is this the USA ?

[flashy]

i know people who are as thin as a rake who live off Mc d's food....they never put an ounce of weight on

i'm obese, i dont often eat take aways, i cycle at least 8 miles a week (8 on most days in the summer...accyman and Katex can vouch for this) i eat fruit and veg...but i'm still hugely obese...i very rarely fry things, dont get me wrong, my diet is far from perfect, i'm fat, i'm me, get over it

[katex]

Originally Posted by flashy

i know people who are as thin as a rake who live off Mc d's food....they never put an ounce of weight on

i'm obese, i dont often eat take aways, i cycle at least 8 miles a week (8 on most days in the summer...accyman and Katex can vouch for this) i eat fruit and veg...but i'm still hugely obese...i very rarely fry things, dont get me wrong, my diet is far from perfect, i'm fat, i'm me, get over it

Flashy, there is no way you are fat or obese ! You just have a desire to be thinner than you are now.
Watched Supersize versus Superskinny last week, the Skinny one lived off fast food on the move ... nothing nutritious at all, but the Supersize lady had all good foods ... she was just eating huge portions of them ... interesting.

Good programme last night MargaretR .. Professor Regan's Diet Clinic .. did you see ? Right up your street. Looking at over the counter diet products and people who were taking Vitamin Pills which were not necessary. By the way, seems Marmite was the best form of vitamin B12 .. only about half a teaspoon per day. Lots more like boiled carrots threw out more goodness than raw ones ... that surprised me.

[flashy]

Kate, anyone over 13 stone now is classed as obese, ask your doctor

[cashman]

Originally Posted by flashy

i know people who are as thin as a rake who live off Mc d's food....they never put an ounce of weight on

i'm obese, i dont often eat take aways, i cycle at least 8 miles a week (8 on most days in the summer...accyman and Katex can vouch for this) i eat fruit and veg...but i'm still hugely obese...i very rarely fry things, dont get me wrong, my diet is far from perfect, i'm fat, i'm me, get over it

its all about yer constitution as well shaz, i aint oerweight yet if it dont come out of a chip pan or frying pan it dont exist. i would not ban em, but its about using common sense if it puts yer weight on scranning it, don't.

[flashy]

yeah i know what you mean cashy, some people are just prone to putting weight on no matter what they eat i suppose

[Margaret Pilkington]

Originally Posted by flashy

Kate, anyone over 13 stone now is classed as obese, ask your doctor

Surely that cannot be right.......they must have to take height into condsideration.

I know that when we did pre-op checks we used to measure the height and the weight of the patient to calculate the body mass index ( a far from ideal way of deciding whether someone was obese, but that was the tool that we were asked to use )
Now if I were 13 stone, then yes I would be obese...being only 5 foot one inch.

I thought that there was a move to using the waist to hip ratio to determine whether someone was obese or not.

[Less]

I have to agree, we need far less Mc Dees and far more independent Butty shop's if we must suffer heart attacks and obesity, Let's have the good old Sausage double egg bacon and beans butty!

Come on people we have a thread on here about why do people suffer allergies, I personally would rather stick to good old stodgy Made by my mum with dumplings than anything the health freaks can introduce,

be honest, nothing we eat does us any good we could all do with a better life style, but I for one will continue eating to enjoy rather than to live longer, the longer you live the more chance you have of ending up back in nappies and food dribbling down your chin!

[accyman]

theres always been fat and thin people but my point was that since the introduction of things like microwaves , mcdonalds and such theres a lot more illness about and it just seems to me to be more than sheer coincidence that our population is now what americas is which is a considerable rise in people with cancers or heart conditions or obese because their brought up thinking that the lettuce on a big mac is part of their 5 a day

of course if your genetic make up makes you large your going to be large no matter what but i bet a hell of a lot of obesity is down to crap food stripped of its already minimal nutritional value by microwaving it or a few too many trips to the takeaway, how can anything heated up by radiation be any good for you anyway?

i thought schools were getting their act together and starting to teach kids how to cook but i was soon proven wrong when i was sent to get ingredients to make a piza which incidently cost more than buying one from pizahut then ingredients the next week to make cream cakes

they should also stop this practice where anything good for you costs twice as much and make healthy living more affordable

On top of all this like others have said companies are allowed to pump drugs into our food to gain bigger proffits infact i cant recall the name of the preservitive right now but our food gets pumped with one that is banned in most parts of europe because its been linked to developing cancers

whats teh govenments answer to this - a few posters and adverts saying eat 5 a day which basicly enabled companies to put 1 of your 5 a day on its packet and charge double for it

anyway i blame America

[katex]

Getting away from the foods issue, things I do not like from America:

Baseball Caps
Trainers ... well, when using as a fashion item.
Jukeboxes.
That siren that our emergency services seem to have adopted.
Having a spelling check on our forum which is American.
Frank Sinatra.
Being called a guy, when I am obviously not (well, don't think I look one any)
Chewing gum ... chew myself, but now hate how some of our citizens spit out on pavement as a marker.

