If people would just ignore the low-fat fad diets...!

Seriously. If you want to lose weight, cut back on refined sugar and processed foods. Avoid MSG and aspartame like the plague, as they can cause weight gain, not to mention the neurological side effects (aspartame can cause ADD symptoms!). Avoid trans-fats. If the word "hydrogenated" appears in the ingredients, don't buy it. Don't trust the "0 Grams Trans-Fat." Actually read the ingredient list!

A lot of this stuff can be avoided if you don't buy pre-packaged foods. I've actually been at my stove more, since it's safer!

The USDA's food pyramid is wrong. Veggies should be on the bottom, fruit eaten but in limited quanities, etc...Actually, if you invert the food pyramid and twik it a little, you'll not only lose weight, your cholesterol, glucose, and blood pressure will go down. I am living proof. I treadmill every morning (Sundays off), and I think of food as fuel, and cheat periodically.

Americans have been taught wrong. The USDA's pyramid isn't healthy. Grains should be used on a limited basis. Its the veggies, with protein that you should build your diet around.

I'm not interested in the "food police" (i.e. government) telling me what to eat. I followed their advice and was a Pre-Diabetic from grains. I followed a sensible doctor's advice and reversed it.

Food pyramid? Ha!

It was orginally designed by bored lawyers on Capitol Hill--not nutritionists or doctors--with nothing better to do. Too bad it caught on: now almost all of the nutritionists and doctors believe in it.

Thank you for the information, Meredith.

I wasn't too surprised to find out the American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association have an allegiance to the food manufacturers that donate generously. 41 million people in the United States are Pre-Diabetics, and many are unaware they are. I am grateful I found out in time to correct my government inspired eating habits.

The downside of eating right is like Alexandra said, is the food preparation. Salads take a lot of prep, we eat home, we take our lunch to work, and we pass at sodas, drinking water. We're so much healthier. But again, the government should not be the "food police". Its bad enough they've become the "parent patrol".

We historians are generally behind rather than in front of the curve. However, some years back I wrote an op/ed piece for Arkansas Times, that distinguished weekly newspaper emanating out of Little Rock, Arkansas, in which I proposed an obesity tax on individuals -- the more you weigh, the more you pay. Historically, financial incentives work best, and also along historical lines ("the power to tax is the power to destroy"), I proposed a surcharge on meals eaten at buffets. Curiously, there was no reader response to these visionary proposals. Prior to about 1950 our society relied on hard work and limited money to regulate food intake. The removal of these restrictons started a process that can be reversed only by taking strong corrective measures that hit the pocketbook.

Michael, with all do respect, are you out of your mind? Another vehicle to tax us, you've got to be kidding. Maybe higher medical premiums, maybe, but a tax?

We ate at buffets that had decent salad bars for the variety of vegetables,while we were losing weight. In fact, I now weigh 92 lbs, and my husband has lost 73 lbs., and is the healthiest he's ever been, and the thinest. Not all buffet eaters are there for volume.

I totally agree with you that financial incentives would probably work (although food addicts are an interesting self defeating bunch), but holy moly. I think medical premiums should reflect self responsibility. I know the risk is spread, but sometimes I resent the obese when I write my $600/mo medical insurance premium. We can agree to disagree.

Dale,

Good column. Problem is that there's no source of serious, objective information about health and nutrition. The modern American dietary guidelines consists mostly of "choice your poison." Mostly it's the benefit of industrial model for food production.

Just look at the lies behind the animaal fat scares and the (joke's on us) soy as a health food. Soy slows down tyhroid gland produciton; that's why cattlemen feed steers so much soy. None fat dairy products make cattle fat wehere as regular dairy products do not. Google "The Weston A. Price Foundation" and/or read "The Whole Soy Story" by Kaalya T. Daniel.

Keep up the good work.

I am so sick of people who think that things like this are any of their business. Most of the folks who visit this site would probably get upset if someone tried to prevent a woman from having an abortion because it's not okay to tell someone else what to do with their body. But, when it comes to weight, everything changes. Suddenly everyone thinks they can force their point of view on others.

Y'know what I think? Mind your own damned business! And tell the politicians to do likewise.

Every farmer (or master) knows the value of establishing and maintaining a healthy and docile herd – whether four-footed critters or two-footed workers. It involves selective breeding (thus avoiding undesirable genetic tendencies), culling (removing from the herd and destroying the those who are weak, ill or fail to meet a set minimum standard), and restricted activities (those that would cause possible injury, reduce productivity, or increase the chance of contracting an expensive illness).

