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I haven't really paid attention to men's physiques, but there's a stark difference between the silhouettes of women in many cities of Europe and those in even t

I haven't really paid attention to men's physiques, but there's a stark difference between the silhouettes of women in many cities of Europe and those in even the most "superficial" US states such as California. I know the PC police will eat me for lunch for saying this, but the dating pool, at least in the 20s and 30s range, shrinks considerably in the US for anybody used to European body image standards. Whatever's happening to the population here is not normal. I don't know if it's our lifestyles becoming totally sedentary, if it's food marketing having reached absolutely irresistible heights, or if it's the lack of a culture of slow eating, but something is clearly not working and it really doesn't feel like the individual's fault, it seems actually systemic. One thought is perhaps we should start treating the constant incessant advertisement of food the same way we treated the cigarette industry and regulate its appeal to children, put up disclaimers about what happens when you down that entire bag of cheetos etc.

minikites 10y ago
One of the more plausible (to an uneducated person like me) theories I've seen in a few places is that we've bred food (both plants and animals) for size and pest/disease/shipping durability at the direct expense of flavor. Flavor is a key signal for nutrition, so our brain goes "not enough nutrients, eat more to get them!" Here's a Vox review/summary of a book: http://www.vox.com/2015/7/30/9070255/dorito-effect http://www.vox.com/2015/7/30/9070255/dorito-effect > Flavor technology got very powerful in the early 1960s, and it wasn't long after that that we began to see the startling increases in body mass index. > All the good stuff we grow — tomatoes, strawberries, lettuce — has gotten continually more bland. This has been measured. They have become diluted of nutrients, as well. As we selected crops for agronomic traits like yield, shelf life and disease resistant, we never selected for flavor. And we lost flavor as a result. It's reverse evolutionary pressure.
- costcopizza 10y ago
  Also, grains used to be a decent source of Omega 3's until we (over the course of many generations) selectively bred for sweetness.
yourapostasy 10y ago
It is slowly happening elsewhere in the world, anywhere the diet is leaking in a preponderance of food from packages with nutrition labels on them, roughly speaking. Was in the PRC relatively recently, and was shocked at the levels of obesity I noticed while entering the country at the airport. Still not anywhere close to US levels, but very noticeable. Once I got to their grocery stores and strolled around noticing the explosion of restaurants that served an increasingly sugar-laden menu, it clicked together for me.
rglover 10y ago
No, it's the individual's fault. I was severely overweight a year ago and lost 80lb doing nothing other than eating healthy, exercising, and...being patient. The deferment of responsibility and lack of self-control is the problem. Of course, companies–and more specifically, their marketing teams/firms–know people are weak-minded and as a result, can more or less control people's habits (read: greed outweighs public concern). It doesn't help that the culture has tilted toward justifying poor health in the form of all the body image propaganda.
- BadassFractal 10y ago
  The point is that until this last century the average human didn't have to obsess over this stuff as much as we do now. No keto, no HIIT, no fitness trackers, no low carb, no leptin management. You ate what you could get your hands on and you mostly stayed in pretty average shape because food wasn't that stimulating, that heavily processed, heavily advertised, and you have to be a lot more mobile than you are today. Humans didn't evolve to have to count calories, no animal in nature does it or is capable of doing that effectively.
  - scruple 10y ago
    Well, that and people are incredibly inactive by the standards of last century.
- jahewson 10y ago
  If "people are weak minded" then how is it their "fault"? You can't have it both ways. Also have you considered that you might have motivation and willpower far above average? Not to mention the time, money, level of education and understanding necessary to change your diet. Ultimately you are one single data point - do you believe that everybody can do all the things you can do just as well as you? No. Why should diet be any different?
  - rglover 10y ago
    My diet: - Eggs (WIC) - Bacon (WIC) - Bananas (WIC) – a case of 100 is ~$20 - Yogurt (WIC?) - Almond Milk (justifiably more expensive, so swap with milk) - Salmon (justifiably more expensive, swap with chicken or another protein) - Cous Cous (justifiably more expensive, swap with another carb/fiber). I'd argue that, yes, if you take the steps to build up the motivation, you can. I was a shell of a man before I started on my current path. It just takes time. I didn't start out where I am and I don't expect others to, either.

minikites 10y ago

One of the more plausible (to an uneducated person like me) theories I've seen in a few places is that we've bred food (both plants and animals) for size and pest/disease/shipping durability at the direct expense of flavor. Flavor is a key signal for nutrition, so our brain goes "not enough nutrients, eat more to get them!" Here's a Vox review/summary of a book: http://www.vox.com/2015/7/30/9070255/dorito-effect http://www.vox.com/2015/7/30/9070255/dorito-effect > Flavor technology got very powerful in the early 1960s, and it wasn't long after that that we began to see the startling increases in body mass index. > All the good stuff we grow — tomatoes, strawberries, lettuce — has gotten continually more bland. This has been measured. They have become diluted of nutrients, as well. As we selected crops for agronomic traits like yield, shelf life and disease resistant, we never selected for flavor. And we lost flavor as a result. It's reverse evolutionary pressure.

costcopizza 10y ago
Also, grains used to be a decent source of Omega 3's until we (over the course of many generations) selectively bred for sweetness.

yourapostasy 10y ago

It is slowly happening elsewhere in the world, anywhere the diet is leaking in a preponderance of food from packages with nutrition labels on them, roughly speaking. Was in the PRC relatively recently, and was shocked at the levels of obesity I noticed while entering the country at the airport. Still not anywhere close to US levels, but very noticeable. Once I got to their grocery stores and strolled around noticing the explosion of restaurants that served an increasingly sugar-laden menu, it clicked together for me.

rglover 10y ago

No, it's the individual's fault. I was severely overweight a year ago and lost 80lb doing nothing other than eating healthy, exercising, and...being patient. The deferment of responsibility and lack of self-control is the problem. Of course, companies–and more specifically, their marketing teams/firms–know people are weak-minded and as a result, can more or less control people's habits (read: greed outweighs public concern). It doesn't help that the culture has tilted toward justifying poor health in the form of all the body image propaganda.

BadassFractal 10y ago
The point is that until this last century the average human didn't have to obsess over this stuff as much as we do now. No keto, no HIIT, no fitness trackers, no low carb, no leptin management. You ate what you could get your hands on and you mostly stayed in pretty average shape because food wasn't that stimulating, that heavily processed, heavily advertised, and you have to be a lot more mobile than you are today. Humans didn't evolve to have to count calories, no animal in nature does it or is capable of doing that effectively.
- scruple 10y ago
  Well, that and people are incredibly inactive by the standards of last century.
jahewson 10y ago
If "people are weak minded" then how is it their "fault"? You can't have it both ways. Also have you considered that you might have motivation and willpower far above average? Not to mention the time, money, level of education and understanding necessary to change your diet. Ultimately you are one single data point - do you believe that everybody can do all the things you can do just as well as you? No. Why should diet be any different?
- rglover 10y ago
  My diet: - Eggs (WIC) - Bacon (WIC) - Bananas (WIC) – a case of 100 is ~$20 - Yogurt (WIC?) - Almond Milk (justifiably more expensive, so swap with milk) - Salmon (justifiably more expensive, swap with chicken or another protein) - Cous Cous (justifiably more expensive, swap with another carb/fiber). I'd argue that, yes, if you take the steps to build up the motivation, you can. I was a shell of a man before I started on my current path. It just takes time. I didn't start out where I am and I don't expect others to, either.