Taking Responsibility and Being Accountable......
 

Is your Wal-Mart making you fat?- MSN Money

I just read this article and I can't believe the lack of Responsibility and Accountability we are lacking now days.

It is ridiculous that we are blaming the food manufacturers and the stores that carry these foods.

S-T-O-P blaming Wal-Mart and the Food Manufacturers for what we should be blaming ourselves for.

WE (each one of us that is overweight) are responsible and accountable for our own actions. WE decide what goes in our own shopping carts.

Enough is enough!! Please take the accountability for your own actions. Stop blaming these companies. They are doing what is in the interest of supply and demand.

Bring back the American Farmer by purchasing WHOLE foods (aka fresh meat, fruits, veggies). The more we demand fresh, whole foods, the bigger the supply - which means the American Farmers will be able to go back to growing our food again instead of it being manufactured in a factory!!!

Bring back the old days!!!

We as adults and consumers decide what to buy. Stop buying the chips, cookies, frozen foods and hamburger helper. Get in your kitchen and cook from fresh beef, pork, chicken, fish, sea food, fresh or frozen vegetable...s and fruits. Stop relying on Stouffers, Sara Lee, Kelloggs, General Mills, Kraft to half prepare your meals. We need to slow down our lives and go back to the way our ancestors lived.


It doesn’t take that much time to prepare healthy, wholesome foods. I can prepare a whole meal for my husband and myself in the amount of time it takes to do any frozen or packaged food item.

Eating healthy also doesn’t have to be expensive either. Anyone can eat healthy on any budget!!!

These packaged, frozen and boxed foods (or franken foods) were never meant to be a mainstay of our diets. They were meant to be the occasional, in a pinch, meal.

Hey, wait--all this time I though it was MY own fault I ended up weighing over 400 lbs. and now I find out is was the new Wal-Mart Super Center that opened up here a few years ago?! :eek:

I'm calling my attorney--see ya' in court, Walton family. :D

Regards,
Michael

PS Seriously, I agree--the age of personal responsibility is gone. Everthing is "someone else's fault". Fat? McDonalds and Wal-Mart are to blame! Lung cancer? Damn the Marlboro Man!

Will it ever stop? I doubt it, but we can hope. And, we can accept responsibility for our own problems. Nobody but me stuffed food into my pie hole in large quantities. Some of it came from Micky D's and Wally World, but your's truly bought it and sucked it down.

P-L,

I couldn't agree more. We all need to be responsible for our own actions!

I agree for the most part. I take full responsibility for how I've turned out.

HOWEVER. I think it's wrong to let the corporations off with a free pass. There's no denying the sleazy marketing practices of McDonalds for instance. They market almost exclusively to kids! They make their poison, which happens to be quite addictive, and then sell it with playrooms, toys, and clowns. Yeah, there's totally no manipulation there. To their credit they seem to be improving these days in that regard, but still... Making a profit is no excuse for damaging lives.

Even though I L-O-V-E Mcdonald's food. :D

I also disagree that we need "the good old days" back. If we move backwards we're not progressing. We need to focus on moving forward, and making things better now, and for tomorrow. A lot of people forget that "the good old days" weren't always so great either. We've come a long way in medicine, technology, science, you name it. Of course there are plenty of negatives that come with all of that, we just have to learn how to balance it for the better. Let's not be afraid of moving forward. :)

I disagree. Yes they to market to kids... but it's the PARENTS that bring the kids to McDonalds. There are some healthy choices on the menu, most people don't chose them. I think if we, as parents (society as a whole)were so concerend about our children eating "poison", as you call it, we wouldn't feed it to them. If you are so worried about "sleezy marketing" then don't let you're kids sit in from of the TV and watch that crap. It's that simple. Once again, we are responsible... or at least SHOULD be. IMO

As far as playrooms in McDonalds, if more kids actually played instead of sitting on their butts eating garbage we wouldn't be faced with the situation that we are in.

I'm not afraid of moving FORWARD but the FUTURE looks bad. Not to get off track, but what kind of affect do you think that obesity has on health care costs? Our negligence and need to blame others is helping run this country into the ground. But that's just my opinion.

Fundamentally, I agree, but...
 

... marketing works! And the proliferation of fast food outlets make food hard to ignore.

One of the reasons my grandparents were relatively thin most of their lives is that they didn't have such ready access to food. If they wanted a meal, or even a snack, they had to fix it themselves. These days, most of us can't avoid being bombarded with food, food smells, and food advertisement. It is everywhere! Yes, we do indeed make the decision to buy it, eat it, and regret it. But it is almost impossible to avoid it. Even folks living in the country away from strip malls and food courts are constantly beraged with advertising for food on the TV, radio, newspapers or magazines, not to mention billboards, roadsigns, and advertising on the sides of buses and trucks.

