I am very disappointed at the obesity in Southwest Florida.

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traveller
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Location: Fort Myers, FL

I am very disappointed at the obesity in Southwest Florida.

Post by traveller »

The weather here in Southwest Florida is perfect, all 12 months a year, for just about anything. Swimming, bicycle riding, walking, jogging, and planting healthy fruits and vegetables that you can eat for free. In Southwest Florida, you can buy orange trees, lemon trees, Coconut palm trees, avocado trees, banana trees, pineapple plants, and your common veggies (corn, broccoli, basil, etc) at the local Home Depot. And you can plant them right in the ground in your own yard.

But what does even tropical paradise get in return? Obesity rates that stink! All because too many people, even year rounders, just love sitting in front of the TV, shovelling sausage and bratwursts into their mouths, and acting like it's 25 below zero outside with a roaring blizzard. There is zero excuse at all for obesity in a tropical climate! In fact, I am very surprised, once again, that the top 10 skinniest states are not;

1, Hawaii
2, Florida
3, Louisiana
4, Texas
5, California
6, South Carolina
7, Arizona
8, Mississippi
9, Alabama
and 10, Georgia.

There are times that I wish I could start a crusade against obesity in America's southern states, especially Florida and Hawaii. There is just no excuse to waste all the beautiful weather indoors all the time and spend it piling on the pounds as if it were snowing hard outside. There are even obese bartenders working over at a place called Back Streets Bar & Grille in Cape Coral!


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gsjackson
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Re: I am very disappointed at the obesity in Southwest Flori

Post by gsjackson »

Setting aside the question of the tainted U.S. food supply, the main problem is that the U.S., especially in the more recently developed sunbelt, is a car culture and makes no provision for walking anywhere. Go to Moscow, or to any eastern European country, where the winters are severe and last about half the year, and you'll find very little obesity. People walk there.
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Contrarian Expatriate
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Re: I am very disappointed at the obesity in Southwest Flori

Post by Contrarian Expatriate »

I've been in Florida for 2 weeks and I see what you are saying. However, there are some things I have noticed that are contributing to the obesity in the States:

-Poor portion control: Food is so plentiful and cheap in the USA that restaurants pile on family portions for one individual. When I go out to eat, I have to order 3 starters and no entree or else the portions will be ridiculous in size.

-High fructose corn syrup: This stuff is poison in that it fools the body into holding onto fat and it is mildly addicting to boot. The food industry knows that HFCS triggers cravings in people and that is why they pump it into everything they can.

-24 hour availability of everything: There are 24 hour supermarkets, stores, and restaurants to feed your heart's content and this is bad. The body SHOULD go through periods of hunger each day to burn through fat reserves as energy. If the body is constantly feed food energy, fat will accumulate.

All of these reasons contribute to why people are thinner and healthier abroad.
traveller
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Re: I am very disappointed at the obesity in Southwest Flori

Post by traveller »

gsjackson wrote:Setting aside the question of the tainted U.S. food supply, the main problem is that the U.S., especially in the more recently developed sunbelt, is a car culture and makes no provision for walking anywhere. Go to Moscow, or to any eastern European country, where the winters are severe and last about half the year, and you'll find very little obesity. People walk there.
There are tons of provisions and opportunities for bicycle riding and walking in many metro areas in the Sunbelt, especially cities like Miami, Key West, Tampa, Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Naples, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Orlando, New Orleans, Gulfport, Mobile, Columbia, Charleston, Houston, Galveston, Brownsville, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Honolulu, and Albuqurque.
traveller
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Re: I am very disappointed at the obesity in Southwest Flori

Post by traveller »

