Fat People in Poland?

Yes overweight by those stats means being even a few pounds over a 10-20 pound range for your height.

When I lived in America, I walked 4 miles a day 5-6 days a week for several years. This was about an hour of continuous upbeat walking for exercise, not an accumulation of my each day's walking, mind you. Also, I didn't eat fast food more than 3-4 times a month, and I NEVER drank soda. Despite these facts, I constantly struggled to lose weight.

When I moved to Europe, I lost around 12 kg within the first 3 months. I continued my hour-a-day walking habit and ate essentially the same amount of food - but this time, the pounds seemed to melt away. And I wasn't consciously dieting - in fact, I lived across the street from a wonderful bakery and found myself there most days.

My point? The food supply in America is tainted with growth hormones and high fructose corn syrup, and these very well could be the main culprits in the American obesity epidemic. I think you would be lying to yourself if you didn't think that capitalism is a contributing factor to obesity in the West. Unfortunately, those in agriculture are just as interested in making a profit as anyone in the banking biz or on Wall Street.

A side note - how many of you "fat critics" are hooked on cigarettes, caffeine, or other drugs? Or perhaps internet and/or pûrnography? My guess is the majority of you are, so perhaps it's best not to be so judgmental about what you perceive as other people's addictions.

I wonder if it also works the other way, i.e. is the fast-food thing gradually also catching on in France and Italy?

Another crock of BS. I won't bore you with any personal stories or bother to refute this. It's simply not true.

Here's a perfect example of how misconceptions about food have gotten so stuck in people's heads and also to show that it's more of how much you eat vs. what you eat:


A simple google search will show you that "High Fructose Corn Syrup" isn't the cause:

"There may be subtle differences in how various sweeteners are metabolized but that is really not the big story here. The reason that high fructose corn syrup has been singled out as the chief culprit in obesity is because it has become the primary source of sugar-and fructose-in the modern diet, just like cigarettes are the primary source of tobacco.............Switching from Pepsi made with high fructose corn syrup to Pepsi made with cane sugar should solve the problem, right? That's what Pepsi hopes you'll think. But if too much fructose is the problem, switching to Pepsi Throwback isn't going to help."

It's not that HFCS is worse than regular sugar, it's just that more and more things are sweetened with it. Regardless, regular table sugar will give you a fat ass just the same.

Most people have no idea about diet in general.

Polonius3

Yes, unfortunately you are right Polonius, fast food is catching up in both those countries.. France for example is Mc Donald's 2nd biggest country after the US but before the UK or Germany.. In fact, Mc Donald's most profitable restaurant in the world (incl the US) is in France, on the Champs Elysées, although admittedly, many tourists visiting Paris contribute to its turnover..

Now that is a testimony! Way to refute the statement - with opinion and hearsay. And congrats for ignoring my personal story - you can't prove that it's true or false, so you assume it's false in order to protect your ignorance.

Here is how I prefer to refute your statement - with science:
princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07

BLS

To be fair BLS, the link you provide focuses mainly on demonstrating that high fructose diets are probably responsible, at least in part, for high rates of obesity in the US, but not that food sold in the US is particularly rich in high fructose syrup (although some products such as bread, cereals .. are mentioned). But more generally I agree with your point that too much of the food in the US is processed and 'enriched', eg the fact that US beef is so 'tender' compared to other countries could be due that it is full of hormones (which are forbidden in many other countries).

see post #126.

He had given you a Princeton research and you gave him what?

A simple Google search of "high fructose corn syrup" is EXACTLY what I did - and the Princeton research was near the top of the very first page.

Here is another corroborating fact regarding HFCS - companies such as CocaCola and Pepsi started to introduce HFCS to their products in the early '70's. The obesity rates in America also started to increase around the same time. Iron-clad evidence? Of course not...but it's not an illogical conclusion to speculate that there MIGHT be a correlation between HFCS and obesity.


How exactly does post #126 prove that my personal experience is untrue?

