If people in the US are by average 7,5 kilos heavier than they were two decades ago... and more people now are in an anorexic mode of mind, would that not indicate that those that are not in this anorexic state, are in fact quite a lot heavier than they "were." In effect, there are fewer individuals on the part of the normal curve which should be higher, that the shape of the curve has indeed changed, not only that the numbers below it have changed?
I know for myself that with the increased import of foreign culture and with better conditions of life here, with the loss of the food our communal digestive system has evolved to survive by, and by the increased ingestion of "unnatural" food, such as fast food, pasta and bread, for which I do believe that we are not biologically prepared more and more people here are becoming obese. I have this memory of a child in my class that was teased because he was fat, I have pictures of this lad, now nearly every child I see is like that, it has become the norm, and the fat are in fact fatter than they were. I am taken aback by it, I am aghast to see children who do not just have the normal child's fat, but real fat, children were not this way when I was a child.
Not to say that I am in favour of the reverse, I am also aghast seeing ever more and more young girls with their ribs showing as if they were underfed. I am not happy with my corpus, I find it both too thin and not strong enough. I would like to build muscle and gain a little extra reserves that my body can draw upon if some mishap were to befall me. I know that if I would land in some unfortunate thing here, which is not all that uncommon, considering they way my land is, I would probably perish simply because I fit into the "ideal" body shape of to-day, being 168 cm and 60 kilo. I don't like it one bit, it is highly unnatural, both to be obese and to be a walking skeleton (let us not even mention the drugged appearance of super models).
If people in the US are by average 7,5 kilos heavier than they were two decades ago... and more people now are in an anorexic mode of mind, would that not indicate that those that are not in this anorexic state, are in fact quite a lot heavier than they "were."
Unless more detailed studies showed that most people hadn't gained weight at all, only those that were already overweight did.
Although I would like to mention that when I was speaking of unnatural foods and communal digestive systems, I was referring to Iceland. It bothers me none that others eat the food that they have for long.
I find it all fair if people that are accustomed to eating wheat in great quantities do so, like Italians have indeed done, but I am not so sure that it is all too good an idea to so suddenly change the national diet as we have done here. The change would be fine, if it were more gradual, over the course of several generations, but not in only some 20 years. The food that people eat here day by day has changed so very much since I was little. I remember a whole different menu, there was of course some bread eating, but not as much as it is now, and pasta was unheard of, occasionally one would get spaghetti, but that was rare. Boiled lamb was more common and so on. What bothers me the most is the assumption that all humans are the same. We are of course all human, but we still have different nutritional needs, it is not logical to assume that people that have lived in very different climes and ingested very differently from "the food groups" have all the same needs. I would like to see that international fallacy abolished and that people try to see a bit into the different physique of people from different parts of the world. I think that the reason this has been so prevalent is in part the domination of the world by West European (or descended from West European) people and in part the recent "erasing of the races" I would like to think that there are indeed races to humans, like there are to cats and horses and dogs, and other domestic animals, but I do not think that any race is superior to the other, that is also a fallacy.
A favourite example of mine is the Icelandic Horse, they have very different food requirements from, let us say, Thoroughbreds. The Icelanders need feed that is coarse and not very rich in simple carbohydrates, whereas the Thoroughbred needs a lot more of the simple carbohydrates and a finer feed and richer. Oats for an Icelandic horse in the same relative to weight amount as a Thoroughbred is given would be likely to induce colicking.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2004-07-16 11:29 am (UTC)If people in the US are by average 7,5 kilos heavier than they were two decades ago... and more people now are in an anorexic mode of mind, would that not indicate that those that are not in this anorexic state, are in fact quite a lot heavier than they "were." In effect, there are fewer individuals on the part of the normal curve which should be higher, that the shape of the curve has indeed changed, not only that the numbers below it have changed?
I know for myself that with the increased import of foreign culture and with better conditions of life here, with the loss of the food our communal digestive system has evolved to survive by, and by the increased ingestion of "unnatural" food, such as fast food, pasta and bread, for which I do believe that we are not biologically prepared more and more people here are becoming obese. I have this memory of a child in my class that was teased because he was fat, I have pictures of this lad, now nearly every child I see is like that, it has become the norm, and the fat are in fact fatter than they were. I am taken aback by it, I am aghast to see children who do not just have the normal child's fat, but real fat, children were not this way when I was a child.
Not to say that I am in favour of the reverse, I am also aghast seeing ever more and more young girls with their ribs showing as if they were underfed. I am not happy with my corpus, I find it both too thin and not strong enough. I would like to build muscle and gain a little extra reserves that my body can draw upon if some mishap were to befall me. I know that if I would land in some unfortunate thing here, which is not all that uncommon, considering they way my land is, I would probably perish simply because I fit into the "ideal" body shape of to-day, being 168 cm and 60 kilo. I don't like it one bit, it is highly unnatural, both to be obese and to be a walking skeleton (let us not even mention the drugged appearance of super models).
no subject
Date: 2004-07-16 01:00 pm (UTC)Unless more detailed studies showed that most people hadn't gained weight at all, only those that were already overweight did.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-16 05:51 pm (UTC)Although I would like to mention that when I was speaking of unnatural foods and communal digestive systems, I was referring to Iceland. It bothers me none that others eat the food that they have for long.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-16 06:30 pm (UTC)That's unclear to me. You mean "it's okay if Italians eat pasta, but Icelanders shouldn't", or something like that?
no subject
Date: 2004-07-17 06:08 am (UTC)A favourite example of mine is the Icelandic Horse, they have very different food requirements from, let us say, Thoroughbreds. The Icelanders need feed that is coarse and not very rich in simple carbohydrates, whereas the Thoroughbred needs a lot more of the simple carbohydrates and a finer feed and richer. Oats for an Icelandic horse in the same relative to weight amount as a Thoroughbred is given would be likely to induce colicking.