16 ms·

Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

• arikr 9y ago
  This might be a good YC "request for startups." Virta Health is one I've seen. And the Robert Johnson Wood Foundation is working on this cause: https://www.rwjf.org/en/our-focus-areas/topics/childhood-obesity.html https://www.rwjf.org/en/our-focus-areas/topics/childhood-obe... -- Diet seems crucial. Obesity isn't really helped by exercise. (https://www.vox.com/2018/1/3/16845438/exercise-weight-loss-myth-burn-calories https://www.vox.com/2018/1/3/16845438/exercise-weight-loss-m...) "Significant weight loss was observed with any low-carbohydrate or low-fat diet. Weight loss differences between individual named diets were small. This supports the practice of recommending any diet that a patient will adhere to in order to lose weight." (Many diets work. Most important is optimizing for one that will be continued long term / rest of their life) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25182101 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25182101 -- Overweight-obesity is also a top 3 preventable cause of death for US people (and many other nations). https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/smoking-high-blood-pressure-overweight-preventable-causes-death-us/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/smoking-hig... About 1 in 12 of total deaths each year in the US can be attributed to the person being overweight or obese. ~7x more Americans die each year due to obesity/overweight than due to opioids. (Though opioid deaths are rising much faster.) https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o... -- What causes obesity? The "greatest contributor to weight gain" is eating more calories than are burned. (https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/obesity/conditioninfo/cause https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/obesity/conditioninf...) It seems that food types do play into this - in part because eating 1000 calories of sugar will leave you much hungrier than eating 1000 calories of fat, so while in theory you've eaten the same amount of calories, in reality the sugar eating person will probably eat more the rest of the day.
  • jacquesm 9y ago
    I did a small investment in a food oriented start-up and I really hope they will succeed in their dream of feeding people healthy stuff. Many companies claim to want to 'change the world for the better' when actually they are just looking to make bank. These guys are driven because of their ideals, they're super nice and have a good idea + track record. Time will tell if it works out.
    • arikr 9y ago
      Nice! What's the link/name?
      • jacquesm 9y ago
        They are still in closed beta, see https://www.velafoods.com/ https://www.velafoods.com/, they are US based. I've seen their whole product evolution up close and decided that I believe as much in the founders as I believe in the product which made investing in them a relatively easy decision.
    • adrr 9y ago
      Its not about eating healthy food, obesity is about the over consumption of food. You can maintain a healthy weight eating hamburgers and fries every day. The problem is portion size.
      • jacquesm 9y ago
        It's a combination of: - food quantity - genetics - physical activity or lack thereof - food quality and make-up (plant / animal for instance) - and an addictive element thrown in for some individuals
        • TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
          I'm curious, what makes you say genetics is an important factor? And what would make our genes change en masse in the last 50 years?
          • jacquesm 9y ago
            Our genes did not change but some people are simply more predisposed to obesity than others on account of their genetic heritage. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2787002/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2787002/
        • knbknb 9y ago
  • arikr 9y ago
    Also this article seems promising, if only I could read it without a paywall... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-fix-the-obesity-crisis/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-fix-the-ob... (Side note: Is anyone working on "Amazon Prime for Web Paywalls" - e.g. $x/mo, and you get access to >90% of commonly hit web paywalls - see also https://stratechery.com/2015/aggregation-theory/ https://stratechery.com/2015/aggregation-theory/)
    • sincerely 9y ago
      For specific articles you can make requests on r/scholar
  • m_ke 9y ago
    We applied and interviewed twice with Bitesnap/Bite AI but got feedback that they weren't sure if the market was big enough. Blame probably falls more on us and our ability to sell the vision though.
  • anthony_romeo 9y ago
    I don't disagree with what you've written, but regarding your brief point on exercise... On my journey to lose 100 pounds I came across a meta-analysis of studies on weight loss* which indicated that, while exercise wasn't a significant contributor to short-term weight loss, exercise was correlated to successful long-term weight loss (a much less likely occurrence, since the vast majority of people who lose weight regain it within a decade). *I read this analysis a decade ago, so I can't really find it to share.
• darkstar999 9y ago
  Interestingly, based on that same dataset, high cholesterol decreased from 20% in 1988 to 11% in 2014. Any ideas? https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus16.pdf#053 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus16.pdf#053
  • learc83 9y ago
    Statins
    • wjn0 9y ago
      Yup. Highly effective and widely prescribed.
