Top 7 reasons America is Fat

With the continually rising obesity epidemic, I feel compelled to share a few of the contributors that have been hypothesized about the cause, as well as my thoughts on each of them.

1)      On average you eat 2600 calories per day, compared to 1900 calories 40 years ago.

Two words for you: food availability.  Americans don’t have to think about where their next meal will come from nor do they worry themselves with the number of calories they’re eating.  Just drive through one of the millions of places that serve cheap food at the risk of your health, eat a 500 calorie burger, a 700 calorie container of fries and a 400 calorie soda.  BAM – That’s almost the average of what we ate 40 years ago.

2)      You don’t exercise.

Most Americans don’t even walk!  They get in their car and commute 1 hour to work, sit at their desk for 8-10 hours, drive home for another hour and then sit on the couch.  They don’t walk their fat dogs. Oh and they drove through and picked up fast food on the way home.  The recommendations for exercise for most people are a measly 2.5 hours each week!  How hard is that?

3)      Your mom didn’t breast feed you and/or you were born via C-section.

Now that moms are working they don’t even have time to breast feed their babies, not to mention the doctor talked them into planning a C-section because that was the only day it could happen.  What happened to letting the baby come when he/she wanted to?  And, what happened to letting it happen naturally?  It turns out your gut is about 70% of you immune system.  Passing through the birth canal and being breastfed allows the gut to be inoculated with healthy bacteria.  This helps on so many levels including, as it turns out, preventing obesity.

4)      You have metabolic syndrome or risk factors for it because of the food choices you’ve made throughout your life.

Most Americans don’t have the first clue about what eating healthy is.  Our Omega 6: Omega 3 ratios average 20-40:1.  Our Potassium to Sodium 1:1.  Fat intake is outrageous!  Kids don’t even average 1 serving of vegetables per day and adults don’t do much better.  Couple this with the stressed, lack of sleep, no exercise lifestyle and Bingo – you get metabolic syndrome!  I sadly admit I won’t be surprised when an 11 year comes in to my office with this diagnosis.

5)      Obesogens.

Google it if you haven’t heard of it.  Manufacturers will always take the cheapest way out until someone says you’re killing us.  These chemicals are long words we can’t pronounce found in our environment (i.e. Bisphenol-A in plastics and pesticides used in farming) and have been linked in a few studies to Asthma, Allergies, ADHD and you guessed it: obesity.

6)      Only 11% of Americans admit they’re overweight or obese compared to the 68% who are.

One word: Sad.

7)      You don’t just eat.

Face it, you drive while eating, work while eating, read while eating, cook while eating, etc.  When was the last time you enjoyed a meal at the table with your family that you prepared?  A new study from the New England Journal of Medicine suggests this is one factor of the increasing obesity rates.

I don’t know that this will save the world, but maybe one or two people will change because of it.