What has happened to the human body?

[Never1AShow]

People didn't used to have to avoid carbs religiously to not be big fat whales.  Back through about the 1980s people ate plenty of carbs as part of a balanced diet. 

Maybe it's just expectations of being lean or having abs that have changed, the aesthetic has changed to leaner and with more muscle?  I don't know, is it just that there is so much delicious food available now that people can't control themselves?

Or is there something in the water causing us to fatten up more efficiently ?

[Nails]

[El Diablo Blanco]

Cows eat grass and they're fat.

[Europe]

http://webm.land/w/yio3/

[Pray_4_War]

Calorie dense foods, devoid of nutrition + sedentary lifestyle  = Disgusting fatbodies

[Papper]

Society has made people sit on their ass way too much. This in combination with sugar in every meal has the effect of fattening the population. Cal in, cal out.

The problem IMO is mostly diet. But physical excercise cannot be excluded from the equation, there's no problem with having moderate carbs if you are an active person.

Nothing has really changed in the human body for ages. Therefore we need to be very moderate with how fast you are changing society and also your diet.

Paleo and moving a lot is your best bet for feeling like you are designed to.

[OB1]

Calorie dense foods, devoid of nutrition + sedentary lifestyle  = Disgusting fatbodies

Exactly.
Your body is composed of what you eat.
Crappy food = crappy body.

Crappy food and laziness is the main reason.

Good nutrition and enough sports...
Problem solved.

[SF1900]

Heres the cause

[Slik]

American children are averaging 7 hours a day sitting idle with some sort of media device such as TV, smart phones, tablets or iPads. That's up from three hours just a few short years ago.

Carbs are not bad. Blanket statement I know but I'm too tired. It's the overeating and high fat diet mixed with carbs that lead to high daily caloric intake.

Fast food, convenience food, sugary drinks.......

[Mitch]

Laziness. Because we are now in a society where one can make a "decent" living while reveling in laziness.  

[Radical Plato]

I ate as much as I could as a kid, mostly carbs, heaps of sugar and was as skinny as a rake.  I never sat still though, was always moving or riding my bike and still felt hungry most of the time. Movement is key, look at the Tour de France guys, eating up to 10000 calories a day and still lean.

[OB1]

I ate as much as I could as a kid, mostly carbs, heaps of sugar and was as skinny as a rake.  I never sat still though, was always moving or riding my bike and still felt hungry most of the time. Movement is key, look at the Tour de France guys, eating up to 10000 calories a day and still lean.

Yes.
As long as you got enough movement you can basically eat what/how much you want.

[Tennisballz]

It's the shitty western diet.  Yes, it's better for bodybuilding, but you are all technicians calculating calories and moving tons of weight in the gym.  For everyone else it's a pitfall of bad health.

[Coffeed]

People didn't used to have to avoid carbs religiously to not be big fat whales.  Back through about the 1980s people ate plenty of carbs as part of a balanced diet. 

Maybe it's just expectations of being lean or having abs that have changed, the aesthetic has changed to leaner and with more muscle?  I don't know, is it just that there is so much delicious food available now that people can't control themselves?

Or is there something in the water causing us to fatten up more efficiently ?

Go to any major university and you will find a food science area... there are literally millions of dollars coupled with smart people who are devoted to this research and how can we expect there NOT to be repercussions?

Now compound this super motivating food with a fast food culture...

Now add the fact that we mostly sit on our asses in a car to an office and back home to the couch.

[Never1AShow]

Were people really that much more active back in the 60s and 70s?  Working out wasn't even a thing for 95 percent.  Maybe we didn't have the ultrasedentary like now, but for working folks it was basically the same.  Get up go to work, maybe move around a little more at work because fewer in offices.

I think it has to do with abundance.  We simply have too much easily accessible delicious food.  And it's loaded with fats, salt and sugar to a greater degree, hence the taste.

I still think there may be something in the water though.

[phreak]

Were people really that much more active back in the 60s and 70s?  Working out wasn't even a thing for 95 percent.  Maybe we didn't have the ultrasedentary like now, but for working folks it was basically the same.  Get up go to work, maybe move around a little more at work because fewer in offices.

I think it has to do with abundance.  We simply have too much easily accessible delicious food.  And it's loaded with fats, salt and sugar to a greater degree, hence the taste.

I still think there may be something in the water though.

The problem is that for most gym goers, those 3 hours per week in the gym translate into eating thousands of extra calories 'because they go to the gym anyway'. It's been studied that those who go to the gym for e.g. 3 hours get extra lazy the other 109 hours per week. Half-heartedly walking on a treadmill for 3 hours per week does little, whereas a fairly large number of short strolls every day (around the block, to the car, to the bus stop, to the store, up the stairs at the office, etc.) burns a lot more in total -- without causing a spike in appetite.

[kh300]

For millions of years we survived by developing the instinct of eat while you can, because you never know when your next meal will be.

Until refrigeration and food preservatives this was true. Now we have food everywhere around us 24/7. But our instincts still tell us to stuff our faces. People eat to much and now our food is full of shit.

With the same idea we survived for millions of years off natural plant and animal foods. Now we are living of processed foods, sugar, and chemicals.

For millions of years we were forced to work for our foods. In fact we had to work for everything. Now we sit in front of our electronics and don't have to work for anything.

Thats why were all fat as fuck.

[Never1AShow]

For millions of years we survived by developing the instinct of eat while you can, because you never know when your next meal will be.

