Healthism!!11

[Fordel]

How would that even work? Do gummy bears survive heat that well?

[Samwise]

I'd imagine they'd melt into amorphous blobs sort of like chocolate chips in a cookie.

I can not imagine why anyone would find that flavor/texture combination appealing.

[Evildrider]

I'm assuming they are trying to make a similar product to "The Beast Mode" sausage, which has skittles instead of gummy bears.  That one was made for the Seattle Seahawks.

[Maven]

Yee-haw, that them there is a clever idear, Jeb!

[Venkman]

It's not necessarily about regulation is it is education. The big move to put calories on everything as a standard is my first step. Everything.

I love that New York started doing this (I believe because NYC started doing it under Bloomberg?). I don't know if it's impacted the sales on the most profitable of the super size options. But putting the information out there lets those that care make better decisions while not preventing those that don't care from having what they want. I haven't had a frappucino nor smoothie since 

America has a huge issue with shirking individual responsibility and blaming everyone and everything else for their problem. Compounding the issue is that people get away with it which creates a feedback loop to bolster the behavior.

People like that are everywhere, every country, every town. There's a higher percentage of them here because we as a society don't give enough of a shit about others in that society. We'll leave it to the individual to do it right or wrong because that makes us feel better.

But that runs afoul of any shared social service we all share the bill for.

It's not about rationalization. That's shit that only come up when people are asked directly. Most of the time, people aren't actively trying to eat the wrong thing or amount. Instead they just pick up what they want and then don't stop eating until it's all gone. They don't know they're gaining the weight because they ain't weighing themselves. About the only time they begin to wonder what's up is when there's a wardrobe change, or diabetes if they wait even longer.

THAT is how many Americans operate our lives, and why it's so easy to market to us. Gut decisions, hope it's right, get annoyed when they're called on it.

The truth is very simple, but it's so vague as to be useless: less calories, less fat grams, after you've lost 20%, you'll have enough energy to start considering light walking. It all sucks because it could mean years (or in my case: decades) of rethinking everything. And worse, that's not the behavior change. Losing weight is relatively straightforward. Keeping it off is the problem, and the one that requires the mental work.

After some time at a target weight, you then can start worrying about BMI and vegetables and all that. And you probably will, because if you've been significantly overweight like I have been, once you lose it, you'll find any way you can to keep from falling back.

Even if it means eating a banana instead of a pancake. Fucking bananas.

[lamaros]

Bananas are delicious.

I wasn't allowed to eat processed sugars (and a bunch of other stuff) as a kid. A lot of the crappy food other love I just don't have any desire to eat - because it tastes way too strong and rich for me.

I would think that anyone who hanged their diet significantly over time, and maintains it, would also find their taste changing? Tough maybe it a lot harder to hange childhood habits than adult ones.

[Morat20]

I say that, because I know people who are overweight that I really wish I could convince to do something about it. The worst being when it's kids. I can't tell my friend's 16 year old daughter, "Hey, your're way too fat. Do something about it." but I really wish I could - because I'm concerned for her. I recognize the effect that carrying around an extra 20 pounds has on my body - the idea of what an extra 100 pounds must be doing to someone scares the shit out of me.

Offhand, women have it particularly shitty. For starters, the media ideal of 'healthy' for a woman is unhealthy. (Did you hear about the Miss American contestant? -- I think it was Miss America -- she was called 'plus sized'. She was a fucking size 4).

Secondly, women's metabolisms can be an ass. The one I'm familiar with personally is PCOS, which is basically when the human body says "You're gonna be fat. Enjoy". It's a nasty little hormonal feedback cycle between estrogen, testosterone, and some insulin receptor. In addition to the fact that it basically makes your body prioritize fat stores about everything else, it also tends to make you sterile and give you a nice chance of cancer -- and it's pretty common. Women with it tend put on weight in an unusual way (stomach, but not butt or thighs).

Anyways, it's basically like a handicap to losing weight. I'd imagine it's pretty discouraging to learn you have to work four times as hard to lose weight as anyone else. (I honestly don't get the science -- something something mimic insulin resistance something androgens something trigger weight gain something), but apparently your body prioritizes fat over everything else. It'll pack on fat over muscle, and since it's a feedback loop, if you don't catch it really early it can get really bad.

