A weighty issue

[bellassecret]

yes yes YESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!

As a Brit with free-to-all healthcare, it strikes me as awful that in many other countries people have to actually stop and think "Can I afford to see the doc about this/pay for the drugs for treating this/ etc etc?".

Our National Health Service is overstretched but if you're sick, you go and you get treated, and nobody charges you a penny. And if you need drugs they are free fro thoe on welfare or, for anyone else, roughly $10 a prescription. Last week I paid roughly $30 for three months' worth of the three drugs I take.

To me two things that should be provided, free of charge, to ever single citizen of any country that wants to call itself civilised, are education and healthcare.

I'm an Aussie, also with a free healthcare system and I totally agree. Although our drugs are not free if you're on welfare, they are cheap enough that paying for them is not a big burden.

I see a psychiatrist (I have bipolar) about once a month. He's a very good doctor and I assume that he would normally charge quite a bit given the area he works in. All the up-market doctors are there. But as I'm on welfare he I don't get charged at all. The government pays for me through our medicare scheme. I would be in a bad way now if it wasn't for this, instead of on my way to recovery.

So yeah, I'm a fan of health care.

Unfortunately for me, the drugs that I take for my bipolar play havoc with my weight. This is something that a lot of people don't get, is that you can actually put on a lot of weight without eating a lot. I've have put on 10 kilos (about 20 pounds) in a unbelievably short time even though I was eating a strict calorie controlled diet and exercising daily. Mathematically, this shouldn't even be possible, but it happened.

So it's worth remembering that not everyone who is overweight or obese is that way because they are lazy and eat too much. Many have health problems that have caused them to gain weight. Or perhaps they have psychological issues. But people tend to judge the overweight as glutenous and lazy. I would say that in a lot of cases it's more complicated than that.

 

[BiBunny]

OK, I have a question about Alabama and food that maybe you, my redneck goddess, can answer. I've only passed briefly, (though memorably), through Alabama en route to Florida. I stopped at a gas station to fuel up and grab a snack. Now, there was a display case there full of deep fried "stuff". Some of the stuff was round, some of it was log shaped, some of it was triangular. On the wall, there was a menu describing the stuff but there were no corresponding signs in the display case to let you know what each group of stuff was. So, do people just know that the triangles are fried chicken nuggets and the squares are fried potatoes, or what?

I couldn't figure out what anything was. I went with gum, I'm not that adventurous.

BTW, I think I gave myself away as a foreigner when I started taking pictures of the pigs running through the station and rooting up the shrubberies.

Yes, Mississippi was scary. I drove real fast.

Um, wow. Pigs in the gas station? Even I've never seen that one before, LOL.

As far as the fried stuff in the display cases, I think you just have to guess. Sometimes, I know what they are, and sometimes, I don't. Not that I'm really brave enough to eat that stuff, either!

It's never too late.

I know, right? At least it gives me something to aspire to.

 

[Homburg]

Um, wow. Pigs in the gas station? Even I've never seen that one before, LOL.

I remember when viv and I were still dating. I was leaving her parents' place at like 2am and come face to bumper with 3-4 horses in the road. Yep, that was fun. I called 911, and the dispatcher knew immediately where I was calling from, whose horses they were, and said she'd call them to come get their horses.

And I do not live in the country by any stretch of the imagination. It's just the South.

As far as the fried stuff in the display cases, I think you just have to guess. Sometimes, I know what they are, and sometimes, I don't. Not that I'm really brave enough to eat that stuff, either!

No way in hell. I had a buddy that just LOVED chicken gizzards. Even when I explained what the chicken used the gizzard for. He didn't care, and I swear he had a special love for getting them when I was in a car with him. Ugh.

 

[BiBunny]

I remember when viv and I were still dating. I was leaving her parents' place at like 2am and come face to bumper with 3-4 horses in the road. Yep, that was fun. I called 911, and the dispatcher knew immediately where I was calling from, whose horses they were, and said she'd call them to come get their horses.

And I do not live in the country by any stretch of the imagination. It's just the South.

When our horses get loose, the folks in town just call my parents' house. Everyone knows who they belong to, LOL. "Hey, y'all? Your horses are out. You might wanna go get them." The really nice people will try to catch them for us.

No way in hell. I had a buddy that just LOVED chicken gizzards. Even when I explained what the chicken used the gizzard for. He didn't care, and I swear he had a special love for getting them when I was in a car with him. Ugh.

Ew, ew, ew. I don't do organ meats. *Shudder*

 

[Keroin]

Um, wow. Pigs in the gas station? Even I've never seen that one before, LOL.

As far as the fried stuff in the display cases, I think you just have to guess. Sometimes, I know what they are, and sometimes, I don't. Not that I'm really brave enough to eat that stuff, either!

Yeah, pigs. It was hysterical. Where I live now, of course, pigs running loose is an everyday occurrence.

