{Warning ... Lots of generalizing and black & white thinking here}

A lot of people have different ideas about why we have an Obesity Epidemic in the US. Many proponents of low carb think the Low Fat craze is to blame. Most everyone agrees 'supersize' portions and a more sedentary lifestyle contribute to the problem. Heck, maybe it's the hormones and chemicals that pepper everything we eat.

Addressing those issues is like plucking the head off a dandelion. I believe the roots go deeper, and until we dig 'em up, obesity is going to keep growing.

As long as there have been fat people, there have been dieters. But I'd argue that dieting really took off in the 60's, when young women began trying to look like Twiggy (for all you youngsters she was the Kate Moss for her generation).

In a quest to look boylike - flat chested and slim hipped - women voluntarily started starving themselves. This was the time of Metrical weight loss shakes and doctor prescribed amphetamines; when the desire to eat became associated with lack of willpower.

But most of us know first hand that willpower has limits. Anyone can live on 500 daily calories for a while - until the day you can't and binge on everything not nailed down. Thus the yo-yo dieting pattern of weight loss and weight regain, plus.

As those mod-squad girls of the 60's grew up and became mothers, they passed those behaviors down to their children, who became further obsessed with weight and continued the cycle. Each generation becoming fatter and spawning a second epidemic: Eating Disorders.

I watched a woman named Mireille Guilian on Oprah today, she's written a book called French Women Don't Get Fat. It got me thinking about all this. Here's a quote from the show:


I think the general population feels we Americans love our food. Overlove our food ... but I disagree. I think many of us actually hate food. We feel guilty about eating anything, especially stuff we currently deem unhealthy. Food - especially food we are tempted by - is an enemy out to get us in a evil plot to make us fat. We infuse it with our fear, give it power over us.

Thus we endlessly obsess or fall off the wagon when that power overwhelms. We secretly eat fast food in the car, or stand in front of the fridge; door open, carton and fork in hand. There is more swallowing than tasting as we almost seem to want to get it over with fast.

Dieting hasn't just damaged our metabolism, dieting mentality has destroyed the natural pleasure of nourishing ourselves.

We who live a LC lifestyle run the risk of focusing too much on what we have chosen not to eat. Anytime we make big dietary changes, it's natural to pay attention to what's not allowed, but how long should this be all that matters? Even if we call it a WOL, it's still just a diet in disguise if our energy is always involved in protecting ourselves from "bad" food.

I believe long term emotional and physical health can only be achieved when we reclaim a positive relationship with food. There can be more satisfaction from a single square of SF chocolate truly enjoyed than a bag of chocolate chips eaten mindlessly in front of the TV. Appreciating the food you choose must be much more healing and empowering than keeping a cattle prod between yourself and the bad stuff.

Taking time to prepare something yummy, setting an inviting table and focusing on enjoying the food is common advice from dieticians ... but most of us Americans don't seem to follow it.

What do you think? Would you call your relationship with food pleasurable? Could some of the roots of the Obesity Epidemic be found in dieting mentality and it's resulting distrust of enjoying food?

I agree with all you've said, Monika. Very true and very thought provoking.

Very interesting thoughts, a topic with such depth and potential that we could sit and talk about it for hours, I'm sure. I agree we have destroyed our ability to enjoy good food, but I'm not sure I agree it is the dieting mentality that did it. I think the junk food did it. We have shifted from eating flavourful, good, whole foods to eating lousy, junky, refined foods in North America for the most part. We are a junk food society, all refined carbs and sugar, bland and the same. Yes it tastes good, but in a junk food way, not because we are enjoying exotic, subtle or interesting tastes and textures. So while junk food is addictive and tastes good, it doesn't satisfy our senses and makes us fat. Of course we would have a love/hate relationship with it.

The first thing that popped into my mind is a cooking show I was watching last night. DBF loves watching the food channel and there is a show called "Chef at Home" I think, where the guy absolutely loves food, gets excited by flavours, textures, all of it, he's always cooking for his wife too because it's "at home", and he has no regard for low fat or low carb, he just cooks food, but all in all, it's relatively healthy because it's not processed. DBF mentioned that it would be tough to be his wife and not gain weight. I disagreed, I think they are probably eating healthier than most, and that eating good food probably fills you up and doesn't inspire cravings for more food the way processed/junk food does. He probably never goes to McDonalds, he loves food so much that every meal is a chance for him to enjoy something else, he'd be wasting his time and appetite on McDonalds.

I know it's not that simple only, there are great chefs that are overweight because they love their good food too much, but I think the statistics that show that Europe is showing a growing trend towards more and more obesity right when their markets are opening up to more and more fast food is a clear indication that fast food is the big bad boogeyman in at least a big part of the obesity issue.