Things I never hope will come here is their heavy tipping and guns of course.
Also their badly made clothes, particularly men's suits and shirts.
Some of their T.V. programmes (not all) and the incessant adverts they insist in during broadcasts ... believe me, worse than ours.

And by the way, that's nonsense about genetic make-up making you fat .. just fat parents feed their children like themselves, so develop fat kids.

[steeljack]

just a general observation from my own surroundings , the folks who live in the suburbs and are more dependant on a car being parked at the front door seem to be a bit bigger than the people I know who live 'downtown' and use public transport to get around . Best examples I can use for the US are NYC and San Francisco , both high density population/low car ownership cities (both cities also have the lowest number per capita of licensed drivers). The opposite arguement to this is that urban areas have more fast food places than the 'burbs' which should mean that city folks would be bigger .
Think it just boils down to folk not walking as much as they used to do , even if its just to the bus stop

[MargaretR]

"Good programme last night MargaretR .. Professor Regan's Diet Clinic .. did you see ? "
I am watching it on BBCiplayer as I write this.
It is not a programme which I would normally watch because I have no interest in taking diet pills.
I noticed straight off that Prof Regan is an obstetrician and not a nutritionist.
As a warning not to take diet pills it was worthwhile screening for a mass audience.

I noticed that the emphasis is more on calorie counting and less on nutritional content.
It made no reference whatsoever to the effects that prescription drugs and food engineering hamper the body's capacity to obtain nutrients from food.
(I have been damaged by prescription drugs so am unable to absorb what I need, no matter how healthy the food is that I eat.)

It compounded the myth that fat intake is bad "fat=calories"
Fat is an essential nutrient for brain function. The type of fat is what matters.
Chemically engineered trans fats/hydrogenated fats may contain less calories that saturated fats
BUT they are unnatural to digest and disrupt metabolism.

As for the section on vitamin pills - misleading - because it is basing intake on the RDA(recommended daily intake)
Different people need different amounts- what would be enough for some would be indequate/too much for others.

By looking at their diets and saying 'you are getting enough from your food' is misleading - how did they measure the nutritional value of the food eaten - I have already provided a link to show that
food produced now has less value than that available 50 years ago.

I agree that taking vitamins without researching can be dangerous,
but I contend that prescription drugs are MORE dangerous.

"By the way, seems Marmite was the best form of vitamin B12 .. only about half a teaspoon per day."
I have tried to find out the type of vitamin B12 in Marmite and cannot.
Not all B12 are the same and have different functions in the body
There are four types -
Cyanocolbamin, hydroxycolbamin, - the scientifically produced/chemically engineered types= problems
Methylcolbamin and adenocolbamin(dibencozide) - the naturally occuring types which are more readily used by a body.

I could go on for ages yet but won't because you have probably lost interest already.

I will conclude by saying that the programme was 'light in content' and designed so to reach an audience who are more interested in their dress size than their health.

[cashman]

well i aint lost interest, cos i never had any.

[ossylass]

MargaretR - Why should there be a 'problem' with the use of hydroxycolbamin because it is scientifically produced? - if I had the choice between suffering the ill-effects of pernicious anaemia or having my regular injections of B12 - I know which I'd prefer! And would doctors continue to give B12 injections if there were 'problems' entailed?

[MargaretR]

Originally Posted by ossylass

MargaretR - Why should there be a 'problem' with the use of hydroxycolbamin because it is scientifically produced? - if I had the choice between suffering the ill-effects of pernicious anaemia or having my regular injections of B12 - I know which I'd prefer! And would doctors continue to give B12 injections if there were 'problems' entailed?

Your body has to convert it to methylcolbamin before it can be used.
Some of its value is lost during that conversion.
Hydroxycolbamin is used by doctors because it is more stable for storage.
Methylcolbamin for injections has to be refridgerated and stored in darkness.
I know a scottish ambulance driver who imports the crystals, mixes it, and does his own injections.
He made the 1st stage of his recovery having hydroxycolbamin from his doc, then recovery came to a standstill so he began to treat himself and got out of a wheelchair and back to work in one year.
Thankfully we are never given cyanocolbamin by our NHS, but that is used in USA. It has a cyanide molecule which breaks off and lingers in the body .
Hydroxycolbamin is an easier way for docs to administer B12.
I take methylcolbamin by absorbtion from lozenges held between my cheek and gum for a minimum of 45 minutes.

[Caz]

Margaret, what are your views on other scientifically produced treatments?

eg treatments for diabetics, and people on synthetically produced thyroxine?