[lorenzo]

New and surreal projections on the obesity epidemic in the US BBC News / Health.

Obesity and diabetes are socio-political problems closely related to an oil dependent society. They're basically civilizational diseases. What will be the effects of Peak Oil on these incredibly threatening plagues? (One in two American children are now morbidly overweight - unbelievable...).

How will obese nations make the transition when the bodies and the biology is not ready to adapt? Will fat & sugar dependency create fat & sugar protests? ("We want our sugar!). Or will Peak Oil be a blessing for the bodies of the nation?

Since obesity and diabetes threaten the lower classes first, a general economic decline could actually worsen the problem. An entire nation could destroy itself...

Or will Peak Oil create a gradual disintegration of the agro-industrial-pharmaceutical-fat-and-sugar complex? (This is one big network aimed at making "freedom loving Americans" unfree slaves of their own biology), hence forcing even the lower classes to adapt? Concrete questions, no concrete answers...

[NeoPeasant]

I read somewhere that the lower calorie, mostly organic vegetarian diet being adapted by Cubans since their energy crisis is dramatically improving their cardiovascular health.

I think the same thing will happen in the US. High energy input processed foods and meats will become too expensive and we will rediscover simpler, healthier food.

Not to mention we will be walking and pedaling a lot more.

[spear]

They´ll live.There´s plenty of personal fitness trainers over there.
Throw a few of them through the old MC Recruit Depot at Parris Island and a few confidence courses´ll knock the McDonalds right out of em.
If not ,the military can make a sumo battalion in case of any conflicts in Asia.

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

i think its fair to say that some of the die off will be accomplished just by the problems obesity causes and not the health care system to deal with it.

I was a prison guard in a super-maximum adult male remand center for 8 years. The worst riots and fights I ever saw were without a doubt over food.

People will never believe that it (gas, food whatever) is simply gone. They will think that someone else has it and set out to find out who the greedy bastard is.

I think the more entitled the society is, the worse that problem will be. While Cuba may have made the transition and survived I think we are likely looking at a worse scenario for the US.

[cube]

It scares me how big people can get. I was driving by a high school on my way home one day and it just happened to be when school was just over. So the streets where lined with high school kids walking home. Good lord I don't ever remember that many people being that big when I was in high school. The average sized "kid" today looks like the average sized football player back in my days. And as for all the girls I think half of them weigh more then me.

[Riverside]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('uNkNowN ElEmEnt', '
')People will never believe that it (gas, food whatever) is simply gone. They will think that someone else has it and set out to find out who the greedy bastard is.

I think the more entitled the society is, the worse that problem will be. While Cuba may have made the transition and survived I think we are likely looking at a worse scenario for the US.

[lorenzo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Riverside', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('uNkNowN ElEmEnt', '
')People will never believe that it (gas, food whatever) is simply gone. They will think that someone else has it and set out to find out who the greedy bastard is.

I think the more entitled the society is, the worse that problem will be. While Cuba may have made the transition and survived I think we are likely looking at a worse scenario for the US.

[JimBad05]

The basic fact, morbid as it may be, is: There are many elderly and overweight people in the U. S. When scarcity begins and theres not enough to go around, things will be totally Darwinian - survival of the fittest. I mean, barring weapons, younger and more fit people could easily overcome most overweight, older people. Even if one stockpiles their own food, it still may be looted if they cannot protect themselves or their stash. Those who stockpile should consider protection a serious matter. Though many of us want to some sort of good to benefit society, if you're bludgeoned to death in a scuffle over the last case of flour, post peak survival skills such as organic farming will be of little use..

And if thats not motivation enough to get in shape, I don't know what is

[Trindelm]

Hunger In America Rises By 43 Percent Over Last Five Years

But for the past 10 years I've been hearing of a rise in obesity. The roles are reversed where the well-off are trim and the poor are skinny. I don't know how many times I've heard people complaining of fat poor people taking 10 seats on the subway. Not to be too politically correct but if someone had to eat on $5 for 2 days, 5 big macs or a few apples, most would be down with the mac.

Of course $5 could buy black beans and brown rice, from personal experience you get about 3 days out of that. Why other people don't do likewise, I can only think that a flimsy concept of time management and plain old laziness are a factor. Should I speculate more I would look like a bleeding heart or naive aristocrat.

But what does anyone else here think about this? Are we getting fatter or hungrier? We are certainly becoming more nutrient deprived. As the Shi* begins hitting the first fan blade we may be back to a world of Dickensian waifs and coal soot filled skies.
blimey it's hot

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

I think its addiction. MSG is highly addictive and most people don't know it. Of course its in everything now.

"The Campbell's soups, the Hostess Doritos, the Lays flavored potato chips, Top Ramen, Betty Crocker Hamburger Helper, Heinz canned gravy, Swanson frozen prepared meals, Kraft salad dressings, especially the 'healthy low fat' ones. The items that didn't have MSG had something called Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein, which is just another name for Monosodium Glutamate."


"And we wonder why the nation is overweight? The MSG manufacturers themselves admit that it addicts people to their products. It makes people choose their product over others, and makes people eat more of it than they would if MSG wasn't added. "

Did you know there aren't any breed of fat mice or rats? So how do they make the rats and mice fat for obesity and heart disease studies????

One guess and you'd be right. They feed them MSG.

