Too fat to fight?

**triggerhappy2005** · 12-06-10, 11:19 AM

Why obesity is a national security threat - CNN.com

An interesting article on obesity and the problems it presents to the military. I was recently in Orlando for a week last week and it's just so surreal coming from Europe hoe obese many people are. It's not just one culprit but many from my observations. First is the food. It's not just the quantity but the quality. It seems that there's a total disregard for what's put into food these days and how little is not processed. Exercise obviously is the next problem.

I see so many kids that are overweight that it seems the problem is never going to get better. Lastly is the fact that being fat is so prevalent that people seem to think that it's normal to be that way. When there's more fat cops that in-shape cops, you know something is wrong. It needs to be stigmatized more like smoking and not so readily accepted before there will be any real change.

**Gumby** · 12-06-10, 12:01 PM

To me, there is a lack of chain restaurants here in Europe. Maybe they are where I am not, but I have never seen a Benigin's, Red Lobster, Applebee's or any other restaurant that falls into that class. What I do see is a whole lot of family owned places with amazing food and quality ingredients. They seem more active in general than us Americans as well. It seems like more people walk or bike to work here than in the USA. I am moving this month and I am attempting to get a house within bike range of work so I can join in on that. But, I do not think that this is a security threat to the USA. After all, we can always just outsource any future wars

(BTW Trigger, today is your happy day, there is one less dirty defense contractor in the world, I am no longer a mercenary. I now work directly for The Man)

**DJ Ms. White** · 12-06-10, 02:18 PM

Yeah it's an issue. It makes me sad to see the children who are obese. My parents were fine with me growing up that way, and so are loads of other parents. It's parents not caring what goes into their kids' bodies. It's just disgusting.

**triggerhappy2005** · 12-06-10, 03:40 PM

I grew up in the 70's and 80's. At that time it was rare to see an obese child. In fact, I remember in my 5th grade class there was just one girl who was overweight. Everybody else was normal weight for their height.

**Red_Lizard2** · 12-06-10, 03:52 PM

its all about exercise, You can eat all the junk you want, just means you need to spend more time exercising to work it off. The problem is (even compared to when I was in Elementary schools in late 90s) kids go home to sit and play on the computer or with their XBOX 360/PS3, instead of playing outside etc. Add to it parents that think as soon as there kid walks out the door, every child molester in the world is going to be waiting for them.

**nmeboat** · 12-06-10, 05:06 PM

no, its all about food and nutrition...of course exercise is important, but ultimately it starts with intake, after all, you are what you eat. everything is so processed/refined/etc nowadays that all of the nutritional value of food is removed...why? so that it can keep on the shelves longer (ie, sell more...make more money). and it becomes so easily and cheaply available, but its nutritionally dead. therefore the brain/body tries to overcompensate by ingesting more of this "dead" food to try and ink out what little nutrition is available, so then people end up overeating...double edged sword. that was one thing I initially couldn't understand, that after all the energy and chemicals that go into processing and refining food...how can they be cheaper than the "real", unprocessed/refined counterparts? of course, I realize its about selling more product now. and this subject can go a lot deeper and off more tangents so I will stop while I am ahead

but ultimately its all about quality food and smart eating (proper portions/portion control), and of course exercise is critical too. people nowadays worry more about the quality of gas they put in their car, than the quality of food they put in their bodies...

caught Dr. Oz on a show one time and a factoid he presented was the correlation between food quality and health-care, noting that "back in the day", households spent more on "good/quality" foods with little-to-no expenses on health-care; whereas today households buy more cheap, low-quality foods, and their health-care costs go up (obesity, diabetes, heart disease, etc). past: higher spend on good/quality food => lower spend on health-care; present: lower spend on cheap/low quality food => higher spend on health-care costs.

**~~hawgballs~~** · 12-06-10, 07:38 PM

"Supersize" is a huge part of the problem....... Trans fats as well....... Everything is overly processed, and all of the ma and pop shops have been pushed out by Big Box and the leaches that follow ie, Boston Market, Panera, Lone Star, etc..... To name a few things wrong.....

