Another reason is that Americans have a higher fertility than almost any other high-income country, and that usually means fatter women (and often fatter men, since it affects them psychologically). Another reason is that middle-class American families usually live in suburbs, which zoning laws which have made unfit for walking. Most places where people need go are either beyond walking distance, or they require crossing highways which cannot safely be crossed on foot, or they simply require a very monotonous, lonely walk. Likewise, for kids, their friends' houses are often inaccessible on foot, leaving us with the very lame concept of "play dates," which usually involve much less exercise than several kids rendezvousing after school and doing whatever comes to mind.
Another cause, some people would claim, is that Americans are working more hours, and as a result have less time to eat, and therefore do so in a careless manner. Another reason, of course, is that most American "food" is among the great evils of our time. Cows are fed corn rather than grass. Chickens have no room to move their legs, much less their wings. There are any number of additives in our food that are only legal because of fierce, dauntless lobbyists. Corn growers, who also have plenty of lobbyists, know that they cannot turn a profit unless corn syrup is extracted and inserted - very cheaply - into foods and beverages that certainly do not need it (a similar situation existed in the years before the Whiskey Rebellion). Many of these corn farmers practice crop rotation, and an excellent additional crop is soy beans, since soybean oil is also a very cheap and very unnecessary supplement to much of our food. And many Americans eat fruits and vegetables ... but that could mean anything.
And lastly, it can only be a factor that American standardized test scores are not great, especially our science scores, although comparisons with other countries will be different depending where you look. OK, so there are plenty of countries whose test scores are not as high but are certainly fitter than us. But if we are going to solve the "obesity epidemic," then I think this might just be the most important step. Everyone has some idea of which foods are healthy and which aren't, but wouldn't it be great to know which of these notions are true? Or better yet, wouldn't it be great to know why some foods are or aren't healthy? It's one thing to want to lose weight, or to maintain one's current; it's another to make a strong commitment; and it's another thing to know how precisely what to do in order to succeed. I can give a strong example from my days as an English teacher at a college in a remote part of China. Where I worked, Danfeng, science plays an enormous role in society ... or maybe only in high schools, as we know because students recite and memorize entire paragraphs from their textbooks. But I spent plenty of time in both the pharmacies and the hospital, and I was not impressed; nor was I impressed with the scientific savvy of the people I dealt with. One student at the college was fiercely determined to lose weight, so she went on the All-Watermelon Diet for 3 days. From what I heard she quit because she found herself vomiting profusely - our bodies won't respond well if we only give them sugar. And I would speculate that afterwards, her body retained most, if not all, of the sugar. Personally, I know from experience that vomiting rids our bodies of water and fiber, but very little sugar and fat, unless we do it many, many times over.
But I think China is on its way to current standards of enlightenment. I mean, if Shanghai were its own country, then it would be out-performing every other country in math, science and reading. In would guess that when the rest of the country reaches that level of education, people will be more sensible. Fatness is very strongly stigmatized in East Asia, and the people there are many degrees thinner than they are here, and much thinner yet than in Arkansas. I doubt it's a coincidence that this region has all the highest test scores; alright, so there's some competition from low-population countries, but these countries are also much slimmer than the US. So I think we've spotted a trend, and I think the reason for it is very clear. I think we'd all be better off if we knew what the difference is between simple carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates, or saturated and unsaturated fat, or different kinds of proteins; or if we knew precisely what a vitamin is, and what certain minerals do, and what we should do to avoid developing too much insulin. Or, better yet, what if we could also learn to interpret the stimuli in our bodies, so that we know precisely what nutrients we need at what time. When we experience cravings, we are not having the strength of our will tested by Satan and His personnel; these cravings are an evolved response to the absence of a nutrient. An understanding of science can help us identify precisely what nutrient, so that we fulfill our body's request, instead of just guessing. When I was in high school, I never heard a girl admit to eating breakfast. Without exception, they either lied that they don't eat breakfast, or they lied that they don't eat breakfast. But either way, if they were telling the truth, then this habit would be profoundly inefficient, and would certainly cause them to eat more than they would otherwise. And even among adults, the discourse on food and on losing and gaining weight seems to be inextricably moral in tone, with talk about resisting temptations, indulging when not due, deserving to lose or gain weight, seeking redemption after indulgences; I think these concepts are quite familiar to most of us, even if not from firsthand experience. But I think we're better off relying on science rather than moral judgments, and I think that those whose scientific knowledge is not sufficient should acquire more scientific knowledge, since it hardly requires much scientific knowledge to be competent in these matters. So for this aspect of the problem, the solution not only requires no judgments of people's personal character, but it is also very easy to carry out.