Now that you got me going: It seems to me that there was a time when eating in public, like stolling down the sidewalk stuffing a big mac in your mouth, sluping 96oz big gulps, or plowing through a bag of Doritos was considered taboo and bad manners. (Speaking of bring back the old days) I kinda wish those days would return. (But maybe not all the rest of the taboos like talking to someone of different race or gender in public - that one can stay good and buried.)

As a child of "processed foods" -- that is, most of my meals were half-prepared in a box growing up, and I'm pretty sure the only veggies to cross my plate were corn, potatoes, and carrots (no green to be seen!) -- and fast foods, I can tell you that I wish I had been exposed to more whole foods much earlier than I was.

It's funny, thinking of my neighborhood growing up - the supermarket was a good 15-20 minutes away by car, but within walking/5 minute drive distance there was: A McDonald's, A Burger King, a Pizza Hut, A Taco Bell, a KFC... those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. And while it's true that my parents were the ones choosing to take me to these places, I'm sure I wailed for them constantly as well. And hey, when I was a kid, Apple Dippers weren't yet a glimmer in the Golden Arches' eye -- nor was milk instead of soda, etc. I don't remember caring about the toys (though I probably did?) but I DO remember salivating for those McD's fries.

I think more exposure to healthy alternatives is a good thing, and I *do* think it's happening more nowadays than it was when I was a child (or, perhaps I am simply more aware now) and I know it's up to ME to pass that awareness down to my future children, as well as good food habits, good food choices, and WHY they should be made. You are what you eat, and you are what you are TAUGHT to eat when you can't make your own informed choices (I know I'd never blame a child for wailing for yummy McD's french fries, but I *do* blame parents for giving in constantly. Once in awhile is normal. 3-4 times a week, like I had...is something less understandable to me). Now that I've started slowly cooking and eating more fresh foods (with some supplements from the boxes and jars) the boxed meal stuff tastes....lousy to me. Had a very late worknight last night and ended up throwing a boxed chicken alfredo dinner into the oven. It was disgusting. Even boyfriend agreed! I think I only ate a few forkfuls and ended up making a gigantic salad instead with some tuna fish.

In any case, I'd be a lot happier if I saw advertisements for healthy food as much or more than advertisements for junk. I'd also love more accountability on food labels and less ways to sneakily cover up additives with unpronounceable words. Maltrose, dextrose...just say ADDED SUGAR! :D Before I was educated my eyes glazed over, and it's taken a long time to get really savvy at it -- because I chose to care. That is personal accountability, but it took a long time because I had to make the conscious decision to look everything up in my free time. More information would have helped sooner, in my case.

In any case... my point is - more open information, more even advertising time, and better availability (and promotion!!!) of truly healthy offerings couldn't hurt.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.

My kids all started on whole farm food. We bought our eggs and milk from a neighbour and I made homemade butter. We got a half cow from another neighbour, and 20 or so chickens from another. All these animals were organically fed.
I made homemade breads, cakes, fruit pies, canned vegetables from our own garden and only purchased fruit for canning.

This all changed when we moved into town, but my kids had been started out right, so they should be good, right?

WRONG!

My oldest daughter, even though she has been gifted with a number of cooking from scratch appliances, continues to purchase fast food and prepackaged items. This, regardless of the fact that soy ingredients contribute to her seizure activity and the fact that she has gone from a size 10 when she lived at home to a size 26.

If my oldest son was not at home, he would have the same tendencies.

It is only my second daughter and the youngest two (who were exposed to healthy eating for the shortest time) who make good food choices. The second daughter is only forced to because she has a daughter that is egg, dairy, soy, and gluten free.

I believe in personal responsibility. All the same, I do believe that big corporations spend a lot of money to get consumers to eat/smoke/drink things they KNOW are unhealthy. I read a book called "The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite" by David Kessler MD where he describes how corporations strive to make foods addictive and irresistible. They typically do it with combinations of fat, salt, and sugar. I avoid these items as much as I can. The research scientists who are formulating these foods are a whole lot smarter than most of us. To me, this is similar to the tobacco companies scheming to get children addicted to tobacco, making tobacco more addictive, and hiding the facts about tobacco's lethality. It's too bad they aren't using all that brain power to make the world a better place. And regardless of others' immoral behavior to harm someone else to make a buck, I'm still responsible for my own choices.

