That's roughly around what it would cost in the US. Maybe a few dollars more, but a general meal from McDonalds from what you described is around ~$10
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What can realistically be done to solve the obesity crisis?
- Thread starter Plum
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That's roughly around what it would cost in the US. Maybe a few dollars more, but a general meal from McDonalds from what you described is around ~$10
Really? Then it isn't cheap? Cooking something is so much cheaper. I don't get it.
For one, you can get cheaper than $10.
But the big thing is that time is money. Americans are pushed to the brink with long working hours and no real help with childcare. Cooking takes planning, grocery shopping, prep time, cook time, and cleanup time. You can mitigate some of that by cooking large batches of food for the week, but people are accustomed to eating different things most days. Picky kids can add to that too. Fast food can be grabbed literally on the way home from your crappy job.
Cooking can add a lot of time and stress.
Reducing sugar intake.
Increase public transportation like trains and high speed rail.
Be less reliant on cars.
Put healthier alternatives in vending machines than chips and soda. Green tea and non-carbonated drinks is a start.
Subsidize fruits and vegetables.
I hate to say this, but ban fast food.
Increase public transportation like trains and high speed rail.
Be less reliant on cars.
Put healthier alternatives in vending machines than chips and soda. Green tea and non-carbonated drinks is a start.
Subsidize fruits and vegetables.
I hate to say this, but ban fast food.
There isn't much variety in your average fast food menu, let alone any of the actual "value" options.
Cooking takes planning time, prep if you're making more complicated meals. Yes, cooking inherently takes time, but if you're cooking from scratch and using basic ingredients the actual time involved is like 15 minutes. There are so many meals and foods that you can just put in the oven and forget it for 40 minutes while you do other things.
A six dollar meal is incredibly expensive when you compare it to any basic dinner you cook from scratch made from cheap ingredients. The argument is time is money, but if you're buying six dollar meals vs. taking 30 minutes to cook a $1.50 meal, then there is an inherent flaw in that logic.
We can also stop feeding kids fucking sugar laced breakfasts. Boggles my mind that people view cereal as just something thats normal and should be consumed every single morning, let alone pop-tarts, toaster strudels.
I think one of the most important change to make is the work-life balance. I understand if people don't have time whem they work 12 hours a day. I do work 12-hour shifts a couple times a month, and on those days I need to prepare food the day before or I order pizza. So I can understand.
More people do the latter than the former bruv.
Man this forum and weight issues, every time.
I'd even deincentivise public transport and give everyone a pushbike instead. Make public transport strictly for the disabled or elderly, while everyone else has to ride a bike to work.
Ending or severe regulation of all food related marketing to children, which includes banning toys in fast food child meals
Getting all fast food companies that serve their foods in schools out and overhauling the food being served in schools
Requiring nutrition and cooking to be taught in all schools as part of a required course versus rolling it into an elective course
Introducing government run or subsidized grocery stores into poorer communities to increase their access to healthy foods
Getting cities/towns to adopt business regulations like the ones mentioned in this Planet Money story to help (lower income) areas from being overrun with fast food chains and dollar chains that do not offer much in the way of vegetables and fruits
Ending sugar related subsidies and actively teach Americans why excess sugar is not good for us
Acknowledging that food addiction and/or using food as a coping mechanism are things we do and introducing programs that help people break the addiction and/or learn healthier coping mechanisms
Getting all fast food companies that serve their foods in schools out and overhauling the food being served in schools
Requiring nutrition and cooking to be taught in all schools as part of a required course versus rolling it into an elective course
Introducing government run or subsidized grocery stores into poorer communities to increase their access to healthy foods
Getting cities/towns to adopt business regulations like the ones mentioned in this Planet Money story to help (lower income) areas from being overrun with fast food chains and dollar chains that do not offer much in the way of vegetables and fruits
Ending sugar related subsidies and actively teach Americans why excess sugar is not good for us
Acknowledging that food addiction and/or using food as a coping mechanism are things we do and introducing programs that help people break the addiction and/or learn healthier coping mechanisms
It's okay for adult to pretend there is not a problem and happily stuff there faces. But when we have a growing number of children with type 2 diabetes then we really should face up to the fact there is one.
I'm not going to argue with the fact that you can get quick recipes and it can be less expensive. There's a kind of reality and a perceived reality going on with this sort of thing.
For people addicted to take out and fast foods there aren't many 15 minute recipes that can compare. And when people think of a 15 minute recipe their brain thinks of bland chicken and some veggies.
Realistically even if you're good at cooking a quick recipe would take like 15-20 minutes of prep, 10-15 minutes cooking, and then a few minutes to clear, and maybe another 10-15 cleanup/dishes. Add in more time if you have kids bugging you for whatever reason you can imagine.