Val

And you know, this thread crystallizes for me something I've been thinking about for a long time. I do have that adversarial relationship with food that Monika talks about. It's me against the calories or carbs or sugar alcohols or whatever. I don't make low carb cheesecake because then I'll eat too much. I don't make interesting food because I'll want to eat too much. I don't learn to cook well because it's almost as if I feel I should distance myself from food as much as possible, like I should learn to not care about it.

Maybe it's time to look at healing my relationship with food, learning to enjoy it again, learn to cook good food, not just eat whatever is quick and easy and least harmful to the scale. Maybe in enjoying food more, it will actually alleviate that good/bad, on or off my diet mentality I struggle with.

Val

WOW! You really touched something in me with this post! I've had a love/hate relationship with food for so long! and the good/bad food thing, oh man, that is soooooo me!

I think that getting back to enjoying the tastes, textures, smells, etc will really help heal that relationship!

again WOW I'm going to be thinking about this one for awhile!

So many of your posts sound like something I wrote.

I approach this just a little bit differently. I've learned to enjoy the foods I now eat, in some ways a lot more than I did when I was eating junk. When I was eating junk food, after a point I would just keep shoveling it in, even though I wasn't really tasting it. About a year ago I started eating Twizzlers, which taste awful. There's something about them that tastes like petroleum, and they actually burned my mouth. But I ate them by the one pound bag at a time. I honestly can't say I enjoyed eating them, but I did eat them. Now, I eat a very limited menu, but I genuinely enjoy everything I eat, and I taste every bite. In some ways, I think what I enjoy most is the feeling of control, the knowledge that, as soon as I get done with a 600 calorie meal (which would have been an appetizer a year ago), I won't immediately start thinking about what to eat next, and when is the earliest I can eat it without seeming too piggy.

Like you, I'm not interested in making food preperation a center of what I do. There are folks here who spend a lot of time and effort in making wonderful meals, including low carb replacements for "bad" foods -- like the cheesecake you mentioned. For me, with a lifetime of a destructive relationship with food behind me, that makes me nervous. I'd be afraid first, of eating an entire low carb cheesecake in a sitting or a day, and second, that eating the fake variety would lead me to start thinking about foods I've left behind as somehow desireable, as if I was now depriving myself. I just don't feel that way now, and I want to keep it that way.

So I focus on enjoying what I do eat, and the feeling of control, and remind myself of the things I can do today that I soon would not be able to do if I started eating the way I used to. And it's a hell of a good trade off to me.

I love how you put it....i'm the same way as that guy that has the cooking show. My TV is permanently set to food network...its in the background all day and all night long. I love to cook. It is my number one passion in my life...to be able to start with a ton of raw ingredients and to make someone beautiful and delicious...to me its an art....food makes me happy, it makes me feel good....and i think that as long as you understand boundaries and dont allow rediculous indulgences.....that its okay for it to be that way...i mean hey...i used to get all happy about coconut cream pie....and now its "almost rice pudding" instead.....you can love food..you just have to love the RIGHT foods

This really strikes a chord with me. The other thing that is helping to make Americans obese is portion size. We've been conditioned to expect huge portions of everything, especially with restaruant food. Food is cheap and plentiful here, so extra large portions are the norm. It justifies the price. But honestly, who needs to eat a double meat whopper? Or a cheese stuffed pizza, or breakfast with four slices of bacon and four sausages?

Even Soft Drinks a 12 ounce bottle used to be the largest. Now you can get a 48 oz fountain drink. Or free refills on soda in restaruants.

It's crazy, how much we've been conditioned to eat. Even bagels and muffins are triple the size they were twenty years ago.

I'd be willing to bet that a restaruant that served portions consistent with dietary guidelines, even wholesome and fresh food, would soon go out of business.

I'm certain that you're probably right about the portion size thing. It kills me because i have a 9 year old little brother...who is pretty overweight...he almost has "breasts" at his young age. I unfortunately have no say whatsoever about what he eats...because he either lives with his mom, or my dad on rotating weekends. They stop by my house now and again...and while i'm eating a salad and steak...i'll offer them dinner and dad says "no thanks, we're stopping at mcdonalds first"....which isn't only an insult..but it breaks my heart to watch him eat two big macs...an order of fries...and a large coke....and sometimes an apple pie...and he is only 9...and these are his normal every day eating habits. His mother went on atkins ages ago but coudln't stick with it...and so now she sits on her butt and eats reeces cups all day (i'm not exaggerating)...and she makes nothing but hamburger helper or takeout wendys (or any fast food for that matter)...and it worries me....i guess someone has to draw the line on portion sizes some day....hopefully it wont be too late.

