
A Life Apart: The Toll of Obesity - prostoalex
http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2015/04/02/lisa_krantz_a_life_apart_the_toll_of_obesity_photos.html?wpsrc=fol_fb
======
riffraff
obesity, even if not at this levels, is an understated problem, and seems to
me the US is one of the worst hit.

If you can, I'd recommend watching "Fed Up" [0], a documentary which tries to
show that the problem is a bit more complex than just people being lazy
("light" food being effectively worse, complete lack of food education,
lobbying at it's worse etc). As many documentaries, it has a rather clear
agenda, but it's interesting nonetheless.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fed_Up_%28film%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fed_Up_%28film%29)

~~~
BSousa
I'm on the opposite camp and think Fed Up is not a good movie to watch and
seems the author (Kuric I think) had a bone to grind mostly with the fast food
and shitty food industry.

I remember a scene about a mother going to the store, and buying 'light'
oreos/chips/other stuff, and giving that to their kids instead of the regular
ones to their kids and then complaining he didn't lose weight and taking as a
conclusion that 'dieting' and 'exercise' doesn't really work. Never considered
that maybe a carrot stick or an apple would be better, she would just buy diet
soda/cookies/chips.

~~~
riffraff
that is way I said that the movie has a clear agenda, but what you point out
is exactly what she said is one of the problems:people believe that they can
buy "light" stuff and that will be ok when it's in fact worse than non-light.

This is very much the same as for cigarettes, and why the "light" label on
those has been banned for years.

~~~
BSousa
I watched it a few months ago so I maybe confused, but wasn't one of the main
ideas the movie tried expose is that "move more, eat less" didn't work? I may
be confused, but I think she spent a good part of the movie trying to explain
why that didn't work by using cases like the 'light' food family for example.

~~~
riffraff
yes, the movie makes a big deal of the fact that "just be more active" is not
enough, and I agree with you that she seems to push it too hard.

But she made it in relation to the fact that for some categories (i.e. the US
has had a constant increase in obesity for kids ages 2-5 which are not
naturally not "sitting all day" types) moving more is not enough, and I felt
the underlying points are still valid (school food is crap, adults are unable
to understand what "healthy food", that "eat healthy" is not "eat less" etc).

------
Thriptic
Personally, I feel like the media frequently tries to over complicate the
issue of obesity and make excuses for people who can't lose weight. The
individual depicted here clearly has underlying psychological and substance
abuse problems, but in no way is he reflective of the general population of
obese individuals.

Baring psychological issues, it's really not hard at all to pick a diet and
adhere to it. It literally requires a few hours of upfront effort and a bit of
time each day. I was able to go from about 300 lbs as a 6'3" male to 210 lbs
with significant muscle mass added by following a basic diet and lifting 3
times a week, and I literally started on a whim.

If you want to lose weight, I would start by getting an idea of what you
already eat using [http://www.myfitnesspal.com/](http://www.myfitnesspal.com/)

Once you get an understanding of your habits, head on over to
[http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/](http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/) and
select a diet plan which will make you the happiest (low carb, low fat, zone,
stricty calorie deficit etc). Every morning, plan your meals using
myfitnesspal and the output from iifym.

It's really that simple.

~~~
BSousa
It really isn't and I say this as someone that never went over 180 pounds and
is usually around 12% body fat.

Just the 'lifting 3 times a week' will take out a lot of the working
population out of the picture. Why? If include commute to gym, working out
time and shower/etc, we are looking at least 6 hours per week. Add the gym
costs/going to the gym costs and you have maybe 100 bucks a month as a cost.
We are fortunate we can spend that time/money on ourselves, but seriously, a
lot of people can't. Heck, if you take 80% of the comments here in HN how they
work 60+ hours a week in their startups, I doubt even us techies will have the
time to do so.

In my country (and I think the USA as well) obesity is highly correlated with
low income.

Then you have the psychological aspects to it. Stress is a major contribution
to over eating. If everyday you are worried if you have enough at the end of
the month for rent, you wont stop, go online, get a recipe, go to the grocery
store to get fresh vegetables, come on, cook for an hour to have a nice
healthy meal... You most likely will pick up a microwavable lasagna and be
done with it.

I don't disagree with you that losing weight is easy, it is, basically "eat
less than what you need", but being able to do that, based on many many
factors isn't as easy.

(congrats on the weight loss)

~~~
yummyfajitas
The average American spends 3 hours per _day_ watching TV. To find 6
hours/week, it's just a matter of turning off the TV for 2 hours, 3x/week.
[http://www.bls.gov/tus/tables/a1_2013.pdf](http://www.bls.gov/tus/tables/a1_2013.pdf)

As for not affording a gym, that's nonsense. Bodyweight fitness exists and it
works great.

Last year I met a super skinny tall Indian dude. He asked my help on how to
get in shape (I'm tall but not so skinny), so I invited him to join me for a
bodyweight workout in the free public park. He joined me, stuck with the
program ("if you do 7 pushups today, try 8 tomorrow"), and got into
considerably better shape.

He works 6 days/week and probably earns about 10,000rs/month ($150, maybe
$300-400 after adjusting for cost of living). He can't even afford an
internet-capable phone to visit the /r/fitness FAQ. Rather than making
excuses, he just decided that fitness was more important than TV and made it
happen.

~~~
mdekkers
> Bodyweight fitness exists and it works great.

Damn right it does. I struggle with weight, and have done so all my life.
After my divorce 7 years ago i piled on the kilo's. Combination of overeating,
and being lazy. I started a gym a few times, and got personal trainers
involved at some point. All the same thing: pound the treadmill and
stairmaster for an hour, and go home.

I have been on and off diets and few, if any, are long term doable for me.

Last October, I hooked up with a personal trainer who is totally awesome, and
got me into the "if you do 7 today, try 8 tomorrow" perspective. The first
weeks were brutal, and very, very hard, but his approach was to find my limit,
and push me ever so slightly over it. I used to go 3 times a week, half an
hour, early morning. Now I also join in with evening sessions.

Everything we do is bodyweight training, boxing, kickboxing, and some cardio
workout. No running (it would destroy my knees anyway), just simple stuff:
squats, pushups, pull ups (from a horizontal position, working to "proper"
pull ups), etc. His mantra is "small victories, every day".

It works. Although he does give me gentle nudges about my eating habits every
now and then ("eat less meat, more green veg. Drink water with lemon") he
emphatically doesn't want me to worry about dieting. "Get fit, and the
weightloss will follow".

I have lost about 20 kilo's so far, feel better than I have in a very long
time, and have an unbelievable amount of fun doing it (I am lazy, and I hate
working out)

Bodyweight training is where it's at.

------
cheez
This was almost me at some point. Thankfully I got out but it's a constant
struggle.

