Why Are Southerners So Fat?

Time ^ | 7/9/2009 | Claire Suddath

[ejonesie22]

Ok, well I am a 43 year old in Mississippi, and I am fat.

So there is one....

[CaptainK]

When I visited my Dad in Florida I found the heat oppressive and the only physical activity I could participate in was swimming.

The heavy cooking is aided and abetted by air conditioning. Otherwise how could you eat all that fried and gravied food in the hot weather?

[ejonesie22]

And that was just lunch...

Suppers a comin’...

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

It’s hot in Southern California too. And we drive everywhere in air conditioned cars. But body image is everything here.

I live in Southern California, too. We definitely eat a more healthy diet than the classic southern diet, and the heat's different. For one thing, it almost always cools down pretty well at night. I've never suffered through a 90 degree night in California like I did in the Midwest. And there's nothing like the humidity of the south.

[rockrr]

Just the right degree of subtlety there...;’}

[Tazlo]

The Biggest Loser is casting in Atlanta and Mobile (and new York and San Antonio) this week.

[rightly_dividing]

As a fat southerner, I'll tell you what my wife tells people. We southern cooks know how to take a perfectly healthy vegetable, and cook it in ham seasoning, batter and fry it, smother it in gravey, cover it in butter or cheese, and salt it down.

meats: we can fry everything imaginable with a nice thick batter that will hold lots of juice(grease)

we fry veggies, too, green tomatos, squash, okry, eggplant, pickles, mushrooms, and probably much that I cant think of right now, but you get the picture: we know how to cook anything and make it bad for you.

[Tamar1973]

Because the last time the Yankees came through, the skinny ones starved.

Quote of the day!

[EQAndyBuzz]

“Why Are Southerners So Fat?”

Why are Northeasterners wussies?

[Signalman]

[TexasFreeper2009]

From the article : “When you're poor you tend to eat more calorie-dense foods because they're cheaper than fruits and vegetables,”

WOW! that has got to be one of the dumbest statements ever proclaimed to be fact.

This person has obviously never been to a grocery store and seen that fruits and vegetables cost a FRACTION of what it costs to buy a big mack meal at MacDonald's. When you go out to eat, you are basically saying to the world I am wealthy enough to have my own personal chef.

[Nea Wood]

...mothers were driving their kids to bus stops that were just halfway down the block...

Here in LA it's the same. That Steve Martin comedy movie where the LA guy got in his car to go next door isn't far off. I had a coworker who lived two blocks from work and drove every day. You should've heard her whining if her car was in the shop and she had to walk. She'd usually get someone to drive her to work. (She was in her 20s, and not disabled or obese.)

I also had a friend who lived right across the street from her son's middle school. Yep...they got in her car and she drove him across the street.

[~Vor~]

"Because the last time the Yankees came through, the skinny ones starved.

I'm from the south, but I don't care who ya are...that there is funny!

[rightly_dividing]

If it ain't fried, it ain't food!

ditto

[Madame Dufarge]

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

This is all you need to know about the "study."

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation led the charge in demonizing smokers (to sell their "smoking cessation" drugs), so now they're moving on to the demonization of the next group.

Of course, the definition of "obesity" has been changed to include a larger number of people, which is often lost in the anti-obesity Jihad.

Well, can't say we skinny smokers didn't warn everyone of the inevitable.

[Theodore R.]

It’s the biscuits.

[Lizavetta]

Hell, ya ever been to California?

We probably have the highest percentage of fit people due to the weather but we still have a buttload of fat people. I've noticed when I go out in public that it looks like about one in three people is overweight.

[Theodore R.]

It may be “Mitt’s turn in 2012,” said Bob Dole! (not really)

[squibs]

naw that’s just the cops.

[mark3681]

THIS THREAD NEEDS PICS.

GOTTA DO SOME COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE FAT AND NON-FAT SOUTHERNERS