Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Suburbs Made Us Fat
The Atlantic Magazine ^ | August 13, 2014 | James Hamblin

Posted on 08/14/2014 4:01:39 AM PDT by CW_Conservative

People in dense cities are thinner and have healthier hearts than people in sprawling subdivisions.

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: agenda21; obesity
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-72 next last
To: C. Edmund Wright

not to mention rapists and polar bear hunters ;)


21 posted on 08/14/2014 4:36:56 AM PDT by Roman_War_Criminal (Bible Summary in a few verses: John 14:6, John 6:29, Romans 10:9-10)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: exDemMom

>>> Why is it that liberals imagine some sort of utopia would result if we were all crammed into cities?

You know why. All of us here on FR know why.


22 posted on 08/14/2014 4:37:58 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot (Pravda + Useful Idiots = CCCP; JournOList + Useful Idiots = DopeyChangey!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Sir Napsalot

“Hispanic Asians” would be, for example, people of Japanese ancestry who are natives of Peru, such as the country’s former president, Alberto Fujimori. There are substantial Japanese and Chinese expatriate populations (and I assume Korean, Vietnamese, etc.) in Latin America, some of them established for well over a century.


23 posted on 08/14/2014 4:42:03 AM PDT by Tax-chick (No power in the 'verse can stop me.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: All
What caused us to be fat and I know because I was a guinea pig for this is the industrial food conglomerates. We are a country addicted to refined carbohydrates, processed meats and bad fats, convenience foods, over salted rubbish. Our bodies are just doing what they should be doing, what they are genetically programmed to do that is tore fat in times of plenty. Well with food despite the recent spike affordable in mass quantities to most people we gorge on stuff we shouldn’t because it’s cheap.

The average person starts out breakfast with a large cup of coffee with half and half and NutraSweet(a poison) and a sugar and white flour disaster that is a bagel and butter. At work it’s another cup of coffee and lunch at 12:30 is usually a large deli sandwich with chips and a pickle and a diet cola. Nothing close to being what it is nature, full of bad fat, sugar and salt and a calorie bomb at probably 700-900 calories. Being carb and HFCS addicted and doing what the geniuses and general Foods and Kraft have engineered us to crave, we want something salty, sugary or fatty by 3pm so we run down to the newsstand or commissary and pick up a HFCS laden granola bar and another diet cola. By 5:30 and quitting time we are starved as we drag our tired rear-ends home after maybe a half hearted or insufficient workout at the local gym. We then have go what we think is healthy, farm raised salmon devoid of most of its Omega 3 and deep pink color, broiled in oven with a canola based oil and more salt laden on top, a starch like white rice or a white potato with butter and a tiny portion of cooked beyond recognition vegetables and a small green salad(yeah!) destroyed with low Ranch dressing full of salt and HFCS(boo!). We then plop down with the kids on the sofa for some mindless TV and about 2- 3 hours later at 9pm just when the scientists at Campbell’s Soup and Heinz thought you would you crave guess what salt, sugar or fat…so you head to the fridge or pantry and gobble down a 3 scoops of low fat vanilla ice cream or half bag of sour cream and onion baked chips. So you have woofed down about 500-1000 calories in a day what your body needs to maintain it’s current mass and guess what over the month and years you begin gathering fat around your organs and then you ass and belly, 5-10 lbs a year and by 50 you are a disaster…50lbs overweight, with HBP, aches all over, bad skin, no energy, bad mood, low sex drive, mental fogginess.

I was there and then I said ENOUGH. I went on a clean diet, not one out of a book or guru. I began giving my body what it needed not what Kraft engineered me to crave. I began eating lots of fresh veggies, 10 servings a day, the base of my diet, grass fed beef, organic chicken and wild caught fish, raw nuts, lots of water, delicious fruits and seeds. Began doing real workouts not stair machine loafing it in the gym pretending to be working out wastes of my time. Did I pay more for good food, hell yea, about 50% more but I dropped my Netflix, my buying of 50 bucks worth of ITunes music a month, began walking, working out and well lots of loving for entertainment with GF instead of eating out so much. Anyways I lost 70lbs over in 10 months and at 48 I can out work and out wit most of my 20 something peers at work. Have the energy and stamina when I was 25 and feel so much different. Bottom line is America is addicted, lazy and looking for someone to blame for our exploding waistlines.

24 posted on 08/14/2014 4:44:08 AM PDT by pburgh01
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: CW_Conservative

Right, the suburbs, where no pools are found, no jogging paths, no TaeKwonDo classes, no soccer, certain no exercise is taking place. Right.


25 posted on 08/14/2014 4:47:11 AM PDT by CincyRichieRich (We the people.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: CW_Conservative

Fat is 99.9% a choice.


26 posted on 08/14/2014 4:47:48 AM PDT by CincyRichieRich (We the people.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: exDemMom

Why? Because the power of the criminal mob is diluted by distance. In one city block, criminal terrorists can terrorize and intimidate hundreds, if not thousands, of law-abiding citizens. Where I live, in that same area, about 15.


27 posted on 08/14/2014 4:50:10 AM PDT by Trailerpark Badass (There should be a whole lot more going on than throwing bleach, said one woman.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: BCW
I think a home gym is better, most cost beneficial, and will be used more than joining a gym.

