Stella - I agree. People's metabolisms are different. I don't think it's up to us to "judge" the unhealthiness. If somebody ASKS me about what they should eat, then I'll make a comment, but other than that, I don't really mind. I only pay attention to figure out how I can adapt what they're eating to suit my needs.

AND, if you want to talk about "unhealthy" eating, look at what Michael Phelps eats for breakfast. But the man burns 10,000 calories a day. If you look at what the boys at the gym are eating, the ones that are trying to bulk, they drink protein shakes that have about 300 calories in them alone. And they sometimes drink that twice a day. That's 600 calories in just a shake. But they lift it off.

And, I don't like labeling food "good" and "bad". There should never be "bad" foods. There should just be foods considered in "moderation". If I want Ben & Jerry's, I'm going to have Ben & Jerry's. I might have to work out harder that day, or eat less another meal, but I've learned that when I start thinking of foods as "bad", it makes me have cravings and I fall off track quickly or I stop monitoring because I don't want to admit the "bad".

But that's just me.

Pammy, I totally understand what you're going through with the family. My mom cooks everything in butter or adds butter to it. She must eat more than 100g of fat a day. Not to mention, now that I've started eating better, I've noticed she eats a lot more than I do, and she used to claim to me she ate less than 2000cal a day. It's makes it hard for me to live with her since we're constantly arguing about how to prepare meals or what I should be eating. Now I see where I got my reasoning for making bad choices in life.

I usually don't say anything to anyone. If someone wants to lose weight, I'll offer them all the encouragement and advice I can on it--and I haven't exactly been a pro, so I don't blame them if they won't listen to me. Maybe once I reach my goal they will, though!! But, I definitely do notice all they're eating and cringe a bit on the inside. I can't even imagine eating fast food--other than the occasional subway--anymore.

Stella, I agree. There should be some type of course taught to teens and kids about what is actually in their food and what they should eat. Sadly, I knew what I was eating was bad, but I didn't know how much crap was put into it. Now that I track, I'm much more aware of that. If they only taught people early on that they should eat so much fat and so much protein instead of just how much calories, and informed them of healthy alternatives, perhaps they'd be much better off.

I think family is slightly different...especially parents and siblings. I mean my dad has liver disease and he knows he shouldn't be eating all that butter...and I say something to him, but that's because I know he knows better and he's been spoken to about it by medical professionals. My little sister is very overweight - however she's currently changing her life through diet and exercise - I only see her maybe once every two months, on the weekends, and we go out to eat. if I see her ordering chicken fingers, I'm not going to say anything, she knows its not a "healthy" choice, but its a treat for her once a week, and who am I to say she doesn't deserve it if she wants it or lessen her enjoyment of it by commenting "uh, Gina, should you REALLY be eating that?"

Its just most of us on here have been judged as "the fat kid" more than once in our life, and it seems like some people are forgetting that and turning it around to judging what other people eat. Like Jess said - look at Michael Phelps or athletes/lifters. Yes, they eat a lot more calories - but they're athletes, they're also burning it off.

You just don't know about anyone else's life until you walk in their shoes, that's all I'm saying :)

The whole mother/family cooking thing - different issue.

::shrug:: I understand that this is probably a sensitive topic stella however I never said I was "judging" any of my peers. I am merely noticing WHAT they are eating..that combined with the enormous portions presented to people nowadays compared to what I'm limiting myself to is really a HUGE amount of food. So really, this thread was not meant to offend anyone, it was really just a observational conversation piece.

I only say things to people who i know are open to it. Otherwise, I don't think its my place. I needed to wait until I was ready; I feel like I have to give people that same respect.

I lived in the dorms at my state university for three years. We're a communter school so dinning options are really limited. Even when I was trying to make healthy choices, i had a really difficult time. When you're faced with a cafe that options grill items (burgers, fried chicken, fries), huge sub sandwiches and pizza as the only options past 5pm, making a healthy choice is beyond hard. Its sad that we tell college students to avoid the freshman 15 and then offer nothing but unhealthy, high fat options

I especially notice what people are eating at restaurants since I've started eating off the kids' menu. It makes me think of all the times I ate those huge meals, when the 'kids' menu really offers the serving sizes an adult should be eating for such calorie-dense foods.

Really, I think deep down it's ourselves that we're judging when we look at someone and think, "Oh God, how can she eat that! That's more calories than she needs for the day!" We remember all those burgers, the cookies, all the times we gaped down in confusion at a suddenly empty family-sized bag of chips that we bought yesterday, etc.

I think it's easier to acknowledge the embarrassment and guilt when it's superficially aimed at other people. We look at those people, and we're not really thinking, "Why don't they know any better?" We're thinking, "Why didn't I know any better?"

Pink, I wasn't offended and I understand what you're saying, I was just saying that when all of us do what pretty much everyone stated - see what others are eating and just are "disgusted" or "amazed" by the amount of calories being consumed, we ARE judging them on some level. And maybe even judging ourselves, too.
I agree that the campus situation is a hard one, I went through it myself, I was more trying to say be careful what you assume - such as assuming they KNOW what they're eating.

And it was a general statement, not just aimed at you, Pink :)

I am a cashier at a grocery store and I notice all the crap that people buy! Its ridiculous! Frozen food crap, and chips, and cakes... its awful.

I'm glad that you noticing food is motivating you!

My university offers almost NOTHING healthy. Seriously all that the cafeteria has that I can eat is a fruit cup or a veggie cup (with ranch, which i promptly throw out after purchasing)...everything else is subs, pastas, pizza, chinese..ughhh. I wish they offered healthier things. We do have 1 subway on campus (I usually get a veggie delight, no cheese, only mustard) but its REALLY far from the side of campus Im on..

Well subs, pastas and Chinese aren't bad for you in certain amounts. Marinara sauce is usually very low fat. Subs have them hold the mayo. And Chinese, go with the steamed stuff and white rice. You can lose weight and NOT only eat rabbit food too.

Eating is only part of the weight loss healthy lifestyle change.

I totally agree - very well said.

We had a lot of options at our cafeteria - once I realized living on chicken fingers wasn't the way to go I basically went for sandwiches - wheat bread, turkey, lettuce and tomato. I skipped the mayo and got pretzels instead of chips. Was it boring? yes. Did I lose weight? Yup.

They don't have like a buffet where you can get meat, veggies, etc? In our larger cafeterias we had the traditional "dinner" foods - the food was pretty salty and the veggies were all canned, but we had more options than just subs/fried food/pasta.

I used to hate my cafeteria at school, but hearing what you guys get makes me thankful I went to the school I did. They were always very health conscious and I lost a lot of weight my first time living up there. We had a great salad bar, a lot of healthy vegetarian selections, and yeah, there was fried food too, but it was easy to avoid.

Ok without judging the schools in America, I think they don't have healthy choices. In Cyprus the lunch cafeteria rarely served pizza (only once a month) and macaroni al' furno also (once a month) but the other days almost everything was grilled or steamed, which caused lots of students to moan because food was a bit, I don't know how to say it... boring.

Now I had a fellow classmate who studied in the USA and he used to describe all those different kinds of pizzas, burgers, donuts and candy his Uni served every day. I don't want to judge the unis but I somehow drew the conclusion that this kind of food is the only kind they serve, which I may be wrong.

So the question I have is do students have healthy choices of food in the uni cafeterias or not? Because if there are no healthy choices and we are talking about students who don't know how to cook, or can't cook then how can they blamed for "bad choices" in food?