In the US -- much more so than the rest of the world (though it's catching up elsewhere too) -- we are besieged by addictive garbage food everywhere. It's like cigarettes 60-70 years ago. Just one example, you used to be able to get cigarettes in hospitals, and today's equivalent is that hospitals are stocked with soda and other junk food (even in places like the NIH hospital, which I visit periodically; I was just shocked the first time I saw that, of all places where I would expect them to only or mostly have healthy alternatives. Same thing at my wife's nursing school; she was distressed at how only about 10% of the readily available snack offerings could be considered healthy. And if doctors and nurses don't have a healthy lifestyle they're unlikely to effectively help patients to.)
So yes, it is extremely difficult to eat healthy in the US, and it requires both discipline and money, which is tragic because low income people are impacted the most and have the hardest time even gaining access -- much less being able to afford -- anything other than high-calorie, low-nutrient food that the local 7-Eleven-equivalent is stocked full of.
> You want to think about causes that could actually explain the problem so that you can think of solutions that could actually work.
The problem is that our food distribution and availability is controlled by a small number of very large corporations whose primary concern is profits, at the expense of people's health (and the taxpayer's money in paying for rising health care costs, including weight loss drugs). The solution is similar to our approach to smoking -- regulations that made it harder for people to get addicted to smoking in the first place. But mostly, class action lawsuits.
> avoiding chips and pop is barely getting started with good eating
True, but when you see how many people walk out of Costco/Walmart with a shopping cart full of chips and soda, you realize pretty quickly that there is a lot of low hanging fruit when it comes to addressing the problem.
> I think you need to think a little deeper about this.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about this problem. What makes me so upset is that there seems to be very little thought given to this problem in the US -- other than looking for silver bullet, and coincidentally, highly profitable, drugs, instead of concerted efforts to combat what is a serious an ongoing nationwide health crisis, and one that affects the US much more than other countries (US obesity level is 2x UK and 4x France). I have yet to see any serious debate at the national level, by either party, to even begin to address the problem.
which part do you think should be reconsidered?
In the US -- much more so than the rest of the world (though it's catching up elsewhere too) -- we are besieged by addictive garbage food everywhere. It's like cigarettes 60-70 years ago. Just one example, you used to be able to get cigarettes in hospitals, and today's equivalent is that hospitals are stocked with soda and other junk food (even in places like the NIH hospital, which I visit periodically; I was just shocked the first time I saw that, of all places where I would expect them to only or mostly have healthy alternatives. Same thing at my wife's nursing school; she was distressed at how only about 10% of the readily available snack offerings could be considered healthy. And if doctors and nurses don't have a healthy lifestyle they're unlikely to effectively help patients to.)
So yes, it is extremely difficult to eat healthy in the US, and it requires both discipline and money, which is tragic because low income people are impacted the most and have the hardest time even gaining access -- much less being able to afford -- anything other than high-calorie, low-nutrient food that the local 7-Eleven-equivalent is stocked full of.
> You want to think about causes that could actually explain the problem so that you can think of solutions that could actually work.
The problem is that our food distribution and availability is controlled by a small number of very large corporations whose primary concern is profits, at the expense of people's health (and the taxpayer's money in paying for rising health care costs, including weight loss drugs). The solution is similar to our approach to smoking -- regulations that made it harder for people to get addicted to smoking in the first place. But mostly, class action lawsuits.
> avoiding chips and pop is barely getting started with good eating
True, but when you see how many people walk out of Costco/Walmart with a shopping cart full of chips and soda, you realize pretty quickly that there is a lot of low hanging fruit when it comes to addressing the problem.
> I think you need to think a little deeper about this.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about this problem. What makes me so upset is that there seems to be very little thought given to this problem in the US -- other than looking for silver bullet, and coincidentally, highly profitable, drugs, instead of concerted efforts to combat what is a serious an ongoing nationwide health crisis, and one that affects the US much more than other countries (US obesity level is 2x UK and 4x France). I have yet to see any serious debate at the national level, by either party, to even begin to address the problem.