Series DD Funding posted:

It depends on how we define "good cheap food." The conservative standby of beans and rice is cheap, filling, fairly nutritious, and pretty good when made properly (I made some just the other day). But it's never going to be good in the same way that an oreo is, nor is it as cheap in caloric density terms (but that's not necessarily a bad thing if the goal is weight loss). It's also going to taste like a pile of dirt if you just dump plain canned beans on because you never learned how to cook.

And exercise isn't really important here. At best it can provide minor benefits compared to diet, at worst it can cause people to overestimate calories they burned and overeat because they "earned" it.

Series DD Funding posted:

You aren't making any points. Putting frozen vegetables in the microwave and seasoning doesn't take more than a few minutes. Making rice doesn't take more than a few minutes, and is easier than brushing your teeth if you have a $10 rice cooker. Putting salad in a bowl and mixing with dressing doesn't take more than a few minutes. These things are all easy to do, and having more time won't make them happen for more people.

sweek0 posted:

You have to do that for junk food, too! And you can do that shopping online.

Although yes I understand that cheap junk food is more easily available. But having a number of good staple foods such as cans of beans, rice, porridge, some fruit and frozen vegetables really isn't all that difficult.

euphronius posted:

Did a guy a page ago just compare counting calories to building a house. I think he did .

Cole posted:

It takes just as long to walk into a store and get a premade salad as it does to wait in a drive thru or buy junk food from the same store.

Instead of chips, get almonds.

Instead of soda, drink flavored water.

You have to grocery shop for the food that makes you obese. Instead, replace the unhealthy stuff with healthy stuff (like the two examples I gave above). If you are eating fast food, make a stop in the grocery store and get a premade salad instead. You literally just pour it in a bowl and put dressing on it. That is all it takes to prepare.

And make your bigger meals (chicken, fish, vegetable sides, etc) in bulk on your day off for the week and reheat them when it is meal time.

There is seriously no excuse for eating like poo poo other than a lack of self control or just not really caring too much about your health.

A cheeseburger every now and then won't kill you. I give myself one day a week to have a terrible meal as a reward for eating healthy the rest of the week.

MaxxBot posted:

Again you're going to unfairly punish fit people as a solution for obesity, it's entirely unworkable and impractical. Smoking a pack of cigarettes is pretty much objectively bad, eating a large portioned meal is in no way objectively bad.

Effectronica posted:

People seem to be ignoring the central question, which is, "Why do people overeat, and why have more people been doing so?"

One aspect that has largely been ignored is that food is a source of pleasure the absolute majority of people are, no matter their working and living conditions, going to have access to. Not just stress eating, but eating as a source of enjoyment for people who have demanding lives and so can't engage in other pleasurable activities they enjoy. Thus, it may be that one of the more important factors is simply dysfunctional work-life balance and economic uncertainty, which in turn demands changes much more radical than any serious proposal.

fishmech posted:

You can't adjust tastes to enjoy bland or lightly seasoned vegetables as much as foods that are practically tailor made to appeal to our senses of taste and smell.

Jarmak posted:

The worst food for you is poo poo produced by a master chef who isn't holding back, fat is delicious and that's just a biological constant you can't change.

Jarmak posted:

Yeah on the other hand I bet you that meal was incredibly unhealthy and I wouldn't be surprised if those beets were cooked in fat.

Like the idea that a master chef isn't going to ply you with fat unless they're deliberately trying to prepare something healthy is so ludicrous I have to assume you have no training whatsoever. Mediterranean trends better on the whole because it tends to favour healthy fats, but this comment is just mind blowing in the context of something like classical French

Jarmak posted:

It's easier for someone with skill to cook delicious healthy food, and certain cuisines tend to be lower in fat, but you're trying generalize this into some sort of snobby bullshit about how plebe food is so much worse for you and you don't know what you're talking about. The fat being more varied or artfully handled does not make it less, and in my experience often makes it more because I/they know so much more they can do with fat then just dumping in butter. A master chef poaching something in duck fat isn't any more healthy then some high school kid dropping poo poo in the deep fryer at Applebees.

sitchensis posted:

No one walks anywhere anymore. In North America, our built environment is completely devoid of any kind of human scale or walkability.

Honj Steak posted:

You can be pretty sure that there is more than one answer to this. "People aren't walking anymore" is actually a rather plausible reason, but only one of many. Also people in Europe are unfortunately walking much less than a few decades ago, even if there are a lot of cities like Amsterdam or Münster that have a fantastic bike infrastructure. It's not unheard of here that parents drive their children to school although it's only one kilometer away.

fishmech posted:

Uh, what kind of hosed up school system that was already busing was doing it so halfassed that the kids still had to walk a mile to the stop?

