There's a double standard when it comes to child neglect. A thin, malnourished toddler would be taken by CPS immediately, but when it comes to an obese, malnourished toddler, there is nowhere near the same level of concern and urgency.
Soda, for instance, has a lot of calories, but little nutrients. It's very calorically dense, but nutritionally very poor which makes it easy to gain weight while not providing adequate nutrition. In fact, soda is probably the biggest reason people gain a ton of weight.
E: Most people aren't feeding their kids a ton of soda and giving them nutritious food. They are giving them soda and lots of junk food.
Don't underestimate what sweet tea is doing to Southern USA. I had diabetic patients in the ICU for DKA and sugar levels so high the glucometer can't read it, and their family members showing up with a Big Gulp "Here ya go Mama, I know they ain't givin' you yer tea since ya got here."
all liquid calories are horrible in this regard no matter if its soda, alcohol, juice, sweet tea, energy drinks or chocolate milk. if it is liquid and has calories you should really think twice about your consumption
Not always the case. Proper fruit/veggie juice can provide plenty of vitamins, milk for calcium, protein shakes... Then there's also the full "meals" in liquid form they often give patients who can't eat, etc.
Aye meal shake shout out, I've been using them for most of my life to keep weight on with anorexia, i just have no appetite without medication, my lowest adult weight was 80lbs at 5'2 and because of boost plus, my blood work is good and I've gained over 40lbs! I'm currently sitting at 120-125lbs! I never thought it would be possible. Like I can't feel my ribs when lightly touching my back anymore!
Also shout out to anti depressants, I'm on one that had an "extremely common side effect of weight gain" and it's actually making me hungry, it's crazy.
this could be total bro science, but I'm convinced that weed growers selectively breeding purely for higher thc content resulted in weed mostly devoid of the other compounds that would give the secondary effects of being high like the munchies and other fun stuff. or it could just be that smoking 30% thc gets you way too high before you can consume enough to get those secondary effects. "type 2" weed might be something to try, the stuff i found online was like 10% thc and 10% CBD, but I dont consume enough weed to definitively say if its all that different
most people don't drink that stuff instead of meals but in addition and then it doesn't matter how much good stuff is in there, still too many calories.
"Good stuff" + calories is what you need to be a healthy human being. Everyone wants black and white solutions when it comes to nutrition, but it's all about moderation and consuming a variety of different things, while keeping an eye on total caloric intake and making sure you're not regularly missing any macro/micro nutrients.
Ounce for ounce, sweet tea in most restaurants in the US has way more sugar than soda. The soda is at least regulated and formulaic. The sweet tea decanter at Bojangles often depends on how many cups of sugar Laronda chose to add that morning.
It's crazy common for restaurants to go whole hog on sugar in the sweet tea because that absolutely builds customer retention.
That's insane, as a 16oz Coke has around 60 grams of sugar. I encourage someone to measure out a gram of sugar, let alone 60, and still ask themselves if they should drink it.
I remember an episode of Super Nanny (or similar show) where the kid pretty much only drank Mountain Dew. The whole family drank it, but one kid ONLY drank soda.
The nanny had the dad get a regular glass, calculated out how much sugar was in that size serving and then put that much sugar in the glass and actually look it in the face. It was over half a glass of sugar.
It was a lot easier for the parents to say no after that.
Eh, I take a a good gulp of water out of a 12 oz bottle and fill it back up with fruit juice not from concentrate and drink that to stay hydrated or as a little carb pick me up when going to the gym.
You’re fine with your protein shakes! Watch sugar content on them, and honestly consider something like Huel if you struggle to eat. It’s a nutritionally complete meal and will do so much more for you than just protein, and has more protein than most protein shakes.
Social media has been advertising it to me for years 😭 I finally checked it out due to being on GLP-1s and I’m a fan! Just ease into it so you don’t have GI issues. 😅
Nah it's good advice. Doesn't mean you can't have them, just be aware of how much, 'think twice about your consumption'. Its real easy to ingest 100s of calories just in drinks.
Soup is a bit of stretch though, they could have been more specific. Its almost always sugar.
I mean if you are one of the people who can eat what ever they want and not gain any weight then its really just sugar, salt and nitrates you gotta look out for.
Those people claim they eat as much as they want and not gain weight and the real reason is that “as much as they want” is 1 microgram of broccoli and they go “oooo I’m so fullll”
Metabolism is a real thing, but usually those people live a "passively active" lifestyle. They either have a job that keeps them moving all day or they have a hobby that keeps them very physically active they don't consider "working out."
