Diane Sawyer reports from No Korea & "No one's obes

[Ellen Jaffe Jones]

Did anyone see the conclusion of her week long report last night? She threw in her summary saying the entire week, no matter where they went, they didn't "see a single overweight person in this country with no money." Somebody send her the China Study!

[KristaO]

Very interesting - wish I would have seen that. My friend said the same thing when he went to Italy - no fat people there!

[Ellen Jaffe Jones]

Click on news, or nightly news, then there should be an listing of stories by date.

[chewy]

What is the North Korean diet besides white rice?

[Sunny]

It looks like they eat the way most Asian countries do, Mainly rice w/ added meats or fish and vegetables, they also eat soy products. I am sure that the rice and vegetables they eat outweigh any meat consumed.

My thought is that they will never make the connection public that if you eat a starch based diet you will be thin !!!

[SandyW]

All very interesting!

[Anne]

If you've ever actually spoken to someone who has escaped from North Korea, you would know that people are actually starving there. Families do not have enough food and children suffer from diseases of malnourishment.

Sorry, but I have met some North Korean refugees, and this conversation horrified me.

[Lee]

Anne, I believe you are right. I also heard this was happening in North Korea. Very sad because I don't know if we could do anything about it.

[Ellen Jaffe Jones]

While I know that the media was directed to what the government wanted to show, if you saw the reports, there were what appeared to be thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people who were well enough fed to do energetic, precise marching and dancing. I'm thinking they could not have done all that and be starving to death. Not exactly malnourished as we have seen in video from other countries where malnutrition is so obviously portrayed in the pictures of mothers carrying children with distended abdomens etc. The summary of the China Study is that in countries where they cannot afford meat and dairy, diseases of affluence do not exist as we know them here. While not a picture perfect other pasture's always greener scenario, there is much we can learn from other cultures.

[Mama Owl]

but missed the first part. The reporter did say that she was not shown anything the government didn't want her to see. She wasn't shown the poor areas. They kept them secluded, under guard the entire time. She knew that she what she was being shown was not the norm for the main population. The report seemed accurate to me and I agree that many of the people of that nation must be starving, but it is not the military or the "higher class" families.

I felt so sorry for the poeple of that country. Malnutrition is also obvious due to the circomstances and the dictatorship's total control and considering that so many needed medical help, not normally offered by thier country, I assume they dont get any health care to speak of.

What struck me was that even in thier own homes, the only photo's allowed were of the rulers and that the group of doctors that went into the country to perform cataract surgeries were not given any thanks. The government took all credit, though it provided No MONEY for this.

This sort of reminds me of the old Pharoahs Where they were worshiped as God's on Earth.

Scarey isn't it, that this is still happening and there is nothing we can do about it. It is also scarey that the people believe we are still at war with N. Korea...40 years later!

[DianeR]

We went to Italy and few years back and there are "fat" people there. Just not nearly as many ... and I didn't see any obesity at all.

One interesting thing I noticed is that the food one gets at restaurants in Italy is different from what one gets in Italian restaurants here. The portions are much smaller. Pasta in particular is a small first course or side dish; I never saw a place offer a huge plate as is common here. For the second course, we were usually able to order a plate of grilled veggies. I've never seen that at a US Italian restaurant.

I think people get more exercise there as well, frequently walking to go to shops, restaurants, etc.

My generalizations may not be true in all parts of the country. I don't know if anyone has looked at the stats for people in different parts of the country. The regional diets vary quite a bit.

[groundhogg]

I sort of have a weird "hobby" of noticing just how people look from various countries, cultures, and this is what I peer at on the news more so than paying attention so much to whatever the reporter is talking about.

Anyway, I have noticed it seems all Koreans (except the nuking guy with the continuous bad hair day...a real dumpling of a fellow) are very thin, Iranians are very thin too...the weird thing is Iranians eat similar to Iraquis...and Iraquis are even more dumplings than that Korean guy with the perpetual bad hair day...I mean, Iraq looks like 90 % Pillsbury Doughboy relatives...forgive me if I sound disrespectful...honestly, I don't mean it that way...of course, I have no respect whatsoever for any nuclear weapon any where in the world...but...well, that gets into another topic entirely. But I mean, with respect and caring, I do notice that different cultures have different body-shapes representing them.

I knew a bunch of guys from Zimbabwe personally, who were all extremely tall and each one as strong as an ox...not skinny, not big either, but tall and just all muscle. They ate mainly veggies and flatbreads (I believe maybe nonwheat ones, mostly, but I don't honestly know for sure because I could never get them to understand my persistent dietary questions), but they did eat meat, but it was only according to totems and such. It sounded about as complicated as macrobiotics, what they were telling me.

Anyway, I read that recently Koreans pitched quite a fit over some Kim-Chee they were buying from someplace...could it have been Japan???? They were upset that it was made according to modern shortcut methods, and the probiotics and enzymes were no longer present. They put a stop to that right away and demanded only the traditional healthful Kim-Chee. So...sounds very health conscious, at least regarding the Kim-Chee.

As I said...I'm not meaning any disrespect for anybody, anywhere, or any size, or whatever, but it's just been sort of a curiosity of mine for several years...sort of a hobby to make efforts to notice and wonder about what we are all doing differently and the visible effects of such.

It cracked me up several years back when I saw Barbara Bush giving a speech about when they were in Viet Namn, this was after being out of office, and their luggage was lost by the time they arrived there. She was saying normally it wouldn't be such a problem...she'd just go out and buy enough clothes to get through the functions, etc. But she said in Viet Namn it's impossible to find anything larger than a size 4 , and so that's probably the truth and kinda amusing too.

[Ellen Jaffe Jones]

That's why the line about the no obese people in N. Korea stuck out and I actually went back and listened to the piece again online after I saw it on TV. Sometimes reporters will have an epiphany as a result of a series of stories they do, and then go down the path of searching for truth and the american way. I know this happens occasionally, though sometimes they need to be guided with "credible" sources by the hand.

I also play the game all the time at restaurants. If the wait staff doesn't ask about why I'm eating what I'm eating first. If I had a penny for everytime a wait person at an ethnic restaurant told me, "yeah we just add the meat to Americanize it," I'd have several free meals.

[Christine]

It's difficult to be fat when you're starving, as many people in North Korea are doing. So, I think her remark was somewhere between mindless and insensitive.