      • HarryHirsch 9y ago
        What do the meta-studies have to say about statins and life expectancy? Back then, before we had statins we had clofibrate. It decreased cholesterol levels just fine but overall mortality went up. Also, why isn't dietary adjustment the first-line treatment for high cholesterol?
        • matte_black 9y ago
          Because changing human behavior is much more difficult than just making people take a pill.
        • lazerpants 9y ago
          "Unfortunately, even the strict very low saturated fat, lowcholesterol American Heart Association Step 2 diet only minimally lowers serum cholesterol. Hunninghake et al found a mean 5% reduction in low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in patients following this program and discouragingly found an equivalent 6% fall in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, so that ratios were unchanged. Low-fat diets as commonly prescribed rarely produce significant LDL declines. Studies performed on controlled metabolic units where intakes are rigidly enforced can demonstrate cholesterol reductions of 15% with diet alone; however, in the real world, people can rarely replicate these results." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1312230/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1312230/
• 3pt14159 9y ago
  This is directly related to the way American cities are designed. It’s a car centric culture where big houses are far away from each other. That means driving everywhere. That means long commutes. That means TV over communal activity. That means big grocery runs with shelf stable food. Then pile on hyper sweet drinks and nutritional misinformation campaigns, and of course Americans are going to be overweight. The worst part is it’s becoming culturally acceptable for children to be overweight. I do not advocate for fat shaming—but there is a limit to my tolerance. Children should not consume anywhere near the amounts of sugar that they do and the pervasive attitude of “just one [soda, ice cream, pop tart, pie slice, muffin, cupcake, cookie] won’t hurt!” is incredibly damaging. Five grams of refined sugar a day. That’s it. That is less than one tenth of a “personal” (16oz / 500ml) bottle of Coca Cola. We’re poisoning our kids.
  • nawitus 9y ago
    It should be plausible to design a scientific study on how much a car centric culture is causing overweightness.
    • pm90 9y ago
      Why is it only now that obesity is reaching such epidemic proportions though? We've had a car-centric culture since Post WW2. Why haven't we seen this epidemic before?
      • craftyguy 9y ago
        Because GP's reasoning is likely not to be correct. The proliferation of cheap, high calorie foods along with a sedentary lifestyle (including occupations that require very little physical activity) are more likely to blame than 'cars did it.'
        • yodsanklai 9y ago
          I would add that food corporations devote a lot of resources to make people eat their junk. It's not only that the food is there to eat. Companies like Coca Cola or Mac Donald's spend billions to convince people to eat their stuff.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• CharlesMerriam2 9y ago
  Methinks that if 70% of you population is affected, something is effecting them. It's not just "low will power" even if that explanation makes 30% of people smug.
  • NikolaeVarius 9y ago
    Abundantly available extremely cheap food?
    • a_humean 9y ago
      Abundantly available extremely cheap food of poor nutritional value and addictive over consumption encouraging qualities forcefully positioned by the market at the expense of other options.
    • TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
      Regular exposure to high doses of xenoestrogens like BPA[1]? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A
  • throwthisawayt 9y ago
    Why can’t it be low willpower along with availability of instant cheap calorically rich unsatiating food? In the past even if you had low will power you didn’t have access to cheap 2000+ simple carb / sugar meals. Now we do.
    • Avshalom 9y ago
      Because if it's 70% it's not "low willpower" it's "average plus a standard deviation will power"
      • throwthisawayt 9y ago
        Fair point !
  • whoisjuan 9y ago
• dudul 9y ago
  Holy shit, this is the scary part to me: * Percent of adolescents aged 12-19 years with obesity: 20.6% (2013-2014) * Percent of children aged 6-11 years with obesity: 17.4% (2013-2014) * Percent of children aged 2-5 years with obesity: 9.4% (2013-2014)
  • thearn4 9y ago
    This definitely concerns me as a dad. I need to keep discipline not just for myself, but to set the right example.
    • maxxxxx 9y ago
      Parents are number one. You rarely see overweight children with normal weight parents
      • toasterlovin 9y ago
        FWIW, your observation is not controlling for the contribution of genetics.
  • maxxxxx 9y ago
    It will get worse. You rarely see fat children with skinny parents. But a lot of fat parents have fat kids too. Once these grow up it will be more and more likely that their children will get fat too. Also when you grow with a lot of fat people around you you don't even know how normal weight looks. I noticed this last time in Paris. I had completely forgotten how normal weight looks.
