The Weight of the Nation: Consequences

The Weight of the Nation: Consequences

2012, Health  -   96 Comments
7.49
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Ratings: 7.49/10 from 49 users.

The Weight of the Nation: ConsequencesThe first film in The Weight of the Nation series examines the scope of the obesity epidemic and explores the serious health consequences of being overweight or obese.

The obesity epidemic is a problem that's emerged over the last 30 years. It threatens our nation's social, economic and physical health. But, unlike a natural disaster, obesity is often preventable. Although overall obesity prevalence rates appear to be leveling off, there are still far too many Americans who are overweight or obese and who continue to develop health problems as a result. In order to end the epidemic, everyone must be part of the solution.

At the level of our DNA, we're programmed to eat as much as we can to survive and store the extra as fat for future energy use. In a world where calorie-dense, sugar-laden and fatty foods are available around every corner, that's a problem. The good news is that, even if the propensity to gain weight is written into our genes, we're not fated to a lifetime of fat.

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Juci
Juci
6 years ago

The advice I give to people is... if you can't pronounce and read it, don't consume it. It is most likely an experimental poison and you're not a guinea pig. ^_^ Stick to whole foods cooked and prepared at home, or as much of it as possible, and you'll be okay. Peace be to all.

Samantha J Yandell
Samantha J Yandell
6 years ago

They get comfort, they get fervor, they get a feeling of wellbeing, and they get fat!!! Presently I do think our nourishments cause disease and other medical problems, and we should settle that issue. In any case, I don't figure changing the menu will enable the corpulence to issue that much, these individuals will eat rice cakes by the case in the event that they need to, and afterward sit on their a55 until the point when that influences them to fat too.

Mindy
Mindy
7 years ago

I certainly hope this series gets better. I'm not surprised that the physicians in the Bogalusa portion of the program told the study clients to go "see your doctor' and "get some medications" as that has always and will always be the consensus for western trained physicians. What is missing in this part (which I hope will be in the following parts of the series) is what the kids are eating and how much education time is spent engaging kids in physical education verses studying for tests and loading kids with homework and how much use of technology is taken up in these kids lives which is all sedentary time. I'm curious to know if chemicals in food will be discussed (as well as chemicals in plastics which people eat out of and on) and how genetically modified foods and high carb/low fat diets are addressed in this series. My guess is very little. We'll see. So far, I am not impressed.

c.a.m
c.a.m
10 years ago

A little drastic, but I think a good start would be to straight-up ban sugary soft drinks from North America

Lars Himler
Lars Himler
10 years ago

Eat less and take a table spoon of cod liver oil (from North Atlantic cod) pr. day.

If you eat more than you "burn", you'll gain weight - simple as that.

Bobby2013
Bobby2013
11 years ago

The history of the North American continent will go like this.

Once it was a pristine landscape populated by the native population of people known as the american indians, who believed in mother earth, and lived in perfect balance with nature. Along came vast numbers of dregs from europe, whos culture immediately began to cultivate greed and violence.

As the years went on, this new american country U.S.A. became more and more greedy and more and more violent to the point that they have been at war at one time or another in all parts of the world and have become the largest consumer of the world's resources, at the expense of everyone else on the planet.

As the crisis got more and more out of control the people themselves began to consume more and more food until virtually all of the people were grossly obese. When the supplies of food and water worldwide began to diminish, the U.S.A. became violent to the point that the only recourse the rest of the world had, was to nuke the LARGE pile of obese people and end their consumption forever, finally freeing the rest of the world from it's sickly presence.

Bobby2013
Bobby2013
11 years ago

In a country where 'CONSUME' is the word of the day, every day, it comes as no surprise that a country like the U.S.A. has an obesity epidemic.

Jax Rousseau
Jax Rousseau
11 years ago

My older brother gave up soda pop for Lent (40 days) and lost 25lbs. Just by going off soda pop.

Remco Gerritsen
Remco Gerritsen
11 years ago

As long as people are making money from our disease. It will get worse.

Sorry for my messages/spam.

