New and Experienced climbers over 50 ##24

Todays wordel is silly. never heard of that word. only got it by typing in every letter possible untill it finally accepted something. then I had to look the word up to see what it meant. Got out with my friend Alden yesterday for a Vermont FA... 

and then out of the lake for a friends birthday party. it was cold and rainy in the evening but at the last min the sun broke through.. 

All these achievements are extraordinary, especially casted against the backdrop of US CDC's data on obesity.  The url is https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
Excerpts -

• The US obesity prevalence was 41.9% in 2017 – March 2020. (NHANES, 2021)
• The obesity prevalence was 39.8% among adults aged 20 to 39 years, 44.3% among adults aged 40 to 59 years, and 41.5% among adults aged 60 and older.

US CDC defines obesity as having a BMI of > 30.0.  Or 203lb (92kg) for someone 5'9" (175cm) in height.

I don't know if anyone else is terrified by 39.8% obesity among adults aged 20 to 39 as I am.  I see a large health insurance premium rise starting very soon.

S. Neohwrote:

All these achievements are extraordinary, especially casted against the backdrop of US CDC's data on obesity.  The url is https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
Excerpts -

• The US obesity prevalence was 41.9% in 2017 – March 2020. (NHANES, 2021)
• The obesity prevalence was 39.8% among adults aged 20 to 39 years, 44.3% among adults aged 40 to 59 years, and 41.5% among adults aged 60 and older.

US CDC defines obesity as having a BMI of > 30.0.  Or 203lb (92kg) for someone 5'9" (175cm) in height.

I don't know if anyone else is terrified by 39.8% obesity among adults aged 20 to 39 as I am.  I see a large health insurance premium rise starting very soon.

I don’t know about terrified but certainly sad. I was at the mall this week and saw so many young women (and men) who were very obese.  There’s so much shame and struggle around carrying extra weight.  All the food in the food court was cheap fast food.  The deck is stacked against young people being slim and healthy. 

Lori Milaswrote:

I don’t know about terrified but certainly sad. I was at the mall this week and saw so many young women (and men) who were very obese.  There’s so much shame and struggle around carrying extra weight.  All the food in the food court was cheap fast food.  The deck is stacked against young people being slim and healthy. 

I don't understand this. Why was our generation so much thinner? It wasn't that we exercised a lot -- at least that wasn't my experience. And there was plenty of processed food. I ate KFC and tv dinners regularly. What changed?

wendy weisswrote:

I don't understand this. Why was our generation so much thinner? It wasn't that we exercised a lot -- at least that wasn't my experience. And there was plenty of processed food. I ate KFC and tv dinners regularly. What changed?

Well, we used to go outside.  Now they all sit inside on their phones or computers.  If you have tried it, those are often a better reality that the real one people are living and just sucks them in.  Same reason suicide rates are so high.  No human contact.  No real friends.  Nothing else to do...

wendy weisswrote:

I don't understand this. Why was our generation so much thinner? It wasn't that we exercised a lot -- at least that wasn't my experience. And there was plenty of processed food. I ate KFC and tv dinners regularly. What changed?

We exercised without knowing it (incidental exercise), big corp demonised fat and pushed sugar, fast food exploded in availability, we became namby-pamby softies who need climate control and four wheels under us constantly.  

This might be entertaining.  A documentary about sugar. I think you’ll all get a kick (“kuck”) out of the New Zealand accent too.  

https://youtu.be/b2taSMx6394

wendy weisswrote:

I don't understand this. Why was our generation so much thinner? It wasn't that we exercised a lot -- at least that wasn't my experience. And there was plenty of processed food. I ate KFC and tv dinners regularly. What changed?

The gnarly food industry now owns more politicians than ever and people rarely make food from scratch. Everything is super sized and people grow up sitting and staring at screens. Heck, nowadays people have problems with car doors that dont automatically shut for them. I see one "food" product in our hobby/lifestyle that definitely is horrible for average Joe's health, redbull. Some states are well above 40% obesity which is definitely alarming as all can be.

wendy weisswrote:

I don't understand this. Why was our generation so much thinner? It wasn't that we exercised a lot -- at least that wasn't my experience. And there was plenty of processed food. I ate KFC and tv dinners regularly. What changed?

Well, I have thought a lot about it too Wendy. When I was in 10th grade, we had a Bob’s Big Boy down the street and maybe once every couple of weeks we would go have a hamburger and fries after school. There was no McDonald’s, as I recall. My breakfast was a bowl of oatmeal and a banana, or maybe an egg and a slice of toast. We usually skipped lunch at school because we were too busy laughing and talking. Dinner was always some kind of meal at home and in my house pretty modest size. TV dinners were a big deal growing up!  We did not yet have microwaves and plastic containers. Maybe my memory is cloudy, but I don’t recall a single friend who was overweight. We did dance a lot and we did spend time outside but certainly nothing exhausting.

