What is Poland's view on obesity? How healthy, fit are Poles?

To be fair, summer is great - it's winter when the choice is ridiculously poor. But it can still be done, just that it's not very varied.

@Terry: no, there is not such feeling in Poland. Being fat (or skinny) can also be due to health reasons (for instance of the thyroid gland, very common in Poland), stress....

Most Polish males I have met have been very muscular and go to the gym often, and also quite loud like their alcohol and the "lad" lifestyle such as playing loud music and thinking they are the best looking person around.

I have met a few overweight women, one seemed to be flirting with me before, she was a very attractive woman, she seemed to think I was Polish (maybe due to my Polish blood as I notice facial features on Polish and I have similar ones which are different than British people and many Polish people I meet automatically assume I am Polish too)

Was quite funny how the men would drink huge amounts of vodka then assume as they were thin they were healthy and anyone overweight was unhealthy.

Merged: Health/Diet & Nutrition Book for males 60 years old that is easy to follow

Hi,

I am reaching out to you because I am trying to find the best health/diet and nutrition book for males 60 years old that is easy to follow. Do you have any recommendations?

The latest figures show that obesity is increasing hugely in PL, with particular concerns about the amount of sugar and starch in the diet.

In the case of males, the prevalence of Poland grew substantially from 14% to 23% in the years up to 2016 and given the 2.5% growth per year, the current figure is now likely to have exceeded 25%.

Every year I see more obese first years in the university intake. Most of these teenagers are of healthy weight, far more than in the rest of Europe, but the numbers are visibly growing. There are even morbidly obese students, something you just didn't see even five years ago. Why is this happening?

Changes in family life, where people don't sit down together as often for a home-cooked meal is one reason. Late last semester I asked a class of first year students if they ate dinner with their families as the everyday norm. One student put her hand up out of twenty-five.

The ubiquity of fast food outlets, of course. For me, though, the main reason is that as Poland becomes richer as a society young children have more money in their pockets. It is not at all unusual to see unaccompanied youngsters in pizzerias and burger joints. Ten or fifteen years ago kids simply didn't have the money to do this.

this is basically true

My analysis would be not so much what they eat as _how_ they eat. Polish food is not noted for being "healthy" or "light" but traditionally overweight people were far less common than now.

But.... the traditional Polish pattern was three (or three and a half) meals per day and no between meal snacking. In the US many people can go weeks or months without really having a meal in the traditional sense but rather a series of small or larger snacks throughout the day. A sandwich here, a slize of pizza there, some potato chips somewhere else... (IIRC this used to be called 'grazing' by social scientists)

I'm also wondering if things like increasing car ownership play a role. Many Polish people want cars because.... beats me, they seem generally overrated. More driving equals less walking.

There's a new study that's just been done among Canadians of Polish background, especially students (usually well-represented in studies done at universities) and the figures are shocking - there's a very high proportion of obesity, with all the health risks and effects on personality/self-esteem that obesity entails.

The evidence basically points to comfort eating as the main culprit, particularly junk food and high-carbohydrate meals. That and physical inactivity. The study talks about a vicious circle - basically they get fat, feel depressed about it, and eat more to try and make themselves feel better.

A significant proportion come from backgrounds where poor diet, depression and car dependence also led to obesity in other family members..

Poor diet, comfort eating and lack of exercise are basically making a generation with far too many lonely and unloved Cartmans. Something that is only storing up problems for society.

Lonely and unloved Cartmans is actually a very apt description. Obese and neurotic millenials, people who think the internet is real and that food comes in packets and boxes.

The figures for this are soaring in Poland too. Interesting times ahead.

The latest WOBASZ II study shows that not only is obesity increasing compared with the previous study a decade ago, it is increasing disproportionately in males, especially schoolkids and very young men. It also shows a disparity between self-reported cases and ones referred by doctors.

Basically a generation of Cartmans.