And by the way, Lee and Collier County, Florida (the Fort Myers/Cape Coral/Naples area) has excellent bicycle opportunities. The entire stretch of US 41/Tamiami Trail (known as Cleveland Avenue in Fort Myers) is lined with sidewalks from the Caloosahatchee River all the way south to just past downtown Naples. There are also bicycle trails just a couple miles south and southeast of Downtown Fort Myers, and Lakes Regional Park also has some great scenery. At Fort Myers Beach, you can actually ride your bicycle on the sand where it is damp, as the damp/semi wet sugary sand has literally the consistency/firmness of wet concrete. Cape Coral has lots of sidewalks especially lining the main streets, not to mention a great lively nightlife atmosphere on the south end of town, especially places like Dixie Roadhouse and Back Streets Sports Bar.
Mercury
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Re: I am very disappointed at the obesity in Southwest Flori

Post by Mercury »

traveller wrote:The weather here in Southwest Florida is perfect, all 12 months a year, for just about anything. Swimming, bicycle riding, walking, jogging, and planting healthy fruits and vegetables that you can eat for free. In Southwest Florida, you can buy orange trees, lemon trees, Coconut palm trees, avocado trees, banana trees, pineapple plants, and your common veggies (corn, broccoli, basil, etc) at the local Home Depot. And you can plant them right in the ground in your own yard.

But what does even tropical paradise get in return? Obesity rates that stink! All because too many people, even year rounders, just love sitting in front of the TV, shovelling sausage and bratwursts into their mouths, and acting like it's 25 below zero outside with a roaring blizzard. There is zero excuse at all for obesity in a tropical climate! In fact, I am very surprised, once again, that the top 10 skinniest states are not;

1, Hawaii
2, Florida
3, Louisiana
4, Texas
5, California
6, South Carolina
7, Arizona
8, Mississippi
9, Alabama
and 10, Georgia.

There are times that I wish I could start a crusade against obesity in America's southern states, especially Florida and Hawaii. There is just no excuse to waste all the beautiful weather indoors all the time and spend it piling on the pounds as if it were snowing hard outside. There are even obese bartenders working over at a place called Back Streets Bar & Grille in Cape Coral!
Again, America is a strictly indoor only culture, expected to breath only artificially filtered indoor air. Also, in America, you get around by bicycle, on foot, or via public transit, and you are labeled a loser and a vagrant and coldly alienated. In America, winners have driver's licenses and drive cars, especially big expensive souped up luxury sports cars. And in America, if you don't have a double chin and a protruding gut by your 30th birthday, people think you're anorexic or bulimic. Look down upon obesity, including in a tropical climate, and people will see you as cruel and callous. Whether it is 82 and sunny or 22 and snowing outside, leaving your residence except for work, school, and shopping is completely taboo in America.
Last edited by Mercury on July 12th, 2018, 11:23 am, edited 2 times in total.
gsjackson
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Re: I am very disappointed at the obesity in Southwest Flori

Post by gsjackson »

Mercury wrote:
traveller wrote:The weather here in Southwest Florida is perfect, all 12 months a year, for just about anything. Swimming, bicycle riding, walking, jogging, and planting healthy fruits and vegetables that you can eat for free. In Southwest Florida, you can buy orange trees, lemon trees, Coconut palm trees, avocado trees, banana trees, pineapple plants, and your common veggies (corn, broccoli, basil, etc) at the local Home Depot. And you can plant them right in the ground in your own yard.

But what does even tropical paradise get in return? Obesity rates that stink! All because too many people, even year rounders, just love sitting in front of the TV, shovelling sausage and bratwursts into their mouths, and acting like it's 25 below zero outside with a roaring blizzard. There is zero excuse at all for obesity in a tropical climate! In fact, I am very surprised, once again, that the top 10 skinniest states are not;

1, Hawaii
2, Florida
3, Louisiana
4, Texas
5, California
6, South Carolina
7, Arizona
8, Mississippi
9, Alabama
and 10, Georgia.

