Obesity? This is a job for Supernanny(neo soviet barf alert)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-2330255,00.html ^ | 8 27 06 | Minette Marrin

[Xenalyte]

I don't know that I ever had a Space Stick. Is this the box? Were they good, or did the interest lie in the novelty?

[aimee5291]

perhaps they weren't French :)

[maryz]

You make soup in a microwave? In a pot?

[Just A Nobody]

It's strange how they don't seem to be anywhere near as worried about anorexia and bulimia

Thank you! I haven't heard of those two things in a long time. I knew a 12 y/o boy with anorexia about 20 years ago. That was before the huge "you're fat" campaign began. I shudder to think what has become of him now.

Anorexia and bulimia are probably just a trade off for the better cause of the "greater good"

[Bonaparte]

"Bravo Sierra! I am rich, educated AND fat."

Just like my Aunt Ann, a great lady, God rest her soul. She knew where all the best restaurants in DC were, especially for seafood and elaborate desserts. I used to love going to dinner with her.

[maryz]

The author just wanted to write an article in which she got to call people fatass deadbeat ignoramuses.

LOL! It must be rewarding in its way, since so many people seem to enjoy it!

[Gabz]

We don't eat a lot of processed food because I'm a good cook and I'm thrifty but half the people in the country have never even had a homemade soup.

I'm with you.

I've basically taught myself how to cook things like homemade soup because I never had it as a kid....soup always came out of a can. I admit that when I'm sick I still crave, and eat, Campbell's Chicken Noodle, but for the most part I make all of our soups.........and I do it in a 20 quart stock pot and then freeze it.

Like you I'm a pretty good cook, and I actually enjoy doing it and so make time to do it. But there are also times when I'm not in the mood, and so that is why I always make sure I've got plenty of stuff already in the freezer that just needs to be defrosted and heated.

[Atlas Sneezed]

You forgot pizza...

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Good point. With a few cups of flour, some inexpensive meat, a can of tomatoes, some mushrooms, onions, peppers, you have a meal fit for ... (me) ... or a hungry family, for less than a buck a person. (A $79 bread machine makes it lazy-easy.)

[WV Mountain Mama]

Not if you eat the ACTUAL serving size. Too many people think that a portion is an entire dinner plate stacked high (cause it is only "one helping". A serving of meat or chicken is about the size of your palm.

[Verloona Ti]

Obese means not just podgy, but dangerously, disablingly, distastefully fat, as in American fat

Awhile back, I made a point of really looking at people here in my small Missouri town (22,000 pop.) while I was out running . I don't know if I just happened to be out when only thinner people were out or what, but what I noticed was how everyone I saw was slim to average or slightly plump, and at worst maybe 20-30 pounds too heavy to be fashionably slim. I didn't see anyone who appeared morbidly obese or much more than 40 pounds overweight-men and women alike. A few weeks later, I had to pick someone up at the KCI airport, and again-only slim to average sized people in the waiuting area, with the pudgier people only 20-30 lbs too heavy, and only 2 or 3 people (all women) I'd call fat. That was with about 40 minutes of sitting there 'people-watching'.(Bear in mind that I am 5'4" and 113 lbs, so it's not like my view of what's fat is skewed too low or too high -I don't consider Callista Flockhart or Lionel Ritchie's daughter 'fat chicks', or Roseanne 'slightly chubby'.) Now, anecdotes don't equal scientific data, I know...but it really seems to me like I'm seeing fewer and fewer really gigantic people when I'm out, and the ones that are fat are "1970s fat" : 50 pounds overweight, tops, not 300-400-500+ lbs, as was all too common here only a few years ago. Is it possible that headway is slowly being made here in the US? What have other freepers noticed in your towns/cities?

[Irish_Thatcherite]

Something's seriously wrong when boys are worried about their weight to the extreme.

Thank God for the Campaign For Real Beauty!

[Gabz]

Easy to do when one keeps moving the goal posts.

And that is it in a nutshell.

People look at me and have asked what kind of a diet am I on...people who don't know me well are actually surprised by the vast quantities of food I can consume. I'm 5'10" and bounce around 120-125lbs.

OTOH, my husband is considered fat by the new standards because he is 5'11" and 175.

[Atlas Sneezed]

Just as one example - a single walmart red pepper, $1.43. No-name mac n cheese, 3 boxes for a dollar.

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Your exception proves the rule. Eating out-of season produce from Belgian greenhouses is not the way for the poor to feed themselves.

Try the green pepper. Try some frozen peas, beans, or broccoli (frozen veggies are aways in season.) Try frozen red peppers (Trader Joes has a green/yellow/red bag for cheap.)

And if you want to save money compared to mac and cheese (which there is nothing wrong with if it is supplemented with some vegetables), try homemade mac and cheese, with actual cheese.

Moreover, please tell us what that pepper is for. It probably is just an accent for things that are cheap, like Spanish rice with chicken, Jambalaya or Gumbo (those creoles knew how to eat well cheap),

And you don't need a red bell pepper to make Tacos or burritos, for goodness sake (meat/beans, cheese, tomatoes, onions and lettuce are still cheap, and everyone loves them, especiallo poor kids.)

[LadyNavyVet]

"Some people just don't have the time."

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I'm sure alot of those people who "don't have the time" can name every contestant on Survivor, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, etc. Like so much else in life, healthy eating is a matter of priorities.

[maryz]

I'm not "chubby" and I made no reference to what I buy. Merely observations. (I'm bitter about paying $.79 a pound for watermelon in August -- LOL!)

[Verloona Ti]

Those *might* be them, or at least they're a knockoff of the original "astronaut's food" craze. (Can't remember the packaging, but each one in the box was individually wrapped). I really can't remember much about them tastewise, except they were soft and chewy and like a Tootsie roll in shape but much larger. I used to irritate my mom because she'd buy them and I'd only want the chocolates.

I think my failure to remember their taste suggests they weren't very good, except to someone too young to know any better.

[Atlas Sneezed]

If you have $3 for the week you buy those things instead of a bag of grapes.

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Are you insane? No one proposes to feed a family on $3/week. (I could do it, but even feeding one on that would be tough.)

When you inject false premises, you end up with bad results.

Let's try $30/week for the welfare mom and her 2 kids. That does not force them to buy all potatoes and bread(which is rather expensive, by the way, but a $3 loaf of whole grain bread will last the better part of a week anyway.)

[mplsconservative]

Mmmmm. Homemade soup.

I'm making a big pot of cream of cauliflower soup right now. My son just walked in and asked me, 'What stinks?' I guess I better be coming up with an alternative meal for him tonight. :)

[Just A Nobody]

I'm 5'10" and bounce around 120-125lbs.

Those charts I spoke of.....my "ideal" weight for my bone structure and height of 5' prox, was 125 back then.

my husband is considered fat by the new standards because he is 5'11" and 175.

That is just sick and wrong! He looks great just the way he is. ;*)

[Verloona Ti]

My number 90 should read "-out running ERRANDS"-I was driving all over town, so I got to see quite a cross section.