Some interesting results from another study, about female obesity, too:


obs-gyn.ox.ac.uk/publications/511290

Sugar is more addictive than cocaine and kills more people than cocaine.
High fructose is the trick name for stealth sugar which is in just about everything today from bread to ketchup.
Like jon said, "read the labels carefully on food".
Cancer feeds on sugar and can not survive without it.
The government has put health risk on cigarette packaging but refuse to put them on a bottle of soda which can contain 14 tablespoons of sugar per liter and bread about two tablespoons per slice.

Diet soda is even worse for you than regular soda due to the addictive chemicals that are added to make you drink even more by never quenching your thirst not to mention that it eats your gut up. (Ever notice that only obese people drink diet soda ?)

Education to obesity is the key yet the medical profession and government keep low key on the crap that we eat so the pharmaceutical industry, medical industry can thrive $$$$$$ at our expense not to mention population control.

There are definitely more and more overweight people in Poland.
What's more, it seems the number of overweight children and teenagers is higher than ever.
Lots of Poles have thyroid problems (Czarnobyl? ) but a lot depends on the lifestyle.

A hundred years ago people in America averaged 12 pounds of sugar intake per year and the cancer rate was very low compared with today.
Today the average intake of sugar is 150 pounds per person per year.
Add that to people just don't get the exercise that they use to.
Public transportation today is made easy so no one walks or rides their bicycle anymore.
A lot of the foods today contain fat storing additives like high fructose.
Then add all the GMO's in the wheat and grains (corn) today that are added for quick growth of the food which is passed on to you.

That would include all breads, pasta, crackers, chips etc.
The high sugar and starches in potato's, rice and pasta's are fat storing too.
Do you see the youth today eating green vegetables or raw fruits or exercising vigorously ?
Seldom to say the best.
Smack back that big mac with jumbo fries and a pepsi and we are good to go.
The Millenial's diet today consists of sugar, grease and salt so is there a wonder why people are becoming obese and the cancer rate is soring ?

Words of wisdom. The not-so-funny part of this fat drama is that if you ask any of the fatsos what caused them to gain all that weight they will most likely tell you something about their bad genes, metabolism, addiction, being molested as kids, etc. Never that they eat like pigs (my apologies to pigs) and that they love it.

On the other side, if they could just die the day they qualify for Medicare, that would help keep the system fiscally sound. Unfortunately, many live long, if unhappy, lives while draining the funds desperately needed by those who did not affirmatively tried to get sick.

The rest of us became a bunch of touchy-feely enablers by replacing "fat" with "large" to protect the fatsos' fragile egos knowing very well that an insult can be a good thing as a wake-up call. It happened to me except that my problem was being too skinny and weak. Looking back, the two publicly delivered insults, from my phys-ed teacher and a classroom cool girl, were exactly what I needed. Four years later, I placed 13 out of 27 in a bodybuilding competition in Sopot, with Andrzej Jasinski taking the top spot. Insults are good motivators.

This crazy political correctness and prudishness (blurring every ass and nipple even on artwork, bleeping cuss words on TV) is a very American thing. You won't find it that often elsewhere.

I would say this is likely to be the single biggest cause of obesity in Poland. Give it 10 years or so and Poland will have as many overweight people as the UK. Sugar is a problem but this is nothing new, the rise in popularity of fast food is, and these days Poles have more money to spend. Combine that with a lack of exercise and Poland will soon be facing the obesity epidemic already seen in other western countries.

if people want to be fat drink or smoke let them, its their choice, plenty of people harm themselves by rock climbing cycling running or dieting to the extremes, no big deal really.

I dont know about lack of exercise- a few years ago the only gyms were for meatheads, you never saw joggers and people mainly cycled if they were going to buy another half litre.

Looking on the streets this Sunday there are nany people doing serious exercise

I agree. Lots go cycling, jogging or Nordic walking (especially people who are 50+).
There are lots of outdoor gyms and I don't know about the rest of Poland but where I am it's most popular among the elderly ;)

I guess snacking is a big problem. And processed food.