"Even as you read this, George W. Bush and his corporate supporters are pushing a Bill through Congress. Called the "Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act" also known as the "Cheeseburger Bill", this sweeping law bans anyone from suing food manufacturers, sellers and distributors. Even if it comes out that they purposely added an addictive chemical to their foods. "

Don't get me started..... you'll get far more info than you'd like.

[strider3700]

I think you can be fat and hungry at the same time. I like my big macs but I'm pretty sure I'm not getting even close to enough good stuff out of them to stay alive indefinitely. starving to death while eating constantly.

[Trindelm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('strider3700', 'I') think you can be fat and hungry at the same time. I like my big macs but I'm pretty sure I'm not getting even close to enough good stuff out of them to stay alive indefinitely. starving to death while eating constantly.

[Ludi]

"Both"

Many poor people in the US are hungry, but many are also fat. They aren't necessarily the same people, of course. Many hungry poor people are children.

Many of the poor are malnourished - too much fat, too much sugar, so, heart disease and diabetes, and no medical care.

[katkinkate]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Trindelm', '.').I forgot what book it was, but it was in the tradition of Douglas Admas and the four horseman of the apocolypse (not affiliated with notre dame) were in a discussion and famine was boasting how he made a new line of food that would make people starve to death yet making them fatter and fatter.

[BabyPeanut]

But good old American know-how will fix this.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')url=http://www.theonion.com/content/node/41236]America's Obese: A Food Source For America's Even More Obese? (link)[/url]
October 5, 2005 | Issue 41•40

WASHINGTON, DC—America's morbidly obese are hungry. For years, the processed-food industry has desperately tried to placate them with empty-calorie foodstuffs with a satisfying texture, but their appetites have proven insatiable. A new report released Monday by the National Health Council, however, suggests that the answer to morbidly obese Americans' problems could be standing right behind them in the buffet line.

Dr. Harmon Kressler, one of the report's authors, said that the nation's "Category 1 obese"—persons with 25-40 percent body fat—are an excellent source of the trans fats and lipids that even fatter Americans require to sustain themselves.

"'Regular-obese' people are loaded with the triglycerides, butyric acids, glucose, and rich buttery lard that the 'mega-obese' would otherwise have to derive from two or three food groups," Kressler said.

According to Andrew Weinstein, the study's lead researcher, this development could offer the solution to the obesity epidemic in America.

"Obesity is a problem that we thought could only be remedied by diet, exercise, or more realistically, expensive gastrointestinal surgery," Weinstein said. "But this method would not only provide the mega-obese with a seemingly never-ending supply of sustenance, it would also slash obesity rates in this nation by more than half."

Although some experts worry that the mega-obese will be reluctant to consume other obese humans, Kressler said palatability will not be a problem.

"Through incessant eating, most of the mega-obese have worn down the sensitivity of their taste buds, and respond only to the most intensely salty, oily, or sweet foodstuffs," Kressler said. "The dense, high-viscosity oil that oozes out of the pores—or 'flavor crannies'—of deep-fried obese flesh is sure to stimulate the voracious appetites of the mega-obese."

Despite the millions of regular-obese people and the thousands more that join their ranks every day, Kressler conceded that "once the mega-obese polish off the regular-obese, they may start feeding on the slightly overweight, a sector that comprises all but 0.1 percent of American adults."

[katkinkate]

That's gross!!!!!!

[BabyPeanut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('katkinkate', 'T')hat's gross!!!!!!

[lorenzo]

Both obesity and hunger are related to poverty. It's not hunger *or* obesity, it's *and*. They do not contradict each other.

Ad I understand it, the numbers are roughly as follows:

-around 65% of Americans are overweight, of which 30% are clinically obese
-around 12% of Americans live in food insecurity, of which 35% live in hunger
-around 23% of Americans has a healthy diet and a healthy body

In absolute numbers:
-185 million Americans are overweight, 55 million Americans are clinically obese
-32 million Americans live in food insecurity, 10 million Americans live in hunger
-65 million Americans are healthy

http://obesity.org/
http://www.centeronhunger.org/hunger/facts.html

Now as you can see, many single American mothers live in poverty, are obese, and have malnourished or undernourished children living in hunger.

That's the crux of the problem: the mother who ends up alone in a precarious situation, which turns her obese, while she doesn't take responsability for her children, who suffer from hunger.

[threadbear]

The other overlooked essential ingredient in the recipe for obesity, Lorenzo, is calories in fat craved by the anxious. This likely parallels dropping levels of alcoholism and drug dependancy. A single working mother doesn't have the time or the money to get drunk or be a crack head. A box of doritos, or a bag of deepfried donuts is something she can manage.

I'd love to see the medical records of the thin urban professional types inhabiting lofts in coastal regions. Bet they're opting out of alcoholism AND fatty fast food, but loaded to the gills on zoloft.

If you look at just about all the corporations listed on the Dow, the ones who do the best are the ones who have strong relationships with others that benefit from creating disequilibrium (fast food franchises, junk food) and those that are devoted to the "treatment" of the problem, like the pharmeceutical industry. (diabetes drugs)

[Falconoffury]

The food industry and drug industry are an axis of evil in the US. The drugs often do nothing more than relieve symptoms. Drugs don't cure anything. We have people who are getting sick from the food industry, trying to get better with the drug industry, and failing. What people need is nutrition. The cures for most diseases come from natural sources. Of course the drug industry will fiercely attack any cure that they cannot patent. It's all blood money.

We need, more than ever, a government administration that will fight for the poor, sick, and poorly educated.