Absolutely ridiculous. Another sidestep away from any personal responsibility what so ever. There's a mile wide gap between inevitability and lack of responsibility.

We are our own keeper.

but at the same time..

at least here in the US, the government could help alot by just making a few changes as to what foods they chose to subsidize...
fresh friuts and vegatables, ya know those healthy foods...the farmers don't get subsidies for growing those, and the prices are really getting rediculous and the quality is going down fast.
they do subsidize the beef, the corn, the pork.....they seem to subsidize the things that are now unhealthy for us...

they subsidize corn and well, this had made corn very cheap. cheap enough that the manufacturers have been using corn syrup to sweeten everything.....I mean, it's in everything. the problem comes in when the body tries to digest the stuff, can't, and ends up storing it in fat tissue, thus people get fat.

there seems to be a tendancy to preach personal responsibility to death. we should be financially responsible, we should be responsible healthwise...

but, well, that's where the preaching ends, with the individual. meanwhile, over half of our apple juice is being shipped into the country in concentrate form from places like india and CHINA. My husband's been a trucker on and off for years. he's carried fruit concentrate to one of the big juice manufacturers right into the heart of one of NY's biggest areas for apple growing...
the reason he was told was that the company would lose the gov't handout if a certain percentage of their juice wasn't made from imported ingredients.
so, the company is being paid by our government for importing juice concentrate from countries that don't adhere to any environmental rules...who knows maybe the soil the apples are being grown in is contaminated with all those things that we have decided pose a danger to us.

but, of course, it all comes back to "personal responsibility"...

the companies would prefer to take profit over our health any day of the week.
the government would prefer to take their campaign contributions over the health of the people any day of the week...
and then they sit and tell us....we're responsible??

obesity is self inflicted and to lay the blame elsewhere is just denial and a bit of an insult to those of us who aren't gluttonous. the media or whoever shouldnt be giving these people an excuse it should be saying "right its all your fault so get off your backside and give me 50 star jumps"

Just like alcoholics passing the blame calling it a disease. They are passing the blame here too.

I had to give up football and put on a lot of weight after, guess what? I adjusted my diet and lost 15lbs and have another 15lbs to go.

I didnt blame anyone but myself for this and took the responsibility to rectify it.

The only people who arent responsible are kids when their parents make them overweight even then its the parents fault, not the state.

I would like to remind people that all these chemicals and pesticides and msg’s, and hormones they put into our foods do help a lot for people being overweight. I personally believe its what the government puts into our daily foods as well as our drinks which causes a lot of people to be overweight. They have proven with mice that they can make them eat and eat and eat and the mice don’t gain weight. They have also made them eat normal and they gained and gained. So they are now doing the same with our foods. The government loves to use people as it’s own guinea pigs. I personally believe when you see these people who are 500 plus pounds then they had a type of allergic reaction to something they put into our foods. So I blame the government.

Originally posted by DeadFlagBlues
[It's INCREDIBLY more expensive to buy quality ingredients for your meals than it is to buy into fast food.

I've actually added up eating fast food vs. buying groceries and believe it or not it is slightly cheaper to buy your own food than to eat a "value" meal at one of these joints. One of the main roadblocks that people run into is that it's inconvenient to fix your own food. It takes time to prepare food and people just don't want to spend the time or the effort to do it. It should be no suprise that people to lazy to fix their own food are too lazy to count calories and exercise. It's a lifestyle issue and their weight is only a symptom.

I will agree with you that healthy food is more expensive, but it is still cheaper than buying into the fast-food lifestyle. That doesn't even take into consideration the health costs. Obesity causes a lot of health problems. What does diabeties treatment cost? My dad had this issue and was spending over $450 a month in medicine to counter his weight related health problems. That's enough money to buy some good food.

The reality of it is, there were no fat people in WWII concentration camps. You're fat because you consume more calories than you use. Weigh yourself weekly and adjust your diet accordingly.

[edit on 17-10-2007 by dbates]

I take offence to some of these posts. I was in high school and I was skinny, still I weight 200lbs. today i'm 245lbs and it's not coming down. it has to do with my genes, my dad was a diabetic and he was overweight too. I can't help this..I believe that it has to do with the genetics and not what you eat. So this research is true.

if the government wants us to loose the weight, they should supply the food to us in packages and follow thru.