[Leica] IMG: Florida Wildlife

[richard-lists at imagecraft.com (Richard)]

This is a tough issue for me. First of all, our family is reasonably skinny 
and fit, being amateur martial artists and all. My wife and I have never 
been fitter in our lifes and I am almost 45. However, we have several dear 
friends that have serious weight issue. It's like the white elephant in the 
room. They are very smart but obviously have some genetic issues besides 
eating habits. On top of that, as skinny my wife is, when she visits my 
family, she at 5'8" towers over most of them. When we went to HK, our 12 
years is taller and thicker than most women. Further more, HK women don't 
have hips. When we were travelling in HK, you can imagine the words about 
how *fat* they are I hear from my wife and daughters, who are decidedly 
more curvy than most HK women. Japanese women are shorter but they seem to 
have more curves.

The solution sounds simple enough: eat less meat and more veggies/fruits, 
and exercise more. Unfortunately, it is difficult when restaurants etc. 
serve meals that are sufficient for a 200+ lbs adult male, and that's 
before desserts. However, there are medical and genetic conditions that 
make this harder, plus as you age, your metabolism does slow down. I *have 
to* train myself to eat a little less. My weight has been stable for the 
past 6-7 years, but it is not easy. Heck, looking at India, where there are 
more poverty, even the older folks there started to get chunkier just 
because their metabolism slow down. When we visited TN, and saw restaurant 
signs about being careful of disposing diabetic needles, it sent chills up 
our spines. We eat out a lot, but for lunch, my wife usually has a soup, 
and I would have half order of whatever. The full size order is just too 
large. With Chinese food, we can order a few dishes and share among the 
four of us.

The portions in HK and Japan are much smaller then here, even though it's 
the same food. A good bowl of ramen in Japan comes with may be one thin 
slice of meat, whereas here it's two big slices. The public transportation 
system in HK and Japan promote a lot more walking, which makes a big 
difference, I think. There have been many reports that immigrants are 
bigger than their counterparts back home because they have access to the 
same food, just a lot more of it. What used to be a treat can be gotten 
everyday here.

No easy answer. I think with a national resolve, we can address some of the 
issues with obesity, but it's too complex to just say "eat less and 
exercise more." It more or less work for us, but it's not the answer for 
everyone.

At 05:35 PM 3/5/2007, Tina Manley wrote:

>All of that is true, Adam, but I was very depressed by the number of 
>people at Disney who were in these scooters because they can't walk and in 
>spite of that they were in line to buy and eat funnel cakes and donuts and 
>cotton candy.  I've seen many documentaries on obese people who manage 
>with great will power to lose weight and then gain it all back. There has 
>to be something in the American society today that is causing people to be 
>so obsessed with food.  There were many other nationalities at Disney 
>World.  I made it a point to seek them out.  None were as obese as the 
>North Americans.  The Japanese were skinny - all of them.  All of the 
>morbidly obese people in the motorized scooters were North 
>Americans.  Why?  I hesitated to post these photos because I was sure 
>somebody would respond the way you did, but I truly want to know what it 
>is in our society that causes this.  They have to know that they are 
>eating themselves to death.  It wasn't just these two. There were hundreds 
>of people at Disney just like this.  One of the most depressing sights was 
>a very obese woman in a motorized chair who had made room for her obese 
>young son to stand in front of her and ride rather than walk.  To me it's 
>very sad.  I'll admit I do not understand it.

// richard (This email is for mailing lists. To reach me directly, please 
use richard at imagecraft.com)