Whatever works for you is the best exercise.

That said, it is the eating that puts on the pounds. An hour on a stairclimber burns 400 calories. Followed by two glazed donuts and a sweetened coffee will add 500+

No sugar, no flour, no processed foods. The pounds will fall off.

28 posted on 08/14/2014 4:52:22 AM PDT by FatherofFive (Islam is evil and must be eradicated)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: pburgh01

Finally some sanity in this thread. Thank you. You are exactly correct. Obesity (as well as the associated chronic diseases) are directly caused by diet: particularly carbohydrates and pro-inflammatory oils.

Clearly man’s genome hasn’t changed in the past 50 years of rampant obesity and diabetes; nor has our behavior. We all didn’t suddenly get lazy. What has changed is our diet. We are stuffing ourselves with carbohydrates (refined or not), sugars of every sort, and bad oils. At the same time we are shunning healthy oils such as saturated fat.


29 posted on 08/14/2014 4:55:11 AM PDT by Blennos
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Tax-chick

The percentage of the Hispanic Asians vs. non-Hispanic Asians in the US will be so small, well, I just think it is not necessary to make such a distinction.


30 posted on 08/14/2014 4:56:39 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot (Pravda + Useful Idiots = CCCP; JournOList + Useful Idiots = DopeyChangey!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Darksheare

I’m a country guy but went to Boston for a business trip. At first it was fun. Out one night with some coworkers who lived there was an eye opener.
While on the subway they spoke to no one, didn’t even look at them, same while waiting for a train. Back up on the street, it was walk fast and don’t talk because of the street hustlers.
I’de had enough of that after the first night. That’s no way to live.
Fear, anxiety daily. You can have it.


31 posted on 08/14/2014 4:56:48 AM PDT by reefdiver (The fool says there is no God. And the bigger fools sees direct evidence and rages against it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: FatherofFive

That too....if you look at Asia - they eat meat and veggies...hardly is their food laced with wheat/flour etc...they spice it up as well...but it is straight forward.

Every coffee shop one enters there are pastries!


32 posted on 08/14/2014 4:56:53 AM PDT by BCW (ARMIS EXPOSCERE PACEM)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: CW_Conservative

Is everything written by a liberal BS?


33 posted on 08/14/2014 4:56:53 AM PDT by rupert f
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: CW_Conservative
No thank you. The author's point of view is TOO New York City-centric, and frankly, I'd rather live in the suburbs close by than live in the center of the city itself with its costly and cramped apartments.
34 posted on 08/14/2014 5:01:24 AM PDT by RayChuang88 (FairTax: America's economic cure)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: reefdiver

Exactly.

Of course, rural U.S. has it’s own dangers.
Like: being run down by a deer while on your bike.
But that’s completely different, it isn’t a constant occurrence!


35 posted on 08/14/2014 5:02:27 AM PDT by Darksheare (Try my coffee! First one's free..... Even robots will kill for it!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: Sir Napsalot
I just think it is not necessary to make such a distinction.

I agree, it's not. The only people who would care if there were significant health differences between "Hispanic Asians" and "non-Hispanic Asians" would be the people with the problematic health distinctions! For example, I can imagine there being a higher incidence of diabetes among Hispanic Asians, if they adopted the high-sugar diet of many other Hispanic immigrants.

Demographic researchers get confused having to deal with "Hispanic," because it's purely a cultural/historical characteristic, not a biological one.

36 posted on 08/14/2014 5:03:12 AM PDT by Tax-chick (No power in the 'verse can stop me.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: pburgh01

Sir,

You have hit the nail on the head. The main difference today is not whether we live in a neighborhood that is set up in a grid style or has cul de sacs. How absurd!! The difference is the amount of processed foods that we eat. Look, anyone over 50 can tell you that when growing up, people ate fast food like McDonalds or Hardys about once a month as a treat. Now, people eat at places like that three times a week!!

Yes, it is a combination of healthy eating and exercise. However, the biggest change in our lives from 30 years ago is the amount of processed foods in our diet. All of this stuff is loaded with processed sugars, high fructose corn syrup and sodium. Lots of sodium! We also can’t forget all the steroids we are consuming because they have chickens and cows being pumped with them. If you start eating better, you will have more energy and want to have more and better workouts.


37 posted on 08/14/2014 5:03:18 AM PDT by Old Teufel Hunden
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Darksheare
I call BS.

Me, too. Urban populations are younger and poorer. Urban homicide rates are much higher.

The older, fatter and richer 'burbs will have longer life expectancies -- from birth.

38 posted on 08/14/2014 5:19:18 AM PDT by Sooth2222 ("Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But I repeat myself." M.Twain)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: CW_Conservative
AGENDA 21!
39 posted on 08/14/2014 5:20:57 AM PDT by ExTxMarine (PRAYER: It's the only HOPE for real CHANGE in America!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: CW_Conservative

People who live in the city are healthier, they just don’t live as long.


40 posted on 08/14/2014 5:23:54 AM PDT by Balding_Eagle (If America falls, darkness will cover the earth for a thousand years.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-72 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson