The Sad State of America Today

Discussion Open Forum
1

I know I’m hardly one to talk when it comes to the matter of weight, but I was completely in shock at how things have become in the US, especially how casually or rather more confounding - commonly - people weighing over 650 lbs (295.5 kg) are in America…

This article is about how hospitals are changing to accomodate these people. msnbc.msn.com/id/12099676/

I know I saw really big people back home more often than I have ever seen here and had ever seen even when I was still a resident in the US, but I had no idea that it was so commonplace for people to be over 350 lbs, that they were revamping whole industries.

2

The bigger the better?

3

There must be a “natural” physical limit… u know like terminal velocity or something. Hey that would make an interesting thesis topic for a nutritionist / dietician / behavioral scientist. I dub thee: “Terminal Flabocity” : The physical limit of how fat you can get and still pass on your genes.

Any ideas as to what could cause it? Of course there are the obvious ones such as can’t find penis, or which crease do i hump. But perhaps people will become so big that their lungs get squashed and we have to keep them in water.

4

[quote=“ImaniOU”] people weighing over 650 lbs (295.5 kg) are in America…

[/quote]

I’ve always wondered how that was physically possible. There has to be a natural limit…when it gets to the point where you can’t breathe. Obese people, by which I do not mean merely fat, I mean obese, have breathing problems.

How do you get so fat in the first place? I mean, it’s easy to understand how a person can get fat, but so obese that they weigh over 300 lbs. is insane.[/b]

5

People like to eat so other people make a lot of money selling them stuff to eat that they don’t really need. Food is associated with “good times” and “style” and “sophistication” and having “made it” thereby agravating the natural tendency to over eat. Over eating, or rather, over feeding, begins round about the time people are born and leads to an accumulation of fat cells that are hard to get rid of. As soon as people can see over the steering wheel they want a car and GM is happy to sell them one. The air becomes so fucking foul one is disinclined from stepping outside let alone “walk” anywhere so people don’t get enough of the most simple natural exercise there is. Next what happens is people get depressed because they don’t look like the models on television and depression makes people hungry so they eat some more. On and on it goes like this in the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Of course it does a lot of damage to the planet as well. All that growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, preparing, consuming, discarding and excreting of food but that’s another issue, or not…

6

Good God that’s incredible, 350 pounds is 25 stone, and 650 is 46 stone! Surely that’s impossible. Seriously.

7

Some of you have met me at the HH’s…I’m 340lbs…not impossible.

8

I have to ask the same question. I have a dear loved one who blew up like a balloon after thyroid cancer. And even she never topped 350. People with semi functioning thyroids popping off at 600??? Impossible!

9

sadly, it’s not impossible,

the guiness book of records has photos of the fattest people. big bobby hughes weighed around 1500 pounds. he died very young, big surprise. his coffin was the size of a piano case. there is a photo of the fattest twins, each weighing about 1100 pounds.

i was just in taiwan for the month of march. like my visit last year, i estimated that one out of every 200 people in taiwan are overweight. i saw no obese people last year, just several chubby people. this year in taiwan i saw one or two obese people, weighing about 250 pounds.

in america the rate of overweight people is 60%, yes thats 6 out of every 10 people in america are overweight. quite a difference.

i knew i was back in america as soon as i walked into the seattle airport, because half the people were overweight. i saw one woman who was about 350 pounds. she could hardly walk. no surprise, because think of a normal sized person carrying 2 - 100 pound bags of liquid everywhere they go.

people back around 70 or 80 years ago used to eat lard and butter and bread all the time, but they worked it off either on the farm or by walking or just working hard all day. now people eat deep-fried foods, carbs, sugar and then drive everywhere. kids are way overweight too. they love fast food, laden with fat and heavy carbs, and sugar. then watch an average of 4 hours of television, or sit on the computer or play video games.

i live in montana where people have a pretty active lifestyle with all the opportunities for hiking, biking, skiing, etc. but go to a northern midwestern big city like chicago, detroit or cleveland-forget about it. its like fat is the norm there. very very few people in the big cities and suburbs bike or walk because these areas of america are all designed for the automobile. we go from our front door to the car, then walk a few feet to work or shop or eat, and then go a few feet back to the car, and then to the house.

people don’t exercise enough and they eat the wrong foods-the cheap, heavy foods that fill them up. mostly processed, packaged or fast foods. americans now eat an average of 60 pounds of sugar per year; 50 years ago the average was 5 pounds per person per year.

many people have serious issues with food. people eat because they are sad, or bored, or because the media tells them too.

every year we hear reports about the expanding waist line of americans, but every year the average weight keeps going up.

it is, as the post is titled, a sad state.

jm

10

S-c-a-r-y :astonished:

11

Are you guys sure about that. I watch a lot of TV and I don’t see many fat people. And what’s so sad about it anyway? It affects them not you.

