Bigger and Bigger and Bigger.....

Hopefully science will develope delicious food that has very little calories and doesn't give you cancer. Till then we just have to live with obesity. Unless of course we go with the alternative where everyone eats healthy, and I could be a millionare if everyone would just mail me a dollar.

Take a tape measure with you next time you go clothes shopping. I've seen trousers marked 36 inch waist that measured an actual 31 inches. I attribute much of this to overseas manufacture, but women tell me that even the big, prestigous, high-end designers, using US or Euro plants, have had a simular size creep.

Unfortunately, cutting off the supply of super-sized items will not curb the demand for them. The problem (at least in the U.S.) is cheap, abundant, low-nutrient food - and our genetic predilection for sugars and fats. I'll let others argue about whether obesity is gentetic or not. For my part, I'd like to advance an unorthodox theory: the rise in obesity is related to the decline in smoking.

That's a pretty untenable theory. Care to elaborate why you believe it to be true?

I think his theory has legs. Babies suck their thumbs for a feeling of security (A artificial recreation of nursing), and it's been proven that eating or smoking has a similair effect on adults. If you can't light up a cigarette when your feeling a little insecure, you probably gonna grab a candy bar instead. Just picture someone chowing on chips watching TV. They aren't eating cause their hungry.

My theory - which is completely anecdotal - is that people who would otherwise "light up" now "chow down" instead. The reasons are often the same - to relieve stress, fight fatigue, or have someting to do in uncomfortable social situations. But what about those Americans who never smoked? In the 1960s, consumers were bombarded with TV ads about cigarettes. Today, there's an endless parade of ads about junk food. Is there some deep-seated need that can be filled by cigarette smoking or over-eating? Madison Avenue would seem to think so.

A number of serious problems with theory:

1) Obesity is rapidly increasing in children. Surely you're not suggesting that children quiting smoking is the reason.

2) While smoking rates have fallen by half in the US over the last 50 years, the obesity rates nearly doubled in the ten years from 1991-2001. In that same ten year period, smoking rates in the US dropped only 2.9%. The numbers from the CDC simply do not support your theory.

Falling smoking may play a role in the trend towards increased girth, but a very small one. Readily available, inexpensive high fat and high calories foods and more sedentary lifestyles are more likely the reasons.

You make some good points, but I think you over do your conclusion. I think smoking played more of a role than you're indicating. I'll take a shot at your arguments:

1) Children eat what parents eat. Children learn by watching parents. If parents are smokers, the children have an increased chance of being a smoker. If a parent or parents are alchoholic, the child has higher odds of being an alcholic. If parents eat a lot, the kids are probably gonna eat a lot.

2) You make a good point here, this is a disturbing trend. Looks like smoking was cut in half from 1960 to 1980. What if the parents starting eating too much during those twenty years and their children copied their parents, couldn't that explain the trend you're seeing?

Why is obesity so low in Europe? Could it be they smoke more? http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2003/0113 /cover/story.html/

I personally think it's the Girl Scouts faults... I mean serving size 2 cookies, 4.5g saturated fat?? Who the heck eats 2 cookies? I pound like 20 of them then go smoke a pack of cigs and I'm still fat. Your theory is WRONG!

Well it has been show that smoking is an appetite suppressant. It's supposed to be why so many models smoke. Still I think it's healthier to be fat than to smoke.

Obesity Is Linked to Higher Rates of Chronic Conditions Than Are Smoking, Drinking, or Poverty!

Actually,us engineers are to blame for the obesity that plagues most of Ameriaca (not all). Technology has led us to be couch potatoes, computer junkies, kids to be gameboy and X-box junkies. People find it easier to sit around and do nothing than go out and experience new things. Kids are not encouraged by parents to do more activities and put down the remote. As society becomes lasy and fat, so does society's children. Want to get rich, design something that makes life simpler for us. In the 60's obesity was not such an issue, why, because we were not so technically advanced. Us as children then, might have had a couple hours a week watching the tube. We were all outside playing as we call it. It was realy excersize in desguise.

Damn! I'm fat, I smoke, I drink, and I'm poor. I guess I'll die, now.

....is cheap, abundant, low-nutrient food - and our genetic predilection for sugars and fats.....

