Posts Tagged ‘American diet’

Typical Restaurant Menu

The typical menu in any restaurant reflects the eating habits of the consumer. The U.S. will have three quarters of the population reporting in as overweight or obese in 2015. The prediction is that 41% will be classified as obese. In 8 years 75% of the population will be overweight based on Current Obesity Statistics. Right now we are currently at 66% with 34% who can be classified as obese. Youfa Wand MD, PHD and colleagues working in Baltimore at John Hopkins Bloomberg Scholl of Public Health’s Center for Human Nutrition has reviewed 20 studies on the growing epidemic of overweight adults, teens, and kids.

The study found that the weight gain is showing up at the waistline. This type weight gain puts you at risk for diabetes and heart disease. This fact shows up in waist circumference that has gone up by about 4 inches for men and 7 inches for women. This has occurred between 1960 and 2000. Asian-Americans born in the U.S. are four times to be obese as their counterparts in their homeland.

The typical American menu serves up obesity. What is an American menu; it is where the food choices at a dinning facility serve what is considered typical American food. It is reflected in most burger and fast food establishments.  With the rising production of food that has a shelf life into the next decade, we are drowning in synthetic food. The problem we eat it like we are starving. The truth is that these products set up cravings and fool with the production of insulin.  From sunrise to sunset we are eating wide array of sugary, starchy and sodium polluted meals and snacks.  

The typical American menu promotes products with all the above ingredients. A fat American is the product of this type eating. If you keep eating from the establishments with the over-sized meals it shows. We reward children by setting them up for a lifetime of obesity. We push for more production by fattening up farm animals and getting them to produce unnatural amounts of milk for the market place. The food manufacturers try for more tantalizing green, blue and other color gunk to temp kids with. This is again reflected in menu fare aimed at children.

Who’s to Blame?

I wonder is the American public solely responsible for all the causes and conditions that lead to this obesity epidemic, or is it really the victim getting blamed for the crime. Sugary items and refined grains are the stuff that tops the menu at many eating places.  White flour products that have the bran stripped out of it are things that make your blood sugar spike quickly. Then it drops and hunger ensues.

What if they got the American consumer hook line and sinker? Once started eating this way, it is extremely difficult to not participate, while becoming more vulnerable to the influence these products have on your hormones and chemistry. The sights, aroma, and childhood memories of being offered these concoctions can be very tantalizing. It is not that easy to resist these temptations. The industry giants count on this for their profits.

Mainstream diets are sometimes really fad diets. I am surprised that there is such extraordinary amount of fad diets on the market. What they all have in common is they promise more than they can deliver.

They either imply that they burn fat, or increase fat loss due to metabolic action. What these diets look like is calorie restriction done in a detrimental way. Most diets do not make the grade, and above all put your health and weight in danger. Most blame behavior and lack of physical activity as the sole reasons for the obesity epidemic. This is blaming the victim. Scientifically there are underlying factors that cause excess fat.

There are all kinds of human studies that measure the effect of calories. That is what most diets are based on. Our food supply has changed enormously; the game plan has to change. Research suggests that the sugar substitutes, high fructose corn syrup, artificial coloring, fillers, processing, and pasteurization are contributors to the underlying obesity epidemic

Almost all of the mainstream diets allow some of these products into the regiment. Long term results show that weight is gained back in spades. What is going on is that these diet programs are relying on calorie consumption vs. calorie expenditure. Skeptics are concerned that the component of optimal nutrition is the mechanism that triggers weight reduction. The profound effects of good nutrition are that it produces profound results.

To reach your healthy weight you need the nutrients and foods that are right for your body. The overabundance of food makes this concept more important than ever. Initiating weight loss today is to understand that the food supply far surpasses anything we have seen. Mainstream medical practitioners hold to the idea that we all benefit from the same nutrition. One of the most common misconceptions is that the beneficial effects of a food are the same in everyone.

This can explain the difference in metabolism that occurs when the same diet has different results. One person may lose weight quite easily, while someone on the same exact diet fails to lose as much fat.

The metabolism will be said to be slower in a person who does not enjoy the same results. These two people need a completely different road map. This indicates that the logic that dieting is based on is as flawed as our eating habits.

The rationale behind most fad diets is that all weight problems are a result of calories, metabolism, physical activity level, if these diets were right we would not be facing an obesity epidemic.