Posted by:
Breeze
(
)
Date: May 13, 2017 10:08PM
Probably we're defining "overweight" as obesity, which might be 50 or more pounds overweight, or "dangerously" overweight. A size 12 is smaller than the National average for women, which, I think is a 14-16.
Back in the 1940's and 1950's, Utah was technically part of the "goiter belt". People lived so far from the ocean, that many of them developed hypothyroidism, from lack of iodine, causing a weight gain. Adding iodine to their diets (iodized salt) helped treat this condition.
But what about now? The Nation is more obese than it's ever been! Back in school in California, in the 1960's, there was one "fat kid" in our school class. Only one! A soda pop was a 6 oz bottle, and we could have two a year--crossing the Nevada desert, and coming back home. No one sees the connection between sugar and obesity. Expensive studies are conducted on the causes of child obesity, teen obesity, middle age obesity, etc, etc. There are new theories about the psychological and emotional triggers. New drugs are developed. Remember Fen-fen? Half the women in our ward went on that and lost tons of weight, then gained it back, until they were fatter than ever before. Anyway, the response to all this diet-craze is people getting fatter, and they're developing eating disorders, which used to be freakishly rare. There was a group of Utah girls in my BYU dorm, who would run around the baseball field, and throw-up there, every night, and they acted like it was normal.
I think this is a Utah Mormon thing. Have you seen the popular Mormon recipes? Sugar, corn syrup, molasses, butter, bacon, lard. Most Mormons I have known are stubborn about their "traditional" recipes. They seem to have an emotional attachment to their candy, cookies, pies, and baked goods--and Jell-o is a standing joke about Mormons. They chow on this junk, and then try to compensate by skipping meals, or over-exercising, or looking for that magic diet pill. In the wards I have belonged to, there is usually group-dieting among the women.
I know Mormon mothers who have a "candy cupboard", and they keep a huge supply of candy in there, to give their kids and grandkids. It keeps the kids coming back for more, and keeps them loving grandma and her stash.
I know Mormon parents who will feed their children junk that they themselves would never eat! What's that about? Save yourself, but throw your children under the bus?
What diet fad is popular right now? The Marie Osmond-endorsed Nutrisystem is advertised as "no gimicks", right, and you buy and eat only their expensive "shakes" and pre-packaged stuff? About 20 years ago, I went on Nutrisystem with half the Relief Society, and three of us had to have gallbladder surgery! That was my one and only experience with a "diet". Before that, and ever since, I eat healthy meals, and stop when I'm not hungry anymore. I don't eat the "traditional" beefy American diet, though, and I avoid sugar. The US-Approved Food Pyramid way of eating would probably kill me.
On our yearly vacation, we would pass through Utah, and my mother would go off on how fat the women were, especially the young ones. She said they looked "like they have given up."
Maybe depression plays a role.