Ah, Japan.

[Trolldor]

You missed something there.

[Robert_S]

That also means, by proxy, that obviously other countries don't shoot each other lots and don't have fat people.

No, not exactly. It means the US is culturally fatter than most. There's porn, including rape fantasy porn, in other countries too. It's just more culturally acceptable in Japan. In the US it's culturally acceptable to be a fat tub of lard.

It is not all that culturally acceptable here, but people end up overweight anyway. It's that damn corn. It's gotten into our brains and used us to propagate it's genes. I blame Darwin

Maybe Japan merely keeps it's nose out of what people watch when it doesn't involve directly harming anyone.

[Coito ergo sum]

That also means, by proxy, that obviously other countries don't shoot each other lots and don't have fat people.

No, not exactly. It means the US is culturally fatter than most. There's porn, including rape fantasy porn, in other countries too. It's just more culturally acceptable in Japan. In the US it's culturally acceptable to be a fat tub of lard.

It is not all that culturally acceptable here, but people end up overweight anyway.

It's acceptable. Huge swaths of American culture view normal weight people as "too skinny." 65% of the US is overweight. 30% are obese.

[

It's that damn corn.

No, it's the fact that people eat too much.

[

It's gotten into our brains and used us to propagate it's genes. I blame Darwin

Maybe Japan merely keeps it's nose out of what people watch when it doesn't involve directly harming anyone.

That's true. But, lots of things that don't harm anyone are still weird.

[Robert_S]

That also means, by proxy, that obviously other countries don't shoot each other lots and don't have fat people.

No, not exactly. It means the US is culturally fatter than most. There's porn, including rape fantasy porn, in other countries too. It's just more culturally acceptable in Japan. In the US it's culturally acceptable to be a fat tub of lard.

It is not all that culturally acceptable here, but people end up overweight anyway.

It's acceptable. Huge swaths of American culture view normal weight people as "too skinny." 65% of the US is overweight. 30% are obese.

Well, that's pretty sad.

[

It's that damn corn.

No, it's the fact that people eat too much.

and all too often eat lower quality food. With more legumes and vegetables in place of starchy sugary junk, I'd wager we'd see our weight go down drastically.

[

It's gotten into our brains and used us to propagate it's genes. I blame Darwin

Maybe Japan merely keeps it's nose out of what people watch when it doesn't involve directly harming anyone.

That's true. But, lots of things that don't harm anyone are still weird.

I can't really tell what's normal any more.

[Coito ergo sum]

That also means, by proxy, that obviously other countries don't shoot each other lots and don't have fat people.

No, not exactly. It means the US is culturally fatter than most. There's porn, including rape fantasy porn, in other countries too. It's just more culturally acceptable in Japan. In the US it's culturally acceptable to be a fat tub of lard.

It is not all that culturally acceptable here, but people end up overweight anyway.

It's acceptable. Huge swaths of American culture view normal weight people as "too skinny." 65% of the US is overweight. 30% are obese.

Well, that's pretty sad.

Yes, but it is reality.

[

It's that damn corn.

No, it's the fact that people eat too much.

and all too often eat lower quality food. With more legumes and vegetables in place of starchy sugary junk, I'd wager we'd see our weight go down drastically.

They contain fewer calories per unit volume. Fat contains 9 calories per gram. Protein and carbs each contain 4 calories per gram. Alcohol contains 7 calories per gram.

The reason people in the US is quite simple. Americans eat far more calories per day than they need need to maintain their body mass. It matters a lot less what one eats as opposed to how much. If a person needs 2500 calories per day to break even and maintain body mass, and they eat 3000, they will, over time, gain weight, given that it takes about 3500 calories of extra calories to gain a pound of fat on one's body. An extra 500 calories per day generally equals about a pound per week (7 x 500 = 3500). The trick is trying to figure out how many calories one needs in a day, which varies from person to person based on body weight, muscle/bone mass, metabolic rate, etc.

If you eat 3000 calories of legumes and vegetables every day, but you only need 2000 a day to maintain mass, then you'll get fat just as surely as eating too many cheeseburgers.

[

It's gotten into our brains and used us to propagate it's genes. I blame Darwin

Maybe Japan merely keeps it's nose out of what people watch when it doesn't involve directly harming anyone.

That's true. But, lots of things that don't harm anyone are still weird.

I can't really tell what's normal any more.[/quote]

I don't really care what's normal.

[Pappa]

The reason people in the US is quite simple. Americans eat far more calories per day than they need need to maintain their body mass. It matters a lot less what one eats as opposed to how much. If a person needs 2500 calories per day to break even and maintain body mass, and they eat 3000, they will, over time, gain weight, given that it takes about 3500 calories of extra calories to gain a pound of fat on one's body. An extra 500 calories per day generally equals about a pound per week (7 x 500 = 3500). The trick is trying to figure out how many calories one needs in a day, which varies from person to person based on body weight, muscle/bone mass, metabolic rate, etc.

If you eat 3000 calories of legumes and vegetables every day, but you only need 2000 a day to maintain mass, then you'll get fat just as surely as eating too many cheeseburgers.

They also do very little exercise, which is arguable more important than the food consumption. The average hunter-gatherer actually consumes the same amount of calories per day as a modern American, huge compared to most of the rest of the world, but they do a load more exercise every day too.

[ScholasticSpastic]

The reason people in the US is quite simple. Americans eat far more calories per day than they need need to maintain their body mass. It matters a lot less what one eats as opposed to how much. If a person needs 2500 calories per day to break even and maintain body mass, and they eat 3000, they will, over time, gain weight, given that it takes about 3500 calories of extra calories to gain a pound of fat on one's body. An extra 500 calories per day generally equals about a pound per week (7 x 500 = 3500). The trick is trying to figure out how many calories one needs in a day, which varies from person to person based on body weight, muscle/bone mass, metabolic rate, etc.