Luckily, in the last decade or so, they've come up with a pair of common drugs that break both sides of the cycle. Just to give you an idea: The one girl I know that had it? Six months on the drugs and she lost almost 30% of her body weight without changing a bit of her diet or exercise (and neither drug is a stimulant -- it's birth control pills for the hormone side and glucaphage to deal with the weird insulin problems the hormone imbalance causes) and kept it off for five years. (She honestly should have stayed on BC pills and she'd have kept it off indefinitely.).

I'd imagine it's a nasty kick in the teeth to learn you're 30% heavier because your hormones are screwed. They never had much luck handling it with diet or exercise -- you had to literally starve the body while working it to the bone, something that's not very easy for most people to do.

Somewhere between 5% and 10% of women, right there.

I'm overweight because I eat too much and don't exercise. My body's not trying to sandbag me too (well, other than pushing 40).

[Ingmar]

America has a huge issue with shirking individual responsibility and blaming everyone and everything else for their problem. Compounding the issue is that people get away with it which creates a feedback loop to bolster the behavior.

I don't think that's right at all. Americans (not "America") have a huge issue with turning "individual responsibility" into a near-religious excuse to never help other people.

[Zetor]

A totally random (and probably not representative) anecdote:

I spent 3 months in the US at 14 (father got a scholarschip at a big-name clinic), and I ate at the JR high school cafeteria every day. The menu consisted of a whole lot of fries, a donut, a piece of fruit, 3 dl (I think?) of chocolate milk, and the main meal of choice: chicken sandwich / pizza / hot dog / hamburger [edit: I seem to remember an optional soft drink / soda too, but I just stuck with the chocolate milk and water]. Now, in those 3 months I picked up *10 kilograms* of weight and actually got stretch marks on my stomach. Then I dropped off this extra weight over the next few years -- of course it wasn't as easy as picking it up in the first place.

Of course this may have happened due to some sort of metabolism issue, too (hypolactasia runs in my family, but I was only tested positive for it at 16-ish); also, in retrospect, I could've just skipped the donut and left some of the fries on the plate. Thing is, my 14-year-old mind didn't have the foresight / self-control to do that!

[Count Nerfedalot]

America has a huge issue with shirking individual responsibility and blaming everyone and everything else for their problem. Compounding the issue is that people get away with it which creates a feedback loop to bolster the behavior.

I don't think that's right at all. Americans (not "America") have a huge issue with turning "individual responsibility" into a near-religious excuse to never help other people.

Both of these statements are true. Cognitive dissonance is our default mental state.

[Malakili]

Both of these statements are true. Cognitive dissonance is our default mental state.

Everyone else's problems are personal failings, my problems are the unfortunate result of circumstance despite my best efforts.

[Morat20]

Both of these statements are true. Cognitive dissonance is our default mental state.

Everyone else's problems are personal failings, my problems are the unfortunate result of circumstance despite my best efforts.

That's...very true, really. Although it's more "people I know's problems are the results of misfortune" and "random strangers are personal failings/evilness".

[NowhereMan]

A totally random (and probably not representative) anecdote:

I remember my mum reading one of those 'fad' diet books (I think it was called French women don't get fat) that was basically this story. French girl goes to the States for a year of university, puts on 15kg and gets back to France to find she's still overweight. Sees a doctor who looks at her diet and basically says 'you're eating a whole sweet pastry every morning, having full dessert with lunch and dinner and snacking on chocolate bars, of course you've put on weight.' At which point she has the realisation that she got into some seriously bad eating habits as a young 20 year old in just a year of living in the States. Of course the main gist of the book boiled down to 'have nice things but just once a week or only take a couple of bites' along with a half assed diet to follow. Good advice but not easy to work even if it did push the message that it shouldn't be a diet but was about changing your attitude to eating.

Personally I've found the only way to really keep myself anywhere near on track is counting calories, and now I'm still guesstimating them. But I also spent 6 months or so pretty religiously weighing everything I ate and eating home cooked stuff almost always so I've got a better idea of portion size, so I think the guesstimates are halfway accurate. I still drink too much and binge every now and again but at least I know roughly how much I've had and can factor it in. Getting comfortable leaving food because I'm not really hungry is still really fucking difficult though because I've learned I really, really like eating nice food 

[Numtini]

Now this is why we are fat.

I don't know. Just looking at that makes me not want to ever eat again.

[Surlyboi]

How would that even work? Do gummy bears survive heat that well?

Not really. They melt together into a massive multi-colored gelatinous mass. I took a five pound bag to burning man once and it turned into a brick because I forgot to throw it in a cooler.