As far as cigarettes and the tobacco companies, this is my take on it... I could understand that "back in the day" people got hooked on cigarettes b/c they didn't know any better. I get it, and I feel sorry for them. What I don't get is that cigarettes say on the side of the box (I'm at a loss for better words here so forgive me) "this sh!t will get you hooked and will kill you" and people still START smoking. They pick up that 1st cigarette and place it to their lips KNOWING DAMN GOOD AND WELL THAT'S IT'S ADDICTING AND WILL PROBABLY KILL THEM... and they still do it. I've seen kids at the bus stop, look to be 13, and think... damn that kid is stupid, either too stupid to read the warning that's printed on the box or too stupid to care.

Crack cocaine, meth, heroin, etc don't even come with a warning. Blame the tobacco companies for the people that got hooked 50 years ago, not for the dumb idiots that start smoking now. I'm sorry if this offends anyone. I've lost my mother to cancer and it baffles me how to this day someone will decide to START smoking.

I think the biggest problem we've had in our society is lack of information and education. When I took my children to McDonald's for lunch every Friday for a playdate with friends I had no idea that I was feeding them 1,000 calories, mostly fat and carbohydrates. Or that feeding them fries and burgers might be giving them a sugar addiction. I didn't do it to hurt them, I did it because I wanted to get them out to play and socialize during the winter, when it was too cold to play outside for more than 15-20 minutes.

The new healthcare laws are supposed to force restaurants to disclose calorie information by the year 2012 or some such, but of course there are people fighting the institution of those laws so we'll have to wait and see if it comes to pass. McDonald's has posted the nutritional information in their restaurants for years, but it's teeny tiny red print on the back of a place mat at the McD's near us. I didn't notice it until I started counting calories for myself, and until this past year I wouldn't really have known what it meant in terms of health to my family.

I guess my other issue is that nutrition wasn't taught in the high school I attended, so anything I knew about nutrition came from my mother. Believe me, she's a lovely intelligent woman and I love her dearly, but she isn't a nutritionist - not by a long shot! So I guess if this country is going to do anything about obesity, especially in children, nutrition, fitness and health need to become mandatory at every level of the educational system, pre-K thru post graduate. It is required in many of the European countries, and they seem to be a heck of a lot thinner than we Americans. In Germany students have to major in an academic subject and a sport and the sports are generally things you can do for the rest of your life, swimming, soccer, tennis etc. Here in the US so long as you can read and write, nobody ever gives a rip if you can play a sport. Conversely it's also true that if you can play a sport really well, nobody really gives a rip if you can read or write. We as a country need to focus on a better, more well rounded, more useful educational system.

I don't blame my lack of education on anyone but myself, but I would argue that my formal education left me short on knowledge that would have helped me and my family a long time ago.

What compels people to smoke, drink, overeat or do drugs is an incredibly complex question to ponder. So many factors go into the compulsion to be self destructive. Yes we all have to be responsible for ourselves and our health but in my opinion, we all could show some compassion for those in difficult situations that turn to these vices to escape their realities.

Corporations that produce unhealthy fast food and aim their advertising to children are not contributing anything positive to our world. I find it depressing that as human beings we are so quick to point the finger at each other, and judge our fellow humans rather than hold a large unethical corporation responsible for what they are doing.

On all fronts, things need improving. Children should be raised with healthy self esteems but that's not always the case is it? Mike, you ask why someone would smoke when they know it's bad for them? It's easy to call them idiots but the truth is people who don't love themselves take up bad behaviors. It is a form of self destruction.

This youth-driven, skinny, plastic, greedy society teaches us to hate ourselves. Yes it is up to each one of us not to buy into that but it is also a good idea to do the best we can to take care of each other. :)

AMEN! It would also be a good idea to offer classes on the media to kids at the high school level and older. I studied Communications in university and to learn about the tricks of advertising and the subjective and sometimes outlandishly one-sided news reports we hear helped me decipher propaganda from fact. Knowledge is power and the educational system needs to catch up to the information superhighway age that we now live in.

Great thread everyone!
 

I think taking up bad habits may be a tad more complicated that either intentionally self-destructive behavior or mental deficiency. Certainly smoking in teenagers is more of a cool-ness thing coupled with the normal adolecent sense of immortality - death happens to other people not to me!

I do find myself so surprised that smoking continues in the younger generation given all that is known about the health risks. But let's face it, those risks are don't happen over night. In most cases it is after years of smoking, which is really far away to a teenager that thinks that 30 is one foot in the grave.

