Tiggs:
so whats needed then? you say eductaion is ok and infomation is there for all......so why do people pick up burgers when they shop instead of chicken or eat chips instead of fruit - they do so because they CHOOSE to.
i have plenty of mcdonalds near me but i wouldnt think of going in one to eat - my choice, not right or wrong but my choice. so when overweight people do go in there to eat they have to accept it was a choice they made - one of the biggest problems of the modern age seems not the genes/fat stroring/ect but the lack of personal responsibility. The UK is geting like the US in that sense, you fall over in the street and it must have been the fault of someone else - quick...sue them. Get fat and it must be somebody elses fault if its not what you wanted.
people need to take some resposibility for how they look (unless they have someone else feeding them) because if things continue whereby everyone is allowed to blame something other than theirselves very little will change.
I don't think the old hamburger is to blame. I think the 32 oz. Coke is more of a culprit, but there is not one single cause. Our lifestyles are radically different than they were when I grew up in the 60s. Overweight children were extremely rare and although people gained some weight during middle age, it was considered a normal part of aging and older people usually skipped the desert.
We ate hamburgers, but usually cooked at home. Almost all meals were prepared at home or school if we didn't take our lunch. Most mothers stayed at home and cooked. Cokes came in 10 oz. bottles and they were an occasional treat. Our mothers didn't buy them at the grocery store very often. We drank milk, water and in the South, iced tea. Kool-aid was occasionally served during hot weather, but in 6 oz portions. Parents were very sugar-avoidant because kids got cavaties and that meant expensive trips to the dentist for fillings. Now we have fluoridated water and dental insurance.
In my neighborhood (we had neighborhood schools), we all walked or rode our bikes to and from school after eating a standard breakfast or perhaps cereal. After school, we played outside with the other kids until dinner. We ate meatloaf, spaghetti, fried chicken, hamburgers at dinner with veggies and potatoes with milk. After dinner, we had homework, maybe an hour or two of TV. We also had some McDonalds and many other mom and pop hamburger joints. In our family, eating out was an occasional thing. We didn't have computers, Play Stations or videos. We had 3 TV channels and 1 PBS channel. Most families had one TV in the living room and only during Saturday could we find cartoons and other shows just for kids. Most kids watched cartoons in the morning and played outside the rest of the day.
Now, we have 1 parent families or 2 parent families where both work. We drive children to school or they ride a bus. We pick them up and make "play dates" or drive them to sports occasionally. Kids spend a lot of time watching TV, playing video games and computer games. People buy and eat a lot of convenience food which is mostly labeled low fat (which people mistake as healthy) and most of it contains a lot of sugar. Kids go the mall and walk around with 32 oz cups of sugar. IMO, the dietary culprit is sugar combined with a sedentary life style and less time to prepare family meals. Instead of fighting middle age spread later in life, kids grow up overweight and become obese over the years. It's an entire lifestyle which has become the norm.
I have an acquaintance from the People's Republic of China and she became alarmed when her son gained a lot of weight eating western food. She's convinced it is pizza because that is the only American food her family ate. You think it is hamburgers.
