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Post by Nimras on Aug 7, 2011 22:33:02 GMT -5
Delete your posts, guys. I deleted mine. That's not how it works, Sae. You put a discussion out that you would like to see debated -- and then it's for everyone to debate. It becomes everyone's debate. If you no longer wish to participate in the discussion, than stop coming to this thread. But we will not delete a thread that is perfectly within the rules just because one poster (even the original poster) is tired of it. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2011 22:36:07 GMT -5
Delete your posts, guys. I deleted mine. That's not how it works, Sae. You put a discussion out that you would like to see debated -- and then it's for everyone to debate. It becomes everyone's debate. If you no longer wish to participate in the discussion, than stop coming to this thread. But we will not delete a thread that is perfectly within the rules just because one poster (even the original poster) is tired of it. It just didn't go the way I intended. All I really wanted was for this thread to stay on topic... |
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Post by M is for Morphine on Aug 7, 2011 23:07:38 GMT -5
It just didn't go the way I intended. All I really wanted was for this thread to stay on topic... But how is it off topic? You outline the path of the thread in the first post, which mentions the problem of school lunches. Almost all of us have experience with school lunches. Very few of us, if any, work in advertising. So we naturally discuss what we know. As for the lazy American thing. This bothers me a great deal. A lot of parents work very hard at multiple jobs. A lot of parents are single parents and do not have a partner to share their work load with. Let's look at a day in the life of a single father I used to work with. He was the manager of a food court restaurant and worked every hour of the store's operation. 7am-8am commute to work 8am-7:30pm work. 7:30pm-8:30 pm commute from work Add on 8 hours for sleeping and you have 2 and a half hours for a man who was on his feet every minute of the day to get all his chores done: laundry, cleaning, checking the kid's homework, and of course cooking. That is also all the time he has in a day to catch up with his children or engage in any sort of leisure activity. He just may not have the time to cook a wholesome meal. As a recently single man he might not even know how. It's very hard to earn a living wage in America, and stories like his repeat over and over again across the country. There are so many people working themselves to death, and any time they can get to catch their breath is a much welcomed reprieve. I think a lot of the bad food habits spring from necessity, and are learned and repeated by the next generation. To write it off as a massive, sweeping national laziness is extremely unfair. In addition, I know a lot of people who cook awesome food but have no real knowledge of nutrition. They make wonderful food filled with love but it is NOT good for you. We're talking soul food recipes that used to power hard laborers but have not changed to adapt to our less labor intensive service and office jobs. So the problem is many-fold. How do we educate people about healthy food choices with the sorry state our schools are in? How do we create a living wage for the poor so they can afford to make healthy purchases and actually have the time to cook? Until we can solve these problems, we will continue to have obesity issues. Also, if you want to have a learning experience take a field trip to a Sav-A-Lot food store. They serve the poorest of the poor with nothing but generic brands and a well published willingness to make W.I.C. (foodstamps) money go further. They have extensively researched areas they refer to as 'food deserts' where communities have restricted or no access to grocery stores where healthy options are available. ( See here) One such 'desert' is almost the entire city of Detroit! It's a startlingly poor city, and major grocery chains have just about completely pulled out. How do you buy healthy food when your only source of groceries is a 7-11? It's a problem that continues to spread in poor areas, both urban and rural. You wouldn't think that access to nutrition would be such a big problem in a first world country, but it is. |
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Post by commissarburn on Aug 7, 2011 23:32:29 GMT -5
It just didn't go the way I intended. All I really wanted was for this thread to stay on topic... I thought we were staying on topic, but now that I look at the opening posts, it's possible you more wanted us to rail against big companies for marketing bad food to kids. But how is it off topic? You outline the path of the thread in the first post, which mentions the problem of school lunches. Almost all of us have experience with school lunches. Very few of us, if any, work in advertising. So we naturally discuss what we know. As for the lazy American thing. This bothers me a great deal. A lot of parents work very hard at multiple jobs. A lot of parents are single parents and do not have a partner to share their work load with. Let's look at a day in the life of a single father I used to work with. He was the manager of a food court restaurant and worked every hour of the store's operation. 