Until refrigeration and food preservatives this was true. Now we have food everywhere around us 24/7. But our instincts still tell us to stuff our faces. People eat to much and now our food is full of shit.

With the same idea we survived for millions of years off natural plant and animal foods. Now we are living of processed foods, sugar, and chemicals.

For millions of years we were forced to work for our foods. In fact we had to work for everything. Now we sit in front of our electronics and don't have to work for anything.

Thats why were all fat as fuck.

That stuff your face whenever you can mechanism needs to be turned off.  Please invent a pill that does it, one that isn't some form of speed that fucks your heart up and makes you jittery.

[BBSSchlemiel]

Were people really that much more active back in the 60s and 70s?  Working out wasn't even a thing for 95 percent.  Maybe we didn't have the ultrasedentary like now, but for working folks it was basically the same.  Get up go to work, maybe move around a little more at work because fewer in offices.

I think it has to do with abundance.  We simply have too much easily accessible delicious food.  And it's loaded with fats, salt and sugar to a greater degree, hence the taste.

I still think there may be something in the water though.

It's also because the average US citizen a slob who doesn't care about their health or how they look. Probably 75+% of my co-workers are obese or overweight and they literally do not give a shit how they look or about their health. At holiday events or birthdays or goodbye shindigs they eat like pigs. Why do they do this? AGAIN, they don't care.

Back in the day, people had more class and healthy fear of ostracism. Even in medical and healthcare books there was language showing that fatness was to be shunned and that people didn't like the sights of fat people. Now we can't do that. It's also men and women's fault too considering people date, marry and have kids with people who do not care. (Medical issues causing fatness are a different issue but hardly anyone has them!)

[BayGBM]

Like tobacco companies and nicotine, the food industry has learned how to spike processed foods with a combination of salt, sugar, and fat that are addicting and most people don't even realize that it has happened.  Dr. Kessler wrote a book about it.  As others have suggested, sitting a desk all day doesn't help but the real enemy is highly processed foods.

Obviously, our standards for what a desirable body should look like have changed dramatically over the last 30 years.  Action figures used to look like real people; now they all look like roided bodybuilders.  The film Bigger Faster Stronger had a segment on this evolution...

[BBSSchlemiel]

Like tobacco companies and nicotine, the food industry has learned how to spike processed foods with a combination of salt, sugar, and fat that are addicting and most people don't even realize that it has happened.  Dr. Kessler wrote a book about it.  As others have suggested, sitting a desk all day doesn't help but the real enemy is highly processed foods.

Obviously, our standards for what a desirable body should look like have changed dramatically over the last 30 years.  Action figures used to look like real people; now they all look like roided bodybuilders.  The film Bigger Faster Stronger had a segment on this evolution...

How is there such an evolution when the American people are getting fatter and fatter. Fitness and bodybuilding crazed people are a minority of the population.

[BayGBM]

How is there such an evolution when the American people are getting fatter and fatter. Fitness and bodybuilding crazed people are a minority of the population.

It is possible to be fat and indolent even as you admire, lust, or patronize a fit physique.  Think of the old fat guy who hires a shapely hooker.  Similarly, look at popularity of the Rambo, Arnold, Van Dam, action movies.  The gun totting fit physique is part of the macho military fantasy that so many guys (you and old) cling to.  Have you ever been to a bodybuilding show?  You always have some out of shape, or old guys in the audience.  Wtf do you think they are there for?

[BB]

1) More fats, grains, sugars are making up the diet.

2) Average calorie consumption is up #500 - 600 calories per day since the 70's in most cases.

3) Physical labor is down. Even a low stress walking around the plant type job of decades ago is still more physical labor than many westerners get today.

Here's a break down of American eating habits through the last few decades compiled by the USDA, it's an interesting read -

http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf .

[njflex]

It's also because the average US citizen a slob who doesn't care about their health or how they look. Probably 75+% of my co-workers are obese or overweight and they literally do not give a shit how they look or about their health. At holiday events or birthdays or goodbye shindigs they eat like pigs. Why do they do this? AGAIN, they don't care.

Back in the day, people had more class and healthy fear of ostracism. Even in medical and healthcare books there was language showing that fatness was to be shunned and that people didn't like the sights of fat people. Now we can't do that. It's also men and women's fault too considering people date, marry and have kids with people who do not care. (Medical issues causing fatness are a different issue but hardly anyone has them!)

also 30/40/50's yes the ideals were different most were early immigrants or 1st born of immigrants ,times were different money wise,television and cars were either not made or early times of them,but what was different was the mindset and class especially men who wore suits and stylish hat to work and or leisure.kids played in neighborhood with there friends and grew up and some married the same people when they got older,cousins/aunts/uncles usually lived within houses or blocks of each other...now go to a resteraunts and see kids and parents on phones or games and rolling there eyes at each others behavior for 1 to 1.5 hrs to sit for a night out..

[ritch]

also 30/40/50's yes the ideals were different most were early immigrants or 1st born of immigrants ,times were different money wise,television and cars were either not made or early times of them,but what was different was the mindset and class especially men who wore suits and stylish hat to work and or leisure.kids played in neighborhood with there friends and grew up and some married the same people when they got older,cousins/aunts/uncles usually lived within houses or blocks of each other...now go to a resteraunts and see kids and parents on phones or games and rolling there eyes at each others behavior for 1 to 1.5 hrs to sit for a night out..

Fuck it sucks these days, there needs to be an in between found from back in the day and how it's gotten now.

Just how I see it...