Posted on 04/20/2010 12:25:55 AM PDT by chasio649
I have always known that the problem of obesity or plain being overweight has risen in this country...but i went to a WalMart over the weekend (my wife usually does all the shopping) and noticed many, many people of all ages (especially young) that were huge. 20 year olds with huge beer bellies, young girls with massive muffin tops with tight shirts on, monstrous lardos shuffling down the aisles....geeez what is it going to be like in 20 years when they turn 40 and all have diabetes?...and no i don't think the government can do anything about it...there needs to be a shift in our way of living or thinking...any ideas? also...when did it become fashion for fat girls to wear tight clothes?...i guess i have been living under a rock....i'll go back now.
what is a massive muffin top
That’s the belly flab that hangs over a girl’s pants when they are too tight...like a rising muffin in its cup.
Think of the way that a baked muffin is sort of mushroom shaped in that the top most portion rises and spreads to take a shape wider than the lower part of the muffin. So a muffin top on a woman describes the style of wearing very tight low-rise pants that forces love handles and excess weight around the abdomen up and over the edges of the tight pants. This silhouette places emphasis on the waist in such a way that the waist is the widest part of the figure.
I don’t recall if it was a Freeper or what. But the guy was overheard by his girlfriend talking about her as a “muffin top”.
“What did you say? What does that mean anyway?!”
“Oh you know Honey. How the best part of a muffin is the part on top?”
“Oh you sweet thing!”
Inexpensive food is high calorie and high fat. McNuggets, fries, pizza. Expensive food can be, too, but ordinarily is not. Whoever can afford to partake of fruit or veggies out of season and a lot of lean meat & fish isn’t too concerned with grocery budgets. And, from what I have seen, how to feed a family on a shoestring is a big deal. One time, I dropped by a Wal-Mart to pick up things and a woman was telling one of her children to put a yogurt back “because (she) couldn’t afford it.”
Hope you’ve seen http://www.peopleofwalmart.com BTW.
There is some site with “WalMart People” or some-such. Some pretty funny (and sad I suppose) stuff on there.
I imagine it is the fast-food, store-bought meals, etc. I know my mom always had home-cooked meals. At our house it is sometimes a lot of quick foods and store-bought mixes with who-knows-what added into it. Although our kids are all on the skinny side, but they are real active too. (Me? I could stand to lose my muffin top! (Can guys have a muffin top? I suppose if we wore tights? I think a good old beer belly is a better description.)
Once that programming is in there, forget it.
Hey! You’re being sarcastic, yes?
There is nothing more affordable than vegetables, beans and rice. But some people don’t want to cook them. It’s easier to buy fast food.
If people who have limited budgets would take responsibility for their diet, there would not be a problem.
These days, if you’re poor, you get FAT, not skinny.
Top of the Muffin To You! (Seinfeld line)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyO-z_7Ip9c&feature=related
Veggies, beans & rice are inexpensive, but add in meat & fish and it’s a race to $100 in 2 sacks.
You can add inexpensive cuts of meat and canned fish. It’s not impossible.
There are victims everywhere. I’m not one of them.
YES! ;)
I didn’t mean to imply you were. I did see the woman telling her son to put one yogurt back because she couldn’t afford it. Where I shop now, almost no one goes to the frozen food aisle, and even at a big warehouse place like Sam’s Club or Costco, people go together and/or are on the phone or their iPad looking for better prices. That’s different.
I know we’ve cut back and buy things differently. No more soda pop for this household. Crystal Light & sugar free Kool Aid here. If I can find 49 cent bread, I buy a couple & freeze one for sandwiches.
I'm also writing a book about how rap music and basketball cause irreparable brain damage, but I'm still trying to find an exception that proves the rule (i.e. at least one person who listens to rap and plays or watches basketball, who still has more than two sparking neurons).
I was just fixin' to expand the control group to golfers, hoping to find a live brain cell among the jock crowd, then the whole Tiger Woods thing hit the fan. Maybe NASCAR next.
thanks. The site is sad and strange. If you ever have to go to Wal-Mart for something, you have to practically run in and run out and time yourself. And the really, really difficult thing is all the stuff from China, or the foods tagged now for WIC.
The stores have dropped variety in many cases. Some Wal-Marts don’t have asparagus, for example. And the strawberries are from Mexico, even though there have been stories about farmers in Florida plowing their fields under because the prices they can get are not profitable.
