In my opinion the real problem is not so much what we eat, as what we do. Most people simply do not get enough physical activity. They sit in front of flashing boxes all day, and then go to work, where they either sit in front of another flashing box, or stand there for hours on end.

Diet is a problem but frankly it's not the whole issue, and switching people completely away from any animal fat or salt is really bad for brain development.

Other problems include High fructose corn syrup, which is NOT "just sugar" It's much more energy dense than cane sugar, and it's in freaking everything. Seriously. Look at the labels on stuff, and you'll even find it in canned vegetables. It's gross.

Here is a simple solution. Go outside. Seriously. There's lots of cool stuff out there. Go play a a game with your friends, or go hiking, or just start going for a walk every day. It's good for you. And you don't need to pay for a gym membership.

Think you just don't like sports? Well have you tried Dagorhir? YouTube - ‪Dagorhir‬‏

Or even regular larping?

And as for food... make your own. Learning to cook is fun, and you'll realize exactly what's in everything you eat. You'll use less bad ingredients and once you get good, you'll probably be making stuff that tastes better then a lot of restaurants anyway.

I'm saying this mostly because I'm tired of tax money being wasted on trying to fix such a simple problem.

...now stop staring into the flashing box and go play a game or something.

I wouldn't call LARPing "regular" over the age of thirteen... personally, I think it's cool, but I know a lot of people who might be a bit weirded out by it. :lol:

That being said, our opinions often clash, but I agree with you here. I think a certain degree of it comes from two things.

1.) The majority of us live a life of luxury. Even if we're not as rich or happy as we'd like to be, we're better off than most of the world. Because of this, very few of us are stuck with working-class jobs - the jobs which are rapidly being taken over by immigrants, both illegal and Americanized - that involve activity. The truth is, most of us will probably spend the majority of our lives in a cubicle or office somewhere, sitting on our butt all day. And after all that "not fun" stuff, most of us just want to drag ourselves home and sit down again, to turn our minds off for a few hours. Even if it's just mental, we feel "drained".

2.) Americans don't grow up with the same push towards exercise that Europeans do. European children go to parks with their parents, go on jogs, have picnics. It's a normal part of their life. For us, these things are a "special occasion".. one that we usually learn to dread by the time we're teenagers.

I see no way to fix the problem en mass. The people who really want to do something about their health will have already considered and begun the suggestions you posted above.

You would think people would, but when I tell people they can just go for a walk every day and it'll help a bit they look at me like I'm stupid. Mind you it doesn't solve the problem, but it's a step toward actual physical activity. Which most people simply don't get enough of. What ever happened to hobbies that required moving around? mine does.

AS for larping... most larpers are in their twenties at least. lol. It's really not a kid thing anymore. And Dagorhir is a full contact sport more than a larp. I know football players who think it's too rough. :)

No need to tell me, I was raised with a Rugger father and was playing hockey with the boys by the time I was ten. :lol: Then again, both my parents are European.

As for LARPing, my favorite case was when a whole group of them staged a war along the Google Earth route. Win.

I live in Seattle, a city which is very open-minded about that sort of thing. But I can see a lot of people being uncomfortable with the idea of grown men and women dressing up and going on adventures in the midwest or the south.

I'm in Denver. lol. there are tons of us here, and on the east and west coasts it's incredibly common.

For Dagorhir there's a yearly event with over two thousand fighters at least.

There are Dag groups in every state, and parts of Europe and Canada as well. I think even South America has one or two.

Larping is huge in Europe, and it's a lot more common in the U.S. than most people realize.

And it's great exercise. :) You go outside, and move around. It's like hiking, but epic. Mind you for regular larping you need a good game writer, but with Dag it's just pure combat, so it's always fun times.

The actual problem with obesity in America is that they changed the definition of how obesity is defined so that it covers an extremely large number of people regardless of if they are truly fat.

The BMI system used right now measures your weight vs height and ignores the presence of muscle which is heavier than fat, so if you are skinny yet are reasonably built, you are obese. If you are broadly shouldered with a little bit of muscle, you are obese. If you are a member of the power team and made entirely of muscle you are morbidly obese.

When you think obese you probably think of this:


But in reality, obese in america looks like this:


(That's right, under our current scale, Arnold Schwarzenegger is obese)

I had noticed that trend as well.

I'm 6' and I weigh 200lbs. I'm skinny skinny, but have a lot of dense muscle, and dense bones.

I'm borderline for the weight scale depending on which one you use. lol.

You're right. It is recommended that a person gets an hour of SOME kind of physical activity a day. TVs often say only 30 minutes, but really it is one full hour. Personally I like working out. I'm a very determined person and I push myself a lot, but I know when I absolutely need to stop. There are a lot of fun physical activities. I adore dancing. It's one of my favorite hobbies, and wanting to be an actress on Broadway or at least make it into movies if Broadway doesn't work out, dancing would be useful in that career choice. Racquetball is a one or more person sport you can play and I think it's fun. Instead of waiting for someone to get on Facebook or doing something online, spend one hour outside. The sun is good for you people!!! (Well, if not in excess.) You can walk your dog (they'll love you forever), you can play games like Sardines with friends. I still love childhood games like hide and seek outside. Especially at night. (Sardines). It's actually really easy to exercise. You can even mix it in with TV. Try doing as many jumping jacks as you can during commercials. Do yoga while watching the TV. I'm a very competitive person, so it's fun to have FRIENDLY rivalry with friends while playing a sport or dancing or running, etc.

Our BMI scale/actual scaling is actually very off. Like someone said, it doesn't measure muscle and often mistakes it for fat. They have fat readers now in some gyms which are excellent because they show how much fat you have and how much you SHOULD have.

The cooking idea is very good. It helps with intelligence and skill levels, it's fun and takes up time if you're bored. It comes in handy, it's healthier than frozen meals or fast food. A major factor of obesity is misguided regulations such as what is actually obese and how much exercise one should have in a day, as well as MOTIVATION!

Indeed. And I'm tired of the negative self image that a lot of people get due to bad science being pushed off on us.

So many women I know tell me they're overweight, or obese, and for the most part they're extremely not. The BMI doesn't take into account their build, bone structure or anything else. It just tells people they're fat, because it's become an obsession in the U.S. And for no good reason.

When my mother's generation was coming up Television had just been invented, and there wasn't much there. Kids went outside and took walks, or played tennis, or basketball, or baseball, or something. And if they weren't doing that they were expanding their minds by actually reading stuff that was worth while. They certainly wouldn't have wasted six hours a day staring at a flashing box and letting their minds rot and pour out their ears.