Why Are We Fat? What Can We Do?

Americans and much of the developed world have started gaining weight in the last 50 years. Is this your fault? NO I say. What you may be thinking (or yelling at your computer screen)? Well let me explain. My thesis is in the good old days (you know before I was really aware) people had roles in life. People did not get to choose what they wanted to do when they grew up as much as they did today. While the 50′s and 60′s were not the stone age, one did have to launch himself off of the couch to change the channel on the boob tube (tv for you young-ins). If a woman of the house wanted fresh bread – she did not merely call the hubby on the cell phone and tell him to stop by Albertsons on the way home and grab a fresh loaf of French bread. And while we are on that tangent – if a man wanted fresh fish – Albersons had that too? No wasted day of hiking up the mountain to the family creek to fly fish for the trout!

Get my drift? What I am saying is the work went out of the equation. I remember when I was a teenager on my parents ranch, hungery for breakfast – having to go out to the chicken coop to grab eggs if I wanted to eat. Or on thanksgiving having to prepare Gobbler to have the 30 pound feast! I only spent a few years on my fathers ranch as he bought it as I was older but I was aqqainted with the concept of choirs. If I wanted to take the horse for a ride – I had to clean the pen and comb the horse after the ride.

In this post I will speak of the changes in the obesity level over recent history and point out some of the differences that may have contributed to this sorry state of affairs. I generally like people but today we do not take responsibility for our own actions (of total lack of action and the results) as we should. I will also point out the obvious remedies. In earlier – simpler times, people used to get enough exercise in their daily activities. Today many people have desk jobs like me and have to work at getting enough exercise. I found this video of a Cowboy Breakfast that while is was a staple for working ranchers – would not pass any current dietary muster today! Too much fat, carbs, calories, meat and no processed newfangled tofu or such!

Ok so you have probably already partially guessed where I am going with this but first I would like to highlight an article I found by Dr. Jeffery Weiss (that I have not really validated but since it generally is what I expected – I do not think I need to), entitled, “Why We Eat… and why we keep eating” that points out that in the 50′s only about 1/3 of the American population was overweight but in the year 2000 about 65% of the population is overweight! Wow but keep in mind that overweight includes folks that are over a BMI of 25. This include overweight, obese and morbidly obese people.

Wow – Obese went from about 10% to 31% in 40 years! What do you think caused this? Was it fast food? Can we just outlaw fast food and we will all be healthy? Is it the evil carbs? No one ate carbs in the old days so if we just get rid of the carbs – we will all lose our weight! Ok I am just trying to make a point here. There are probably lots of factors that one can point to that are different today than in the 1950′s.  Lets list a few items as they were in 1950:

• Color TV’s (ok there were a few in the 50′s)
• Few remote controls (I had an old Packard that had a wired remote but I don’t remember many wireless)
• No VCR’s (one had to go to the movies to view a movie)
• No microwaves (yes we had TV dinners but that took awhile)
• Automatic transmissions (I’ve not really researched when Autos took over from sticks)
• Manual chokes (My 61 Ford Falcon had a manual choke – ask a kid today about a choke and you will get a dumb look)
• Fresh veggies from the world (tariffs and such limited our choices back then)
• Processed foods were limited (with one bread winner in the family – who would pay for convenience?)
• Fast food was limited to A&W and Wiener Schinchel… ok there were a FEW more
• People had to exercise every day as most family’s had one car (if that)
• No electric can openers
• No frost free freezers
• Nuclear winter was the worry, not global cooling in the 70′s or global warming in the 90′s or climate change in the 2000′s (tongue in cheek reference totally)

Now you can see some of the changes – not all of these are directly related to Americans gaining weight but you can see that automation was at a minimum in the 50′s. Why it had only been 16 years since the Rural Electrification Act was passed and farms truly started coming into the 20th century! Now how fat are Americans today? While that figure varies from state to state but I found a chart here that can give use an idea.

This chart is the eye opener because it shows the percent of obese people in any state. Colorado – the best, has almost 20% or one in every five people are obese (=> to 30BMI). The state I live in has 23% of the people obese. This is very sad to see and should highlight the need for people to wake up and get healthy!

So I have pointed out the that people 50 years ago were less obese (10% then vs 31% now) and less overweight (31% then and 65% now), so WHY ARE WE FAT? I would say unless the gene pool has gone downhill fast – genetics has little to do with our present state of affairs. Dr. Weiss hypothsises that our increased caloric intake, less time, more technology, increase fat and such are collectively part of the issue. He (Dr. Weiss) further states that society has changed and (paraphrasing here), we want food like the rats that can eat whatever that want – whenever they want it, and eat themselves to death.

I will say that there is no one reason we are fat and we cannot go back to simpler times (when hard work was abundant and food was scarce) but we can change our own lives to increase our exercise, eat better food choices (whatever your research shows is the ideal diet) and decrease our total calories, fat, carbs, cholesterol or whatever will help you achieve nirvana! Now for my gratuitous plug for my free weight loss book. This is a low-fat type of diet that has worked for me in the past and is working for me now. The main modification since I wrote this book, is I now eat low – to moderate fat in my diet. I still exercise and watch my total calories in a day. I do not think the pressures of our modern society is your fault but it is your responsibility to research health and fitness and make some positive changes in your life. I know you will be successful when you decide to be!