America's overweight poor..

[mr mahs]

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/richlowry/rl20030121.shtml

America's overweight poor

The problem with America's poor kids is that they're too fat. Few policy-makers are willing to say this rather obvious truth, which is why America's nutritional programs are caught in a 1930s time warp that amplifies the chief health problem facing poor children -- namely, that they're overweight.

Liberal advocacy groups, stuck in a gruesome nostalgia for a bygone era of deprivation, still talk of hunger as if it stalks every poor household in the country. They maintain that there are 13.6 million children hungry or at risk of hunger in America, one of the great bogus statistics of our age.

As poverty expert Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation explains, malnutrition, understood as a significant dietary deficiency, essentially doesn't exist in America except in small pockets of the population with other problems, e.g. drug addicts or anorexics. Hunger, defined as going without a meal at least once in the past month, is also extremely rare, according to the Department of Agriculture, affecting roughly one-half of 1 percent of American children.

Advocacy groups get their higher number by resorting to a category in Agriculture Department surveys measuring "food insecurity without hunger," meaning the worry that it might be hard to find a meal. This statistic tries to capture a psychological state rather than anything real, and contradicts the harder (or at least pudgier) evidence on the ground.

According to Rector, the average poor child is, in fact, supernourished. On average, he consumes twice the daily recommended allowance of protein. By age 18, he will be an inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than the average teenager in 1950.

This is all to the good, except that this positive trend has been supersized. Douglas J. Besharov of the American Enterprise Institute notes that 65 percent of Americans are overweight, and the poor are even more so, by an estimated 5 percent to 10 percent. Adolescents from poor households, Besharov reports, are twice as likely to be overweight.

This reflects a worldwide trend. In poor countries, it's the rich who tend to be disproportionately overweight, while in advanced, rich countries it's the opposite, since it takes so much time and effort not to be overweight (rich urbanites, for instance, have the fancy gym memberships).

Excess weight is, of course, associated with the increased incidence of all sorts of health disorders, from coronary disease to type 2 diabetes. It's important, therefore, to get kids on the right nutritional path. "The simple fact is that more people die in the United States of too much food than too little," said Clinton Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman in 1998, "and the habits that lead to this epidemic become ingrained at an early age."

The federal government helps ingrain them, as Besharov argues. Food stamps can't be used for anything other than food, forcing some recipients to buy more than they need. School breakfast and lunch programs are stacked with calories on the assumption that kids will go hungry the rest of the day. The Women, Infants and Children food-support program -- roughly half of all newborns are enrolled -- also favors high-calorie, high-cholesterol food.

Besharov suggests substituting cash for food stamps, slimming down school meals and focusing the WIC program more on fruits and vegetables and on sound nutritional counseling. Doing any of this, however, will require prevailing over the howls of liberal advocacy groups, which love to feel as if they are "crusading against hunger" in a callous country two steps away from the starvation of Zimbabwe.

Such groups are increasingly disconnected from the real problems of the urban poor. They talk about hunger and housing, which are conveniently susceptible to big-government solutions (more food programs! low-income housing!). The real problems of the poor tend to be crime, failing schools, out-of-wedlock births, sexually transmitted diseases and poor eating habits.

It's time for liberals to upgrade their image of America. We live in such a splendidly abundant nation that even the poor are overweight. Get over it.

[jamiroguy1]

It's not how much you eat, It's what you eat that makes american. Garbage in, garbage out.

[siceone]

Originally posted by jamiroguy1

It's not how much you eat, It's what you eat that makes american. Garbage in, garbage out.

'

Just about the DUMBEST thing you have ever said PERIOD

[igloo]

Originally posted by siceone

'

Just about the DUMBEST thing you have ever said PERIOD

He has a lot of them......

[pattbateman]

funny thing my buddy and his family not the most well off people but they eat out and eat the shittiest foods i have ever seen i mean this kid aint got no money at all he only has credit cardS and evertime he gets money it goes to pay off his food

it is nuts i say shit all the time but he dont give a shit

his family just spens their extra funds on stupid ass shit

ive seen it happen

[mr mahs]

Just wanted to highlight this part of the article after the theatrical performance of John Edwards last night, as he avoided a direct question and ranted about 35million hungry children in this country....