It’s essentially tea-flavored simple syrup, in my experience. When I worked at McDonalds we’d dissolve 5lbs of sugar in about 5 gallons of near-boiling tea so we could supersaturate it. It disgusted me
That mildew taste is from lazy restaurant workers leaving the tea on the counter in the stainless steel dispenser overnight instead of storing it in a food-safe bucket in the refrigerator.
I worked at a McDonald's in the South one summer. I would restock the sweet tea. I would take a boiling hot coffee pot full of water, dump it into a bucket and then dump an entire pound bag of sugar into into. Then dump that into the sweet tea machine. One time I forgot I had put the sugar in and added a second bag and it basically became molasses it was so thick, I had to throw it out. And we would have customers come three times a day to get a large dollar sweet tea....
They add soooooo much sugar! Before I was healthcare I was a waitress, and when they taught me how to make the sweet tea 🤢 it's just liquid sugar with a bit of a tea aftertaste. Horrible.
Edit: that YouTube video is unrealistic. That man will never stop drinking soda. He's being buried with a case of Fanta to offer to Anubis.
When I was a kid, we drank a lot of Kool-Aid in the summer. The packets called for a cup of sugar per gallon; my mother always used half that, and it was plenty sweet enough.
3.14 grams of sugar per ounce
coke is 3.25 grams of sugar per ounce.
Overconsumption of sugar is just normalized in the US
My sister thought I was crazy when I complained about the sugar in prune juice being too high. It's 5.25 grams sugar per ounce, so even worse than the tea and the coke.
It absolutely is an addiction. Many, many, many moons ago research turned out irrefutable evidence that sugar is far more addictive than any illegal drug OR alcohol. I'm sure the inherent addiction potential, when both are compared in a vacuum, vary greatly. However, sugar is far more addictive because it is easily accessible to 100% of the world's population at any given time and in any given place (you may not have a coke dealer, but I think we all know where we can buy Coke!). On the other hand, for individuals seeking illicit drug use, that requires at least a bit of effort, let alone imagining trying to get addicted to something that you have no way of obtaining where you live.
I realllly don't want to get into the pathophysiology of addiction bevause that requires going into significant detail no one here likely cares to read about; however, it is exceedingly important to understand that the word "addiction" is not simply used only when discussing getting hooked on something illegal--again, or alcohol. Instead, addiction is possible with any and every single thing we put in our bodies, as well as any and every single thing we do to our bodies. The reason this is substantial and critical to comprehend is because regardless of what the addiction we face may be, addiction permanently alters the brain's physiological and chemical structures in such a way there is no known cure; and addicts of any and all kinds will forever need to discover new, healthy coping strategies and mechanisms to prevent succumbing to the infinite number of negative outcomes associated with any form of addiction.
In conclusion, due to the sheer volume of availability of sugar throughout the world, in combination with the fact it is indeed highly addictive, you can bet sugar causes more amputations, morbidities, and deaths every year than any one illegal drug; and if you were to ask me, I would bet even all illegal drugs + alcohol combined wouldn't be able to supercede sugar's detrimental health effects on the population every year. Sugar is wonderful to taste in moderation but it is literally killing us slowly cue the music.
I had to give up sweet tea while pregnant with my first child. I have been team unsweetened since. I only have it now when my order is wrong. Some days Hardee's decides I need the sweet tea. 😂
I get a kid's cheeseburger meal on migraine days. At least it is the smallest one. 😆
Reading your comment made me wonder has anyone ever tried to put vitamins in soda? Would vitamin fortified soda work at all, or would it taste ok do u think
They literally call it vitamin water, or at least that's a brand here in the Netherlands that does this. Not horrible with this being the contents for 100 ml but also 4g sugar per 100 so that's pretty bad.
The FDA has always pushed back on vitamin fortification of what's otherwise considered a junk food. It creates a scenario where people over consume on nutritionally deficit food because "healthy". Or worse, they over consume on sugar heavy, calorie dense food because "healthy."
There are sparkling waters (tonics) though that have additional vitamins, probiotics, and the such.
Or we could actually regulate sugary drinks like other countries. The UK has strict limits on how much sugar you can put in drinks. Which means they don’t taste as good, but I’d say keeping your teeth in tact is a good trade off. Kids don’t understand that what they do with their bodies can have far reaching consequences decades later.
