Obese Thais To Shed 10,000 Tonnes In Body Weight

[Jingthing]

If they were to close down all the western style fast food places,

half the battle would be won. No KFC McD Pizza Hut ........

Nope. Only a minority of Thais eat at those places regularly. The problem is much wider ... literally.

[Jingthing]

Regardless if successful this is a step in the right direction in terms of bringing awareness of a problem.

So a bunch of people will crash diet, lose some, and gain more of it back. So it is doomed to failure because the root societal issues are ignored, so in the sense that societies can learn from failures, perhaps ... (but not likely)

[koto]

It's not hard to see why when you look at the kids eating butter soaked, sugar coated breads for breakfast, brunch, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, pre-bed snack.

There are students at the school my kids go to, that have elephant feet; that is their legs and calf muscles are bigger than their feet, so it looks like they have elephant feet, just a round mass of flesh contacting the ground.

This can't be healthy.

Keeping in mind, who brought over, all the fast junk food, places and coke, (all for profit, no health concerns) not saying that's the only problem, but sure adds.

[BrianCR]

Many expats here should apply for this campaign.

Best answer yet - Thaksin should give each expat a mirror as a birthday present!

[soidog52]

I don't believe that 17 million Thais are 'grossly overweight'. That would be about one in three of the population and you just don't see that. There are obese people here, but nothing compared to most western countries.

1 in 3 is spot on in Rayong province.

Think you might be right DD. The western diet and a larger percentage of animal based foods is going to catch up with Thais eventually. The growing middle class is evident to me by the number of absolutely huge kids that you see now a days. Don't remember seeing so many obese kids 20 years ago, especially in urban areas. KFC, Chesters Grill and McDonalds can't be helping. Video games and the misconception of dairy products being "good for you" are also to blame.

[MEL1]

I don't believe that 17 million Thais are 'grossly overweight'. That would be about one in three of the population and you just don't see that. There are obese people here, but nothing compared to most western countries.

1 in 3 is spot on in Rayong province.

Think you might be right DD. The western diet and a larger percentage of animal based foods is going to catch up with Thais eventually. The growing middle class is evident to me by the number of absolutely huge kids that you see now a days. Don't remember seeing so many obese kids 20 years ago, especially in urban areas. KFC, Chesters Grill and McDonalds can't be helping. Video games and the misconception of dairy products being "good for you" are also to blame.

Go to any International school and see 50% Michelin (sorry - Goodyear) man wobbling back from the canteen and mini-mart, at any time of day. I bet you 1000 baht you can't prove me wrong!

mel.

[soundman]

Please refer to politicians by their correct names, or accepted nick names, otherwise your posts while be arbitrarily removed from view.

[FalangBaa]

A while back I tried to get a local small grocery to carry No Sugar Oishi green tea (they stocked sugary options of it) as I told them if they stocked, I would buy it and suspected their large foreigner customer base would as well. They tried. They were told only large stores are allowed to be stocked with that flavor. Most 7-11s and Family Marts don't stock it. The sugar thing is indeed institutionalized here.

Why on earth would you want to buy prepackaged (i.e. stale), overpriced green tea anyway? Just make your own at home with high-quality green tea bags or loose green tea (I like the Japanese stuff). You could make dozens of litres of it for a few hundred baht. If you don't want to drink it hot, chill it after brewing and fill up a small bottle to take with you when you go out, so you don't have to buy that expensive sugar-filled crap green tea called Oishi, which is also full of other additives and preservatives to try to keep it fresh when it's sitting around for weeks after production in a heated warehouse. Use your brain and make your own tea fresh every day.

[Jingthing]

A while back I tried to get a local small grocery to carry No Sugar Oishi green tea (they stocked sugary options of it) as I told them if they stocked, I would buy it and suspected their large foreigner customer base would as well. They tried. They were told only large stores are allowed to be stocked with that flavor. Most 7-11s and Family Marts don't stock it. The sugar thing is indeed institutionalized here.

Why on earth would you want to buy prepackaged (i.e. stale), overpriced green tea anyway? Just make your own at home with high-quality green tea bags or loose green tea (I like the Japanese stuff). You could make dozens of litres of it for a few hundred baht. If you don't want to drink it hot, chill it after brewing and fill up a small bottle to take with you when you go out, so you don't have to buy that expensive sugar-filled crap green tea called Oishi, which is also full of other additives and preservatives to try to keep it fresh when it's sitting around for weeks after production in a heated warehouse. Use your brain and make your own tea fresh every day.