There are times that I wish I could start a crusade against obesity in America's southern states, especially Florida and Hawaii. There is just no excuse to waste all the beautiful weather indoors all the time and spend it piling on the pounds as if it were snowing hard outside. There are even obese bartenders working over at a place called Back Streets Bar & Grille in Cape Coral!
Again, America is a strictly indoor only culture, expected to breath only artificially filtered indoor air. Also, in America, you get around by bicycle, on foot, or via public transit, and you are labeled a loser and a vagrant and coldly alienated. In America, winners have driver's licenses and drive cars, especially big expensive souped up luxury sports cars. And in America, if you don't have a double chin and a protruding gut by your 30th birthday, people think you're bulimic. Look down upon obesity, including in a tropical climate, and people will see you as cruel and callous. Whether it is 82 and sunny or 22 and snowing outside, being outdoors except for strictly business reasons is completely taboo in America.
This is the point I was trying to make. While there may be bicycle paths and such set aside for the five percent or so who exercise, getting around on a regular basis by any means other than the private automobile puts you presumptively in the lower socio-economic classes, i.e., a loser. And American communities in the post-WWII era are not set up so that desired destinations can be reached by walking or public transportation. So people don't do it.
Mercury
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Re: I am very disappointed at the obesity in Southwest Florida.

Post by Mercury »

Additionally, you are also labeled bulimic, anorexic, and mentally ill and heavily persecuted if you eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. In America, people are expected to eat heavy red meats loaded in butter and lard and foods high in fat and cholesterol (i.e. bratwursts, sausage, etc). Again, if you are skinny at age 30 and you don't eat so-called "heart attack on a platter" meals, American people will look at you like you are anorexic, bulimic, and belong in a mental hospital.

Also, you're lucky it isn't even a felony under Federal law in America to be outdoors unless going to/from work and the store.
Last edited by Mercury on July 12th, 2018, 11:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
Mercury
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Re: I am very disappointed at the obesity in Southwest Florida.

Post by Mercury »

Driving is expensive, and Americans know that. But at the same time, in America, when you're 25 years old, you are expected to have a professional, full time job (doctor, lawyer, movie star, Hollywood director, realtor, etc), a 6-figure or higher annual income, a nice, fancy house in a gated community, a nice fancy car, you are expected to work 12 to 18 hours a day, all 365 days a year; you are expected to go as long as even 5,000 days continuous of all work at a time without ever a single day off. Vacationing is seen as completely taboo; any type of travel is expected to be strictly relocation/moving purposes only. Working at restaurants, bars, libraries, and even greenhouses/horticulture centers gets you labeled a worthless loser. And in fact, there is a rapidly growing portion of Americans that label bartenders, waiters, and waitresses as losers and lowlifes.
Mercury
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Re: I am very disappointed at the obesity in Southwest Florida.

Post by Mercury »

Also, being the toxic, hateful people they are, Americans are scared and paranoid of the outdoors, even in broad daylight. To them, the entire outdoors is all the hood. More dangerous than even Syria. To them, you even step outside and you'll get immediately blasted by a hundred plus killers with assault rifles and then robbed. And to them, every single outdoorsy person is a serial killer hunting their next prey. It is no wonder just the mere sight of a group of people hanging out socializing on a street corner or in a park even in broad daylight strikes ultimate terror into American peoples' hearts as if a shootout and/or armed robbery were even 3 minutes away. Americans are so paranoid of the outdoors that even shadows cast by trees in direct sunlight become grim reapers looking to take out their next victim with their razor sharp blades, and Americans flee in terror when there is nothing pursuing them. They are terrified even of their own shadow.

Americans have very toxic, screwed up consciences that turn shadows into phantoms, bicyclists and pedestrians into serial killers, armed robbers, and burglars, popping balloons and bubble wrap into gun fire, large heavy vehicles and also school bags into bombs, neighbors into gang bangers, maintenance workers into burglars, and even dads into pedophiles and child sex predators.
Last edited by Mercury on January 20th, 2019, 8:30 am, edited 3 times in total.
Mercury
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Re: I am very disappointed at the obesity in Southwest Florida.

Post by Mercury »

As it is also already mentioned in the main website here, American food is laced with toxic, destructive chemicals that are known to destroy health. And those chemicals, which are put into otherwise healthy foods, will easily destroy the thyroid gland, resulting in runaway weight gain. Really, the only food that is even safe to eat in the United States is homegrown fruits and vegetables.
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