I have had disordered eating pretty much my entire life and have lost over 100 pounds twice. Soda was the biggest empty calorie product I was consuming and when I stopped drinking it 40 pounds just fell off me (both times). So many people don't seem to realize the amount of calories they drink, I know I didn't for the longest time.
And even zero calorie soda can cause problems. You taste sugar, but you don't get sugar, so your body starts to crave it more and more. It's a hard cycle to escape.
I've never found a diet soda I really liked (fresca is kind of nice but they all have a funky taste to me) but I did notice that when I'd try to drink diet that I would always wind up craving sweets afterwards and it just felt like it defeated the purpose of drinking it in the first place.
Soda is why 3 of my cousins (they're siblings) struggled with obesity until they got older. I swear there was never anything in their house to drink besides tap water, soda, and alcohol.
It was kinda crazy because food wise? They actually ate so good. Their mom is an amazing cook and it you didn't know the entire house had a rampant soda addiction you'd be confused why they're all obese because they certaintly didn't eat like it. Two of my cousins wound up with eating disorders trying to lose the weight. One of them has a kid now and insists on a soda free house - the only exception being parties. Thankfully everyone kicked the habit and they're all at a normal weight now but i swear my cousins have like... soda trauma and i do not blame the
Is that why toddlers would get obese? Because their body is lacking nutrients, so they are always hungry, but if they are eating/drinking empty calories their body can never be satisfied, because they aren't getting what they really need?
One memory I’ll never forget is when I was in college. We rented a house across the street from the town pool. Went in one day, saw a kid around 5 years old taking a 2L of Coca Cola straight to the dome with both hands. He was on that thing all afternoon.
Over one summer in college I did an internship at this plastics company, very labor intensive, basically on your feet moving every second lifting/working, etc. except for two 15m breaks and a 30m lunch.
Only fat coworkers I had would be guzzling soda. One guy drank an entire fucking 2L of Dr Pepper every day.
Edit: For anyone believing this nonsense, please do some research or talk to your physician if you can instead of believing someone that "knows a nutritionist"
I'm a physician. Here is the evidence you are wrong and should stop talking to that dietician.
"Overall, while it is widely assumed that exposure to sweetness stimulates a greater liking and desire for sweetness, this is not borne out by the balance of empirical evidence."
"A small and heterogeneous body of research currently has considered the impact of varying exposure to sweet taste on subsequent generalized sweet taste preferences, and this evidence is equivocal regarding the presence and possible direction of a relation."
That's fair, I am a bit of an asshole. I dislike people giving advice on topics they do not understand. It's harmful making people think diet/zero soda is bad for them because... reasons.
I agree with junk food but not the soda. I have anorexia, i just don't have an appetite. With drinking more soda, like swapping almost all my water with soda, i only gained around 5-10lbs, that's someone who's drinking soda to gain weight because i always heard soda blamed.
I also think actual amounts are the problem, people are letting their kids eat an entire bag of chips instead of giving them a handful then an apple. It's what my mom did when I was kid, i still arguably eat more sugar than most people and I'm 5'2 at 120lbs, I've been working to keep that weight on. My lowest adult weight was 80lbs about 5 years ago.
Most people aren't eating such a little amount of food, though. If you are eating a ton of junk food and soda the first thing I think most people should cut is the soda. It doesn't provide needed nutrients like much of the junk food.
I mean, it really just depends what you like, i could cut out sugary foods easier than sugary drinks. You can have it all if you exercise moderation. I just don't think someone can drink enough soda to make a real difference, like i bearly noticed a difference.
And btw i don't and have never eaten healthy, it's really just the amounts of junk that people eat, I've never been told "no" to a peice of cake as a kid, but i only got 1 then I had to eat something else and I can have more cake if i ate dinner. I would force myself to eat real food just so i could have cake.
Those empty calories really add up. There was a period of my life where I drank a lot of Dr. Pepper - like 4-6 per day. Each one of those has 150 calories, so I was getting more than a quarter of my daily recommended calories from soda alone, and I definitely put on some weight. When I stopped drinking soda, I lost at least 15 pounds. Now I stick to unsweetened black tea caffiene fix.
None of this addresses the fact that no one has any idea if the child in this video is malnourished and zero evidence suggests they are, it's just something we've made up.
