
Childhood Obesity Is Rising 'Shockingly Fast' Even in Poor Countries - pseudolus
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/10/17/770905500/childhood-obesity-is-rising-shockingly-fast-even-in-poor-countries
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axilmar
My daughter is in 3rd grade (in Greece) and she is the only kid in her class
getting packaged food everyday with her without any money in her pocket. All
the other kids have money, which use regularly to buy potato chips, beverages,
sweets, etc from the school's shop.

Also, from what I hear from other parents, other kids regularly eat out, with
the Greek souvlaki being the main food they get (which comes with fried
potatos and pita), burgers and pizza.

Parents don't want to face their kids when the kids whine all the time, and in
order to shut them up, they buy whatever the kids want.

The above, coupled with lack of physical activity due to various reasons,
creates the obesity epidemic for kids, at least in my country.

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anovikov
Same thing in Cyprus here. My daughter is in 3rd grade and nearly all Cypriot
kids in the class are fat. While Cypriot ones are of course, a minority these
days in Cyprus schools.

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purple_ducks
> While Cypriot ones are of course, a minority these days in Cyprus schools.

I don't follow.

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anovikov
Most seem to be Russians, Chinese and the like? Even Cypriots kids themselves
are whole lot whiter-skinned now, due to a lot of British, then Russian and
other Eastern European wives brought in over last couple generations.

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Andrew_nenakhov
I wonder if it has something to do with body-positivism? Why would anyone get
himself in shape, if he/she is beautiful no matter what they say?

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ksaj
I think it has to do with how food quality keeps hitting new lows. We really
don't need sheep hair and 5 types of artificial sugars in our foods. We don't
need everything bulked up with hydrolyzed soy bean. We really don't need
purple plastic gel "berries" in our breakfast. Etc. Surely we can find a way
to get foods from the farms to our tables fast enough that they don't have to
be picked before they develop full nutritional profiles.

Most of all, that is to say we really don't need 80% of our diets to be empty
calories and sugars.

Of course, there is the problem of sedentary living. I can't believe how lazy
kids are these days - they don't even go for aimless bike rides anymore,
because chatting online and playing 5-hour video game marathons is way more
fun than real life apparently. But I'll leave that for someone else to cover.

Let's just say our culture is feeding it, and it takes willful blindness to be
at all surprised.

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catalogia
> _" sheep hair"_

That's a new one to me, which foods have wool in them?

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ksaj
Look for the word lanolin in your ingredient lists. It's basically boiled down
sheep hair. It's a source of vitamin D, but mainly it's used to make things
really crispy (when fried) or shiny and slippery (when straight up).

You get vitamin D from a whole lot of other things you eat (it's not rare),
and it takes some laboratory wizardry to derive the vitamin D3 from it (versus
simply eating normal food to get it...) so nobody is adding lanolin to your
food for it's wholesome goodness. It's literally only there for the texture.
That's why its in your shampoo, chewing gum, leather polish and french fries,
amongst a whole lot of other foods you eat.

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catalogia
Seems a tad misleading to call that hair; lanolin isn't keratin.

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Nasrudith
Yeah and lanolin would have been of use for cooking for millennia even if it
wasn't appetizing just from sheer calories and survival. That fits the pattern
of PETA style vegan fanatic "too important for the truth" propaganda. Like
claims that sheep are skinned for their wool.

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namibj
Can you link a source for "Like claims that sheep are skinned for their
wool."?

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diogenescynic
I blame processed foods and all the additional additives and ingredients.
Foods have dozens of ingredients now. Simpler foods are better for people.
Count ingredients AND calories. Plastic packaging, nonstick chemicals, and
antibiotics are also to blame. Plastic and nonstick chemicals change your
hormones. Antibiotics kill gut bacteria and make your digestive system absorb
more energy. But of course, all of these things are making the few rich at the
expense and health of the many. I think sugar and sedentary lifestyles also
contribute, but to a lesser extent, and are jut easy scapegoats.

There was an article by The Atlantic that covered this a few years ago. I
linked it in a previous comment somewhere, but can’t find it at the moment.
Basically, there was a study that controlled for exercise and calories intake
and showed even adjusting for that, people weigh 10% more than in the 1980s
and 20% more than the 1950s. So exercise and calories aren’t the entire cause.