Finally, I didn’t use to be one of those people who checks the back of the box, but it does make a difference. All the things that are added are daunting.
I had to go on a diet for medical reasons, and the sweet or salty taste of something if I eat differently now is the 1st thing I notice. And the fat-loaded stuff can go right through me.
Over the years, I have noticed that some places that serve food must use a certain type of oil to cook foods or something, because the foods end up making me sick. Maybe I’m a canary in a coal mine. And yet, McDonald’s is still popular.....
I can only eat one peice of fried chicken at a sitting, 1 slice of pizza at a sitting....anymore than that and i have the trots...i don’t know how people can carry the weight that they do...i go up and down in weight..i get a little gut sometimes and i cut back and level off..the people i’m talking about are HUGE!
Would somebody please do a health study about the dangers of being nagged constantly about one’s weight?
If I dropped dead tomorrow, at least all this noise would stop.
I don’t trust diet and exercise pushers one bit. Every time the health care story du jour comes on the tube, I have to wonder if Soros’ minions are at work.
Alienating people from the food they eat is a really subtle way of turning minds into mush, and preparing them for the collectivist future.
Just today, a story ran on the news wires stating that the same bad gene that predisposes some people to obesity also raises their risk of Alzheimer’s.
I’m no medico. But as a newspaperman of more than two decades experience I can at least testify to the confusing and contradictory nature of most health coverage today.
After reading this drivel for years, I’m tending to believe that the only way medical science is going to conquer the “obesity epidemic” is by coming up with some kind of medication to adjust people’s metabolisms.
Diets are a misery. Ditto for strenuous exercise. You can lecture people all day long but you are not going to alter the reality that lifestyle changes are unbelievably difficult, even for a limited time.
The diet and exercise pushers also have to confront another reality, and that’s how people’s brains seem to be hard-wired to react to food differently.
My elderly parents have always picked at their food, even when they were younger. But I suppose they are today’s ideal.
Me, I’ve always cleaned my plate and enjoyed every minute of it. I guess that makes me a bad, wicked, evil man.
As for exercise, I can only think back to my discharge from the Army in 1985. I had left active duty 18 months earlier, and the reserve control group in St. Louis wrote to me asking whether I wanted to be considered for the upcoming promotion board.
I must admit that I had rather a good time writing back that while I appreciated the opportunity to serve my country, my knees were shot, along with one shoulder, and one ankle. My back wasn’t in really great shape either.
So would you mind terribly if I asked for my honorable discharge?
Now I’ve never regretted my military service. But I learned that some people just aren’t cut out for running, no matter how much the Army insists that they become runners.
Honestly, I think that Dr. Oz, Jillian Michaels, Richard Simmons and the rest of their tedious tribe share an authoritarian streak. They get their jollies ordering overweight people to change their lifestyles.
Obviously, there are some people on “The Biggest Loser” who aren’t just comfortably upholstered but have a real problem.
But for the rest of us — well, I can’t help thinking that 100 years from now, our great-great-grandkids will be looking at today’s diet and exercise regimens and wonder “why did people ever submit to that kind of punishment?”
There's your problem right there.
As someone who has always been above what I should weigh and who blew up after an accident, and who dropped 50 pounds in a matter of months, I can tell you, you're behaving in a self-defeating manner.
I won't be one more person to tell you that exercise is good for you, or that the sign of someone who just wants to eat is the use of the word "metabolism"...oops, I guess I am.
You don't want to talk about it, or be told about it?
Then stop reading about it.
Seriously, your whole rant had me thinking "Alzheimer's story? Didn't hear that...why does he think this thread HAD to be read by him?" Not all threads have to be written with your feelings taken into consideration. The news isn't programmed just for you.
You don't like reading/hearing this stuff? Stop reading/listening.
Problem solved!
Part of me thinks about the childhood line about cleaning your plate because of “all the starving children in (name the country).” That whole guilt thing grows up to be a different relationship with food.
On the other hand, you can get to where it’s a game to find high protein, low fat, low cost food combinations. Can save on a monthly budget a whole lot.
Yep, cheap food is made up of simple carbs and usually has added sugar.
Diabetes is going to be a huge epidemic and very soon.
Stay away from what is called the “white death” which is basically sugar and white bread/pasta.
Protein, complex carbs, and avoid sugar in addition to exercise.
Cavemen didn’t get fat because they had to chase their meals (exercise), which consisted of meat (protein) and also ate other things like nuts and seeds.
Obesity wasn’t really an issue until people figured out how to make bread and harvest sugar.
