Overweight People

[ncorrenti 0]

Subway is nasty! The meat tastes really rubbery. I do like their cookies though.

[quattro 1]

I consider myself a little over weight by Japan standards at least. But when I'm home in the states I feel like a rail.

Most everyone here has brought some good points about food in the states. JUST SUPERSIZE ME. I could not believe portion size in the states. I could never finish a meal there way to big.

Combine this with a sedentary lifestyle and you have a recipe for blimps.

Case and point I have a friend she is Asian her husband is American their son is extra fat. Every time I see him he has his face in the feed bag and sits in front of the video game playing the latest and greatest.

Seems like when I was growing up my parents would have never put up with me in front of the tube all day. Seems like me and my friends were always getting kicked outside. Summer was some sort of ball game, winter was sledding or snowball fights.

[bushpig 0]

Yeah, I spent my entire childhood getting kicked outside! Although I really didn't need much encouragement to get out and muck around. We almost never had chips, soft drinks etc at home either. I guess some people's awareness of health is just non-existant.

[Yuki's Passion 1]

Peeps should read Fast Food Nation - I cant put it down. Really shocking business practices and the food prep.

[Mudguts 0]

Times are changing! When I got home after school I went straight to the beach for a surf or to the park to play footy or cricket. I ate fast food about once or twice a week at that time but never put on weight because I was active. Kids now get home and get straight on the computer or TV games and don't do much physical activity except twiddling their thumbs. I don't know if the consumption of fast food has increased but the lack of physical activity defineately has. It's simple. You can eat fast food till the cows come home if you wanted as long as you did enough exercise to burn it off!

[Yuki's Passion 1]

I know!!! My mom wouldnt let my brother and I in the house until dinner time! My bro and I would play soccer well past dark, dad would take us surfing after work sometimes - my bro and I would even take days off from school when the surf was good!!

[ncorrenti 0]

My mother wished she could get me to come inside and sit down. I thought eating and bathing were a complete waste of time. All I wanted to do was play tiggy with my brothers. Come to think of it, I don't think I realised I was actually a girl until I was about 11 years old.

[Mudguts 0]

This is a bit gross but it needs to be considered. Obese people can't wipe their ass by themselves.

[bushpig 0]

I just ate lunch man!

[Mudguts 0]

Sorry BushPig. Didn't mean to offend

[quattro 1]

seems like a lot of us spent time outdoors as kids. I guess thats why we ski/board.

[bushpig 0]

hehe, no wukkas mudguts. Wasn't a pleasant image though

[NoFakie 45]

A lot of British people don't want their kids walking home from school now because of hysteria about paedophiles. There's also far more traffic, so playing outside your house may not be an option anymore.

 

One of the fields I played in as a kid now has a church and supermarket on it. The elementary and junior schools I went to, and the playing fields within, are now surrounded by an eight-foot fence with spikes to stop vandalism. The big playing field of the comprehesive is still open thankfully. I was brought up right next to the schools, but the house prices there are so high that young families can't move there any more. They live further away and ferry their kids to school by car, with the mother usually going off to work after.

 

Then of course, you get things like this.

 

http://www.kunstler.com/eyesore_200511.html

 

I think things are quite different now compared to when I was a sprog. I don't think its as easy to raise a healthy and happy family as it used to be. People may be making bad choices, but it's not all happening in a vacuum.

[quattro 1]

ok things are diffrent now as compared to back then, but there are things you can do as a parent. In the summer i make it a point to take the kids for a bike ride after work. In the winter I try to take them up skiing on the weekends.

 

My daughter is in a gymnastis/fitness class and my son takes karate. This means the wife and I usally have to shutel the kids to class.

 

It requires some commitment on my wifes and my part but the kids do get in some exercise.

[Ocean11 0]

Even if kids don't exercise that much, they don't actually have to be fat. We programmed our boy to eat fruit and veg from his first spoonful, and he thinks that coke is as appealing to drink as battery acid. He can have three biscuits or chocolates after dinner, and nothing in between meals. We don't even have to nag him. He couldn't possibly get fat on that diet, even if he did no exercise.

 

Schools should take a much more aggressive role in promoting health. Parents letting their children destroy their health before they even know any better is just another form of abuse. If the kid turns up at school with bruises everyday, the school gets involved - it should be the same if the kid turns up with rolls of fat on them.

 

Our neighbourhood is divided between kids who walk around all day with 'combini comfort bags', constantly browsing on crisps and sweets, and kids who don't. My son has the right degree of contempt for that sort of indulgence.

 

If my parents had been a little stricter with me, I wouldn't have carried 10 kilos more than I needed around for most of my life (and my dad wouldn't have diabetes now).

[ncorrenti 0]

What are you going to serve at his birthday parties, carrot sticks and hommus?

[Ocean11 0]

Food that he likes. Which might indeed include carrot sticks and hommus.

 

And a small amount of very good cake at the end.

[maninjapan 0]

Define overweight though? You have the BMI which doesnt take into account the build of someone, for example I am 6ft and weight 15 stone 10, yet have an atheltic build and am considered overweight.

