Why is everyone so fat?

[Yeeted Teet]

In addition to the diet/lifestyle aspects that have already been mentioned, being overweight has become so common that people's perception of a healthy weight has been warped and people who would have been the chubby kid 50 years ago think they're perfectly normal now. A lot of people are in complete denial about their weight, eg. doughy guys swearing up and down that they're not overweight because BMI is inaccurate and doesn't account for muscle, despite the fact that they never seen the inside of a gym in their lives and the only cardio they get is walking to the fridge.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Cheap food, lack of self control and knowledge that however you fuck up your body, big daddy government will foot the bill.

 

[Tleilaxian]

The fact that everything Americans eat is loaded to the brim with High-Fructose Corn Syrup, no matter what it is.

 

[The Last Stand]

Food is just so good.

 

[Llama king]

Americans don't understand the concept of being healthy

 

[DeadwastePrime]

well you see, here's the thing:
I like big butts and I can not lie
You other brothers can't deny
That when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist
And a round thing in your face you get sprung

 

[Bad Gateway]

Have you had food lately? Shit's good.

Obviously there are many causes. But one I've been thinking about a lot lately is the difference in available food quality just since the 70s. In America, the only real country, get fucked fags from everywhere else. I mean, even when I was a kid, the general quality of food was far worse than it is today. The Internet as a tool is a main reason, there's 6 gorillion fried chicken recipes out there at this very second, but I've been thinking about the mainstreaming of more ethnic cuisine as a cause of fatness. As progressively more and more ethnic groups become accepted, more and more food enters into the rotation of the home cook. I've been alive long enough to have witnessed the progression of specifically Mexican and Chinese food. Indian and Thai food are travelling this same exact path right now, and Arab and African look to be next up. There was a time, as recently as the 90s, where there was almost nothing from either Mexican or Chinese cuisines in regular grocery stores, especially not premade, frozen, or prepackaged. Now? Your store is guaranteed to have at least half an aisle dedicated to Mexican foods, and another half to the pan-Asian without counting all the shit in the frozen aisle, or at the hot food bar, or the fresh stuff in the grocery areas like poblanos, jicama, jalapenos, etc. Why? It may have a small bit to do with the ethnic groups in your area, but its primarily because everybody eats Mexican food all the time now, and specifically, everybody eats only the very unhealthiest kinds of Mexican food. And that goes double for Chinese food. Shit, I'll bet you can barely find a way to order out Chinese food without it being more than 2500 calories per person.

Obviously, both of those cuisines, and indeed all cuisines except British have normal, healthy meals that normal people eat and don't weigh a million pounds. But they're almost all the same. Rice, beans, veggies, a bit of grilled meat. That is literally the """""secret""""" to healthy eating across the globe. But nobody wants that shit. Give me burritos the size of a newborn, give me orange chicken by the pound, give me some kind of creamy fat, wrapped in a carb, and deep fried, and dipped in a sauce loaded with all the sugar and/or butter you have yeaaaaah fuck yeah food is the best

 

[Niggernerd]

Piggy wiggy farmers.

 

[A Thick Piece of Meat]

food tastes good

 

[GENERAL MAO]

Have you had food lately? Shit's good.

Obviously there are many causes. But one I've been thinking about a lot lately is the difference in available food quality just since the 70s. In America, the only real country, get fucked fags from everywhere else. I mean, even when I was a kid, the general quality of food was far worse than it is today. The Internet as a tool is a main reason, there's 6 gorillion fried chicken recipes out there at this very second, but I've been thinking about the mainstreaming of more ethnic cuisine as a cause of fatness. As progressively more and more ethnic groups become accepted, more and more food enters into the rotation of the home cook. I've been alive long enough to have witnessed the progression of specifically Mexican and Chinese food. Indian and Thai food are travelling this same exact path right now, and Arab and African look to be next up. There was a time, as recently as the 90s, where there was almost nothing from either Mexican or Chinese cuisines in regular grocery stores, especially not premade, frozen, or prepackaged. Now? Your store is guaranteed to have at least half an aisle dedicated to Mexican foods, and another half to the pan-Asian without counting all the shit in the frozen aisle, or at the hot food bar, or the fresh stuff in the grocery areas like poblanos, jicama, jalapenos, etc. Why? It may have a small bit to do with the ethnic groups in your area, but its primarily because everybody eats Mexican food all the time now, and specifically, everybody eats only the very unhealthiest kinds of Mexican food. And that goes double for Chinese food. Shit, I'll bet you can barely find a way to order out Chinese food without it being more than 2500 calories per person.