There’s a lot of talk about the microbiome and how screwed up it is these days, favoring gut bacteria that cause health and weight issues—mostly due to the quality of food we are eating.  I don’t know yet how I feel about GMOs—but people I respect credit GMO foods with destroying our good gut bacteria, so I don’t mind just avoiding them.  In our youth we didn’t have to go out of our way to “eat organic “.  Everything already pretty much was. When we cooked an artichoke we had to soak it for an hour in salt water to encourage all the bugs to crawl out, Milk was from cows who were not given routine antibiotics and growth hormones and through 8th grade delivered in glass bottles to our door. I would bet those Bobs Big Boys were as close to organic as you could get. 

It’s taken some time for Tony to understand how MUCH I dislike shopping at Whole Foods — it’s not from some yuppie sense of privilege but just to try to approximate the food quality we had as kids (but still off by a mile).  I hate going there and I hate spending the money.  

——

I came home to a bumper crop of tomatoes but some torn up sunflowers.  I found this bug on one leaf… I think he must be the culprit.  Not sure what will extinguish him and his family. Neem, maybe? 

I’m feeling a little bit militant today. I thought I would have a tuna sandwich for lunch, maybe my second one in a year. Having had a long hospital stay in 1984 due to mercury poisoning I know how bad it can be, and how long it can take to leave the body. the whole subject of what has happened to our food supply is one I am pretty sensitive about. Why are people obese? Why are people sick? Why are there whole classes in school for autistic kids? I know there’s no simple answers. 

I’ve just been curious about exactly when our oceans became so polluted that women who are pregnant are advised not to eat any fish from the ocean at all and the rest of us to consume no more than once a week. Where did the mercury come from? How long has it been there? Best I can tell , it’s from our dumping the residues of coal burning power plants and some manufacturing wastes right into the ocean. And during several of our presidency’s when the restrictions were stringent, those levels started to go down. But during other terms of office, all hell broke loose because those lawmakers favored profit over the planet and our health. It really is too late for our generation and several downstream because mercury sticks around for so long. But we shouldn’t feel like we are taking our lives in our hands to have a tuna sandwich!

This brand is the safest there is. This will be lunch.   

Lori Milaswrote:

I’m feeling a little bit militant today. I thought I would have a tuna sandwich for lunch, maybe my second one in a year. Having had a long hospital stay in 1984 due to mercury poisoning I know how bad it can be, and how long it can take to leave the body.

Were you a hatter?

Russ Wallingwrote:

Were you a hatter?

Not far from it, Russ.  By far the worst symptom was severe depression and visual disturbances. Not far behind was trembling, slurred speech and narcolepsy.  

Don’t know if this is still the case but the profession with the highest suicide rate is dentistry.  It’s also the profession with the highest concentration of mercury in their brains.  

wendy weisswrote:

I don't understand this. Why was our generation so much thinner? It wasn't that we exercised a lot -- at least that wasn't my experience. And there was plenty of processed food. I ate KFC and tv dinners regularly. What changed?

First, I'm assuming by "our generation" you probably mean baby boomers? I'm a Gen-X member but presumably most people in this group are boomers. I see a TON of fat people in that age group, so not sure what you mean by "our generation" was thinner?  Maybe you mean when your generation was young they were thinner than young people today? 

My kids are 18 and 21. Their friends are almost all really fit and strong. But, also, I acknowledge that I live in the affluent Westside of LA and kids here grew up in a culture that values healthy diet, exercise and spending time doing sports. So I'm willing to entertain that their experience is different from, perhaps, kids in Tulsa the same age?

One thing that definitely changed between the adults of the 1960s and 1970s and the adults of my generation is that lots of people smoked then and almost nobody does now. I'm going to chalk that up to a good thing even if some people replaced that addiction with a different one. Also, I remember a lot of moms in my childhood taking "diet pills" quite regularly. Those were just amphetamines. Probably another positive change.

There's a lot of great info at this CDC page about correlations between poverty, race, education, etc and rates of obesity. Great maps. Highly recommend it. 

I've been wearing Murias (velcro) on the steeps. Good shoe for it. I'm looking for suggestions for a similar alternative: maybe a little kinder to the toes, not yellow or all black, downturned velcro, not a bunch of top rubber. Ugly is ok but shaped kinda like a human foot. Oh and cheap . . . I know, I know

Andrew Ricewrote:

First, I'm assuming by "our generation" you probably mean baby boomers? I'm a Gen-X member but presumably most people in this group are boomers. I see a TON of fat people in that age group, so not sure what you mean by "our generation" was thinner?  Maybe you mean when your generation was young they were thinner than young people today? 