Remco Gerritsen
Remco Gerritsen
11 years ago

I do never got why the government should care about us dying. It saves them quite a lot of money right? So why should they care. They love to live from our hard work and do nothing more then ruin our country.

Remco Gerritsen
Remco Gerritsen
11 years ago

Seriously, around 5 minutes, gigantic food sizes. We barely get 1/10th of that in my country and we pay 10 times more. (The Netherlands). And still were almost being as fat as America. Very worrying.

Remco Gerritsen
Remco Gerritsen
11 years ago

One of the reasons were also so fat is because were are being made lazy.

We got cars/trucks/busses/trains. As transportation where you barely move.
We must work behind a desk to get some money. And barely move.
We got the tv/pc/mobile phone/game consoles and so on. And barely moves.

And it goes on and on. Nowadays, children are born with lazyness and overweight instead of getting there themselves.

Remco Gerritsen
Remco Gerritsen
11 years ago

The world will soon come to an end. And nothing will stop that. So stop talking about obesety. We will die, no matter what. So why not enjoy food/freedom while it still can:S

Remco Gerritsen
Remco Gerritsen
11 years ago

We all are fat because were getting bullied by everyone. And the only way to satisfy ourselves, to get the sadness out of uss, is to eat. Because that's the best distraction there is. It's cheap, it is neceserry and best of all, you can do it alone without anyone looking at you. As long as there are those people who talk and talk about us, the fat people, we only will get fatter, because they are seriously damaging our self esteem. And when we feel bad we eat.

Dean Edgington
Dean Edgington
11 years ago

The future is bleak and nothing will change until is starts to affect the wealthy through regulation, tax expenditure on obesity etc. Very sad.

Don't allow them do it to you people, you don't need their junk. As more and more folk struggle to even tie their own shoelaces, the rich are buying new boats and houses and cars from the profits of addictive, unhealthy food. If not for your own sake, boycott them out of disgust and contempt for their anti-social business practices.

Anna Warren
Anna Warren
11 years ago

I think that this has a lot to do with high fructose corn syrup, and the fact that sugar is in everything now, including lunch meat. We also eat way to much bread and cereals rather than fruits and veggies. High fructose corn syrup was introduced in our diet in the 1960's but wasn't widely used yet. In the 80's the food industries started putting in most drinks and packaged foods.

aurinko
aurinko
11 years ago

...and Im sorry if I offented somebody whos obese, I know its addiction. Those companies make that food and drinks like u get hooked on them. Thats why u need to take it very seriosly. And they use for example aspartam for sweetene diet drinks wich can be poisonius for u!

But Im looking ur country outside and I think theres no greater enemy to Americans than this obesity. No terrorists or wars or anything is more deadly and destroying than this.

aurinko
aurinko
11 years ago

This is so sad... In the 80´s and maybe 90´s still people from other countries were looking up to Americans and their culture. Now in Europe people are laughing to Americans, lot of it what George W. Bush did by politics and what McDonalds, Coca Cola and the fast food culture has done to the people. It has turned them like whales walking on the earth (sorry, but its true, they look like whales).

I know that in America, you have the very strong capitalism and the state shouldnt have any reculations for the corporations. It seems to me that the big corporations rule there and people have no saying in that. McDonalds, Coca Cola, KFC, Pepsi, Burger King... they are the same scum. They dont care peoples health, they want u hooked and they want ur money.

Loosing weight and staying healthy, theres very simple way (and the only one) eating good and healthy food and beeing active, doing some sports. Diets are just stupid, u have to live ur all life healthy. If u stop going those McDonalds and buying coke etc, and start do ur own cooking u lose weight for sure. I think those companies are big part of the problem and wouldnt care if they would go out of business!

