• @Strayson
    link
    English
    401 year ago

    The unfortunate normalisation of sugary and industrial foods spreading rapidly across the world is causing this. Crap food is relativelly cheaper, widely avaliable and easier to consume, doesn’t require much preparation so people tend to make these food choices, which causes, among other things, problems like diabetes in first world countries and now in developing countries especially in Asia and South America where this modern lifestyle is being implemented at a very fast rate. Add to this the increasingly sedentary lifestyle that people have, especially in cities, and you will see obesity and diabetes.

    • Drusas
      link
      fedilink
      8
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Cities are actually less sedentary. Cities have walkable destinations and public transit (which requires walking to). Living in the suburbs or rural areas, you rely on a car for every trip.

      I’ve lived in big cities, suburbs, and a rural area. You see so many more people walking and biking in the cities.

    • justhach
      link
      English
      61 year ago

      It’s only cheaper because of all the subsidies we provide to corn producers. If we cut out those subsidies, the use of HFCS would likely go down as its cost goes up.

  • maegul (he/they)
    link
    fedilink
    English
    171 year ago

    Try removing sugar from your diet, like sucrose sugar. It is frighteningly hard unless you’re cooking everything you eat yourself.

    I’ve had times where I start liking something a lot which I normally wouldn’t suspect of having lots of sugar to realise “wait a minute, I like this because they’ve added lots of sugar don’t I!?” … and I check and yea there’s way too much.

    It’s a problem.

    • JockJam DoorSlam
      link
      fedilink
      English
      61 year ago

      Yes, I’ve been cutting out sugar (or trying to at least) and I’m amazed at how many products include it that you wouldn’t expect to have it. I do love to cook so I do a lot of things from scratch, but somethings are just too cost prohibitive to make regularly/sometimes we just get too busy and need some premade elements for a dish, etc. and sugar is just overloaded into products it isn’t even necessary in. It’s so frustrating.

      • Ataraxia
        link
        English
        11 year ago

        I found frozen veggies and a cheap protein like ground beef I can buy in bulk is quite affordable. Also now that eggs have gone down we always have a lot of that. Not having kids though we can afford shrimp and steak and pork etc.

    • Ataraxia
      link
      English
      31 year ago

      I mean I did that for almost two years but it took one Thanksgiving where people didn’t follow my diet and it was ruined. Sugar and carbs are addictive. I cook my own food and didn’t even miss baked good bread pasta rice etc (as they all cause me varying degrees of symptoms including tachycardia and rashes and migraines etc) until I ate stuffing and a few almond cookies. Apart from willpower though I didn’t have any issues sticking to a now sugar diet including fruits and processed foods.

    • @Solo
      link
      English
      101 year ago

      Lol, size + the amount of addatives, sugars, processed grains.

  • @GlitzyArmrest
    link
    English
    131 year ago

    Cheap food is typically unhealthy and full of sugar.

  • @JTskulk
    link
    English
    131 year ago

    People be fat

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    91 year ago

    Dietary fiber. No seriously. 95% of Americans don’t get enough, which leads to an unhealthy guy, which leads to inflammation and gut-brain axis disturbance.

    Processed food is processed to remove fiber. Americans that eat a higher percentage of fast/processed food (ie. The poorer ones) get less fiber and more sugar, which is a bad combo for gut health.

    Ever seen what other apes eat? Leaves, flowers, seeds, shoots, roots, insects, fruit and occasionally meat. In other words, they eat fiber and lots of it.

  • @Monkeyhog
    link
    English
    81 year ago

    People are fat. Thats why.

    • SuiXi3D
      link
      fedilink
      171 year ago

      All of the food contains added sugar. All of the food that’s easiest to get (y’know, since nobody has time from being worked to death) is cheapest. The problem is much much deeper than ‘lol fat’.

      • BettyWhiteInHD
        link
        fedilink
        -91 year ago

        I don’t think I agree with this “nobody has time” thing. Most people don’t get that excuse, you can usually make time, most people just choose not to. Do you make time to shower and brush your teeth?

        I understand that there are food deserts and some people legitimately work multiple jobs and have kids and that fast food or microwavable dinners and generally unhealthy foods are quick and convenient and affordable but cooking your food doesn’t take that much time and not drinking soda frequently takes no time.

