Thai women second fattest in Asia

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deepee
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Re: Thai women second fattest in Asia

Post by deepee »

Cost cutting in the food game has led to sugar being the main cheap food flavour enhancer ahead of salt even. It "patches up " so many dishes that it has become the norm for Thais.
Bring back the onions and the garlic, bring back the coconut cream, and not the plain old dull cheaper coconut milk (heaven forbid some even use cow's milk as a sub nowdays) and even the MSG !!!! And, if you need to add sugar, add the good old full bodied palm sugar too, but you will need to pay an extra baht or two for the pleasure.
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Re: Thai women second fattest in Asia

Post by Nereus »

This video will give an idea of the Thai physique in the past. Pete
What make of camera did you use to make that, Pete?

I notice that they had electric trams pretty early on. Even a couple of old Series 1 Land Rovers! :cheers:
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Re: Thai women second fattest in Asia

Post by Big Boy »

Interesting video Pete - I think I might have watched it a while ago. I saw 2 men and 5 women who looked slightly overweight, but nothing by today's standards, and even then, it could have been loose fitting clothes.
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Re: Thai women second fattest in Asia

Post by PeteC »

^ Yes, I looked high and low on several threads as I thought I had seen it posted before also. Couldn't find it. A bit dilution of the topic for sure, but interesting for a Friday evening. If I find the "old photo/video" thread, I'll move it. Pete
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Re: Thai women second fattest in Asia

Post by oakdale160 »

And yet it is not difficult to eat sensibly in Thailand. When I became less active I changed my diet--first only 2 meals a day--late b'fast at 10 or 11 and dinner at 6 pm--high protein, mod fat, low carb--lots of seafood and veggies. But as in many other things, the whole idea of making a change in your life is not a concept that Thai people embrace.
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Re: Thai women second fattest in Asia

Post by Takiap »

Big Boy wrote: Fri Nov 17, 2017 7:47 am
Takiap wrote: Fri Nov 17, 2017 6:38 am I'm not at all surprised. The spend half the day sitting and eating. I also don't believe it has anything to do with western fast food outlets.I knows scores of overweight Thais, and not one of them are frequent customers of BK, McD, KFC, and etc. Most Thai street food is as fattening as any western fast food and the Thais eat copious amounts of it.

In the afternoons when I pick my kids up at school, every second child is gorging on deep fried foods or Thai-style deserts which are 99% sugar.
I'm not sure I entirely agree with you.

Thais have always done the sitting and eating thing for as long as I've known. In Isaan, it is impossible to visit somebody's house without having a dish of food put in front of you. However, even though the look of most dishes scares the hell out of me, you can see, in most cases the food is healthy/nutritious.
Yes BB, I should have been more specific. I know it has always been the Thai way to eat from dawn to dusk, but these days, and particularly in the cities, they are continuing with that tradition, but their choice of foods as changed considerably for the most part.

I think laziness is also largely to blame when it comes to kids being overweight. Many, or should I say most, Thais simply don't cook. Instead, they live on street food, and as a result, so too do their kids. How many street food dishes are healthy for young kids? Those which are to some extent healthy either don't appeal to young kids, or else they are simply too spicy.

Thais who do cook at home for their kids also tend to cook food which is quick an easy, and from my observations, also fattening and unhealthy. I could pop down to my local shop right now and there would be at least 6 or 7 bowls of food on the table, and most, if not all, will contain fried foods swimming in oil. Needless to say, almost the entire family are seriously overweight.

Perhaps it also has something to do with face; a perceived sign of wealth perhaps?
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Re: Thai women second fattest in Asia

Post by Midsman »

Interesting documentary on the sugar topic.

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Re: Thai women second fattest in Asia

Post by PBbeacher »

I once heard a Thai expression which translated to: "When you're fat, you smell good and when you're skinny, you stink".
But I don't think the current fatty situation is a face thing (though possibly in the past), as touched on here already, I think it is down to a generally sedentary lifestyle and cheap and accessible junk food. At least there seem to be more and more of these free little public fitness areas popping up (new one on soi 94-102 cut through by the way - never seen anyone using it!)
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Re: Thai women second fattest in Asia

Post by oakdale160 »

just read the thread about traffic deaths and then read this one. The comments by posters are similar and can be summarised as --Why do the Thai people behave in a way that is a threat to their health and lives and why doesn't the govt do something to bring about changes?
The answer to all these questions is simply--Because they are Thai and working to bring about change is not in their DNA.
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Re: Thai women second fattest in Asia

Post by STEVE G »

I think there are a couple of factors that haven't been taken into account, one is that before about 1990, poverty rates in rural areas of Thailand were very high and the other is that people living in poor rural communities in SE Asia have a very high rate of intestinal parasites. Both of these factors would have affected over 50% of the rural population thirty odd years ago.
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Re: Thai women second fattest in Asia

Post by migrant »

It would be interesting to compare a standard meal now to the past. The bulk of the meals I see that are priced low is generally rice. Look at people (women especially) in Mexico and central America, many are heavy set. Standard meals, especially for the lower classes, have lots of beans, rice, plantains, and tortillas. All cheap and starchy.

The higher classes tend to be in better shape.
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Re: Thai women second fattest in Asia

Post by 404cameljockey »

migrant wrote: Fri Nov 24, 2017 7:25 am It would be interesting to compare a standard meal now to the past. The bulk of the meals I see that are priced low is generally rice. Look at people (women especially) in Mexico and central America, many are heavy set. Standard meals, especially for the lower classes, have lots of beans, rice, plantains, and tortillas. All cheap and starchy.

The higher classes tend to be in better shape.
They didn't only just start growing rice, but they did just started growing fat. Rice has always been the main dietary staple of Thailand. Rice with every meal, even breakfast. It seems the replacement of rice-based meals with fast food and unhealthy packaged factory-processed snacks is what the forum believes may be the main reason.

I just Googled and found this:

Across Asia, where food – in particular, rice – is central to the culture, and where one’s well-being is traditionally contingent on the community’s sustenance, one finds the same traditional “have you eaten (rice) yet/already?” greeting: in Burmese (sa: pi: bi: la:?), Cantonese (sihk jó faahn meih a ?),Chiuchow (jia bung meh ?), Khmer (nham bay howie nov ?), Korean (bap meogeosseoyo ?), Malay (sudah makan ?), Malayalam (cho¯rrun . t. o¯?), Putonghua (ch I ¯ fàn le ma?), Sinhalese (bath kavatha?), Tagalog (kumain ka na ba?), Taiwanese (jia˘ bà bua¯i?), Thai (thaan khâo láew re¯u yang?), Vietnamese (a˘n co ’ m chu ’ a?).
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Re: Thai women second fattest in Asia

Post by 404cameljockey »

STEVE G wrote: Sat Nov 18, 2017 11:54 am I think there are a couple of factors that haven't been taken into account, one is that before about 1990, poverty rates in rural areas of Thailand were very high and the other is that people living in poor rural communities in SE Asia have a very high rate of intestinal parasites. Both of these factors would have affected over 50% of the rural population thirty odd years ago.
I overlooked this post before Steve, a really good point. Healthier people are fatter people (until they start to think about dietary health too). :)
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Re: Thai women second fattest in Asia

Post by Dannie Boy »

I’m sure that other than diet, one big contributor is the much less exercise the average Thai gets now, compared to yesteryear- now nobody wants to walk anywhere.
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Re: Thai women second fattest in Asia

Post by handdrummer »

Thais are trying to be number one in something, perhaps fatness will be their winning ticket.
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