We have genetic predelictions, for sure. These are natural, in-built drives towards foods that our bodies need. The problem arises when manufacturers produce, and we buy, foods which appeal to our senses but do not deliver the goods. A classic example (and there are many more) is cola drinks. No names please... We have an innate desire for foods which are sweet, dark red, acid, for in nature these in general contain vitamins, notably ascorbic acid, Vitamin C. These fruits are hard to find, and grow on thorny bushes...
Cola is dark red, contains caffeine, phosphoric acid, prodigious amounts of sugar but no vitamins. Cola is very easy to find; cheap, and no thorns... Our natural desires have been hi-jacked, and the results can be seen all around. This is but one example, amongst many.
It is often, as in this forum, claimed that obesity is a result of poverty. I feel strongly that is is more often the result of ignorance; "poor" people in my local supermarket are the ones most likely to fill up their caddies with ready-meals, snacks and junk: no fruit, few vegetables. But then, with sugar (in the UK) retailing for 35% of its cost to produce, through subsidies...

im thinking that if we had to go back to, having to find and shoot our meals, like the old days, that we might not have such a easy street at food. i think its to easy to go to the corner and get a bag of burgers and frys, or go to the pantry and grab a box of cheez-its, and then sit and watch the boob-tube, and see whats on, what happened to having to go out and plow the field with the ox and clean the barn, feed the cows so you can milk them, im betting most people now days, kids for sure, dont have a clue about how to live (or survive) without a store around the corner, and a tv to give us something to do,how many people smoked in the 20-30's was a bit more difficult to get? or afford? we have it made on easy street, and it shows on the scales, i fight the scales every day, and most dont even think about it, its just the way it goes, day after day, take that paycheck and go to the store (with whats left after the cable bill, and phone bill, and the power to all) and get those food items,, how easy is that,, work up a sweat pushing that cart down the isle? was there a chance that you missed that rabbit, or dont have a buck to buy the bullet to shoot that rabbit? so when do we get the exersize sitting at the tv?? we have to adapt, take a minute and get some, put down that box of crackers, grow a garden, i bet you can think of something to get back to the outdoors life, we can do it!! dont let your kids forget what REAL work is, its good for them and us! the over weight is costing us all in the end, just look at the stomach surgerys, the problems it causes,and we end up in the hospitals, trying to fix it, and whos paying for it?? you and me!!

I saw this on TLC last night. I think that it really illustrates a point. After watching "Honey were killing our kids" and seeing this statue. I'm thinking back to the fact my parents actually didn't buy me much snack food when I was younger and I had to eat better than kids now a days.
If the food getting worse or are parents getting lazy?

Both: We are all getting lazy (that includes parents, of course), so we always go for the easiest food (the one that is fastest or requires minimum thinking to prepare) that, usually, is the worst for your health.

I would disagree with you and say that aircraft seats are the exception to the rule you stated.

It seems that it is only to the airline's advantage to pack more people into a smaller space. While the seat size has probably not changed, the forward and side to side distance seem to (and yes, I still wear the same size clothes now as I did when leaving High school decades ago).

As you pointed out, that doesn't give me much comfort waiting to see who is going to be packed in next to me on my flight. I have had to share part of my seat with neighbors more than once on past flights.

The way we live has a lot to do with fat. We bus kids to school. They no longer walk or bike to school. We live in 'burbs with no sidewalks, you risk your life walking or cycling. We refuse to pave wide shoulders on the roads for bikes (might cost tax dollars...can't aford it). Too few kids compete in sports. Most of those who do, do not compete in sports that require fittness rather than ball skills. Very few adults compete in masters or veterans level sports. I coach crew in a high school. School age kids do not show a normal curve for body weight and fitness. There are normal sized, fit, kids who mostly compete in athletics and there are flesh monsters in the making. The population is skewed about the extremes with relatively few kids in the middle of the curve. Definitely not a normal distribution. what is truely frightening is the idea that it is ok to be truely fat. Fat and poor fittness should be accepted and never critized or condemed.

As engineers we should recognize that obesity is a simple energy equation:

[energy in] = [energy out]

If those conditions are not in balance, you get weight change. If [energy in] is greater than [energy out], you get weight gain. The body will automatically store excess energy against future starvation times. The amount of storage is a function of genetics, previous energy availability, etc.

If [energy in] is less than [energy out] then we have weight loss. Again the amount of weight loss is a function of several factors including genetic potentials, physical condition, recent energy availablity history, etc.

I am sure there are many more factors involved in the use and storage of energy by the body, this is not my area, but the basic concept holds. If we want to get lighter, we need to do two things; reduce [energy in] and increase [energy out].

Like many ideas, it is easy to say, difficult to do. My waist line is bigger than I want it to be, but, applying this idea it is slowly getting smaller (I am down 8 pounds since January).

Totaly agree. Keep up the good work. I was of average size till I became an engineer. Started sitting behind the comp. screen all day. I am down over 50 lbs. I had to reduce energy in and increase energy out to suceed.