My kids are 18 and 21. Their friends are almost all really fit and strong. But, also, I acknowledge that I live in the affluent Westside of LA and kids here grew up in a culture that values healthy diet, exercise and spending time doing sports. So I'm willing to entertain that their experience is different from, perhaps, kids in Tulsa the same age?

One thing that definitely changed between the adults of the 1960s and 1970s and the adults of my generation is that lots of people smoked then and almost nobody does now. I'm going to chalk that up to a good thing even if some people replaced that addiction with a different one. Also, I remember a lot of moms in my childhood taking "diet pills" quite regularly. Those were just amphetamines. Probably another positive change.

There's a lot of great info at this CDC page about correlations between poverty, race, education, etc and rates of obesity. Great maps. Highly recommend it. 

Yes, I'm talking about my generation (boomers) when we were young. From age 12 until college I lived and went to school in a middle-class neighborhood in South Florida. My contemporaries, with the exception of student athletes doing team sports, weren't especially athletic or health conscious. I don't think smoking was a big factor. I really don't understand why kids today aren't as slim as we were. (Of course, here in the People's Republic, the kids are much more fit than my classmates were.)    

Lori Milaswrote:

I’m feeling a little bit militant today. I thought I would have a tuna sandwich for lunch, maybe my second one in a year. Having had a long hospital stay in 1984 due to mercury poisoning I know how bad it can be, and how long it can take to leave the body. the whole subject of what has happened to our food supply is one I am pretty sensitive about. Why are people obese? Why are people sick? Why are there whole classes in school for autistic kids? I know there’s no simple answers. 

I’ve just been curious about exactly when our oceans became so polluted that women who are pregnant are advised not to eat any fish from the ocean at all and the rest of us to consume no more than once a week. Where did the mercury come from? How long has it been there? Best I can tell , it’s from our dumping the residues of coal burning power plants and some manufacturing wastes right into the ocean. And during several of our presidency’s when the restrictions were stringent, those levels started to go down. But during other terms of office, all hell broke loose because those lawmakers favored profit over the planet and our health. It really is too late for our generation and several downstream because mercury sticks around for so long. But we shouldn’t feel like we are taking our lives in our hands to have a tuna sandwich!

This brand is the safest there is. This will be lunch.   

Have some caviar with your tuna (or other large fish). Caviar contains selenium which transports heavy metals out of the body. 

This picture is of the lower deck lounge on an aircraft called the Boeing Stratocruiser, a luxurious long distance passenger plane in the 1950's to the early 1960's. I rode these a bunch of times as a boy, getting shuttled back and forth between my single mom in NYC and the grandparents in North Dakota. 

Most of the adults, and many young people I see today, would have a serious problem with that stairway. 

wendy weisswrote:

Yes, I'm talking about my generation (boomers) when we were young. From age 12 until college I lived and went to school in a middle-class neighborhood in South Florida. My contemporaries, with the exception of student athletes doing team sports, weren't especially athletic or health conscious. I don't think smoking was a big factor. I really don't understand why kids today aren't as slim as we were. (Of course, here in the People's Republic, the kids are much more fit than my classmates were.)    

Thanks for clarifying. I think there's a very stark divide that's mostly economic (with corresponding racial elements). The United States is one of the weird places where it costs more to eat healthy and be skinny than to get by on highly processed white starches and sugar. That's definitely reflected in the Type 2 diabetes numbers and obesity numbers for teens if you look at the map here and sort by various characteristics. Like you, though, I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s eating GARBAGE. My after school snack most days after middle school or high school was a Coke (in the old glass bottles) and a couple Oscar Meyer hot dogs on a white bun. Maybe with a little Kraft American Cheese food product and Lays potato chips!. But I did get a lot of exercise and spent a lot of time outdoors. If I'd been screen-bound I'd probably have type 2 diabetes and be obese right now. 

People used to be skinny because cola had cocaine in it :)    seriously its all about screen time.  too much screen time = fat as fck. 

Lori Milaswrote:

Maybe my memory is cloudy, but I don’t recall a single friend who was overweight. 

I remember clearly that we had one 'fat' boy in my classes, Grades 7 thru pre-college.  He was teased relentlessly.  
I went back to the same high school some 40 years after I graduated for a visit and of course, plenty of fat kids.

Altho it sounds simplistic, I am leaning towards Nick about too much screen time. Then again, I am "on screen" 8 to 10 hr a day for work and I am far from obese. So, not sure what to think.