I am drinking home brewed tea right now. Enough with the lectures. I especially like Oishi when I am out and about. More pleasant than water. I drink home brewed green tea pretty much everyday so preaching to the converted. The POINT is that these products are widely sold and the No Sugar option is mostly not offered.

I have also noticed this phenom with soy milk. Typically mass market places have no no sugar soy milk option at all. Some places targeting foreigners do have it. Hilariously, as it is very popular with this market it often runs out and isn't restocked for weeks, while the shelves are fat with the sugary flavors. People HOARD the no sugar soymilk for this reason so the problem never gets better and the stores never get a clue and order four times the stock of what is actually demanded. Of course this is an "elite" market but it gives a clue to the mentality. Similarly, for something as basic as corn flakes, most places only have the sugared versions. The no sugar versions are marketed as special "health food" and of course cost more.

Edited July 24, 2012 by Jingthing

[FalangBaa]

17M? Where do they get these stats? 30% of the population? This however from 60 minutes will give most of the answers. Thais have an enormous appetite for sugar. Road stalls, condensed milk, on mango, fruits, with chilli, mixed in noodles and one of the four pots on every spice rack at restaurants. Kids eating soft serves at western fast food outlets, and even mixed surreptitiously into breads. Not just Thailand - the world is being addicted by fructose and sugars in just about everything we have and the worst of all is aspartame, used in all the diet drinks - we simply need to educate and of course that is always frowned upon as the corporate greed controls media. Don't take my word for it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2mSPIjDm1w&feature=player_embedded

Just exactly what quack website do you get your aspartame information from? There is more aspartame in a glass of low fat milk than there is in a can of diet coke. Aspartame doesn't even enter your blood stream so how can it affect you? I bet you also say MSG is bad too.

The quack is you. Low fat milk doesn't contain aspartame. Most milk in Thailand is not sweetened at all, in fact most 7-11s give you the option of 0%, low fat or full fat milk, e.g. Meiji, which is never sweetened. This is in contrast to Malaysia, where it's next to impossible to buy milk that doesn't have sugar added! The Malaysians have an even sweeter tooth than the Thais, in my experience. You cannot even buy fruit juices in Malaysia that don't have extra sugar added! I mean sucrose, as well as the fructose naturally present in all fruit! And regardless of what anyone says, Malaysians are quite a bit fatter on average than Thais.

[Spalpeen]

I don't believe that 17 million Thais are 'grossly overweight'. That would be about one in three of the population and you just don't see that. There are obese people here, but nothing compared to most western countries.

They just don't look overweight because you are comparing them to grossly overweight people. It really is amazing the standards they have set for what is considered overweight. It seems rail thin is considered a healthy weight. The funny thing is that studies now show that being thin and what they terms as overweight (not obese) has no bearing on life expectancy. It is actually better to be a bit overweight than underweight.

Yeah, I'm counting on that myself.

[Nisa]

Regardless if successful this is a step in the right direction in terms of bringing awareness of a problem.

So a bunch of people will crash diet, lose some, and gain more of it back. So it is doomed to failure because the root societal issues are ignored, so in the sense that societies can learn from failures, perhaps ... (but not likely)

Despite my confusion about your over the top re-conclusions to a simple post, it should be pointed out that losing 4 kilos a month does not equate to a crash diet. 4 kilos a month would be considered a proper and safe weight loss rate and goal ... but don't let that stop you from being negative towards a campaign designed to bring awareness and increase health or concluding it will make people gain weight.

Edited July 24, 2012 by Nisa

[meatballs]

You guys don't know about obesity until you've been to the US of A.

[meatballs]

The Genie is out of the bottle. With prosperity comes affluence, which begets excess. Couple that with fast food and you have an epidemic of obesity. Just look at what that equation did to the US.

Not really. Japan is prosperous but it has very few fat people.

[Nisa]

In order to lose 4 kilos a month, an average person would need to either burn and/ or reduce the calories taken in by 30,800 in a month or about 1000 Calories a day. 1,000 calories would equal to 1 less Big Mac combined with adding 30-minutes of jumping rope a day.