Now imagine you get off work at maybe 4 if you're lucky. With traffic and maybe picking up the kids you're home by 5. Maybe once things settle you can get things on the table by 6 or 6:30 on a good night. After eating and dishes it's now 7:30/8. Almost bedtime for kids!
And that's not counting grocery shopping, planning upcoming meals, and stressors from family members' differing tastes.
Like anything cooking is a skill. It can take time to master. It can take time to find the right recipes. It can take time to be confident at all. And we don't teach it worth a shit.
And that's just dinner, too. I think a lot of people use fast food as a crutch during work. Planning another meal for yourself and spouse just adds to it. It's much easier and more enticing to pop across the block and grab some fast food. That was my weakness for a while. Dinner was always so much easier. Look at the rush of people at fast food places around office parks and such. It gets insane.
Edit: Jesus I got distracted and went on a tangent. My main point was going to also be that a $1.50 meal with all the prep, cooking, cleanup, and shopping time added in at minimum wage hours is really maybe $8 on the low end. So that vs $6, and you can see why some go the $6 route.
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User Banned (1 Week): Inflammatory Commentary and Fat Shaming
Nothing. Why should those of us who are healthy have to suffer for those without self control. Raise their medical cost/insurance, give them discount cards for healthy food and gym memberships. Ban people over certian weights from planes, theme parks etc while letting them get free access state parks and hikng trails. Harsh yes, but maybe motivation.
Yes, and this is what I've been saying for a while in these type of threads. Fast food is convenience and people are slaves to convenience. It's far less to do with the actual money, because if money was the core motivating factor, people wouldn't be eating out at the rates they do.
It's more effort to put into cooking, preparing food, trying to plan out, shopping... but again, none of that is remotely impossible or even difficult, it just takes a little more time than the easy solution.
So I understand completely why those are reasons people get fast food, my point is those are horrible reasons and in the topic of "people don't have access to good food" it's basically a non-starter if someones reason for not cooking is "Meh, I'll just get a burger"
Just getting a burger wouldn't even be that bad, most fast food burgers, at least at places like McDonald's and Burger King get to about 600 calories with a couple going over, it's when you add the large fries and a large milkshake into the mix that you end up with a 1500-2000 calorie meal.
Time is money and if it takes you even a half hour extra because of prep/cooking/cleaning/shopping that's $3-$4 more cost at minimum wage. If you're not good at cooking and add in some food waste then the cost goes up to $2/$2.5 for the meal and maybe $7.5-$10 for extra hours.
"Meh, I'll just get a burger" is crazy reductionist.
The only thing I can think of is a sugar tax or a massive campaign in schools about eating more plants and drinking more water.
Well that would be a great way to raise the political consciousness of an entire population. But overall you've chosen the wrong hill to die on.
Half an hour extra when you're already at your home after work isn't costing you any extra money. And cooking can be daunting at first, but we live in the age where you can look up easy to cook, one pot meals within two minutes. I don't really buy the argument that people are "bad at cooking" when you can literally find anything you want online and instructions on how to cook it.
Slapping some seasoned chicken breasts on the broiler is cheap, easy, literally no clean up and fills you up if you need food. If you're that restricted time and budget wise, there is no reason why that can be a core staple of your average diet vs. eating fast food on a regular basis.
Going out of your way to pay for over priced meals does.
And yea, it's reductionist, but what you described for reasons were literally nearly all arguments of convenience, not necessity.
And remember, we're talking about being overweight and obese. That means people are drastically over consuming food and having major caloric surpluses. If fast food is their primary source of calories, then they are paying far more than just $6 a day, we're talking $6 per meal, possibly multiple times a day. That drastically adds up and becomes extremely expensive, not even including the likely other food costs like soda/drinks/snacks that people have on a regular basis as well.
If you are having three meals a day, which costs ~$20 a day... that's insane. My weekly budget for food is ~$25, and the cost of eating out via fast food can tap that out within two days via your average value meals. Even just a single person spending ~$10 a day on food is incredibly costly.
It inherently means they don't need as much food as they are consuming and are eating food which fails to actually fill them up while costing them multiple times the price of a meal they can make that actually does fill them up and make them feel satisfied.
600 kcal in a single meal isn't very healthy given the material that's going into it. For comparison, I had a late breakfast of a Gregg's vegan sausage roll with black coffee (about 300kcal in total) an hour ago and I don't plan to eat again for another four hours. I'm not hungry, and I'm in very good health for my age.
The point of drinking liquids is hydratation, not get a sugar intake everytime you sip something. Many people, you included based on your post, find water unsavory and dull because they are addicted to sugar. Water having 'no flavour' is not the real reason, it is water not being sweet. If not, replacing soda/juices with non-sugared green tea (or any other herbal tea) is an easy solution.