**WickedTribe** · 12-06-10, 07:56 PM

Originally Posted by nmeboat

no, its all about food and nutrition...of course exercise is important, but ultimately it starts with intake, after all, you are what you eat. everything is so processed/refined/etc nowadays that all of the nutritional value of food is removed...why? so that it can keep on the shelves longer (ie, sell more...make more money). and it becomes so easily and cheaply available, but its nutritionally dead. therefore the brain/body tries to overcompensate by ingesting more of this "dead" food to try and ink out what little nutrition is available, so then people end up overeating...double edged sword. that was one thing I initially couldn't understand, that after all the energy and chemicals that go into processing and refining food...how can they be cheaper than the "real", unprocessed/refined counterparts? of course, I realize its about selling more product now. and this subject can go a lot deeper and off more tangents so I will stop while I am ahead

but ultimately its all about quality food and smart eating (proper portions/portion control), and of course exercise is critical too. people nowadays worry more about the quality of gas they put in their car, than the quality of food they put in their bodies...

caught Dr. Oz on a show one time and a factoid he presented was the correlation between food quality and health-care, noting that "back in the day", households spent more on "good/quality" foods with little-to-no expenses on health-care; whereas today households buy more cheap, low-quality foods, and their health-care costs go up (obesity, diabetes, heart disease, etc). past: higher spend on good/quality food => lower spend on health-care; present: lower spend on cheap/low quality food => higher spend on health-care costs.

I don't think that your first paragraph is scientifically supported. Nobody (that I'm aware of) is removing nutrients from foods to preserve them, and the part about your body overcompensating doesn't make much sense.

It's a few things. It's calories in v. calories expended, definitely. Your body has to comply with the laws of physics, and if you don't overeat, you're not going to get fat. And yeah, it's much easier to regulate the energy that you take in than it is to regulate the energy that you burn. It's really tough to spend twice as many calories as normal, it's relatively easy to take in half as many. Of course, a combination is the best.

Additionally, we add a lot of corn syrup to food in America. This isn't bad because HFCS is somehow worse than cane sugar, but it's a lot of simple sugar in a lot of things. In short, simple sugar spikes your blood sugar, which spikes your insulin, which makes you store more of the calories that you're taking in, as fat.

**deathgodusmc** · 12-06-10, 08:04 PM

Originally Posted by Gumby

To me, there is a lack of chain restaurants here in Europe. Maybe they are where I am not, but I have never seen a Benigin's, Red Lobster, Applebee's or any other restaurant that falls into that class. What I do see is a whole lot of family owned places with amazing food and quality ingredients. They seem more active in general than us Americans as well. It seems like more people walk or bike to work here than in the USA. I am moving this month and I am attempting to get a house within bike range of work so I can join in on that. But, I do not think that this is a security threat to the USA. After all, we can always just outsource any future wars

(BTW Trigger, today is your happy day, there is one less dirty defense contractor in the world, I am no longer a mercenary. I now work directly for The Man)

And you never will. Benegans is closed. The showed up in the middle of the night and locked their employees out. They got to find out by showing up for work and not being able to get in.

A small side note.
It isnt just civilians with the issue. I've been on fort jackson for the past month. For those that dont know an army basic training facility. Just how low did they take the stardards for the army? I see many that fit the definition of obese wearing uniforms. Crist one girls today eating burritos one half per bite with her 250 lbs ass.

**reject_wolf** · 12-06-10, 08:11 PM

Originally Posted by nmeboat

caught Dr. Oz on a show one time and a factoid he presented was the correlation between food quality and health-care, noting that "back in the day", households spent more on "good/quality" foods with little-to-no expenses on health-care; whereas today households buy more cheap, low-quality foods, and their health-care costs go up (obesity, diabetes, heart disease, etc). past: higher spend on good/quality food => lower spend on health-care; present: lower spend on cheap/low quality food => higher spend on health-care costs.

This makes sense, unfortunately there are too many divorces these days causing single parents to raise kids, and the easiest meals to make or get these days are not the healthiest. I do not see obesity going down until divorce rates go down. Not to mention I never see kids playing outside anymore, I used to remember getting in so much trouble as a kid outside, and playing street hockey in school parking lots were the best times of my life, and I still played a lot of video games. There are so many factors in childhood obesity.