California is poised to be the first state with mandatory GMO labeling laws through the 2012 California Ballot Initiative process.
Polls show support to get this initiative on the ballot & voted in. Over 80% of those polled supported mandatory labeling.
A win for the California Initiative would be a huge blow to biotech and a huge victory for food activists.
Monsanto and their minions have billions invested in GMOs and they are willing to spend millions to defeat this initiative.
California is the 8th largest economy in the world. Labeling laws in CA will effect packaging and ingredient decisions nation-wide.
The bill has been carefully written to ensure that it will not increase costs to consumers or producers.

organicconsumers.org/monsanto/index.cfm

I am constantly amazed that so many Americans view governmental control of such substances as "infringing upon their freedom" - this is one of the primary reasons that our food is so unhealthy. And it's not just hormones that are added - antibiotics are systematically given to livestock to prevent them from getting sick. You would have to be a fool to think that those antibiotics somehow magically disappear before the meat ends up on your plate.

Another example: I remember a few years back, there was a comparison between McDonald's french fries served in America and Denmark. Denmark had strict guidelines regarding unsaturated fat, but the US had no such guidelines (I believe this is still true today, but I'm not 100% certain). Denmark's McD fries were deemed MUCH healthier than those in America. You can't tell me that the absence of such restrictions in the States somehow makes the food supply healthier - quite the opposite, in fact.

Polish minister calls for Europe-wide GM ban

gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/13386-polish-minister-calls-for-europe-wide-gm-ban

EC takes Poland to court for GMO ban

wbj.pl/article-53705-ec-takes-poland-to-court-for-gmo-ban.html

Polish president vetoes bill allowing GMO seeds

reuters.com/article/2011/08/24/us-poland-gmo-idUSTRE77N50D20110824

".....but our results make it clear that this just isn't true, at least under the conditions of our tests...."

not denying HFCS is worse, simply saying that the results of that article are far from a be all, end all conclusion.

These statements seem contradictory.

Also, your quotation from the Princeton article is misleading - here is the entire quote:

"Some people have claimed that high-fructose corn syrup is no different than other sweeteners when it comes to weight gain and obesity, but our results make it clear that this just isn't true, at least under the conditions of our tests," said psychology professor Bart Hoebel, who specializes in the neuroscience of appetite, weight and sugar addiction.

The article continues:

"When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they're becoming obese -- every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don't see this; they don't all gain extra weight."

no, it is not. regardless of their results, they are all contingent upon their test conditions. different conditions, different results.


I cannot prove that HFCS has effects a or b or c and neither can you.

What I do know is that more and more food is sweetened with it than before, meaning you will encounter it more often without changing your diet from say 20 years ago.

I've also read that due to HFCS being metabolized differently, one effect it may have is that it doesn't suppress appetite like regular sugar, or at least not in the same way. When you consume regular sugar, your body recognizes it as energy consumption and halts or reduces the feeling of hunger because it's getting what it wants. With HFCS, it's possible that it doesn't have the same effect, or at least to a lesser degree, on appetite, meaning if you consume sugar in the HFCS form, you may continue to eat even though enough calories have been consumed.

To answer the OP, not so many at all. This is even more salient when you consider that the diet here is hardly the healthiest in the world.

You should read my original post much more carefully...I don't believe that my words can be interpreted as definitive by any stretch of the imagination. Your words throughout this thread, however, seem much more definitive than mine.

It's cheaper than regular sugar that alone tells you it's worse for you. I was never fat (skinny or thin most of my life) I got to about medium. I'm relatively thin boned and have (or had) a fast metabolism. My body looks ok but I gained some 'love handles' and face got chubbier, which I didn't like. This was all due to eating badly, basically eating 4 big meals a day. I stopped drinking soda, started drinking more spring water and eat 3 or 4 small portion meals with lean meat and veggies per day. In 6 days I dropped 9 pounds without exercise. BTW cutting back on beer also helps lol

That's why Weight Watchers are so successful in the States. People just don't know how much food they should consume. Buying everything in enormous boxes and bags doesn't help; the huge portions in the restaurants aren't of any help either.

Also, what I find sick in the US is the snacking. At my work we have regular meetings one hour long or so. There is always an abundance of sugary snacks. You go to a parent-teacher meeting or whatever at school and they will have cheap, sweet food. They will offer cookies and ice cream after a church concert. The kids have class parties and birthdays where they get some sweet junk. It almost seems like people can't function if there is no sweet and greasy food in the close proximity.