Effectronica posted:

The kind of society where everything used in daily life is in walking distance and all transportation is necessary for is traveling between arcologies is one that is extremely implausible to ever emerge.

Effectronica posted:

Think about what would be necessary to make everyone's workplace in walking distance, so that we can avoid sedentary notions like light rail or busses or subways. Think about the sort of cultural experiences that would be possible in a society like that which could be built today.

Effectronica posted:

Oh, OK, so you actually agree with the broader point, but are convinced walking to and from bus stops is more similar to walking all the way than driving.

Ogmius815 posted:

I live in Manhattan. I certainly walk way, way more than I used to before I lived there. New York is notable for having basically the only functional mass transit system in the country good enough that you don't need a car. If every city had such a system, people would get more exercise.

fishmech posted:

Walking a block or ten a day isn't a useful amount of calories burned to counteract obesity.

Let's take a 260 pound person for instance. If they walk a whole mile each day, that's ~145 calories.

Jarmak posted:

yeah but its annoying as poo poo, walking a mile is no big feat but adding a walked mile to my commute would mean an extra hour a day round trip added to my daily routine and I'm better off spending that time in the gym.

computer parts posted:

Average walking speed is about 3mph, so adding a walked mile there and back (so 2 miles total) would add 40 minutes total.

sitchensis posted:

And it's unconscious exercise, too. No one who lives in an area that's easily walkable thinks about the fact that they are exercising when they go out the door to walk to the corner store.

fishmech posted:

An extra 400 calories per day would require significantly more walking then having a good transit system would result in. That's on the order of 3 miles a day walking for a very heavy person, as much as 4 or 5 for lighter but still obese person.

quote:

burning an extra 400 calories per day (some of which could easily come from walking, even if it's not the majority)

Cole posted:

I always wondered how they are measuring that? I've never had my BMI or fat % taken in any official capacity and I don't know anybody who has (not that it ever really gets brought up), unless they are using the same BMI calculator you find on Google, which is horribly inaccurate.

meristem posted:

Also, I just want to laugh at all of you who talk about 2500 calories/day as the baseline. The daily intake on which I don't gain weight is around 1200, and this is after exercise.

rscott posted:

Yes but the term "going on a diet" in the American vernacular implies a temporary arrangement or plan to achieve a goal

rscott posted:

Nah for most people you can pick a calorie budget that will maintain the desired body weight and just eat that much until you hit your body weight goal. Their rate of weight loss will start out steep and then slow down as they slim down but they will eventually reach that weight

Uncle Jam posted:

All the people who were stick thin in Japan that I knew smoked heavily. Let's reintroduce tobacco. Do I win?

Frosted Flake posted:

What if most jobs at company-lead PT? Show up an hour before work starts and get paid to exercise?

Calisthenics don't cost anything, and you don't need any skill or experience to get started at doing them. They're also really easy to do as a group.

Frosted Flake posted:

The other half - eating well - falls on the individual, because I don't see many companies being able to feed their workers during work hours.

Frosted Flake posted:

That's a good point. I haven't worked an office job, what do people who cycle to work do?

SlipUp posted:

-Ban food marketing to children. How many kids diets have been wrecked for a lifetime at the age of six because of a red headed clown? They are not capable of making informed choices and are very susceptible to advertising techniques.

SlipUp posted:

The child's desire has overwhelming effect on the parents purchasing decisions.

Fast food is way more prevalent than in your small town. Many parents are single and/or work multiple jobs and/or in poverty and don't have the time or the energy to fight a battle with the entire fast food industry over what their picky child will eat Tuesday night and Wednesday lunch.

enraged_camel posted:

It's not that a six-year-old is running their lives. It's a combination of two things:

a) Most parents want their kids to be happy
b) Most parents want their kids to stop whining and shut the hell up

Feeding the kid fast-food accomplishes both of these goals, and it doesn't cause any immediate short-term harm (and unfortunately, the long-term harm is still contradicted by many marketing campaigns and even research).


Both cigarettes and liquor are illegal and much more obviously harmful than fast-food. Giving them to a child is child-abuse.

Discendo Vox posted:

enraged_camel posted:

The funny thing is that banning such marketing should be easy to do. Whichever liberal group takes on the lobbying and campaigning for that task has it easy. All they have to do is use the same "think of the children!" logic that conservative groups use when they want to pass various legislation. Except this time the argument would actually be valid.