And I'm not the first person to debunk the idea of health foods, but many people are still being fooled by it. The concept of health foods is simply women lying to themselves that their cravings are less harmful than men's. Men are larger and more muscular, and therefore they are attracted to more substantial foods with plenty of protein. By contrast, women are smaller and have much less muscle, however unlike men, women need body fat to protect unborn children, so they have evolved to crave fattening foods. They are attracted to what we call "health foods" because these foods contain outrageous amounts of sugar. And things work out in the end because science women are generally more science-challenged than men, so while women are more likely to read nutrition labels, they are less likely to understand the scientific meaning of the numbers, so they are more susceptible to the absurd, commercially-driven claims about what's healthy and what isn't.
But I think China is on its way to current standards of enlightenment. I mean, if Shanghai were its own country, then it would be out-performing every other country in math, science and reading. In would guess that when the rest of the country reaches that level of education, people will be more sensible. Fatness is very strongly stigmatized in East Asia, and the people there are many degrees thinner than they are here, and much thinner yet than in Arkansas. I doubt it's a coincidence that this region has all the highest test scores; alright, so there's some competition from low-population countries, but these countries are also much slimmer than the US. So I think we've spotted a trend, and I think the reason for it is very clear. I think we'd all be better off if we knew what the difference is between simple carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates, or saturated and unsaturated fat, or different kinds of proteins; or if we knew precisely what a vitamin is, and what certain minerals do, and what we should do to avoid developing too much insulin. Or, better yet, what if we could also learn to interpret the stimuli in our bodies, so that we know precisely what nutrients we need at what time. When we experience cravings, we are not having the strength of our will tested by Satan and His personnel; these cravings are an evolved response to the absence of a nutrient. An understanding of science can help us identify precisely what nutrient, so that we fulfill our body's request, instead of just guessing. When I was in high school, I never heard a girl admit to eating breakfast. Without exception, they either lied that they don't eat breakfast, or they lied that they don't eat breakfast. But either way, if they were telling the truth, then this habit would be profoundly inefficient, and would certainly cause them to eat more than they would otherwise. And even among adults, the discourse on food and on losing and gaining weight seems to be inextricably moral in tone, with talk about resisting temptations, indulging when not due, deserving to lose or gain weight, seeking redemption after indulgences; I think these concepts are quite familiar to most of us, even if not from firsthand experience. But I think we're better off relying on science rather than moral judgments, and I think that those whose scientific knowledge is not sufficient should acquire more scientific knowledge, since it hardly requires much scientific knowledge to be competent in these matters. So for this aspect of the problem, the solution not only requires no judgments of people's personal character, but it is also very easy to carry out.
And I'm not the first person to debunk the idea of health foods, but many people are still being fooled by it. The concept of health foods is simply women lying to themselves that their cravings are less harmful than men's. Men are larger and more muscular, and therefore they are attracted to more substantial foods with plenty of protein. By contrast, women are smaller and have much less muscle, however unlike men, women need body fat to protect unborn children, so they have evolved to crave fattening foods. They are attracted to what we call "health foods" because these foods contain outrageous amounts of sugar. And things work out in the end because science women are generally more science-challenged than men, so while women are more likely to read nutrition labels, they are less likely to understand the scientific meaning of the numbers, so they are more susceptible to the absurd, commercially-driven claims about what's healthy and what isn't.
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