    • graeme 9y ago
      It's worse even than that. Over 40% of people in France are overweight now - the numbers have increased rapidly over the past 20-30 years. Paris is leaner than the French average, but you were probably still seeing a population with a fair amount of overweight people. Just, less overweight than what you're used to. Seeing Paris 110 years ago would be a shock. (On many levels, but certainly on the average body composition level). I have a book by Georges Hebert, who was an influential fitness instructor in France about 100 years ago. In it, he has pictures of French peasants shirtless, and some African tribesmen and women. They are in a form that today would be considered "unrealistic". I can't find any of the peasant pictures online, but here are a couple of examples of the Africans: https://actionlondaise.blogspot.ca/2016/03/georges-hebert-cet-illustre-inconnu-35.html https://actionlondaise.blogspot.ca/2016/03/georges-hebert-ce... http://ayeparkour.blogspot.ca/2012/02/tracuers-of-legend-georges-hebert.html http://ayeparkour.blogspot.ca/2012/02/tracuers-of-legend-geo... (The top photo on the second link is Hebert)
• foepys 9y ago
  Is there any country where the percentage of overweight population is decreasing?
• dpflan 9y ago
  Because this article is on the front page and this one about having an active lifestyle is too, I thought to link it here for discussion and reference: Adopting a more active lifestyle could benefit your personality decades from now (bps.org.uk) > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16447654 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16447654
• Avshalom 9y ago
  Of course "overweight" has as-good or better long term health outcomes so... Meh? https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/35/1/55/849914 https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/35/1/55/849914
  • dj-wonk 9y ago
    Thanks for sharing; this line of thinking is too often overlooked. From the abstract: > National and international health organizations have focused increasingly on a perceived obesity epidemic said to pose drastic threats to public health. Indeed, some medical experts have gone so far as to predict that growing body mass will halt and perhaps even reverse the millennia-long trend of rising human life expectancy.1 In response to such concerns public health agencies across the world have sprung into action, searching for policies or incentives to mitigate the alleged ‘disease’ of obesity. > Yet even as the volume of alarm grows louder, a growing number of researchers, drawn from a broad array of academic disciplines, are calling these claims into question. The authors of this article come from this latter group. In our view the available scientific data neither support alarmist claims about obesity nor justify diverting scarce resources away from far more pressing public health issues. This article evaluates four central claims made by those who are calling for intensifying the war on fat: that obesity is an epidemic; that overweight and obesity are major contributors to mortality; that higher than average adiposity is pathological and a primary direct cause of disease; and that significant long-term weight loss is both medically beneficial and a practical goal. Given the limited scientific evidence for any of these claims, we suggest that the current rhetoric about an obesity-driven health crisis is being driven more by cultural and political factors than by any threat increasing body weight may pose to public health.
  • SeeDave 9y ago
    Not very "meh" IMO as obesity, and especially childhood obesity, is a national security issue. https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/policy-dose/articles/2016-04-05/obesity-is-a-national-security-threat https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/policy-dose/articles/20...
  • Bartweiss 9y ago
    This is an interesting paper, particularly the sections on how Americans have gained weight. "Obesity is up!" is much less informative than specifying which populations have gained how much like this does. That said, the section on health outcomes is not hugely compelling. The "normal weight has worse outcomes" studies (particularly the famous NEJM one) have a significant set of problems. NEJM simply didn't use the same bucketing as common parlance, so bucketed comparisons (as opposed to BMI ones) are basically meaningless. More broadly, these studies are generally correlational, which produces serious issues regarding patients suffering from diseases. Eating disorders have very high mortality and often cause low weights, while conditions like cancer and neurodegenerative disease often cause both mortality and low weight. Without correcting for that, you're actually noticing trends like "late stage cancer patients are both skinny and sick". I'll have to go and dig up references, but I thought the current state of research suggested that among otherwise-healthy patients, especially men in middle age or older, health outcomes noticeably worsened beyond the middle of the overweight category?
• bpicolo 9y ago
  Doesn't a 25 BMI seem like kind of a crappy metric for "overweight"? That makes my 6'4" brother "overweight" at like 205 which seems nuts. That doesn't feel overweight at all. (Defined in the footnote on page 222)
  • nicolashahn 9y ago
    BMI is a terrible metric that's mostly meaningless for anyone not sedentary.