IMO Food is much the same way. Even when people are aware of the negative consequences, they will still indulge in poor eating habits. Although I definitely agree that nutrition needs to be taught more consistently through out the education system. (Can we PLEASE bring back good old fashioned Home Ec. OK call it something better, and require both boys and girls to take it, but we desparately need those skills to be instilled in youngsters.) Sometimes I wish I could just blow up all the fast food joints and be done with them. Out of sight, out of mind!

Personnaly I love the calorie content posting that is being required by law here in CA. But I do wonder how many people really change their orders because of it. I am sure lack of understanding plays a big part, like almeeker points out, but I also think lots of folks are just whistling past the grave yard - literally!

It doesn't help that unhealthy foods are often highly subsidized, and are "cheaper" for the consumer to buy. That seems totally backwards to me. Think about all the long-term costs we have (in the form of health problems) because of these foods. It would be like subsidizing cigarettes/tobacco.

Now I wouldn't go so far as to say we should tax unhealthy foods, but we shouldn't heavily subsidize them either, and SHOULD subsidize the healthy ones.

*steps off of soap box :p


P.S. Obviously you have to take personal responsibility for your weight, but that doesn't mean there aren't other factors influencing us.

There's a huge social element as well. For example most of my relatives/family are overweight, and almost seem proud about eating unhealthy. That can be difficult to overcome. There's a reason overweight parents have overweight kids MUCH more than normal weight parents.

I was quite perturbed with the school version of nutritiion classes when my daughter was in elementary school.

She began to refuse a lot of the food that I was serving because it had too much fat, or salt or even sugar.

It was because they were teaching about these foods in general. They did not take into account that my kids were being fed organically raised animal products, as well as home baked breads and treats that had reduced fat and sugar. I served all home canned or frozen fruits and vegetables with the minimum of salt or sugar added.

We have encountered similar difficulties with my granddaughter. She got in trouble at school for bringing homemade muffins and taco chips to school. Considering that she is sensitive and/or allergic to eggs, dairy, gluten, a number of fruits and some vegetables and grains, we had to make all her food from scratch, other than corn tortillas without dip or coatings.
In the end she had allergic reactions to the candy that teachers gave out as "rewards." Go figure!

I hate to talk about the education system b/c I don't want this thread to stray away from the original them, but... I know that the local schools here have a field trip to the local prison, which I think is good to try to scare them straight at an early age. I also think they should have a field trip to the oncology ward, the HIV unit amongst other things. I think Health should be a required class and taught by a teacher that has a clue.

The idea is that when it comes to nutrition, it is best that teachers become aware of specific needs before terrifying a child out of either previously healthy eating or the only diet they can follow.

I am all for taking pop and chocolate bars out of school cafeterias but it really is up to the parents in the end.

I agree totally.

one food is the enemy and another is not???
 

Rainbow,
You really struck a chord with me in your post. In our quest for quick fixes we seem to fixate on a single food or food group as "bad".

"Salt is bad", well actually it is an essential nutrient - you will die without it.
"Fat is bad" again, our bodies need to eat some fats because we cannot make all the fatty acids we need, so you gotta have some. "Rabbit fever" is old time disease people who relied on hunted game used to get because it was often so lean, they were not getting enough fat.
Now "Sugar is bad". Nope, wrong again. In and of itself it plays a very useful role in quickly getting energy into the blood stream while other foods are being slowly digested.

And when that doesn't work we focus on a specific type of fat (satuated... bad,bad,bad) or sugar (high fructose corn syrup... bad,bad,bad)

It is really all about the amounts, proportions, and balance isn't it?

Even water can be toxic if you drink too much of it!

Pam

Yes! Yes! Yes!

To paraphrase "there's no such thing as a "bad" food"! :D (Well, perhaps the oft vilified man-made "trans fat", "MSG" and so forth).

I truly think that a good daily mix of carbs, fat and protein from (as much as possible) unprocessed sources is the answer to long term weight management and good health.

Regards,
Michael

My second daughter is allergic to metals, including those found naturally in water. For her, 8 glasses a day is bad, but she can have some filtered water.
Hand washing and showers are really hard on her skin though.

I don't believe that when it was said that they were wanting the "good old days" back that it meant that we needed to go back in time before the medical, technological, and scientific advances were made. I think they were talking about going to a place like we had in the past that people took responsibility for their own actions. A time when we actually cooked and baked, not opened, thawed and (re)heated. I want to move forward, I want to bring more balance into my life, but I want to have the accountability that my parents and grandparents showed. I want to have the fresh foods, the gardens, the whole foods that they ate. I have been working hard at getting toward that place. The place where I have the good from the "good old days" and the advancements from the present days, and where I am looking forward to the future.

Fast Food Nutrition Guide