1 Pound loss = 3.500 calories reduction

1 Big Mac = 540 Calories (about the same as a cup of rice depending on rice)

1-hour rope jumping = 860 Calories if 73 Kilos or 1075 Calories if your weight is 91 Kilos

Edited July 24, 2012 by Nisa

[Nisa]

If they were to close down all the western style fast food places,

half the battle would be won. No KFC McD Pizza Hut ........

Nope. Only a minority of Thais eat at those places regularly. The problem is much wider ... literally.

Interesting that only a minority eat there because only a minority of Thais are obese.

Edited July 24, 2012 by Nisa

[Crushdepth]

Self deleted.

Edited July 24, 2012 by Crushdepth

[kiniyow]

Many eat 6 meals a day..Cutting back to 3 meals a day would be a great start...

[Nisa]

Many eat 6 meals a day..Cutting back to 3 meals a day would be a great start...

The problem isn't that they eat 6 times a day but as you say, they eat 6 "meals" a day.

Edited July 24, 2012 by Nisa

[atyclb]

10,000 tons weight loss. If the americans cant do it do you think the thais (with they're abounding organization, efficiency, planning, and intellectual prowess) can?

[KeyserSoze01]

Just exactly what quack website do you get your aspartame information from? There is more aspartame in a glass of low fat milk than there is in a can of diet coke. Aspartame doesn't even enter your blood stream so how can it affect you? I bet you also say MSG is bad too.

You didn't use the little sarcasm emoticon, so I'll take it that you are serious.

There is an abundance of evidence that both aspartame and msg pose a significant health risk to anyone who uses these products on a regular basis. It's the 21st century, information is easy to find. So why post something so banal as to draw ridicule?

[surangw]

I have a feeling the criteria for overweight is different in thailand than in the west.

[Thai at Heart]

It's not hard to see why when you look at the kids eating butter soaked, sugar coated breads for breakfast, brunch, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, pre-bed snack.

There are students at the school my kids go to, that have elephant feet; that is their legs and calf muscles are bigger than their feet, so it looks like they have elephant feet, just a round mass of flesh contacting the ground.

This can't be healthy.

Keeping in mind, who brought over, all the fast junk food, places and coke, (all for profit, no health concerns) not saying that's the only problem, but sure adds.

Go check the shareholder of thainamtip

[Thai at Heart]

If they were to close down all the western style fast food places,

half the battle would be won. No KFC McD Pizza Hut ........

Nope. Only a minority of Thais eat at those places regularly. The problem is much wider ... literally.

Interesting that only a minority eat there because only a minority of Thais are obese.

Apparently there are 17 mn according to the op.

[Nisa]

If they were to close down all the western style fast food places,

half the battle would be won. No KFC McD Pizza Hut ........

Nope. Only a minority of Thais eat at those places regularly. The problem is much wider ... literally.

Interesting that only a minority eat there because only a minority of Thais are obese.

Apparently there are 17 mn according to the op.

Near 70 million Thais ... this would put them in the minority but obviously western influences is not the only cause of Thais become fatter.

Edited July 24, 2012 by Nisa

[Jingthing]

Obesity is an objective clinical phenom. It is more serious than just overweight.

[PoodMaiDai]

4 kilos per month for 3 months - 12 kilos a person.... nothing like setting realistic goals. That will take some serious group 'fitness' sessions Tesco carpark/Lumphini Park/California Wow

If you remember, they are ridding the tourist areas of the mafia within 3 months, so setting realistic goals is the norm.

[jerrysteve]

What ever the percentage rate is with respect to obesity, the significant thing that I had read, is type 2

sugar diabetes is up by a rather significant amount over the last 5 years and no doubt still climbing.

[Nisa]

What ever the percentage rate is with respect to obesity, the significant thing that I had read, is type 2

sugar diabetes is up by a rather significant amount over the last 5 years and no doubt still climbing.

I remember reading not long ago

2 percent of Chinese teens had type 2 diabetes while the rate in the US is 1/2 percent. It didn't have detailed breakdown by location but it really struck me as odd since so much of China is still poor and it is not like the kids are sitting around playing on their laptops and Blackberries all day while eating McDonald's. Although Type 2 diabities is clearly linked to diet and exercise (lack of), I also remember reading that health officials are really baffled by the increase rate of Type 2 diabetes, especially among young people. I think the concern was that it traditionally it had been something that comes on later in life after prolonged sedentary lifestyle and/or bad eating habits.

[Hamlet07]

Yes its definately getting worse and again they need to implement a more exercise /less sugar strategy....