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Racnad · 09-24-2007, 12:01 PM

Last night we watched a show on CNN about the relationship between diet & obesity, espeically child obesity.

I'm wondering through, what is different between now and what I was growing up?

I seem to remember when I was a kid in the late 60s/early 70s, other kids I knew were eating lots of

Cookies
McDonalds and Burger King
Potato chips, Fritos, Cheetos and Doritos
Snickers and other candy bars
Twinkies, Ding-dongs and Ho-Hos
Soda pop

And every Saturday morning & weekday afternoons we say lots of colorful, fast-moving commercials for this crap. I don't think all this stuff was that good for you then, but I don't remember childhood obesity beign such an issue then. So what is different?

Here's some possibilities.

1) Everone else is doing it - NOT! Sometimes I tend to perceive that everyone esle has money than me, takes nicer vacations than me, drives nicer cars than me, and has more sex than me. Intellectionally, I know that's not really the case. While I perceived that other kids were eating this stuff all the time, my mother limited our access to them, so they are all occasionaly treats for me and my siblings, not daily snacks as served by moms in Saturday morning TV commercials. That may be the case for lots of other people in my generation as well, and today's moms may actually be serving more junk.

2) Corn syrup: A lot of sugar has been replaced by High Frutose Corn Syrup over the years, and has been getting lots of bad press lately. Is HFCS really worse than cane sugar?

3) Protective parents: When I was a kid, we rode our bikes all over the neighborhood all the time. I'm under the impression that media hype about child abductions scared parents into not letting their kids go anywhere unsupervised. This means a lot less bike riding, and if you're not doing that,...

4) While I wasn't a big sports guy, other kids in the neighboorhood had almost daily softball or football games in the coul-de-sacs in the neighboorhood. This may be replaced now by video games. When I was a kid, to play a video game you had to ride your bike to the arcade (after you've mowed the lawn to get enough quarters), or ride to a friend's house who had an Atari set, but all you had to play was Pong, which you really couldn't do for hours.

So is it really a different diet (or rather diet choices), less physical activity, botth, or other reasons?

09-24-2007, 12:01 PM	#1 (permalink)
Racnad Crazy Location: Washington State	The American diet: What's changed? Last night we watched a show on CNN about the relationship between diet & obesity, espeically child obesity. I'm wondering through, what is different between now and what I was growing up? I seem to remember when I was a kid in the late 60s/early 70s, other kids I knew were eating lots of Cookies McDonalds and Burger King Potato chips, Fritos, Cheetos and Doritos Snickers and other candy bars Twinkies, Ding-dongs and Ho-Hos Soda pop And every Saturday morning & weekday afternoons we say lots of colorful, fast-moving commercials for this crap. I don't think all this stuff was that good for you then, but I don't remember childhood obesity beign such an issue then. So what is different? Here's some possibilities. 1) Everone else is doing it - NOT! Sometimes I tend to perceive that everyone esle has money than me, takes nicer vacations than me, drives nicer cars than me, and has more sex than me. Intellectionally, I know that's not really the case. While I perceived that other kids were eating this stuff all the time, my mother limited our access to them, so they are all occasionaly treats for me and my siblings, not daily snacks as served by moms in Saturday morning TV commercials. That may be the case for lots of other people in my generation as well, and today's moms may actually be serving more junk. 2) Corn syrup: A lot of sugar has been replaced by High Frutose Corn Syrup over the years, and has been getting lots of bad press lately. Is HFCS really worse than cane sugar? 3) Protective parents: When I was a kid, we rode our bikes all over the neighborhood all the time. I'm under the impression that media hype about child abductions scared parents into not letting their kids go anywhere unsupervised. This means a lot less bike riding, and if you're not doing that,... 4) While I wasn't a big sports guy, other kids in the neighboorhood had almost daily softball or football games in the coul-de-sacs in the neighboorhood. This may be replaced now by video games. When I was a kid, to play a video game you had to ride your bike to the arcade (after you've mowed the lawn to get enough quarters), or ride to a friend's house who had an Atari set, but all you had to play was Pong, which you really couldn't do for hours. So is it really a different diet (or rather diet choices), less physical activity, botth, or other reasons?