7am-8am commute to work 8am-7:30pm work. 7:30pm-8:30 pm commute from work Add on 8 hours for sleeping and you have 2 and a half hours for a man who was on his feet every minute of the day to get all his chores done: laundry, cleaning, checking the kid's homework, and of course cooking. That is also all the time he has in a day to catch up with his children or engage in any sort of leisure activity. He just may not have the time to cook a wholesome meal. As a recently single man he might not even know how. It's very hard to earn a living wage in America, and stories like his repeat over and over again across the country. There are so many people working themselves to death, and any time they can get to catch their breath is a much welcomed reprieve. I think a lot of the bad food habits spring from necessity, and are learned and repeated by the next generation. To write it off as a massive, sweeping national laziness is extremely unfair. In addition, I know a lot of people who cook awesome food but have no real knowledge of nutrition. They make wonderful food filled with love but it is NOT good for you. We're talking soul food recipes that used to power hard laborers but have not changed to adapt to our less labor intensive service and office jobs. So the problem is many-fold. How do we educate people about healthy food choices with the sorry state our schools are in? How do we create a living wage for the poor so they can afford to make healthy purchases and actually have the time to cook? Until we can solve these problems, we will continue to have obesity issues. Also, if you want to have a learning experience take a field trip to a Sav-A-Lot food store. They serve the poorest of the poor with nothing but generic brands and a well published willingness to make W.I.C. (foodstamps) money go further. They have extensively researched areas they refer to as 'food deserts' where communities have restricted or no access to grocery stores where healthy options are available. ( See here) One such 'desert' is almost the entire city of Detroit! It's a startlingly poor city, and major grocery chains have just about completely pulled out. How do you buy healthy food when your only source of groceries is a 7-11? It's a problem that continues to spread in poor areas, both urban and rural. You wouldn't think that access to nutrition would be such a big problem in a first world country, but it is. I think we run into a problem there. See, I'm inclined to disagree with you on the necessity thing. I don't doubt there are times when people are eating it out because it's cheap and fast and easy and all that, but I do think sometimes there are those parents that don't do that for their kids even if they do have the time. Or even eat out themselves more often than they do. Heck, even I'm guilty of that. Instead of maybe buying some stuff for sandwiches or something when I was working down in Kentucky, my roommate and I would always just go out to a fast food joint or something. It was cheap and easy, and we quite literally spent the 40 minutes left of our lunch break running mindlessly through Wal-Mart. I'd be willing my story isn't the only one like it. I guess we can't know what is more prevalent unless you really look at and study numbers on the subject. Any idea if there are any studies on this out there? Also, that guy's working over 10 hours. That's an absolutely extreme work week. It's interesting you tie in the school system and wages, though. I can understand this being a major problem in low-income families for sure, where healthy can sometimes be prohibitively expensive. As for schools, should that conversation be happening at that level? Kids generally aren't the ones cooking for themselves, though I could see nutrition potentially being taught. Though, I really doubt the effectiveness of something like that. Really think they're gonna go to lunch and choose the salad over the burger? |
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Post by M is for Morphine on Aug 7, 2011 23:59:14 GMT -5
I think we run into a problem there. See, I'm inclined to disagree with you on the necessity thing. I don't doubt there are times when people are eating it out because it's cheap and fast and easy and all that, but I do think sometimes there are those parents that don't do that for their kids even if they do have the time. Or even eat out themselves more often than they do. Heck, even I'm guilty of that. Instead of maybe buying some stuff for sandwiches or something when I was working down in Kentucky, my roommate and I would always just go out to a fast food joint or something. It was cheap and easy, and we quite literally spent the 40 minutes left of our lunch break running mindlessly through Wal-Mart. I'd be willing my story isn't the only one like it. Of course some people are just lazy. But it's ridiculous to say that it's all or even most. The likelihood of obesity in the poorest quarter of the population is twice that of the richest. Welcome to being poor. He's hardly a rare case. When I wasn't making ends meet I worked 2 jobs and had a 70 hour work week. Guess how much cooking I was doing then. If not at that level, then when? I have had full grown adults tell me that vegetable oil counts as a serving of vegetables. It's right in the name, see? I worked at a store that sold popcorn, which is healthy because corn is a vegetable, see? My mom can't cook for a darn so all the proper measuring and the few cooking terms I started out knowing all came from my woefully inadequate Home Ec. classes. XD So some of it stuck. No, but it might be worse than that. When they're eating out they'll get the salad that's actually worse than a burger. There are a lot of small ways to sabotage your diet that add up very quickly. A lot of misleading advertising has people believing things that sound healthy are valid choices. Fruit smoothies, 'smart water', there is a big industry for making things sound better for you than they are! |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2011 9:03:14 GMT -5
It just didn't go the way I intended. All I really wanted was for this thread to stay on topic... I thought we were staying on topic, but now that I look at the opening posts, it's possible you more wanted us to rail against big companies for marketing bad food to kids. LOL no, I mean the smoking thing was off topic and that's what I wanted deleted, NOT the whole thread. |
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Post by Komori on Aug 8, 2011 11:53:33 GMT -5
I agree with Teow, especially about how a lot of food marketed as "healthy" is actually the worst part of the menu, when you actually read into the nutrition facts. Most places it's better to order the fried chicken than the chicken salad sandwich!