Liberal advocacy groups, stuck in a gruesome nostalgia for a bygone era of deprivation, still talk of hunger as if it stalks every poor household in the country. They maintain that there are 13.6 million children hungry or at risk of hunger in America, one of the great bogus statistics of our age.

As poverty expert Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation explains, malnutrition, understood as a significant dietary deficiency, essentially doesn't exist in America except in small pockets of the population with other problems, e.g. drug addicts or anorexics. Hunger, defined as going without a meal at least once in the past month, is also extremely rare, according to the Department of Agriculture, affecting roughly one-half of 1 percent of American children

[ghhhhhost]

this is loosely related...but did u ever notice that the rich always strive to be opposite of the poor?

in the middle ages the poor were all skinny and sickly looking..while the rich were all full or fat ..

and today...with the advent of cheap fast food..the poor have come to be overweight and the rich strive to be rail thin ..the opposite of the poor..

dont mind me..just thinkin out loud

[marksimons]

February, Morgan Spurlock decided to become a gastronomical guinea pig.

His mission: To eat three meals a day for 30 days at McDonald's and document the impact on his health.

Scores of cheeseburgers, hundreds of fries and dozens of chocolate shakes later, the formerly strapping 6-foot-2 New Yorker - who started out at a healthy 185 pounds - had packed on 25 pounds.

But his supersized shape was the least of his problems.

Within a few days of beginning his drive-through diet, Spurlock, 33, was vomiting out the window of his car, and doctors who examined him were shocked at how rapidly Spurlock's entire body deteriorated.

"It was really crazy - my body basically fell apart over the course of 30 days," Spurlock told The Post.

His liver became toxic, his cholesterol shot up from a low 165 to 230, his libido flagged and he suffered headaches and depression.

Spurlock charted his journey from fit to flab in a tongue-in-cheek documentary, which he has taken to the Sundance Film Festival with the hopes of getting a distribution deal.

"Super Size Me" explores the obesity epidemic that plagues America today - a sort of "Bowling for Columbine" for fast food.

As well as documenting his own burger-fueled bulk-up, Spurlock travels to 20 cities across America, interviewing people on the street, health experts and a lobbyist for the fast-food industry.

Despite making dozens of phone calls, Spurlock fails to get anyone from McDonald's to agree to an on-camera interview.

A spokeswoman for McDonald's told The Post yesterday that no representatives from the corporation had seen "Super Size Me."

"Consumers can achieve balance in their daily dining decisions by choosing from our array of quality offerings and range of portion sizes to meet their taste and nutrition goals," McDonald's said in a statement.

Over the course of the film, Spurlock is regularly examined by a gastroenterologist, a cardiologist and SoHo-based general practitioner Dr. Daryl Isaacs.

"He was an extremely healthy person who got very sick eating this McDonald's diet," Dr. Isaacs told The Post.

"None of us imagined he could deteriorate this badly - he looked terrible. The liver test was the most shocking thing - it became very, very abnormal."

Spurlock has since returned to normal health. "The treatment was to just stop doing what he was doing," Dr. Isaacs says.

Spurlock, who says he ate at McDonald's only sporadically before his total immersion in the Mickey D's menu, says he even began craving fat and sugar fixes between meals.

"I got desperately ill," he says. "My face was splotchy and I had this huge gut, which I've never had in my life.

"My knees started to hurt from the extra weight coming on so quickly. It was amazing - and really frightening."

Spurlock's girlfriend, Alex Jamieson, was horrified - she's a vegan chef.

"She was completely disgusted by me, not happy at all," he says. "But she realized what my goals were in trying to educate people."

Spurlock, a film producer who grew up in West Virginia and studied ballet for eight years, was spurred to make his first feature film while watching TV on Thanksgiving Day, 2002.

"I was feeling like a typical American on Thanksgiving - very bloated and happy on the couch - and at some point on the news they were talking about two women who were suing McDonald's.

"People from the food industry were saying, 'You can't link kids being fat to our food - our food is nutritious.'

"I said, 'How nutritious is it really? Let's find out."

Not surprisingly, Spurlock has steered clear of the Golden Arches since filming wrapped.

