learned about the glycemic index, and you'll see that high glycemic foods are remarkably inexpensive as compared to low glycemic foods. It's remarkable.

Don't get me started on how cheap potato chips are.