  • deleted 9y ago
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  • DoreenMichele 9y ago
    My ex was career army. He had to pass a PT test and pass weight to keep his job. He was a little guy, so he lifted weights to be able to do his job. When he was on recruiting duty, every year they attended a conference. Every year, there was an insurance guy there. Every year, every one in the office was pronounced overweight according to their height and weight charts. The army offers a tape test as an alternative if you can't pass weight. It is sometimes necessary to prove that bodybuilders are all muscle. My ex and his office mates were not so muscular that they needed to rely on a tape test. They were still pronounced overweight by the insurance guy every year.
    • qrbLPHiKpiux 9y ago
      I got so sick of that bullshit when I was in. Every damn time.
  • doubletgl 9y ago
    It's the lower end of "overweight" and also "BMI exaggerates thinness in short people and fatness in tall people". Your brother is most likely fine.
  • graeme 9y ago
    BMI is not meant as an individual health measure. It's a general population measure valid over a large sample size. 6'4" is a statistically rare height. I believe BMI is less valid for the extremely tall and extremely short. That doesn't mean it isn't useful when viewing the whole population. For an individual, BMI + a waist measure is a better indicator. Your brother probably isn't overweight, unless he has low muscle mass and a large waist - but that individual anecdote does nothing to argue against the population level validity of BMI.
• zaroth 9y ago
  If this is based on BMI, I couldn't care less. It's a terrible metric which is not fit for its purpose. "Obesity is defined as body mass index (BMI) at or above the sex- and age-specific 95th percentile BMI (based on the variable BMXBMI) using cutoff points from the 2000 CDC growth charts for the United States: Methods and development. NCHS. Vital Health Stat 11(246). 2002. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_11/sr11_246.pdf http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_11/sr11_246.pdf. Excludes pregnant girls." Almost everyone I know is "overweight" by this metric, which, as it turns out, means they are healthier (in terms of less likely to die from any-cause overall) than their thinner peers. Show me the bell curve of longevity versus body-fat percentage, and what percentage of Americans are 1-sigma past the right side of the peak of that curve. Even body shape, for example, is a much better indicator of all-cause mortality than BMI. E.g. http://absi-calc.appspot.com/ http://absi-calc.appspot.com/
  • bpicolo 9y ago
    It is, they define overweight as BMI 25+, obese class 1 as BMI 30+
  • dibujante 9y ago
    BMI is a sufficiently sensitive metric for this. BMI can be relied on to confirm overweight/obesity. It cannot be relied on to confirm normal weight (that is to say, if your BMI says you're overweight, you're overweight. If it says you're normal weight, that may or may not be true).
    • zaroth 9y ago
      If you spend 3 months body-building, you will know first-hand that this isn't true.
      • dibujante 9y ago
        70% of the US population must be body-builders.
  • dumbfounder 9y ago
• mFixman 9y ago
  The interesting thing is that obesity and overweightness rates are very different between States. Most coastal States have regular rates among rich countries (albeit still high). 23.1% of Californians are obese, which is a lower rate than France, Ireland, and most of Western Europe. There's a completely different story in the South, where more than a third of Mississipi's population is obese.
• TekMol 9y ago
  The majority of websites are overweight too.
• matte_black 9y ago
  IMO the only way for this number to go down is to educate future generations better on nutrition and the importance of taking care of their bodies. I have no faith that the vast majority of people currently overweight will ever weigh much less than what they do today, and studies have backed this up. 95% of people who lose significant weight gain it back after a year. The few stories of people who keep weight off for good does not scale out to the general population. Indeed, it still seems the best way to lose weight is to go back in time and never gain it in the first place. It is never too early to talk to your children about responsible food consumption.
• nicolashahn 9y ago
  Anyone have statistics on what % of those overweight adults are actually healthy, or at least have an acceptable body fat %? Many athletes and weightlifters would be considered overweight by BMI due to muscle mass. And according to the "Adults" PDF, that's the metric they're using. It's probably not a large percentage but I get ticked off a bit to know that you can be in the "overweight" BMI category and have clearly defined abs. I've also noticed that the muscle-building culture is much, much smaller in the rest of the world than America. So while I'm sure we have a lot more fat people, we also have a lot more buff people, both of which are contributing to this percentage.