Janis Paegle
Janis Paegle
11 years ago

everyone is to blame for people being fat, everyone except them being bad with theyr choice , I have mcdonalds all ower my town and i have eaten there twice in my life , and im doing some sport activity 2-3 times a week = problem solved
turn tv off turn brain on!!!!
noone will fix your life if you will just stand by waiting for miracle

NaFaMod
NaFaMod
11 years ago

Word Aba, im noticing amazing results after removing starch, grain, sugar and milk. Its all a part of the gaps diet, which is based on other proven diets that got forgotten. About 2 months ago I was depressed and lethargic and now im feeling more alive then I have in a long time. People assume saturated fats are the culprit for people getting obese but its quite the opposite. Gluten Lactose Starch and Sugar are bad!!! Although once my stomach is healed I can eat moderate amounts of Lactose and Starch, the other two can GTFO. Also its a shame people have forgotten the benefits of fermented vegetables.

Abamovich
Abamovich
11 years ago

Low Carb, High Fat (LCHF) is the new paradigm - pretty much turns everything we've been told for decades on it's head. Sugar blocks our ability to use body fat as fuel and it's in just about everything. We were never designed to consume starches, wheat, bread, pasta and refined sugar - high fructose corn syrup is in everything and you can practically chart the increase in obesity with the introduction of this poison into the food source. Sugar is the nicotine of our times, there is nothing 'natural' about it.

diredamsel
diredamsel
11 years ago

This is a result of a Fast Food Culture. I have never been to the US, but many who have been have told me that the food over there is just fundamentally different to other countries in the western world. Ingredients are different, manufacturing is different, availability is abundant, prices are cheap. Outlets on every corner it seems. The US is the mother of fast food and when cheap, fast and tasty is so deeply ingrained in society rather than the importance of nutrition, you have a whole different ball game and attitude when it comes to food itself. Lack of education, lack of exercise and poverty are also big factors. Even though I am a vegan, I believe that if I lived over there, I would probably weigh a bit more than I do too, merely due to the availability of food, all kinds of it.

NaFaMod
NaFaMod
11 years ago

Heres the truth. Processing food ruins it. They remove nutrients and denature food, making it unrecognizable and unusable by our bodies. This is why synthetic vitamin supplements don't work. Instead the food we eat ends up providing an overgrowth of bad bacteria in our system which eventually kills all the good bacteria and then wreaks havoc on our entire bodies. It doesn't just make you fat, it gives you problems like allergies, excma, depression, Autism, Schizophrenia etc.

Its very hard to break this cycle and repair your system, I cant afford GE free vegies, or organic free range meat, I have to eat the stuff laced with pesticides and anti biotics (which do more damage to my gut). If you want more answers Google "GAPS diet", im about to start it and its a big undertaking to heal my gut and hopefully salvage something of my life. But if you just keep believing what your told from the mainstream you or maybe your kids will pay the price.

bubascary
bubascary
11 years ago

it has taken me a few days to build up the courage to write this as I know I will get a lot of haters!

It makes me sad to see the lack of compassion out there. No-one wants that sort of life, to be isolated, to be judged. It is unfortunate the obese people carry their pain, addiction, habits (call it what ever you would like) on the outside on public view. Maybe it would be a different story if we could all see your lungs, livers, kidneys and brain cells, then you wouldn't be able to kid yourselves that you only drink and smoke "sometimes" "no really it isn't a problem for me" as we could all see the truth behind your empty words.

Now I hear you yelling at me what would I do.....

How about we invest some money into mental health! Instead of treating the symptom, how about we treat the cause. All the good and bad diets out there are useless without a healthy mind.

KsDevil
KsDevil
11 years ago

In other words, don't expect the government or the business world to help solve the obesity problem. They are both too busy feeding from the fatty trough of the financial system that creates that environment.
Not only do people have to stop being debt slaves but they have to stop being food slaves for the marketers.
A good place to start is to turn off your network Tv and turn on internet TV. Fewer food ads. It's amazing how much that simple change can make.
But in the end, this documentary was not much more than hand wringing and complaining. There was no true indepth study into the real reasons obesity has sky rocketed. Probably because HBO is a corporate entity that relies on the very same people who market an unhealthy life style image.