Those are simple carbs which will spike your blood sugar, releasing massive amounts of insulin which will cause you to gain and retain fat.
Then when you “crash” you get sleepy and take a nap.
The golden ticket to weight loss remains eating smart (not starving yourself!) and exercising.
Unfortunately, for many people, the inexpensive foods are the worst for your health.
Go to any country that depends on the ocean for most of their food - you will see very little obesity because fish and seafood is almost all protein, very little fat, and very little carbs.
If you’re going to eat carbs, eat “good” carbs and be sure to eat an equal amount of good proteins, along with a green vegetable.
And watch out for salad dressings - most are filled with sugar, especially the low-fat versions.
****There is nothing more affordable than vegetables, beans and rice. But some people don’t want to cook them. It’s easier to buy fast food.****
Also public schools don’t teach people how to make large batches and freexe meals for later. By doing it that way you can have ham and beans, split pea soup, rice beans and cheese, and many other tasty nutritious meals that cost very little. The upside is that you can have all those meals with very little work.
Reporting from Europe — Contrary to popular myths — ‘The Europeans are slim because they walk a lot and they eat slowly and enjoy their meals’ — there are a lot of fat people here in Europe.
I suspect it has to do with calories taken in/ calories spent.
It is nice for me to check my hunches/ that obesity is a problem for all humans, not just the low-life Americans that Obama seems to think we are.
While i try to refrain from lecturing people about wasting food, i personally find it difficult to throw it away.
I know that there are people eating dirt and tree bark in North Korea as i type this, which is why i pray for their civilian population on a daily basis.
i once saw a documentary about life in north korea, and there was a segment which showed how small children risk being shot or arrested by swimming across a frozen river to smuggle some eggs and bread in from china.
It’s always food for thoughtn whenever i see eggs or bread in the trash.
They'll waddle into my Emergency Department and demand that we fix them.
Television, computers, etc., make it possible for people to be "entertained" by just sitting around the house all the time. Previous generations, you had to get up and go somewhere if you wanted to do something. I just read a book on how people used to climb Mount Washington in their suits and hoop skirts. That don't happen anymore.
Food. Used to be if you wanted to eat something, you had to get up and cook it for like an hour or so. Now you can eat so much food "right out of the package" - while watching television, of course.
You don’t see a lot of fat people with gardens... :-)
I am always amazed at how limited the options are for a quick meal in most cities. If you don’t want a burger or
fried chicken or fish you are often stuck with a boring sub or a salad. I think the main reason people get fat is the limited choices they have for fast food.
all very good thoughts, observances, and questions!!!
Almost anything that is ready to eat, be it fast food from a restaurant or something you buy in a box and nuke in a microwave is going to be higher in calories.
People who cook from scratch probably reap the benefits of a healthier diet, but they are also going to be people who are, by nature, more active and thus more healthy than people who don't.
I just got through spending 45 minute preparing homemade gyoza for dinner tonight. Fresh rice is cooking and I am about to start on miso soup.
Having a woman that insists we eat healthy has been one of my life's major blessings. Lord knows I could stand to lose a few pounds, but by American standards, I am barely even fat.
Yeah this country has a huge weight problem, and I don’t buy that it’s all because of fast food and healthy food being expensive.
You can buy a head of lettuce, a green pepper, a cucumber, and a tomato for less than the cost of one Big Mac meal, and you’ll have enough salad for the whole family for dinner with some left over for tomorrow. A couple more bucks for some fresh chicken (which I like to grill on my Foreman), some pasta (or rice), and a few ounces of shredded cheddar cheese and I’ve fed my family of 4 a healthy dinner for less than McDonald’s, with some left over.
People are just lazy and refuse to cook. It’s easier to go through a fast-food drive through or sit down with a bag of chips than to prepare a healthy meal.
I’d like to see a study of how many grossly overweight people actually cook the majority of their own meals.
Learning proper capitalization couldn't hurt.
“Inexpensive food is high calorie and high fat. McNuggets, fries, pizza. Expensive food can be, too, but ordinarily is not. Whoever can afford to partake of fruit or veggies out of season and a lot of lean meat & fish isn’t too concerned with grocery budgets. And, from what I have seen, how to feed a family on a shoestring is a big deal. One time, I dropped by a Wal-Mart to pick up things and a woman was telling one of her children to put a yogurt back “because (she) couldn’t afford it.”