  • toasterlovin 9y ago
    I fall into the group you mention. BMI of 34, which makes me obese, but not, you now, actually obese. That being said, serious weight lifters and large athletes are not a meaningful % of population.
  • deleted 9y ago
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  • stevekemp 9y ago
    "Healthy" is such a nebulous term it is hard to reply in a serious fashion. Many HAES-advocates, for example, would claim they're extremely healthy despite weighing 300lbs+. Any poor effects are just coincidental, and the weight is not a cause. The best way of discovering how healthy somebody is? Perform an autopsy. Beyond reporting on aches, pains, lumps, worn out joints, the simple fact is people can appear very healthy right until they drop dead. Blood tests, CT-scans, etc, can be used to look at very narrow metrics, but they don't tell give a useful "healthy vs. non-healthy" response.
    • LinuxBender 9y ago
      What is the deepest most complete diagnostics we can run on humans without them having to be dead? I would be interested in such a lab exercise even if it cost a lot.
  • jriot 9y ago
• scarface74 9y ago
  How many of these people are actually "overweight" as far as health and how many are "overweight" according to BMI? When I was in the best shape of my life from my mid 20s to my mid 30s, working out 12 hours a week (part time fitness instructor and a runner) with a body fat of 12% (measured with calipers) and a 29-30 inch waist, I was according to the BMI calculations 30 pounds overweight. Even now weighing 10 pounds more and I'm considered "obese", I wear a size 30 regular cut pants. Where exactly am I suppose to lose 40 pounds from? Realistically, I need to lose about 15.
  • dj-wonk 9y ago
    There are big problems with BMI. Here is just one article on the topic: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265215.php https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265215.php Another, broader question is this: what are the health impacts of various body compositions? See also "Medical Myths Doctors Believe": https://www.amazon.com/Medical-Doctors-Believe-Michael-Anchors/dp/146997486X https://www.amazon.com/Medical-Doctors-Believe-Michael-Ancho...
  • gameswithgo 9y ago
    >Where exactly am I suppose to lose 40 pounds from? At your best shape you still had 5% lower you could go on your bodyfat, assuming you are male. It can be rather stricking, I used to be 208lbs and didn't feel like I was overweight at all. Got into endurance sport and dropped to as low as 165. (normally hover around 175 now that I'm not hardcore about it) I can look at pictures and see now where it went, but couldn't have imagined it before. I think a lot of people in America suffer from skewed expectations. The kind of body mass that is healthy is perceived as sickly and unrealistic at this point. Yet it used to be common, or is common in other parts of the world.
  • Kluny 9y ago
    There are a couple different calculations you can use. Here's a good calculator I found. http://www.calculator.net/ideal-weight-calculator.html http://www.calculator.net/ideal-weight-calculator.html It tells me that my correct weight according to BMI is anywhere from 118 to 159. Now, I know if I weight 159lbs, I'd be fat. 118 doesn't seem especially healthy to me either - I'm at my lowest weight ever right now, 128lb, and my clothes are hanging off me like I'm a skeleton. All the other calculations are telling me 134-138 are right for me, which matches my normal weight. I think I'm down right now because I've been weight training and not taking in enough extra calories to gain weight, but if I lose any more weight than this I'm gonna start chugging olive oil or something. No way am I going down to 118.
• throwthisawayt 9y ago
  I work in health tech and I genuinely believe that this is an endemic problem that can’t be solved by a startup. It is a social issue approaching a health crisis and we need to have our policy, educator, and parents addressing this. While private industry can help, the ultimate responsibility lies with our democracy.
• nnutter 9y ago
  29.3% of US adults are underweight
• arikr 9y ago
  This seems directly related to diet. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-causes/diet-and-weight/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesi...
• cproctor 9y ago
  And it's changing quickly. Here's the same statistic from the last 30 years: 1988–1994 54.9 1999–2000 64.1 2001–2002 65.6 2003–2004 66.5 2005–2006 67.3 2007–2008 68.3 2009–2010 69.2 2011–2012 69.0 2013–2014 70.7 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2016/053.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2016/053.pdf
• eikenberry 9y ago
  In case anyone else is curious about their definition of overweight. Found it in the paper. Overweight is defined as body mass index (BMI) greater than or equal to 25, based on the NHANES variable, Body Mass Index.