I don't eat fried anything, as a general rule, but after you've spent a gazillion hours on the road, eating gas station food, the idea of something real and cooked begins to become appealing. But it wasn't just the lack of identification that put me off, I had some serious questions about how long the fried stuff had been living in that display case

At the rest area in Mississippi, I was hit up for cash by a couple of crack heads. Like I said, I drove real fast.

 

[Keroin]

Just had to share this because I thought it was such a positive note on an otherwise depressing topic. I met this guy Brahm and his wife and hung out with them yesterday. Brahm founded The People's Grocery in Oakland, CA. Check it out, he's doing some amazing work with fantastic results.

We had a long talk about the world wide problem of poor nutrition resulting in obesity, (he lived in West Africa for two years and saw the problem there, as well). Anyway, he was a wealth of knowledge and also inspiration. He and his wife both raved about this book. So, I'll be checking that out as soon as I'm back in the world.

It's always reassuring to see people who are actually out doing the hard-yet-important work. Hats off to them!

 

[smallgirl]

I was given some magazines recently - always a treat here on the rock - and among them was a recent issue of Time. As I was skimming through, I came across a statistic stating 34.5% of Americans are obese. I kept reading. Then I went back and read that stat again.

34.5% obese. Holy cow. That's a third of the population. This prompted some searching.

According to the WHO, the US has the 9th highest rate of obesity/overweight of all the countries in the world, with 74.1 percent of the population weighing in as such. It's the biggest medical problem in the country. I couldn't find recent statistics for Canada, and we weren't in the top 20, but I'm sure we're up there, too.

The WHO considers people with a BMI index higher than 25 as overweight and over 30 as obese. And it's not just the US, this is a global problem. For the first time since stats have been taken, more people in the world - 1.6 billion - are overweight than underweight.

Is it just me, or is anyone else completely floored by this? Can we not control our food consumption?

And before you jump on me with the, "You're skinny, you don't know what it's like", let me tell you about me. I am hypothyroid and have been for 27 years. I am also on hormones to control endomitriosis that make me gain weight. I make a conscious effort to stay fit and healthy, no matter where I am, or how much money I have, or how busy I may be. I love cake, cookies and junk food as much as anyone else.

So what's happening? And what can be done about it?

my daughter and i went to a concert in august...and i couldnt believe the heavy people i saw..hands full of cokes, nacho, hot dogs, pretzels...etc.. i know why we have that number...too many lazy couch potatoes..

i know some have health trouble, thyroid and others. but some can help it. get up and exercise!

 

[Keroin]

my daughter and i went to a concert in august...and i couldnt believe the heavy people i saw..hands full of cokes, nacho, hot dogs, pretzels...etc.. i know why we have that number...too many lazy couch potatoes..

i know some have health trouble, thyroid and others. but some can help it. get up and exercise!

It's actually a bit more complicated than that, as I have learned. The problem is global and has much to do with the lack of availability of healthy food choices for the poor.

For example, there are parts of the US that are "food deserts". These were created when people started moving from the cities into suburbs. Grocery stores followed their consumers and found that there was much for profit in 50,000 Sq/ft stores in the suburbs than 20,000 Sq/ft stores in urban areas. So what is left in these areas - which tend to be populated by low income earners, especially blacks and Hispanics - is mini-marts and 7-11 type stores, with high prices and very little fresh food.

Of course some people just over eat and don't exercise enough but on a global scale, those people comprise a small minority.

This thread has quite an interesting discussion if you have the time to read through it.

 

[smallgirl]

It's actually a bit more complicated than that, as I have learned. The problem is global and has much to do with the lack of availability of healthy food choices for the poor.

For example, there are parts of the US that are "food deserts". These were created when people started moving from the cities into suburbs. Grocery stores followed their consumers and found that there was much for profit in 50,000 Sq/ft stores in the suburbs than 20,000 Sq/ft stores in urban areas. So what is left in these areas - which tend to be populated by low income earners, especially blacks and Hispanics - is mini-marts and 7-11 type stores, with high prices and very little fresh food.

Of course some people just over eat and don't exercise enough but on a global scale, those people comprise a small minority.

This thread has quite an interesting discussion if you have the time to read through it.

i agree, also too much living life in the fast lane and drive thru suppers. but i stick by what i think. you have to make the choice to not be heavy if you can help it. its all about self discipline. dont let yourself eat that bag of chocolate.

 

[Keroin]

i agree, also too much living life in the fast lane and drive thru suppers. but i stick by what i think. you have to make the choice to not be heavy if you can help it. its all about self discipline. dont let yourself eat that bag of chocolate.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of self discipline and accepting personal responsibility but you have to remember this thread is about obesity as a global issue and the biggest increases in per capita obesity are happening in some of the poorest areas in the world.

Where I live, food is atrociously expensive and hard to come by and the population is very poor. What's cheap? Canned corn beef, coke, white bread, etc - lots and lots of empty calories. As a result, this small, island nation is in the top five most obese countries (per capita) in the world. These people aren't just lazy and lacking self discipline; that is not the problem.

You should check out the link, (in the post above your first post), to Stuffed and Starved, interesting stuff there.