12

hey richardm,

if you are watching tv shows, they only have the slim, beautiful people on them.

if you watch the news reel from the walmart stampede during the christmas shopping rush in grand rapids, michigan, you will see the real populace-half the people could crush you if they sat on you.

or look for a random shot of people on the street in any northern city.

jm

13

[quote=“JOHN MOSS”]hey richardm,
if you are watching tv shows, they only have the slim, beautiful people on them.
[/quote]
Hey JM,
You just don’t understand richardm’s culture.

14

It seems to me that the obesity trend in the US is going to continue unless there are more carrots and sticks. In my opinion, health insurance should be cheaper for people who weigh within a certain range of ideal weight. For every 20 pounds or so overweight someone is, they should pay more. Why should it be any different? So many doctor visits and medical treatments are now in some way related to obesity linked health problems. I also like the idea of requiring people over a certain size to pay for two seats on a flight.

15

exactly… fat taxes… and I couldn’t agree more about the airplane seat thing… if you can afford to buy all that food to keep yourself so obscenely fat, you can afford to buy 2 seats… already in the UK the government will not pay for knee / hip surgery for obese patients when it is the opinion of the doctor that the condition was caused or exacerbated by being obese… quite right too… why should healthy, fit tax payer X have to foot the bill for willfully obese slacker Y?..

what I can’t understand is how people get to about 300lbs look at themselves in the mirror, realize they’re grotesquely fat and decide to keep pushing it for another 200lbs or so… :noway:

no matter what medical maladies anyone may have, maintaining acute obesity requires the daily input of a huge quantity of food… call me an arse, but if one of my friends or family weighed 350lbs, they’d find themselves locked out of the larder… for their own good… sheesh…

16

A lot of it also stems from a heavy (so to speak) reliance on others to tell people what to do and do it for them. We need McDonald’s to tell us not to put coffee in our laps while driving a car. We need laws to force us to buckle up in cars and to wear helmets. We need manufacturers to tell us not to use a blow dryer while taking a bath at the risk of electrocution. We have people who spend their entire lives on welfare without seeing a reason to ever become a contributing member of society.

Many Americans simply have no willpower or ability to delay gratification. There is a low sense of work ethic and personal responsibility. There are many different reasons why Americans have become like children in their desire to take control of their lives:

  • the number of lawsuits where common sense and culpability take a back seat to agenda and greed

  • the number of laws passed in order to protect people from having to make the choice of being responsible (i.e. car seat laws. You want to risk the life of your offspring because you want to be cheap and keep your kid in your lap in the driver’s seat? Welcome to Darwinism.)

  • the number of people who believe they will be taken care of simply for believing a certain thing or trusting the right people…prayer alone ain’t gonna help Aunt Edna lose 200 pounds.

  • the sense of entitlement people feel…“I deserve this because of who I am, what I do, or what my ancestors went through so I’m going to sit back and wait for people to give it to me.”

  • the automobile culture and (sub)urban sprawl. Where everything is in driving distance and only driving distance. Where the moment one turns 16, they get their hands on a car. Where not having a car is seen as not only unprestigious, but a hindrance for getting some jobs.

  • food culture. Where eating is something tied into feeling good so if you feel bad, then you should eat something that tastes good. Even if it’s made of pure sugar and fat.

This weight issue has been snowballing for a while and I think it’s getting closer and closer to the bottom of the hill where all hell is going to break loose. Perhaps we’re looking at a new phase of evolution happening right here…

17

I think it already is.

18

I think it already is.[/quote]

Yes it is. Whether the individual always realizes this or not depends though, especially since many people in the US have insurance through their employer (i.e. the empoyee may not ever consider that their insurance is costing the company more if they are at an unhealthy weight).

ImaniOU: Great post. :bravo:

19

How much of that is muscle? Never met you but I remember you mentioned in a thread that you were a muscle head.

20

How much of that is muscle? Never met you but I remember you mentioned in a thread that you were a muscle head.[/quote]
I don’t think he’s quite that stupid :wink:. Plus, he also has muscles elsewhere – I’ve met him. Sure is a massive fucker, but doesn’t even really look particularly fat at all – certainly not what I’d think of as obese.