• martingordon 9y ago
  When you're poor, you prioritize calories over nutrition, and Americans are becoming increasingly "poor". From https://twitter.com/hugwins/status/963282840292032512?lang=en https://twitter.com/hugwins/status/963282840292032512?lang=e...: > When you are in a place where it's eat food that gives you no vitamins, no protein, no micronutrients, etcetera, or eat food that does not give you enough basic breakdown of glucose to get your body through another day, you do not have the luxury
  • pascalxus 9y ago
    But McDonalds and fast foods are much more expensive than healthy foods like rice, beans, rolled oats and potatoes, onions (all can be had for less than 1$ per pound). They should allow people to purchase those foods, and maybe even publish a guide on how to stretch each dollar farther. as i said before, Beans especially are very well balanced, super high in fiber, protein and micronutrients.
    • watwut 9y ago
      I can't feed yourself on onions. And diet based on rice and potatos is not all that better for you. And you have to know hoe to prepare these so that they are remotely tasty.
    • dsfyu404ed 9y ago
      Time is money.
• NiklasMort 9y ago
  time to invest into some diabetes meds pharma stocks
• nostromo 9y ago
  While this might be true, the CDCs “healthy weight” ranges are laughably inaccurate for anyone that does weight resistance training. And in my circle of friends, this is becoming the more common form of working out. The CDC calculations basically assume 100% of us are sedentary.
• longerthoughts 9y ago
  If you read the fine print you'll see they're using BMI to determine if people are overweight or obese. BMI is a tragically flawed metric (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265215.php https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265215.php) and I would approach the 70.7% figure with caution. The more compelling story in the stats is the trend showing a gradual rise from 54.9% in the period between 1988-1994 to the more current figure of 70.7% in the period between 2013-2014. I'm skeptical of the raw figures given issues with BMI but highly doubt such a massive increase came from US adults getting significantly taller or more muscular (both factors that can inflate BMI for healthy individuals).
• dexwiz 9y ago
  These numbers aren’t shocking. Many people are “casually” fat, meaning they carry an extra 30-40lbs around their gut. Probably accumulated slowly by 2-3lbs a year. They don’t fit the classic image of an obese person but they are obese according to BMI. I moved to SF which is a relatively fit city. Going back home in the Midwest I am shocked by the number of people who are overweight. Fat is normalized there. It wasn’t until I lived in a health conscious area and checked my own BMI that I realized how skewed my image of a healthy person was. In the Midwest if you are active you are considered healthy, even if you are overweight. It’s not until you are 100lbs overweight are you considered fat. And this doesn’t even touch the HAES mentality.
  • yodsanklai 9y ago
    As a non-american, I'm wondering how a fit person is considered in the midwest? Is it seen as a good trait or rather something odd?
    • TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
      I live in Missouri. Response to fit people is highly variable, and seems to depend on the family. Some fat families here seem to see fit people with jealousy, not understanding how they stay so thin. Others just don't seem to care about their obesity and think of normal sized people as abnormal, like their sense of what is normal is completely shifted. Yet others are ashamed of their obesity, yet none of their attempts to change seem to work. Mating behavior here seems to follow the norm. Fat people tend to date/marry fat people, and healthy people mostly stick with other healthy people.
    • tdb7893 9y ago
      As a fit Midwesterner it's seen as good (and it made dating easier). There are plenty of fit Midwesterners so being fit in the Midwest isn't weird at all in my experience
    • Bartweiss 9y ago
      It's not necessarily odd - obesity rates are high, but not so high that a healthy weight is exceptional. Being generally muscular or trim isn't a negative, and probably isn't going to get anyone dismissed as a fitness nut. That said, an average to low-normal BMI can certainly get comments. I'm smack in the middle of the healthy BMI range, and not exceptionally muscular or anything else that would distort that. Living in and visiting friends in flyover country I get comments like "you're too skinny", "you need to eat more", and so on. No one is particularly judging me, there's just a shifted sense of average where BMI ~21 feels like the low end of the range. (And of course they're not exactly wrong; eating Midwestern food and living in a driving-centric suburb had the predictable effect on my weight, so on some level thinner people there are behaving unusually.)
• notadoc 9y ago
  Yes, you can see that quite clearly with any trip into a public space. But 70% is a low estimate for many parts of the country. And morbid obesity is becoming extremely common as well. Obesity and the fat epidemic will bankrupt the US health care system. Sooner than later, weight must be tied directly to out-of-pocket health care costs, via premiums, taxation, tax credits, or some other financial incentive and/or penalty combination for horrendous lifestyle decisions. Maybe go the Japanese route with a metabo law too. Obviously merely being an unhealthy glutton with high disease propensity and increased mortality is not a motivator for the majority of populace, so make them pay for their bad choices the same way someone who speeds frequently pays higher car insurance.