I also agree it's also pretty unfair to label people as "lazy" because they prioritize their time differently than others. For about a year now, I've been trying to cook more meals for my parents and sister. But heck does it take a lot of time! Even the "quick" meals take me an hour, not counting the time spent shopping in the grocery store hunting down the ingredients. I was only able to do this because I didn't have a regular 9-5. If I got home when my mom did (at 6, with the commute), we wouldn't be eating until around 8!
So sure, maybe it was "lazy" we ate out so often. But calling a whole country "lazy" is a holier-than-thou attitude. So what if some people choose a more efficient option? Do you slaughter your own cows? Do you build your own houses or computers or toys for your children? Sew your own clothes (and not just a once-in-a-while novelty)? No? Imagine that, people opting to buy something made by someone else! Lazy people.
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Post by Killix on Aug 8, 2011 13:01:40 GMT -5
It's not eating out at restaraunts or buying canned food that's "lazy", it's ordering pizza every night, or eating nothing but fast food (like McDonalds) or fatty frozen "foods" just because they can't be bothered to make something for themself.
I'm not including people who work crazy hours or are on the road most of their day, I'm talking about people who -can- make their own meals. The people who have the choice to eat whatever they want, and they choose the unhealthy but convenient option.
A lot of people obviously have to make sacrifices depending on time and oney, but on the other hand the rest of us have no excuses. XP
I'm guilty of this myself.
Sometimes I'll want a snack, and instead of taking time to wash and prepare an apple/orange/another type of fruit, I'll just grab a bag of potato chips.
What's my excuse? None. I'm just being lazy.
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Post by M is for Morphine on Aug 27, 2011 7:29:29 GMT -5
The city I live in is backing up what I said earlier. Just because some people choose to eat poorly, that doesn't mean that eating poorly is a choice for everyone. There are a lot of people who, as shown above, would jump at the opportunity to eat well. Without more programs like this (this one ends in March), some people just don't have the means. |
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Post by Crystal on Aug 29, 2011 18:46:52 GMT -5
I agree with Komori and Teow.
Interestingly, when I lived in Asia, we almost always ate home-cooked food. Unhealthy food, though a problem, wasn't ever a big problem. However, kids never moved out until they were married, and stayed close to home even then, so it was the retired grandparents who often cooked meals and took care of the kids, and that eased the burden of the parents.
Also, we had maids. =D
That aside, a lot of people simply don't have the want to cook. Yeah, we can do it, and maybe we're being lazy, but to prepare a meal for myself (not even a good, healthy meal, simply something warm) takes time. You don't have to work 10 hour days to come home tired, hungry and just wanting to eat something, dash if it's healthy or not.
Or maybe they just don't enjoy cooking. A lot of people don't enjoy cooking, or don't know how and feel no urge to learn.
Not to say that something can't be done about all this! It would be great. Better school lunches would be amazing. But I would rather see the government putting their dollars into, say, the debt crisis. Or enforcing healthcare insurance. Or something. Pulling obesity down would help, though.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2011 19:59:43 GMT -5
Just something I thought I'd bring up...
Here's what's an actual entree now at my high school: scoop tortilla chips with cheese sauce. No health benefit. Even their meatball sub is probably better than this.
I did try it, just because I was curious. It was delicious, but all the same...it's junk food. As. A. Lunch.
My mom is just as unhappy about this as I am.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2011 20:01:28 GMT -5
Just something I thought I'd bring up... Here's what's an actual entree now at my high school: scoop tortilla chips with cheese sauce. No health benefit. Even their meatball sub is probably better than this. I did try it, just because I was curious. It was delicious, but all the same...it's junk food. As. A. Lunch. My mom is just as unhappy about this as I am. *shrug* It ain't good, but it's a sure crowd-pleaser.  |
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Post by Dju on Aug 29, 2011 20:07:32 GMT -5
Just something I thought I'd bring up... Here's what's an actual entree now at my high school: scoop tortilla chips with cheese sauce. No health benefit. Even their meatball sub is probably better than this. I did try it, just because I was curious. It was delicious, but all the same...it's junk food. As. A. Lunch. My mom is just as unhappy about this as I am. Simply take lunch from home. It's not as if you HAVE to eat it. :B |
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