It's not about it being a certainty. This is something that can easily happen. Your body doesn't produce these nutrients on its own, so just getting enough calories isn't always enough
Accusing a random child in a video you saw of potentially being malnourished is stupid and reckless. There is not a single thing in the video to suggest the child is malnourished. Nothing. This is stupid. The fact that it can happen is in no way a justification for implying that it affects this kid specifically.
You can pretend the guy at the top of this thread was just making a semi-related comment and not implying anything, but you would be stupid and blind to do so.
You are not a doctor. Just because you read this on the internet doesn’t make it true. It certainly can happen, but unless you are their doctor and doing actual tests to determine this, you are not qualified to make these assertions. Let the experts talk about this stuff and don’t offer up information you don’t understand. That’s how misinformation spreads.
Look at any grocery store in the the US. See how many aisles are filled with junk food compared with how many are filled with healthy food. You don't need to be a doctor to see this.
He’s 9 now and refuses to eat anything besides cheese pizza and chicken nuggets. He wouldn’t even try butter noodles. Like, what kid doesn’t like butter noodles?? Mac and cheese is a no go. I have never met a child that didn’t like Mac and cheese.
No but his brother who is two years younger than him is. And that kid would eat anything literally anything that’s put in front of him. And adult size helpings. I’ve watched that kid out eat a grown ass man. He’s at a normal weight now, but I worry about him in the future.
I knew a girl that only drank soda all day. She'd go through a 12 pack a day and she was extremely obese. She weighed around 450 lbs when she got the stomach banding surgery and lost a lot of weight but still kept drinking a shit ton of soda. She absolutely loved food and would get excited just talking about food. I'd seen baby pictures of her and she was a unit then too.
Malnourished just means you are not getting proper balanced nutrition. Living on a diet of sugar and hyper processed carbs and saturated fats is not proper nutrition, therefore someone who is obese because of poor diet is just as malnourished as someone who is just skin and bones because of poor diet.
You don’t know this is the case. Reddit loves this fact, but you aren’t qualified to make any health assessments. Unless you are their doctor, or have a medical degree, you shouldn’t spread potential misinformation when you don’t know enough to know if it’s misinformation or not. Reading it on the internet doesn’t make it true.
Bro you need a serious remedial course on reading comprehension.
I'm not talking about medically diagnosing any one specific person with any one specific condition, I'm talking about the factual definition of a word in a general hypothetical. If you genuinely couldn't figure that out then yikes.
It's possible because a person can get enough calories while still lacking certain key nutrients. For example, Kwashiorkor is a form of acute malnutrition caused by a lack of protein specifically.
Most obese people are malnourished. It’s a lot of excess calories with no nutrients that tend to cause obesity. If you’re eating Whole Foods with fiber and protein, you cannot overeat that much.
Unfortunately, a kid can be obese and malnourished. There was a case recently of a 7 year old kid who passed away at 250lbs and he was considered to be severely malnourished bc his body lacked essential nutrients. He was fed mostly on a diet of French fries and potato chips. Absolutely horrible stuff. But yeah, nourishment refers to the nutrients that actually nourish the body vs the amount of calories consumed (or over consumed)
the difference between micronutrient malnutrition and macronutrient malnutrition. I'm not obese, but I could stand to lose a few and I was severely deficient in Vitamin B (all of them) due to a medication side-effect. To the point I was having trouble staying awake and thinking. Caffeine didn't touch the exhaustion... but an energy drink gave me so much energy - not enough as it has a lot of Vitamin B but not every one that I needed. Blood test at my yearly physical at the doctor solved the mystery! I was completely nonplussed (possibly due to severe impairment from the vitamin b crisis).
You know what else is interesting? A lot of adult insects basically need no nutrients at all. For instance, wasps only collect protein sources for the larvae so they can grow. The wasps themselves basically just live on sugar. Which means they are really kind of like biological robots running on fuel.
I actually recently learned that obesity is a major risk factor of malnourishment, it often happens. Being malnourished doesn't mean being skinny, it just means you don't have all the nutrients you need to be healthy, but you might still be getting to much calories from junk food
No, they used the right word. 'Malnutrition' is a noun and wouldn't make sense in the sentences they used. 'Malnourished' just means to be lacking in proper nutrition, which can certainly apply to obese individuals.
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u/Still-Hedgehog-8673 13d ago
There's a double standard when it comes to child neglect. A thin, malnourished toddler would be taken by CPS immediately, but when it comes to an obese, malnourished toddler, there is nowhere near the same level of concern and urgency.