Obviously, both of those cuisines, and indeed all cuisines except British have normal, healthy meals that normal people eat and don't weigh a million pounds. But they're almost all the same. Rice, beans, veggies, a bit of grilled meat. That is literally the """""secret""""" to healthy eating across the globe. But nobody wants that shit. Give me burritos the size of a newborn, give me orange chicken by the pound, give me some kind of creamy fat, wrapped in a carb, and deep fried, and dipped in a sauce loaded with all the sugar and/or butter you have yeaaaaah fuck yeah food is the best

Country, Money, IQ, Personality type, Family, Advertising, Mental illness, Lack an education, Beliving in god so it is all ok anyway, Jesus christ the list can go on this it is basically a non-question, and when you say fat what is fat? in your eyes?

 

[Cheerlead-in-Chief]

At 16 I tried to become anorexic by refusing to eat breakfast
Mom, a dentist, forced me to eat a bowl of cereal, despite calling me fat at 14 for eating grandma's mashed potatoes and boiled eggs

TL'DR: shitty family

 

[melty]

I think that it's processed food with added sugar, etc. Just personally, whenever I have processed crap foods in my diet, I gain weight. When I don't, I lose weight. Does anything else change about me? Do I suddenly have more self control and willpower, move around more, or change my views on eating as entertainment? No.

 

[Lemmingwise]

People mention sedentiary livestyles. It's funny how that affects your waistline in a way that is unintuitive.

Exercise hasn't got a huge effect on burning calories, especially compared to the effort it takes.

If you compare the energy of the average snack, like say, three cookies or mars bar. The energy is roughly what you burn with 60 minutes of running.

Of course there is another way exercise affects fat burn. Exercise helps grow your muscles and muscles cost energy to maintain. This is also why weight scales are a poor way to measure your weight loss program. Because you might be losing kilos of fat while you are gaining kilos of muscle. Usually that means you are getting healthier but your scales alone don't tell you.

But the single most important reason why exercise

But the most important reason exercise affects your fat is because it is motivating and anti-depressing to exercise. It has a stronger effect than any pill you could buy on making you happy.

And people get fat because they use food to make them less depressed. By having a better, healthier source of happiness, they remove a big fat part of the reason why they need to eat so much sweet.

 

[Slap47]

At 16 I tried to become anorexic by refusing to eat breakfast
Mom, a dentist, forced me to eat a bowl of cereal, despite calling me fat at 14 for eating grandma's mashed potatoes and boiled eggs

TL'DR: shitty family

The perception of what food is healthy is pretty fucked in general. People view fatty food as unhealthy but don't blink an eye at M&M cereal.

 

[Bad Gateway]

Country, Money, IQ, Personality type, Family, Advertising, Mental illness, Lack an education, Beliving in god so it is all ok anyway, Jesus christ the list can go on this it is basically a non-question, and when you say fat what is fat? in your eyes?

Why did you quote me here. bugman

Exercise hasn't got a huge effect on burning calories, especially compared to the effort it takes.

If you compare the energy of the average snack, like say, three cookies or mars bar. The energy is roughly what you burn with 60 minutes of running.

But the single most important reason why exercise

breddy good post

 

[Cheerlead-in-Chief]

The perception of what food is healthy is pretty fucked in general. People view fatty food as unhealthy but don't blink an eye at M&M cereal.

Agree. Cereal, especially those aimed at children are chock full of sugar. now there's "Pokémon" cereal, "Minecraft" cereal, "Pop-Tarts" cereal, fuck even Rice Krispies, cereal when they already had that shit before.