        Also it’s not like veggies and lean meats like chicken are expensive for most people in the US. You can genuinely fill up your basket with lots of leafy greens, veggies, mushrooms and some animal protein for significantly cheaper than with junk food and microwavable dinners, hot pockets, deli meats and cheeses and bread. Unless you live in Alaska maybe.

        Not being dismissive of peoples’ struggles, a ton of us are being overworked for less money than we’re worth, but if you need to you’ll make time, you figure it out. Yeah there’s sugar in everything processed, cool, you have affordable options that admittedly take a bit of effort to prepare and don’t taste as good, but we can eat those and we can eat less. Overeating, constant junk snacking and portion size is also a huge issue in our culture.

  • @orientalsniper
    link
    English
    71 year ago

    People are too lazy to cook for themselves.

      • Drusas
        link
        fedilink
        71 year ago

        No energy to do so because they’re overworked and underappreciated.

      • JockJam DoorSlam
        link
        fedilink
        English
        8
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Especially for people living in poverty/low income. Most of the tools that make cooking more efficient can be really cost prohibitive, so people working long hours/multiple jobs don’t have time to make every meal themselves and who don’t have access to things like Instapots or even just quality ovens that heat quickly and evenly, etc etc. factor in food deserts and many people just don’t have realistic alternatives to quick, cheap, sugar-laden foods.

        And some people just don’t even know how to realy cook. My husband grew up in severe poverty with very neglectful parents who would literally do things like hand him a box of snack cakes when he was 9 years old and that was his “dinner.”

        He has no idea how to do most things in the kitchen (and to be clear he does probably 90% of the cleaning in our home, it’s definitely not weaponized incompetence due to laziness). I grew up cooking with my parents and being involved with it as soon as I was old enough to stir the batter for the pancakes. So much of it is so second nature to me that I forget there are a lot of nuances to cooking well that I take for granted.

        Eg, We watched the episode of Schitt’s Creek where Moira and David can’t figure out how to “fold in” the cheese and my husband asked me what it meant because he had never heard of that before, either. Knowing certain techniques, knowing how to use different tools, having basic recipes memorized, knowing what kind of spices go together for what kind of dish, if you don’t already know these kinds of things it’s time consuming to have to look it all up and learn. Overworked people don’t have that luxury of time and access to good learning resources.

    • HelixDab
      link
      fedilink
      71 year ago

      Cooking healthy food is more expensive than eating fas foods.

      • BettyWhiteInHD
        link
        fedilink
        -11 year ago

        It really isn’t unless you maybe live exclusively on the $1, $2, $3 menu from mcdonalds.

        Veggies, at least in most of the US, are pretty cheap as is lean protein. But it doesn’t taste as good as Chex Mix and a McDouble and they have to take the time and effort to cool/prepare it, so people use that excuse.

  • dedale
    link
    fedilink
    61 year ago

    For a non meme answer. my bet would be on endocrine disruption of the thyroid, by pollutants.
    Along with a change in feeding habits in former third world population (sudden access to an abundance of sugar when you’re not genetically ready for it).
    And maybe compound it with unhealthy lifestyles (increasing sedentary lifestyles).

    • Joe
      link
      fedilink
      41 year ago

      What do you mean by “not genetically ready for it”? People in third world countries don’t have significantly different genetics to those in first world countries, and people in first world countries haven’t evolved since the introduction of McDonald’s

      • dedale
        link
        fedilink
        11 year ago

        haven’t evolved
        I’m not so sure. We’ve been eating like shit since way before mcdonalds, and natural selection gonna naturally select.

        It may be coincidental, but there’s an abnormally high (higher than western population) prevalence of diabetes in people transitioning to a western lifestyle.

  • Tischkante
    link
    fedilink
    21 year ago

    Is it spreading, or is this like “why do so many women suddenly get autism” misconception?

    • CynAq
      link
      fedilink
      4
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Not the same misconception, though it’s a poor choice of wording.

      Type II diabetes cases are actually increasing around the world, due to factors another comment summarizes very well, but it’s not obviously “spreading” like a contagious disease.

      It’s not an issue of doctors starting to diagnose something that always existed but went undiagnosed due to ignorance/bias like the case with autistic women.

    • dorkian-gray
      link
      fedilink
      3
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Obesity is much easier to see than differences in brain topology, and obese is something a person can become. Nobody “becomes” autistic.

  • Striker
    link
    English
    11 year ago

    Its what happens when in some places there’s easier access to a can of coke than there is to clean water.