However, you do see more overweight people on modern films than in the 50’s. What’s really odd some characters where supposed to be noticeably overweight, but they don’t seem that way to modern eyes.
I don't think it's the industrialization so much as the quantity.
> bowl of Cheerios
carbs and added sugar
>whole wheat toast
better but still carbs
>orange juice
glass of sugar without fiber
>a banana
better than juice and added sugar, but still natural sugars.
As others have said, it's an issue of quantity. Consuming 10-30 grams of sugar daily - table sugar, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, or otherwise - does not cause obesity and health problems. The World Health Organization recommends no more than 10% of one's daily calories come from sugar. [1]
The average American consumes ! 125 ! grams of sugar a day, with empty carbs accounting for up to 40% of caloric intake [2]. This 40% includes the simple, 'empty' carbohydrates found in processed breads, cereals, condiments, drinks - which are converted to glucose by the digestive system in minutes.
The amount - not the quality - of sugars in our diet is the problem.
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3649104/
[1] https://www.who.int/nutrition/publications/guidelines/sugars...
[2] https://www.thediabetescouncil.com/45-alarming-statistics-on...
The difference is, no one dumps a dozen teaspoons of sugar per serving in home prepared food and drink. Where drink and processed food manufacturers carefully buffer their recipes to accommodate the equivalent amount of HFCS.
[1] Read though that low end processed foods and drinks often contain very high levels of fructose.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3522469/
That's the key. I have a low-sugar protein powder but rarely use it because it's too sickly sweet with sucralose and I have to bury it in a ton of other ingredients.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
https://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/06/supersize-biggest-...
Go to almost any music festival, especially ones people love to hate on, and you will find lean young people from cities
Your conclusion can only be coincidentally accurate. Hot trendy folks go to music festivals. The BMI of whats considered hot has only gotten thinner since the 1960s.
OP's whole point is that everyone must have been lean and fit just because they were in a 50 year old documentary - about a music festival.
40 years later we’ve got laws against large sodas, sugar, vending machines. And maybe it is just the easier availability of all those calories - but I remember getting giant cokes at Carls Jr. in the early 70’s, the school cafeteria food was lots of carbs and fat and you could eat ice cream every day if you wanted to.
We all know that “Studies say exercise programs don't work because people don't stick to them.” But I think it misses the subtle difference between exercise as a planned activity and exercise thats built into your daily life. When I was young, we played in the streets every day. I walked or rode my bike to school. For my kids, that almost never happened. Everyone is inside. We drove everywhere.
But we also know no-one can stick to a diet. So “eat less” isn't the answer either.
So, whats the answer? Personally, I think its both. So, the answer is to build a little more exercise into your life. Walk to work or bike or learn to dance. Try to eat less - Maybe only eat 2/3rds or 1/2 of each meal. And avoid carbs since it stimulate hunger later.
But, it would be great to have an actual fact-based answer as to what has happened.
This would be inconvenient to the business models of Big Medicine and Big Food.
Good places to start an investigation are the official advocacy for replacing saturated fats with deodorized vegetable oils [1], the holy war against sweet forms of sugar (mix of fructose/glucose) instead of waging war on starch (chains of non-sweet insulin-stimulating glucose), the advocacy for chemical non-caloric sweetners (sucralose, etc), the contamination of the food supply with imitation foods (orange drink vs. orange juice, etc), and considering whether fortified grains is really the nutritional panacea it is supposed to be.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10536349
edit: added "non-caloric" and "sucralose"
I don't think you were having multiple channels with 24hours programming for kids.
I will grant you I'm smearing this out over time. Prime time shows in the 60s weren't the same as during the 70s, local TV cartoon hosts disappeared by about 1975 (no more Binky The Clown, or Cactus Jim or ...), and certainly what got re-run before network news and after 10 or 11pm local news changed.
This is totally ignoring the 6am - 12pm Saturday all-kids programming. Mostly badly-animated cartoons, some weird live-action ("Land of the Lost"), but all aimed at and advertised to children. You could waste all Saturday watching crappy animation, then reeling around because you had lost your stereoscopic vision.
Among children, it's more dramatic - with kids watching 4.5 to 5 hours a day in the 90's.
Such as, documentary producers had enough footage to exclude it from anyone who was not photogenic. Or the obese people who attended Woodstock didn't live to their 70s.
Yes. That's true. But that's not why the obesity rate is so high. We know this.
As for depression, fair play. But let's not forget that many insist exercise is an effective way to deal with depression. Let's also be mindful that excess weight causes hormonal changes that are also mood-altering. So perhaps your cause v effect - at least in a good number of cases - is in reverse?
Finally, I never said shaming, nor did I imply it. What I said was, if we're going to normalize certain behaviors for individuals then we should not be surprised when those things spread "virally" throughout the rest of the society. So, to your point, when we normalize food as a means for self-medicating depression we're not doing anyone any favors.
To clarify. I agree with your thoughts in general. However, they are the 20% (at best). What about the other 80%?
I also like to add, we're doing it "your way" and frankly, it's clear to see, it's not working. The medical costs associated with T2 diabetes is massive. In nearly all cases, T2D is generally preventable.
I don't think literally anybody is normalizing that. Everyone knows that's unhealthy. You won't get criticized for pointing it out.
> Finally, I never said shaming, nor did I imply it.
> Mention anyone else's unhealthy habits (e.g., weight or lack of exercise) and you're label a bully.
You specifically mentioned not just habits, but weight, as something to be criticized. I think we've gotten pretty good as a culture about encouraging the right habits, but the weight itself is what many people have limited or no control over.
For the last couple hours I watched a few dozen+ people order 20oz+ high-sugar coffee drinks from that place with the green logo. The everybody you're talking about is not here, nor is it at my local supermarket when every week I see people load up on soda, cookies, etc. People that clearly don't need the calories. So where is this awaremenss and knowledge?
> "the weight itself is what many people have limited or no control over." Yes, I realize it's a fairly complicated issue (e.g., gut bacteria likely play a role). However, that doesn't mean we normalize unhealthy decisions (like the ones I've mentioned above) and then cry about the cost of healthcare. We can't openly promote "love your body no matter what" and then purposely fail to add "and btw, you're going to die younger." We can't deny the value of exercise and replace that with "beat your depression with ice cream. it's ok..." That's just not working.
Yes. Agreed. Some people have medical issues (e.g., some neuro meds are notorious for putting on weight) but that's not everyone. That doesn't explain the obesity rate. And that certainly doesn't prevent humans from "gravitating to the norm."
p.s. For the record, I drink my coffee black. And there's a good reason why I've learned to do that.
"1 in 5 kindergarten children in NYC is obese."
"Nationally, healthcare expenses related to obesity is $1.72 TRILLION, which is almost 10% of the GDP."
Eating less isn't "work". It's literally the opposite of work. (I understand that some people find this emotionally difficult.)
> Research suggests that for some people, genes account for just 25% of the predisposition to be overweight, while for others the genetic influence is as high as 70% to 80%.
Using Google also isn't "work", and neither is being considerate of others who don't have your exact same set of strengths and weaknesses.
Being considerate is great, but making excuses and pretending that the laws of thermodynamics don't apply doesn't help anyone.
Everybody was thin. It was sort of amazing when you stopped and really noticed it, then contrasted it to what you see on a day to day basis out on the streets. There just weren't any overweight people to be seen, at least nowhere near approaching the magnitude you see walking around today.
There's got to be some cultural component to all this too. I'm not sure the built environment is really all that much different than from what it was when I was a kid in the suburbs. It's as if people just collectively stopped using their bodies and started consuming more calories.