harry nutzack
harry nutzack
11 years ago

i eat like a garbage can. very little in the way of veggies, tons of meat (if beef, as rare as i can convince folks to cook it), enough sugar to put a diabetic in the next block into a sympathetic coma, carbs of any and all varieties in large quantities. i was a fat kid until about 11, then bang! rail thin to this day (6 ft, 160ish). my exwife used to have to bake pecan pie in pairs, one for me, one for everybody else (im a FIEND for pecan pie). i drink soda in moderation these days, though if in the mood ill still nurse my way through a 2 liter solo, i used to go through dairy (milk, ice cream, yogurt, etc) like a plague of locusts until a few months ago (just kind of lost the taste for it lately). chocolate and hard candies are in my case a "basic food group", as is salt. my family was agog when i gave blood around a decade ago and the collectors reported my cholesterol at mid-ideal levels (my mother and sister have battled to keep theirs lower than "OMG, you must be dead" levels for a couple of decades). i lived on fast food for the most part for a few years. basically, i consume all that is bad, unhealthy, or potentially fatal in abundance, yet im healthy as can be. i smoke tobacco like a factory chimney in the 19th century, in high school i had the nickname "locomotive breath" hung on me because i was NEVER seen without a cigarette hanging from my gob (well over 3 decades ago). i dont drink much alky, though if the mood strikes i enjoy my lager. i drink coffee by the gallon, but never really was a fan of tea. i honestly think each individual is a separate case, there is no universal right or wrong diet. some folks are hard wired to get fat no matter what, others exactly the opposite,and some sit midpoint twixt the 2 extremes. eat what you enjoy, as you see fit, because i guarantee you that one day you will die anyway, no matter what you choose to munch on

John Marus
John Marus
11 years ago

Once again, personal responsibility would go a long way to solving this crisis. Well done doc, this fat crisis will cost more and kill more lives than the entire history of tobacco.

And JohnK, your comment "...think marijuana should be medical right?" makes me think you're the one who needs educated; marijuana should be legal and used in medicine - do some research before making so many generalized statements - there are docs dealing with the proven benefits of marijuana here on TDF. Also, you should look into the many studies showing the health benefits of alcohol when consumed minimally. Maybe keep an eye on that ego of yours, not everyone believes your lifestyle is the answer to healthy living. Something tells me your **** smells just like everyone else...

dmxi
dmxi
11 years ago

well,you're right with the water immitate!more & more bottled water
(here in germany) has less minerals than tap-water!but at least the tap-water has high quallity here,so no loss yet!?!very frightening!

ShadowMan
ShadowMan
11 years ago

.....And , and, it's going to really explode/get worse now, (Well, the last 10 to 15 years we've used computers, but not as much time use as say, in the last 6 or 7 years) how many hours do you spend sitting in front of your computer every day?! We have the highly addictive computer now, fat people won't be doing any exercise to shed weight, because they spend just as much time in front of computers as normal body weight people. Now and in the future, we're really in big trouble!

ShadowMan
ShadowMan
11 years ago

....I think if there were a war between the USA and some Asian country for example, the US casualties would much higher, because they would be an easier target to shoot.

Dean Edgington
Dean Edgington
11 years ago

A huge and growing amount of money has been made by the rich through the food industry, increasingly at the expense of the consumer. In the years to come, will the rich be willing to help out with societies rising medical bills through increasing taxation? Of course not, they want it both ways. They'll just say "we don't force feed you, we only make it near impossible to resist this junk. As we get rich, you get sick but you're on your own fatty (or nicotine addict or alcoholic). By the way, can I interest you in any of our health plans? It's against the law not to have insurance so cough up some dollar. I'm afraid there's an extra premium for those folks that "enjoy" our wide range of “delicious” non-foods with a little too much enthusiasm (or should I say, compulsion?)".

The political right have always manipulated the poor with the guilt trip of being "responsible" for ones actions and "owning" ones behaviour. OK, I have no problem with these basic ideas, but what about the responsibility of these rich investors and corporations that get "fat" off getting fat? What about directing that question where it matters most? What about their role in this epidemic? Ever noticed there's a huge and damaging hypocrisy in this and other areas of life? It should but doesn't work both ways because they are in charge of the value system and it's dissemination as well as the purse and puppet strings. In fact, it's hard to tell puppet from master these days.