Triple meat is now the way to go. And last week, I saw a story about a 13 pound hamburger some place on the East Coast. If you eat the whole thing in one sitting, you get it free, plus they throw in an ambulance ride to the emergency room.

There's a series in Doonesbury that touches on this topic which I think is some of his best work in years:



Just plain links for the bandwidth impaired:

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I'm trying hard to change my psychological relationship with food from one of having what I want to wanting what I have. It's turned into a much more difficult challenge than I anticipated. Old habits die hard.

I agree that super sized portions play a large role in our obesity epidemic, no doubt about it. The way I see it though, it's secondary The desire for instant gratification is primary. This encompasses not just fast food but all those instant, processed and convenient foods and snacks so readily available for whenever and wherever.

If you also stop to consider the terminology we use to describe some foods... "sinful, naughty, decadent...". Whole categories of foods are seen as bad, and eating them is impossible to enjoy without feeling guilty.

I saw the woman on Oprah too. I may not agree with everything she said, but a lot of it made sense. Learning to love food instead of doing battle, teaching yourself to be content with small portions of good food instead of shovelling down as much as your stomach will hold... As a former member of the "Clean Plate Club" and a recovering "Get your money's worth" gal, I have my work cut out for me.

Low carbing gave me permission to enjoy food without feeling guilty. I know that the food I am eating is healthy and nurturing my body. There's a tremendous freedom in that knowledge.

For years I couldn't enjoy what I ate because I either felt guilty eating it (it was a forbidden food) or it was what I considered to be a healthy food but it didn't taste good (salad with fat free dressing).

I don't know if any of the cause of American's increasing weight lies in our distrust of food, but I do know that my life is better now that my relationship with food is less conflicted.

Responding to a minor point in your post, I think that dieting first took off with the flappers in the 1920s. You couldn't wear those dresses unless you were skinny. My grandmother was a teenager in the 1920s and she has always been obsessed with her weight.

I will probably take alot of flack for this but I think the problem goes deeper than the fast food we eat or deeper even than the relationship we have with food. I think we as Americans began our battle with food when many of us women began spending more time at work and less at home. Now, don't go jumping all over me. In that day women were the primary care givers. We were the ones who made the homes, had the babies and cooked the meals. Once we started spending more time in the work place it was only natural that entrepreneurs would develop products to meet the needs of such a vast relatively new marketplace.. Fast food and processed foods were almost inevitable. it just happens that they also take us away from the whole foods we used to make for our families. I'm willing to bet many women first tried them thinking" Well, it's just one meal a week...." But of course we ended up teaching our kids that they were okay to eat. And why not have them as often as we want. Mom served them to us didn't she?

Well the only way we will ever change this trend toward unwholesome procesed foods is to demand whole foods. Remember, you vote with your dollars...if we buy crap they will keep selling us crap... if we buy nutrition they will sell us nutrition.
I sincerely hope I have not offended anyone. That was not my intention. Indeed, I myself am forced to work outside my home, and have often enjoyed the financial freedom it allows. But I do think that not having someone home to cook is where all of this started.

As a full-time working wife and mother, I agree that there is some truth in this. My family eats a lot more convenience food and take out food than we would if my husband or I were home to cook more frequently. However, we have learned how to find and prepare relatively healthy convenience foods. Products like already washed and torn-up lettuce make it easy to quickly prepare a salad and I personally think that the pre-cooked rotisserie chickens most grocery stores have these days are one of the best things to happen for time-pressed low carbers. We've also learned that all meals don't have to be gourmet. With a little planning on the weekend so that you have the right food in the house, it's easy to throw a piece of fish in the oven right after walking in the door and then let it take while sorting the mail and changing clothes. Still, there is no question in my mind that if someone were at home more hours, we would eat more healthy, home cooked meals. When my kids were babies and I was home most of the time, I did a lot more cooking than I do now.

For lots of reasons I don't think we are going to return to a world where most women are home packing lunches for their family and cooking dinner, but there was a time when many of us at least explored the idea of more cooperation among families and we (or at least I) have totally lost that. Back in the early 1980s, my husband and I were friends with another couple who lived about a block away. Each of us four adults cooked one week night (Monday thru Thursday) and we ate together. It was a great arrangement in terms of knowing that you could come home to a good dinner three nights a week without having to do any cooking. Even earlier than that, I lived in a communal house and we were each responsible for cooking one night a week for all the people living in the house. I know there are still some people living in co-housing or other types of cooperative housing, but it seems to me that it should be possible to start up some type of informal arrangements of sharing cooking even in more traditional neighborhoods and families.