If you eat 3000 calories of legumes and vegetables every day, but you only need 2000 a day to maintain mass, then you'll get fat just as surely as eating too many cheeseburgers.

They also do very little exercise, which is arguable more important than the food consumption. The average hunter-gatherer actually consumes the same amount of calories per day as a modern American, huge compared to most of the rest of the world, but they do a load more exercise every day too.

So, to sum up, we could eat more food and still become thinner nations if we ate less calorie-dense foods and exercised more. Given that this can work even if we increase total food consumed, the proposition that <America is fat because we eat too much food> is clearly not true. America is fat because we consume more calories than we need. This can be fixed by consuming fewer calories (but not necessarily less food), exercising more, or both. It is overly simplistic to blame caloric intake alone, or lack of exercise alone, for American lard tubs.

[Coito ergo sum]

The reason people in the US is quite simple. Americans eat far more calories per day than they need need to maintain their body mass. It matters a lot less what one eats as opposed to how much. If a person needs 2500 calories per day to break even and maintain body mass, and they eat 3000, they will, over time, gain weight, given that it takes about 3500 calories of extra calories to gain a pound of fat on one's body. An extra 500 calories per day generally equals about a pound per week (7 x 500 = 3500). The trick is trying to figure out how many calories one needs in a day, which varies from person to person based on body weight, muscle/bone mass, metabolic rate, etc.

If you eat 3000 calories of legumes and vegetables every day, but you only need 2000 a day to maintain mass, then you'll get fat just as surely as eating too many cheeseburgers.

They also do very little exercise, which is arguable more important than the food consumption. The average hunter-gatherer actually consumes the same amount of calories per day as a modern American, huge compared to most of the rest of the world, but they do a load more exercise every day too.

So, to sum up, we could eat more food and still become thinner nations if we ate less calorie-dense foods and exercised more. Given that this can work even if we increase total food consumed, the proposition that <America is fat because we eat too much food> is clearly not true. America is fat because we consume more calories than we need. This can be fixed by consuming fewer calories (but not necessarily less food), exercising more, or both. It is overly simplistic to blame caloric intake alone, or lack of exercise alone, for American lard tubs.

No no - I did not blame calorie intake alone or lack of exercise alone. Exercise makes you burn more calories. That's it. So, someone who walks a lot needs more calories to break even than a person who doesn't walk at all, all else being equal.

The math is calories in vs. calories out. Period. End of story. It is not more complicated than that. Reduce calories in, or increase calories out are the ONLY two choices. There are no others.

There are ways to increase calories out: exercise, general activity or otherwise increase your metabolism.

Changing one's foodstuffs can help, because certain foods are harder to digest - like celery. The calories contained within the celery are not enough to outweigh the calories needed to burn the celery. That's why celery is a great snack. Eaten plain, it will not make you gain fat.

[ScholasticSpastic]

No no - I did not blame calorie intake alone or lack of exercise alone. Exercise makes you burn more calories. That's it. So, someone who walks a lot needs more calories to break even than a person who doesn't walk at all, all else being equal.

Cool. Why keep bangin' on about just the one thing, then? This is a problem with as many solutions as there are obese people. Some will best eat the same amounts of different foods. Some will best exercise more and make no net caloric or dietary changes. Some will best maintain personal habits while reducing caloric intake. Etc. Etc. It is a simple problem with a complex of solutions.

For example: I almost have a flat stomach (this is new for me). I still eat craploads of shitty food. But I also started walking 30+ minutes every day, plus hiking for hours on the weekends. Calories out > calories in. Just as you said. But not everyone will benefit from the same changes. A really obese person may have difficulty walking 30+ minutes/day without injury.

I could never be fat. It seems like too much work to haul all that stuff around.

[Pensioner]

Weird doesn't mean there is anything "bad" about it.

BAA's suggesting it's completely fucked up though.

And it is.

A mainstream, popular selling item is a magazine of teenage girls - thirteen, fourteen - for middle aged and older men. We're talking swim suits and under wear shots. If you're a woman, getting felt up on the train is an every day occurence. They have entire bars where you pay to have dates with hosts/hostesses - and that's it. A very basic dinner and drinks and conversation, and the bills they rack up can be in the hundreds of thousands of Yen for a single night. A lot of the women are below a healthy weight level and that's considered attractive, and it's an obsession on a level that far outpaces any of the issues people think we have here.



Fuck, you can take one look at Sumo wrestling and that sums it up. Kids fattened and trained up for this, to die of weight-related problems in adulthood. And this is considered honorable.

The Japanese probably say similar things about the rest of the world too. It's easy to see weirdness and/or fuckedupness in a culture if you look at it from the perspective of your own culture.

What would they think of a guy marrying a horse on Gerry Springer, or American parents force feeding their kids McDonalds until they're morbidly obese, or UK Teen magazines encouraging girls to be anorexic, or people breaking their legs and collarbones chasing cheese down a hill, or....

We have the House of Lords.

[Pappa]

The Japanese probably say similar things about the rest of the world too. It's easy to see weirdness and/or fuckedupness in a culture if you look at it from the perspective of your own culture.

What would they think of a guy marrying a horse on Gerry Springer, or American parents force feeding their kids McDonalds until they're morbidly obese, or UK Teen magazines encouraging girls to be anorexic, or people breaking their legs and collarbones chasing cheese down a hill, or....

We have the House of Lords.

Very good point.

[Chinaski]

http://www.cracked.com/article_16962_bu ... myths.html

Goes a long way to explain things.

[FBM]

http://www.cracked.com/article_16962_bu ... myths.html

Goes a long way to explain things.

Goes a lot further to making me ask