[number9 0]

I wonder what ratio of people with BMI over 25 are actually muscular and athletic? I reckon they'd be statistical outliers that can be neglected. And obviously these people don't have anything to be concerned about, even if Japanese girls call muscular guys "fat"

[damian 0]

The correlation between land availablity and fatness in children is perhaps not so strong. Australia is getting fatter and there is simply no shortage of outdoor resources in every city. You can still build bmx jumps and play cricket in the suburban street like I used to. The Left in the UK have a strange objection to treatment of peodophiles by the law. The peodophile hating land grabbing capitalists lawyers are making our kids fat. It has f*ck all to do with the shit we feed them, of course [ ]

 

As far as lazy uncaring parents go, I do agree that low income earners have it harder than the wealthy. 100 years ago, to get fat you had to be rich. Today, poor familys get fatter more easily as junk 'food' is cheaper than real food. But that excuse only applies to low income parents who are also lazy and don't care for their kids.

 

I was brougt up in a adequately funded family, yet my old man wouldn't spend a cent on us, he was incredibly tight (in lower primary school, I had to run at the athletics carnival in ankle high gumboots. Children only needed one pair of shoes, according to my father). That meant zero lunch money for hotdogs or jam and cream buns or cans of disgusting Coke. I ate home cooked fruit cakes, salad sambos and fruit juice poppers. We didn't own a tv until I was 7 (black and white) and only got a VHS video machine second hand when I was 15 so we could watch surf movies. It is the only video machine I have ever had and only bought my first dvd player 3 years ago. For a 33 year old I now enjoy extremely good fitness for someone who sits on their arse all day. My dad was a bit too mean and old fashioned, but I thank him for it (besides, he took me surfing every weekend and didn't care if I skipped the morning school for a surf either).

[Ocean11 0]

I had a BMI of 25 and was athletic and muscular. But fat too. When I stopped eating crap, 10 kg of fat fell off leaving me more athletic and muscular. I still exercise roughly the same amount, but it's a lot easier now.

 

I had to wipe my screen down after I read about those sports gumboots.

[Stefan 0]

 Quote:

Subway is nasty! The meat tastes really rubbery. I do like their cookies though

Maybe that's because it actually is rubber.


I don't think you can lay the blame just on parents. When do kids take responsibility for what they eat?

Most of the sport I did was in school, namely rugby. I have always kept fit because I played sport from a young age. But I also liked to play on the computer console for hours! But I was also aware that if I ate unhealthy food I'd have to exercise or I'd have problems.

I remember seeing somewhere (I think it was on Bowling for Columbine) that the kids went Ten Pin Bowling to get a "Sports Credit".

Wooow kids easy on the exercise!

[NoFakie 45]

Good on you quattro, but I was actually talking about the UK of old compared to the UK of now.

More divorces, more working mothers, more academic testing of kids, longer working week, ... stuff like that make it harder. Common sense, you'd have thought.

[1st plum 0]

I recommend a healthy diet with a large amount of fruit and vegetables. (Especially plums).

[nzlegend 1]

 Quote:

Originally posted by maninjapan:
for example I am 6ft and weight 15 stone 10,

speak English man! 15 stone?????

 Quote:

Originally posted by Ocean11:
Schools should take a much more aggressive role in promoting health. Parents letting their children destroy their health before they even know any better is just another form of abuse. If the kid turns up at school with bruises everyday, the school gets involved - it should be the same if the kid turns up with rolls of fat on them.

In some places they do, I have friend in Osaka whose 12 year son was considered overweight she got phone calls and letters from the school nutrutionalsit/health nurse and chastised for not providing a suitable diet and was interogated about his eating habits.
The kid is big but solid all over, not fat, hes a a big kid who is very active playing tennis most days.

 Quote:

Originally posted by Ocean11:
coke is as appealing to drink as battery acid.

its not that far off battery acid in reality, I have given up Coke myself.

 Quote:

Originally posted by _spud:
I was brought up in a adequately funded family, yet my old man wouldn't spend a cent on us, he was incredibly tight (in lower primary school, I had to run at the athletics carnival in ankle high gumboots. Children only needed one pair of shoes, according to my father). That meant zero lunch money for hotdogs or jam and cream buns or cans of disgusting Coke. I ate home cooked fruit cakes, salad sambos and fruit juice poppers. . For a 33 year old I now enjoy extremely good fitness for someone who sits on their arse all day. .

wow! and I thought my Dad was tight! luckily back then he was right into jogging and knew the benefits of having good sports shoes. I didnt have to run around in gumboots.

I hear you on the lunch money spud, about once a term I got a "treat" of buying lunch at school, other than that it was a lunch box everyday. I had to make it myself too as I complained that my mums ones sucked, especially her sandwiches.
I learned early on if you want something done right do it yourself.


TV when I was kid, NZ had only 2 TV channels and there was 'stuff all' kids shows on in the arvo.
After school with Olly Olson was about it, but that was mostly on rainy days for me.
I was booted outside on fine days and rightly so.
None of my playmates were fat, we were all running around and riding our bikes and climbing trees etc