Yep 100% correct. It's that temptation of getting a big standard meal at a restaurant or take out and not eating all of it. Not necessarily throwing the rest out but knowing that when reheated it wont taste the same. The portion sizes have increased drastically 'Most marketplace portions exceed standard serving sizes by at least a factor of 2 and sometimes 8-fold. The standard amount of cooked pasta served in eateries exceed the USDA standard by 480%, and when it comes to steak, this number is 224%. Standard portions have increased over time; those offered by fast-food chains, for example, often are 2 to 5 times larger than the original size. The standard burgers in many fast food joints contain more meat than the USDA recommends consuming in a single day ( between 5.5oz and 6.5oz for a man, and 5 - 5-1/2 oz. for a woman), and when it comes to salt, they come dangerously to meeting your daily allowance for sodium- 1500mg.'

forbes.com/sites/nadiaarumugam/2011/11/18/consumer s-opt-for-larger-food-portions-to-increase-social-status/

As for snacking I've never been a great fan of sweets with the exception of some chips one in a while but a lot of people are.

This behavior is deemed shameful by the skinniest of the European Nations: the French. It would be a great acheivement if we could instill such restraint amongst the American population. The ancients give us some extreme examples of societies were not only snacking was taboo but so too was even eating more than two meals a day I.E. Republican Rome, with the first meal in the morning being literally only one mouthful. In Sparta Lycurgus forbade citizens from dining at home to prevent gluttony and instead had them eat in public dining halls were the powers of shame and peer pressure insured a svelte citizenry, of course the Spartan example is not possible in America today given Americans' shamelessness, nor I fear is the Old Roman example, nor even the modern French one, but I try to do my part by sometimes telling the people around me eating nasty processed snacks that the snacks smell badly, and they do smell badly to me, especially proccesed puffed rice ones. If you've never had to be in a car with someone eating those then thank your lucky stars. They reek like an Asiatic weaponized Doritos on crack!

Compounding the problem is the fact that processed food-snacks are so laking in the nutritional elements that our bodies crave that it results in the strong desire to consume more and more of the snacks to obtain these nutients. Our poor bodies are dumb enough to believe that we'd have the sense to eat only food, and not chemically engineered food-like products. Evolution loses to chemistry and the unscrupulousness of the food industry.

Poles with regards to snacking and processed foods I recommend that you be yourselves- "the French amongst the Slavs".

I think the evolution hasn't figured out how to deal with abundance of food. For centuries our metabolism was optimizing itself to make best possible use of every single calorie. Now it needs to make a 180 degrees turn and be wasteful, and pronto. A hard nut to crack.

Your punctuation and spelling are even worse than usual.


Does this make sense to anyone? Dessie, buy stuff with a lower THC content.

That is very true too. In fact human evolution stopped as soon as agriculture was able to provide abundance, because natural selection was no longer operant, gene pools are far less restricted when alimentary abundance allows almost every member of the species to survive to reproductive age.

I don't think that's the issue, it's more a question of culture and processed food (as opposed to fresh food). As Das Essenties pointed out, France, where food is more than plentiful, are amongest the leanest. Similarly for Switzerland where I live now (Zûrich) where everybody seems to be fit and lean (except me!)

I saw this graph on NPR today - as I look at the information, something unnatural seems to have happened in the mid-seventies to kick start the obesity trend in America. I contend that this was the introduction of high fructose corn syrup to soft drinks and other foods.

A quote from Wikipedia:

"HFCS was rapidly introduced to many processed foods and soft drinks in the U.S. from about 1975 to 1985."

I concede that this is circumstantial evidence, but I believe that it's rather compelling circumstantial evidence.

npr.org/2012/01/09/144799538/controversy-swirls-around-harsh-anti-obesity-ads
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-fructose_corn_syrup

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  US Childhood Obesity
  

National Public Radio? How did you "see" a graph? Just askin'.

It'll only take a disaster for it to start up again, like ozone depletion. GM foods are making us taller, bigger and less resistant, and as males have children later in life there is more scope for mutation. It would be good if like the French appreciation of good food is taught at primary school level. A bit cruel, but as fatties are seen as ugly they'll be less likly to reproduce...they can console themselves with a supersized meal.

Here's a charity an old friend is involved in, humanitarni.pl, ou'll see that some children do not receive a square meal.

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en &ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.humanitarni.pl%2F&act=url to have a look in English. You only need to click on the hearts to help.