The thing is, many people (myself included for many years, not anymore though) are so accostumed to have loads of sugar in the suff they drink, that they cannot drink anything without it anymore. For many of us, it is how we have been raised, and of course it is extremely difficult to change that, because it is an addiction. For myself, when I started university I just decided to buy water, and nothing else. I drank water and milk. It was tough at the beginning, but eventually I learned to love water, and now that's basically all I drink.
And yes, sodas and sugary drinks should be taxed. I understand the problem of taxing unhealthy foods affects mostly poor people, but the scenario is different with beverages. Water is still cheaper and accessible to everyone, so even if healthy food supermarkets are not easily available (which of course that should change via policy), water still is.
Anti-cigarette legislation works, the statistics show it.
Well, I'd remove the "fatass" part of the sentence, but the solution is indeed that one. If you need 4 portions to feel full, it is because you have an increased tolerance for it. It's like alcoholics or drug addicts that start needing greater dosages to feel statisfied. If you eat huge portions all your life, your body starts needing all that amount of food.
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In the end, there are a bunch of measures that need to be taken, some of them very US-specific.
- Sugary drinks and sodas need to be heavily taxed. Also, just like in cigarette packages in Europe, the cans/bottles should include messages in big, bold letters that warn about the health issues caused by them, as well as unpleasant imagery of fat livers, etc.
- Subsidies should be put in place for healthy products (vegetables, legumes, grains) so they are cheaper. In the US urban planning should take into consideration accessibility and distribution of markets to tacke food deserts.
- Once healthier food is more readily available and it is less expensive, fast food chains should be heavily taxed. No more '3 cheeseburgers for 3 dollars'.
- In schools, it is important to teach children about nutrition, including learning how to read and understand labels. Many people don't know how to read or don't understand the nutrition facts labels.
- In families, and this is cultural, food should not be presented as a reward, or as a form of entertainment. Many parents offer food to their children in order to calm them down. This only creates the habit of craving food when bored, which continues into the adult life and is one of the main reason why people eat between meals.
- In the US: you really need to re-think how you have set up your cities. Not only due to obesity, but also for the environment as a whole. Suburban life and car-dependency are not sustainable.
- In the US: somehow, you need to get rid of the 'huge portions' culture.
It's crazy to see how quickly this happened during my lifetime. People were still pretty skinny for the most part at the start of the 80s.
I would guess food has become cheaper, incomes have gone up and we now have too many obese people as a result. Not sure how you can stop it is that's how people want to live.
I would guess food has become cheaper, incomes have gone up and we now have too many obese people as a result. Not sure how you can stop it is that's how people want to live.
When you have kids that time is important. You could be helping with homework. You may need to be taking them to/from extracurriculars. You may need that time to wrangle kids to bed. Kids take up a ridiculous amount of time.
This is where I think health food people like you and me lose people. It's like the underpants gnomes on South Park. Step one: seasoned chicken. Step two: .... step three: you've got a meal!
Chicken with what? The what makes or breaks the meal. What comes to mind is bland chicken and some steamed veggies every night. Yes that doesn't have to be a reality but when you say this it's what people think. This shit is a perception battle.
And honestly pushing soups and stews seems way more logical than chicken breast and ????.
I personally don't think it's people primarily getting fast food every day for every meal. It's a mix of things and fast food is one enticing part. It's eating a 600 calorie sugary or carb filled breakfast. Then it's adding in a 800-1000 for lunch. Then a drink or two of coke or a damned latte adds another 400-500. Then you go home and even if you cooked you can add another 800. Snack at home maybe to get you to dinner or settle in at night? Add in more. Boom you're 3k plus calories. If you add in fast food even a few times a week you'll up your average intake more.
For an average person that can pack on like a pound per week!
Yes that's the issue!
Lower the prices on healthy foods, fruit & vegetables.
Make every product less fattening, with less sodium, less carbs, etc.
Make every product less fattening, with less sodium, less carbs, etc.
I know many people have already addressed this, but don't you see how this is a huge problem that needs to be corrected? It's not normal to hate water. A cool glass of good water is amazing.
Hating it isn't much different from hating being sober. It's not something to just accept and roll with, it's something you should worry about.
We already have an effective template to deal with unhealthy foods through our fight against tobacco. Regulate advertisement, tax the hell out of the products and regulate the industry that produces and sells these products. It's proven to work. What we lack is a will to implement it.
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In what way would healthy people be suffering? Surely, by virtue of being healthy, the biggest potential 'downsides' (increased prices/lowered unhealthy ingredients) won't affect you all that much?
