Spam aside, we're fat because we're spoiled.  The fattest among us has
never had to actually *work* for our daily bread, therefore, we are
unaccustomed to "sweating it off".

When you have to actually plant, fertilize, weed and harvest your
veggies, or when you actually have to breed, raise and eventually
slaughter your own hog, you work off a lot of the grease that
MacDonald's would otherwise apply to your a.s.

On the other hand, when you sit on your butt and order Domino's 5
nights out of 7, or when your kids are raised on Chicken McNuggets and
french fries, it's no wonder that we're a nation of fatties.

Turn the TV off, raise a garden (even if it's just a collection of 5
gallon buckets on the terrace), take a friggin' walk, and stop bitching
about how the world is making you fat.  All the "natural" and
"wholesome" food in the world is going to do diddly-squat for your
figure unless you exercise a little more and eat a little less.

Calories in < calories out = weight loss, pure and simple...there's no
magic pill.

Mark, MD

We have sedentary lifestyles and we eat fattening processed junkfoods.
I heard on TV that some chinese are starting to be overweight like
Americans because they're adopting our lifestyle.

But going more in depth, I have a theory that perhaps we eat more
because our bodies are trying to get the nutrition it's not getting.
For example, when you exercise, your appetite goes down. I think this
is because you get more air and more blood circulation, thus making
more efficient use of the food you eat, so you don't need as much.
Also, healthy food has FAR more nutrients than junk food, so you
probably need less food if you eat healthy, because you get the
nutrition you need with less food.

So in summary, I think that if you don't exercise and you eat junk
food, your body wants to eat more food because it's not getting the
nutrition it needs, even though it's getting plenty of calories. Under
these conditions, you can eat and eat until your belly hurts and still
not be satisfied. But if you exercise and eat healthy, you can be
satisfied with a small amount of food. This is my theory.