When I stopped smoking 4 years ago it was for more than just health and financial reasons; it was a political gesture against the evil f@king tobacco companies. I'm now going to apply the same standard to the food and drink industries and boycott their “substances”. I'd rather not consume the junk that will only make me need more of their junk in the form of “remedies” further down the line. I aint falling for it, I'm moving "off grid" as much as I can.

John Krisfalusci
John Krisfalusci
11 years ago

im not fat. im 5'6 and 135 and happy ^_^. no meat, no sugar, no caffeine, no alcohol, no cigarettes, not even any tylenol and im healthy as ever. I am a vegetarian and always cook my own fresh food!

Vlatko
Vlatko
11 years ago

We're hardwired to eat a lot and store fat. Every mammal is working that way. We lived with "food scarcity" over the last 200,000 years. The life was basically fight for food (as it is with all the animals). So whenever we got a chance to eat meat or honey, we ATE A LOT, and store for later, since in the next 2 weeks we've might not get food at all. So how the ancient man didn't get fat? He was eating high calorie food once a week and he was exercising a lot (miles and miles daily running).

The first component is that the modern man is genetically predisposed to eat a lot and store it for later, because of the above. With the invention of agriculture and animal domestication, food scarcity "disappeared". Our genes are still the same (more less) , but we have a lot of food on the table.

The second component is the individual metabolism. Not everyone is the same with gaining an losing weight.

The third component is the exercise. Our body is built for running (experimentally proven), but today we rarely use it that way.

So if you're psychologically ready to fight your genes, your metabolism and occasionally exercise, you might not get fat. For some this is very easy, it seems natural, for some it is very difficult.

GodmanEnki
GodmanEnki
11 years ago

Instead of the PHONY and UNTRUE "carbon tax" should have in place, an HONEST TAX, and that-would-be..........a tax on FAT. FATTNESS, OBESITY. If you cannot STOP "bending your elbow," thereby raising the cost of EVERYTHING, YOU, my FAT FRIEND, should have to PAY FOR IT! In the old days, WOMEN would say, "Oh, I have a bad-thyroid." I am 62 years old. I eat whatever I want to eat or can afford to eat. And ANYTIME I want to eat it. I am STILL wearing the SAME-SIZE PANTS I wore in high school. BECAUSE I don't, as we use to call it, PIG-OUT. STOP OVEREATING, and there won't be any "osesity" anymore. All I hear from FAT PEOPLE is "excuses, excuses, excuses ABOUT WHY THEY'RE FAT. THEY ARE FAT, because THEY WON'T, (NOT CAN'T), STOP pigging-out! And STOP making EXCUSES and BLAMING someone else for your own WEAKNESSES!

GodmanEnki
GodmanEnki
11 years ago

Our REAL "problem" isn't obesity," it is the DISHONESTY of the "people-in-power." That means, THE COPORATIONS like McDonalds, Wendy's, the Congress, the Senate, the White House, the FDA, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, the ESTABLISH-MINT, etc, etc, etc......IF TPTB "cared" about "we the people," rather than "the botton-line," there'd be no "obesity" in this country, or any othercountry for that matter. People with BILLIONS of dollars, like Rocefeller, Bush, Clinton, Gates, Jobs, ROTHSCHILD, I can go on and on. The list is long and GREEDY. THAT IS "our problem." GREED. If I had a million dollars, I'd take AT LEAST HALF, and go feed some kids. Yet MILLIONAIRES would never do that. When you give a million TAX-FREE-Dollars, to some charity, it "sounds-like" a lot of money. HOWEVER, when you HAVE a BILLION dollars, it is CHUMP-CHANGE. And THAT is who's running the world, CHUMPS LIKE ROTHSCHILD, the QUEEN of ENGLAND, the Congress and Senate, the list would go on and on. GREED.......is our "problem."

Cyber Penguin
Cyber Penguin
11 years ago

By the year 2100 people will evolve into Walruses. >:D

like in the movie Wall-E o,o