Healthy Herd Standard Weight Maintenance is the type of issue that Corporate World will happily support because they will anticipate reduced labor costs and greater productivity per worker. It is the type of issue politicians will support because it increases their power to control the lives of others for the benefit and vote of those who are always desirous of using the point of a government bayonet to force on their neighbors a lifestyle pleasing to them or force on their neighbor a cessation of an activity or condition that they find offensive. It is the type of issue that will appeal to those zealots of the fascistic segment of the left who seek to blame those who smoke, or are overweight, or do not do as much exercise as the zealots demand, or fail to eat seaweed and sprouts morning, noon, and night for the constantly increasing costs and failures of social programs that they supported and new ones that they advocate.

Unfortunately, the only people that will not be overly enthusiastic about the issue will be those who are going to be ostracized, demonized, hounded, and targeted as being the enemy of and an obstacle to the perfect society – and of course, those who think the government and one’s neighbors should leave them to the quite enjoyment of their private lives.

I would continue but I just finished my third double cheeseburger so I’m going to get in my truck, drive across the street and pickup a pack of smokes.:-)
Yours,
Issodhos

Taxing people based on their size is such a BAD IDEA! First of all, poorer people are already at a disadvantage, without making it worse. Cheaper food (such as mac and cheese) is frequently much more carb and fat intensive than the healthier but much more expensive fresh veggies and fruits.

Plus truly healty cooking requires more time and effort than that quick fast-food burger. And the poorer citizen struggling by working TWO meanial jobs just to survive can ill affort the time necessary to prepare three such meals a day, every day of the week.

And that's leaving out the unfortunate people who (like me) have a GENETIC predisposition to overweight/obesity. Sure you can prescribe thyroid pills, but that does NOT WORK for everyone, there are different genetic factors involved some of which there is NO ADEQUATE treatment for....

Sheesh, the last time I ran across a thread like this is was on a nutcase neocon's blog who suggested concentration-camps for the obese as a diet aid.....

Concentration camps seem a bit too extreme. But when you think about it, all of those expensive weight-loss spas are really the same as boot camp: They make you exercise a lot more than you would at home. They keep you busy all day, so you have no time or opportunities to snack. And most important, they control what you eat.

I think the volunteer armed forces of our near future will have to deal with this a lot. Many of their new recruits will need a few months of intensive weight loss program before they can start their real physical training. If it made economic sense, then the government could open the weight loss program to interested citizens. It might be worth it, in terms of lower health care and productivity loss costs.

As usual, another coverup of the two-track alien Reptilioid-Republican plot to manage humanity. Track one: exacerbate global warming, to transform Earth into a climate suitable for the Reptilioid aliens. Track two: pump people full of hormones and McFood until they're plump and juicy, ready for harvest. The most obese will be the first eaten. Stay skinny and survive, eh? At least until the Terraforming is complete.

Being thin for health reasons is totally overrated. My whole family is fat and there's no heart disease, strokes, diabetes or any other so-called obesity related diseases. Everyone lives to a ripe old age, dying in bed while asleep unless smoking cigarettes kills them with lung cancer. My cholesterol is 169 with high "good" chloesterol. Blood pressure and Blood sugar are excellent and no back or knee problems. My lifestyle is sedentary and I smoke a lot of pot. At 45 I have the blood chemistry of a physically fit vegan. Genetics.

The right to dictate such personal issues or merely to discuss that possibility is repugnant. I am sad to see the comments skirt the central issue of freedom and liberty and their accompanying responsibility. Allowing your governance the authority to dictate your food intake would be a bit hard to swallow for this American.

I love your site!

I've read all the posts, and find that we are left with ... nothing. No one wants to be told what to do, especially about something as personal as weight. Yet, we have to do something. What? I mean, seriously. What's the solution (in 25 words or less and a Wheaties boxtop) to our country's 'weight gain'? And, please make it 'politically feasible,' whatever that means.

This is what we get for putting all our problems over to Congress. The legislative solution isn't always the best one. I'm a libertarian for a reason: I believe in the soveignty of the individual. So, we should support downsizing DC instead of more bloat.

Write your congressperson and tell him/her not to sponsor this lousy legislation!

my dearAmerican friends,

There is an obesity virus. I have the seientific article on this. It was in Science News, etc a couple of years ago.

I am concerned that like the HIV virus, it was invented and put into our society several years ago.

My web site is down due to the 13 violent physical assaults on me since I gave my first poster presentatin in Boulder in 1989 and because I am 12 generations American. The Reds: Ausare and Coats are the treasonists.

Margaret Pullen
Genetic Physicist

typo corrections
"presentation"
"square"

to prior email

typo correction
"scientific"

to prior email