***
It’s a common misconception that fast food and prepared meals are cheaper. They aren’t. You still can make your own at home for a lot less. I know. I have to live on a much tighter budget than I once did, and eating out now is somewhat of a luxury. But I have found that I save a lot of money by eating at home. Plus I can, through my own cooking, control the calories, fat and sugar. I’ve actually lost weight a lot better now that I don’t eat out or consume prepared meals that often.
And this business of not having time to cook...when I worked, I made the time. I would take a weekend day and cook from dawn to dusk. Usually I made something I could cut down into portions and freeze — simple stuff like meatloaf or a casserole. I’d freeze each serving individually. During the week when I was the busiest, I could reach into the freezer, pull out something, heat it up and voila! Dinner. I know people get busy, but if you want to get healthy and stay that way, you have to put some time and effort into it. Although I can’t say this about everyone, the ones who complain about having no time are the ones who go to bingo three nights a week. Seems to me if you can find time for bingo, you can find time to cook.
“Over the years, I have noticed that some places that serve food must use a certain type of oil to cook foods or something, because the foods end up making me sick. Maybe I’m a canary in a coal mine. And yet, McDonald’s is still popular.....”
***
Same with me. I can maybe have a salad at McDonalds or the other fast food places, but a burger and fries make me sick. Not sure why. Maybe for me...having to eat healthier for this long, I now can’t stomach anything that isn’t. I think it’s a good thing.
I see this all over the place in the developed world; America is not unique, although it probably led the trend in terms of great increases in the average weight. The Euros, who used to sneer at the “gigantic” American public, have caught up, especially in places like Scotland (home of the fried Mars candy bar). I think its a combination of eating too many carbs and junk food NOT balanced out by exercise as too many children spend their free time glued to a video game screen. You see it in the restaurants with gigantic baskets of white bread and rolls - cheap to make and they fill the diners stomachs with empty calories. Having lost 40 pounds a few years ago, my advice would be: 1) eat your biggest meals early in the day when you can burn them off (eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a factory worker and dinner like a pauper); 2) walk everyplace you go within reach and use the steps; 3) take up running, if you can; 4) stop eating large baskets of the “free” bread at restaurants; 5) go to sleep early and get up early as the late nights are when you go for the snacks and beer. I saw a special on CNBC about one week on a cruise ship; the thinner passengers wanted to check out and leave as soon as the ship docked; the heavier ones wanted one last chance at the all you can eat buffet and were in no hurry. We are going to see a wave of diabetes in the US that will look like a tsunami if this doesn’t change.
I suspect that most on food stamps also smoke pot and get the munchies. All getting food stamps should have drug tests.
Dude..., it’s Wal-Mart. Yo....
Artificially raise price of foods with taxes to curb recreational and/or habitual consumption...for the children.
Don't tell me they haven't thought of it.
Worked really well for gasoline.
You posted a vanity on “Why’s everybody so fat and ugly at the Walmart?”
Seriously?
The VAT will do it. 25% here in Sweden. I just paid about $35 for a 10 pack of coke, a six pack of diet coke, 250 grams of sliced cheese, some fresh cilantro, 2 small bags of grated cheese and a tomatoe.
We'll come get you when it's time to go jellyfishing.
Now that you put it that way....
I buy $4 loaves of bread for a buck...a day before the ‘sell by’ expires. $2 cans of brand soup for 50 cents each. I can get two 12-count boxes of Twinkies for a buck. I don't....but if I wanted to...
This operation....and I'm sure there are others like it....it a juicy target for the government to regulate: health, safety, yadda. I wonder, every time I walk out of the place with four bags of groceries for $20, how long before we all have this beneficial opportunity snuffed?
Government robs and destroys.
I know what you’re saying, Colonel Blimp. I bought into the diet/overexcerise for years, but after a while, it didn’t work anymore. I’m average size now, though those stupid charts would call me overweight. Now I no longer diet; I serve myself a normal portion, rarely feel like going back for more, and snack on “fun foods” like ice cream, but I eat much less of them since I gave myself permission to eat them. And with a choice between soda and juice, I’d rather have the juice, which satisfies me more and is healthier. At 50, I’m active (bowling & belly dancing!) and I love to walk, but occasionally I’ll go to the boring old gym. LOL!
And megadittos on Jillian Michaels, etc. having an authoritarian streak. They also have dollar signs in their eyes, like most of the diet industry. A very good book you’ll find: HEALTH AT EVERY SIZE by Linda Bacon, PhD.
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