Harvard Magazine published a great article describing the growing problem of obesity in the U.S.
It breaks down the fundamental conflict between lasseiz-faire capitalism and the human body. In a nutshell, it says that the food industry depends on ever-growing consumption by consumers and must do everything it can to grow consumption rates. To that end it has done well.
Today, Americans eat 200 calories more food energy per day than they did 10 years ago; that alone would add 20 pounds annually to one's bulk.. Television content producers must also constantly encourage more viewing, thus aggravating the problem of sluggish, sedentary lifestyle practiced my a growing majority in the U.S.
Sort of ironically, I found the article in del.icio.us/tag/food, along with a great recipe for roasted curried cauliflower, tiramisu, and much much more. The tiramisu recipe comes from Cooking for Engineers, the most amazing cooking blog I'm stumbled upon yet. It has replaced the apparently abandoned Red Kitchen on my linkbar. Regretfully, this means that I'm going to be proceeding in the direction of increased caloric intake. Fortunately, I've been able to ride by bike nearly every day, so I'm not feeling very sedentary. On the contrary, I'm actually feeling like I might throw on some spandex shorts and sign up for the insanity they call Cycle Oregon. Maybe I should just become Amish and get some real exercise:
David R. Bassett, a professor of exercise science at the University of Tennessee, gave pedometers to 98 of these Amish adults and found that the men averaged 18,000 steps per day, the women 14,000—about nine miles and seven miles, respectively. The Amish men averaged 10 hours a week of vigorous activities like shoveling or tossing bales of hay (women, 3.5 hours) and 43 hours of moderate exertion like gardening or doing laundry (women, 39 hours)."The Amish are not freaks," says professor of anthropology Daniel Lieberman, a skeletal biologist. "They are just anachronisms. Human beings are adapted for endurance exercise. We evolved to be long-distance runners—running a marathon is not a freak activity. We can outrun just about any other creature."
Harvard Magazine elaborates on the link between diet/exercise and health in "The Deadliest Sin":
In 2003, the CDC declared obesity the most important public-health issue in the United States. Obesity increases the risk for type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and some cancers. Two-thirds of Americans are now overweight or obese. In Michigan, half the men are overweight — 34 pounds on average — and the problem has been steadily growing for more than 25 years. Children and teenagers are contracting "adult-onset" diabetes at a rapidly increasing pace. As Dr. Kenneth Cooper, M.P.H. '62, one of the country's foremost experts on physical activity (he coined the word aerobics) puts it, "In Texas, we may have the first generation in which the parents will outlive their kids," as obese children who develop diabetes before 14 years of age can expect their lifespan to be reduced by 17 to 29 years.
Ok, that's enough typing. I'm going for a walk now. Posted by Barry at October 15, 2004 03:33 PM | Trackback