"I have not had McDonald's for seven months, but yesterday, during an interview, I had a bite of a Big Mac," he says.

"I chewed it up, swallowed it and I said, 'You know what, I'm pretty much done after that bite.' "

http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/16393.htm

[jamiroguy1]

Originally posted by siceone

'

Just about the DUMBEST thing you have ever said PERIOD

I'm sorry you've never heard the saying, "garbage in, garbage out." It's hasn't been actually coined by me but maybe you should try educating yourself on this phrase if you think it's dumb.

[youarehot99]

Originally posted by marksimons

February, Morgan Spurlock decided to become a gastronomical guinea pig.

His mission: To eat three meals a day for 30 days at McDonald's and document the impact on his health.

Scores of cheeseburgers, hundreds of fries and dozens of chocolate shakes later, the formerly strapping 6-foot-2 New Yorker - who started out at a healthy 185 pounds - had packed on 25 pounds.

But his supersized shape was the least of his problems.

Within a few days of beginning his drive-through diet, Spurlock, 33, was vomiting out the window of his car, and doctors who examined him were shocked at how rapidly Spurlock's entire body deteriorated.

"It was really crazy - my body basically fell apart over the course of 30 days," Spurlock told The Post.

His liver became toxic, his cholesterol shot up from a low 165 to 230, his libido flagged and he suffered headaches and depression.

Spurlock charted his journey from fit to flab in a tongue-in-cheek documentary, which he has taken to the Sundance Film Festival with the hopes of getting a distribution deal.

"Super Size Me" explores the obesity epidemic that plagues America today - a sort of "Bowling for Columbine" for fast food.

As well as documenting his own burger-fueled bulk-up, Spurlock travels to 20 cities across America, interviewing people on the street, health experts and a lobbyist for the fast-food industry.

Despite making dozens of phone calls, Spurlock fails to get anyone from McDonald's to agree to an on-camera interview.

A spokeswoman for McDonald's told The Post yesterday that no representatives from the corporation had seen "Super Size Me."

"Consumers can achieve balance in their daily dining decisions by choosing from our array of quality offerings and range of portion sizes to meet their taste and nutrition goals," McDonald's said in a statement.

Over the course of the film, Spurlock is regularly examined by a gastroenterologist, a cardiologist and SoHo-based general practitioner Dr. Daryl Isaacs.

"He was an extremely healthy person who got very sick eating this McDonald's diet," Dr. Isaacs told The Post.

"None of us imagined he could deteriorate this badly - he looked terrible. The liver test was the most shocking thing - it became very, very abnormal."

Spurlock has since returned to normal health. "The treatment was to just stop doing what he was doing," Dr. Isaacs says.

Spurlock, who says he ate at McDonald's only sporadically before his total immersion in the Mickey D's menu, says he even began craving fat and sugar fixes between meals.

"I got desperately ill," he says. "My face was splotchy and I had this huge gut, which I've never had in my life.

"My knees started to hurt from the extra weight coming on so quickly. It was amazing - and really frightening."

Spurlock's girlfriend, Alex Jamieson, was horrified - she's a vegan chef.

"She was completely disgusted by me, not happy at all," he says. "But she realized what my goals were in trying to educate people."

Spurlock, a film producer who grew up in West Virginia and studied ballet for eight years, was spurred to make his first feature film while watching TV on Thanksgiving Day, 2002.

"I was feeling like a typical American on Thanksgiving - very bloated and happy on the couch - and at some point on the news they were talking about two women who were suing McDonald's.

"People from the food industry were saying, 'You can't link kids being fat to our food - our food is nutritious.'

"I said, 'How nutritious is it really? Let's find out."

Not surprisingly, Spurlock has steered clear of the Golden Arches since filming wrapped.

"I have not had McDonald's for seven months, but yesterday, during an interview, I had a bite of a Big Mac," he says.

"I chewed it up, swallowed it and I said, 'You know what, I'm pretty much done after that bite.' "

http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/16393.htm

This guy's a fool....hmmm I wonder what will happen if I eat only McDonalds every day for a month?

[jamiroguy1]

I see homeless people hangout here in front of the white house so when they get some money they go buy some food. These people live on McDonalds all year and yes, some of them are obeast.