LOL....us old people do that not to lose weight.
We have stiff joints that need to be loosened up and walking helps tremendously in doing that.


True but what is new is the "high fructose" (fake sugar) that is now being used in the place of sugar as it is much cheaper to make then sugar is.

High fructose is the #1 sugar additive in foods today that is the real weight gainer and killer.
Fast foods are full of this.
French fries are the worst food there is to eat and cabbage is the best food there is to eat.

I cut sugar in my diet by about 80 percent and i lost 7 kilos in 2 months without really changing anything else. It's difficult though - its in so nany foods and when travelling its hard to avoid

What a great start cms.
Just look at about anything you buy and it will say "high fructose" as an ingredient. (poison to the body)
Now may I suggest to cut out ALL grains which include bread, pasta's, crackers, cereals, corn and see what happens in 2 months.
The GMO's are killers too plus corn is loaded with sugar on top of them.
Those grains are full of them and that is what causes the bloat in your guts as they are not natural.
The unused sugar that your insulin produces turns to fat and is stored in your gut fat.
Gut fat is different kind of fat then your other regular fats.
If you cut grains and high fructose out of your diet you will see that belly disappear in no time.

Don't forget soy.... unless you want your balls to shrivel, grow man boobs and start being a total wimp

This is what happens when you put too much soy in your diet - you become a 'soy boy' i.e. a leftist cuck, an antifa basement dweller, a pencil neck with testosterone levels of an 80 year old, or all of the above

The Truth About Soy Face

youtube.com/watch?v=az352YaZNM0

They give that **** to old women during menopause to gain some of their femininity back... but when young men eat or drink soy.... well they become b1tches...

LMAO - oh Dirk you do have a sense of humor.
Actually you are right about unfermented soy products which I will not consume.
Fermented soy does not wreak havoc on your body like unfermented soy products do.
Soy the "Miracle Health Food" Has Been Linked to Brain Damage and Breast Cancer.
Soy in America is GMO grown and sprayed with the pesticide round up may be part of it.
realfarmacy.com/not-a-miracle-health-food

You'd be surprised at how much crap has estrogen... chicken, beer, water, fruits not to mention all the chemicals antibiotics etc

That's why I put my gf to work at a co op farm once a week so we real organic food not that bs they label organic. Even a strawberry you can tell by the taste let alone the size what js truly organix and isnt. Real strawberries are small theyre not the size of an egg and all deformed and they taste sweet and have tons of juice theyre not half water. I even installed a $3k aquasense filtration system for the house. Fluoride from water gets into your pores even from a bath or shower. Gotta keep my stable healthy.

What pisses me off is you can't buy camel milk at like any stores in the us

Just go into a big box grocery store and observe.
The healthy slim people have raw vegetables, raw fruits, nuts, eggs, fresh chicken, fish, shrimp ect. in their shopping carts.
The wide bottoms and gut hangers have their carts filled with frozen pizza's, soda pop, sausage, deli processed meats, macaroni and cheese, potato chips, cheeto's, cookies, bread ect. as thy waddle down the isles huffing and puffing for air.

They make me flash on Forrest Gump's old saying, Stupid is as stupid does.

Man what dies camel milk taste like ? I will try most things but that sounds awful LOL

It tastes almost exactly like whole milk from cows but is lactose free and way healthier. It's given to starving and sick children in 3rd world countries. You can live off that **** alone for a week if not more and indeed people have and some bedoins still do. It works like a charm against diabetes too

The catch is that it costs more then a bottle of top shelf whiskey.
I think I saw it at the co-op for $35 a quart.

Yeah it is pricey plus the laws are kind of funky with importation of the milk but not powdered milk. There's literally a food for almost every condition imaginable. Unfortunately, there is little research on them because companies that lobby the fda have a business interest in people being sick, overweight, etc.