 

[Johan Schmidt]

Poor lifestyle, too much rich food, not enough calorie counting and not enough of an understanding about health.

 

[Dave.]

I'm not going to go into the semantics of carbohydrates or the ketogenic diet because I think that's a overhyped myth (it's not inaccurate it's just way overhyped as being the real way to live). Convenience is the big thing right now. Why cook when you can just drive up to a McDonald's and order a burger and fries? Boom, hunger solved in a matter of minutes. Whereas cooking can take a matter of 20 to 30 minutes depending on the dish and sometimes we're not even willing to set aside 10 because why should we? Why put forth the effort when we can just say an order out loud, scan a card, and grab our lunch in a matter of maybe six minutes. It has nothing to do with the economy or how healthy food is expensive, it's because putting the effort into cooking has become obsolete when we can make made in a minute meals that satisfy our hunger and let us get back to our sedentary lives with little to no effort involved. Because this convenient food also tastes good, it becomes addictive and gives us dopamine hits so intense it can blind us to the damage we're doing to our bodies. People would rather eat a McDonald's hamburger than a salad and a glass of water because the hamburger has way more of an intense and noticeable flavor whereas the salad tastes kind of bland depending on what you put in it. It doesn't also help that junk food can actually ruin your tastebuds temporarily making healthy food taste worse because they're not loaded with sodium and sugar so a healthy salad can taste like nothing if repeated trips to McDonald's continues.

Is Fast Food Killing Our Sense of Taste?

Your sense of taste is being barraged by the loads of salt, fat, and sugar found in double cheeseburgers, waffle fries, and milkshakes.

www.webmd.com

In short, the reason people are so fat is because the convenience cascade effect where it's basically a domino that starts with convenience and ends in healthy stuff tasting bland.

 

[Un Platano]

Blaming it on poor self control or inability to count calories is only a step in the process of why this is happening. The majority of people throughout history were not fat and it wasn't because in the past people carefully controlled their diet and kept track of their calorie intake, and that's why giving poor self control as a reason is just avoiding the question. It's also not correct to blame it all on a scapegoat like corn syrup. People in Mexico are drinking liters upon liters of Coke made with real cane sugar every day and they're gaining just as much weight off of it as anyone else in the world is.

The important thing to consider is that correlation does not imply causation. The logic goes something like this:

1. One hundred years ago, nothing was made with corn syrup, and people were not fat.
2. Today, everything is made with corn syrup, and people are fat.
Therefore, corn syrup is making people fat.

It's easy to make this conclusion, but it's not logically valid, because correlation does not imply causation. In fact, this one is easy to disprove by the example of any country that is gaining weight without eating huge quantities of corn syrup, such as Mexico. And that extends to any particular dietary habit, not just corn syrup. The fact that fat people are doing this one thing in particular does not mean that that one thing in particular is the reason they're fat.

That is not to say that the presence of corn syrup in food and obesity are not related, but that there's more conditions that we're ignoring. One of those reasons is that the food supply is greater than it was in the past. That's why people are fat, because they eat more food. And that's why corn syrup consumption has grown too: since any food can be supplied in greater quantities today than in the past, people can eat more of the foods they like, and less of the foods they don't like, which includes corn syrup. People used to eat chopped liver and gruel because there wasn't enough cake in the world that everyone could eat cake every day. But now there is, and so people can replace gruel with cake.

Unfortunately for us the foods we like the most are also the ones that make us fat. That's universal among people too. Nobody really thinks kale tastes better than cake, they just tell themselves that to cope with needing to eat more kale and less cake.

It's also wrong to think that any group of people is above unhealthy eating habits, it just means that they haven't adopted those unhealthy habits yet. For this I cite sodium, a bad habit that has reached everyone. Salt is a delicious rock that we can mine in huge volumes for literal dirt cheap prices, and that's why it's everywhere now. The only people who don't eat too much salt are people in Africa because they just don't eat period. Virtually every population in the world that has a stable food supply consumes too much salt. That includes you who is reading this, you are probably eating too much salt too. But at least salt doesn't make you fat.

 

[Picnic_Boy]

At one point or another, you just give up.