Also the notion that every overweight/obese person is that way due to "lack of self control," is some Americanised 'personal responsibility' nonsense that completely ignores the sheer influencing power of the capitalist system we find ourselves in.
Sugar tax, carbon tax that doesn't exempt agriculture so that livestock prices rise, as does the cost of driving, end of farm subsidies that drive the cost of corn so low that we're churning out ultra low price corn syrup and animal feed, and land use policy that promotes density. Public transport really isn't of much value if people are still mostly living in suburbanized environments. You really need to get rid of the laws that require building stand-alone single-family housing and require minimum sizes on parking lots to get people to build densely enough for public transport to be effective. Also, more broadly, working to reduce the length of the work week to give people more time for cooking and health maintenance would help, as would making sure everyone can see a doctor regularly.
I talked to someone once who said this doesn't work, as he only consumes 900kcal a day and remains fat.
To this day (I only talked to him briefly at a party) I wonder how he got to that number, because something clearly went very wrong there
I wonder how bad things need to get for this bullshit to be the next antivax.
They are counting very wrong and poorly, or they have some type of thyroid issue.
Probably the former.
A lot of people have to leave home at ungodly hours just to get to work on time catching the train or driving. When do you think they would have to leave home to get work on time via bicycle?
Your idea would mean a lot of people have to either move or get a job much closer to where they live. Modern society has been designed around having a car or taking the train. For some people it's a necessity, not a luxury
First of all what qualifies as fast food? Just the likes of Mcdonalds, KFC, and Burger King or the greasy spoons, street vendors and over the counter food shops?
Beyond that, do you realize how many people this would put out of work? A quick google search states around 3.65- 3.8 million people. That's just counting people in the industry itself and not workers who are ancillary to it. The people who work for the companies that produce the materials that every fast food store needs to function. It also generates billions of dollars.
So millions of people out of work and billions lost is your solution.
Solve one problem by creating 100 more.
As long as healthy food costs more you wont. A person making 1500 dollars a month has to pick between a mcdouble for 1.50 or turkey for like 5 dollars. They will pick the cheap option.
If he had thyroid issues, he didn't know about them. So I expect the former as well.
No idea what he did wrong, but I have found that some people forget beer when counting. Just doesn't register as a caloric substance to them for some reason
The last EU initiative died in 2017, but some individual countries have done it.
I'm pretty certain the likes of Diageo, Pernod Ricard and LVMH spend hundreds of millions (each) yearly in lobbying so that their spirits and liqueurs continue being exempt from labelling.
People say vegetables are expensive but you can buy bags of frozen broccoli and other stuff for like $1 each. How is it expensive to buy vegetables?
I understand not having time to cook between kids and work, etc. but I've never had an issue affording vegetables and I don't make much money at all. I don't have kids though so maybe that's the difference?
I understand not having time to cook between kids and work, etc. but I've never had an issue affording vegetables and I don't make much money at all. I don't have kids though so maybe that's the difference?
I have 2 kids to feed. I've also worked food shelves all my life with my mom. Utilized them in the 80s. Produce is simply not taken at the rate of less healthy food. Outside of that, produce is supremely affordable in the US. I've lived in an "urban food desert" before. So labeled because the closest supermarket with a "sufficient" amount of fresh produce was a single mile away. A few years ago that neighborhood was treated like a refugee camp by local politicians. Simply ignoring small grocers selling affordable frozen, canned, and some fresh produce. A publicly funded organic co-op was established. It sat empty.
Junk food needs to be more regulated. Create a maximum container size. Impose a tax to cover related health problems.
It just comes down to education.
It's isn't up to anyone and especially not up to the government to tell people what to do with their bodies and what to eat. No one is holding a gun to people's heads and forcing them to eat junk food. No one should hold a gun to their head and force them not to.
It's isn't up to anyone and especially not up to the government to tell people what to do with their bodies and what to eat. No one is holding a gun to people's heads and forcing them to eat junk food. No one should hold a gun to their head and force them not to.
It really is a perception battle, as you say. Plain cooked chicken breast with a little dijon is tasty and you can add as much fresh vegetables as you like.
Prep time and cleanup? Clean, chop, then rinse the chopping board afterwards. We also sprout lentils and other pulses for our parrot, and that's also a great garnish for any human meal. All you need is a bit of vinegar to keep the sprouting jar antiseptic, and rinse for a couple of minutes every now and then until the sprouts are ready. Then keep them in the fridge.
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This entirely ignores the problem of childhood obesity. Even if you lack the empathy to see the addictive/habitual/advertising-led factors in adult over-eating, childhood over-eating is pretty much always caused by the parents and not the children themselves. After that it becomes a lot harder to lose weight overall as so many habits and addictions could have been formed.