• Azeat 9y ago
  Some here say nutritional misinformation is one of the primary culprits, however, the reality is if you go tell someone "stop drinking soda, it's unhealthy", they will tell you "I don't care." If people are not motivated to eat healthy, what are you supposed to do? Perhaps this goes back to educating your family on healthy eating, consequently if everyone were doing that, we'd see a trend of increased concern for healthy eating.
• xinyhn 9y ago
  I am certainly not suggesting it's the right answer but in threads like these rarely do I see industrial seed oils with high omega-6 polyunsaturated fat content being suggested as a culprit. The use in food correlates as well as anything else that is being suggested with the rise in obesity rates and metabolic conditions.
• CryoLogic 9y ago
  Maintaining healthy weight cuts your risk for an enormous amount of fatal illnesses including stroke, heart attacks, and many types of cancer. Want lower blood pressure? Lower your weight. Want higher testosterone and lower estrogen? Lower your weight. Want lower cholesterol? Lower your weight. Lower diabetes risk? Lower your weight. Healthier gallblader, liver and kidneys? Lower your weight. Reduce back pain? Lower your weight. Aid sleep apnea? Lower your weight.
• codedokode 9y ago
  I think it is important to diffirentiate between people who are born with overweight body and cannot do anything with it and people who would have normal weight but are gaining it because of unhealthy food or lifestyle. Sadly, the page doesn't have such a table.
  • Kevin_S 9y ago
    As I understand it, the idea that people are "naturally" overweight and cannot change that is a complete myth with no scientific backing. In some cases, certain diseases/medications can cause a very small weight gain but nothing significant.
    • codedokode 9y ago
      Yes, I don't know if it is checked scientifically, but people have different figures. If we take several people of the same height and age and will give them the same food and the same amount of physical load, they still will have different body mass.
• _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
  What I didn't know until recently, is how juice and fruits make you take on more fat [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose#Cardiometabolic_diseases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose#Cardiometabolic_disea...
• rsbartram 9y ago
  This is a big problem. Americans are eating poorly due to many different reasons. Easy ways for people to stay healthy is understanding your body a bit better and understanding your body composition, https://latechnews.org/results-understanding-body-composition/ https://latechnews.org/results-understanding-body-compositio... , and what body composition is healthy for you. Another easy fix is to set SMART health goals that are attainable and realistic. https://latechnews.org/setting-smart-health-goals/ https://latechnews.org/setting-smart-health-goals/
• RobLach 9y ago
  I think this one chart explains the situation succinctly. https://s9.postimg.org/vue47ugq7/image.jpg https://s9.postimg.org/vue47ugq7/image.jpg
• mcfunk 9y ago
  We're not doing enough to understand the environmental factors in a trend like this. As fashionable as it is for each generation to shit on the next, "will power" is clearly not explanatory for a shift of this magnitude. I have to wonder if our sedentary lifestyle, processed foods (with additives examined under an ignorant lens), stress (income inequality, constant stimulation, glowing objects being the center of our lives), are wrecking our microbiomes and other broader systems from a VERY young age, or causing other systems-level changes that make it hard to correct with behavior changes in adulthood. Because ultimately, even when people get educated, get active, eat better, etc -- the trends aren't reversing.
• deviationblue 9y ago
  I have a very unpopular opinion on this: if someone is overweight, and isn't sick or malfunctioning in any way that negatively impacts themselves, their loved ones, or society, then who gives a shit? The libertarian and contrarian in me doesn't care what someone weighs, or how they choose to life. So extrapolating to a larger population, or society, I still fail to see how being collectively overweight is a negative in and of itself if there were no damaging burdens created because of that. In fact, I think we need to subset the 70.7% population to weed out the "innocously fat".
  • Kevin_S 9y ago
    Being overweight is bad for your individual health. We know certain things in society have an impact on how overweight people get. Identifying and fixing those things is worthwhile. No one is insinuating that we should force people to become fit or anything, as you imply here.
  • antisthenes 9y ago
    Being overweight has a plethora of scientific evidence as being bad for you. I'm not going to re-cite the last 50 years of medical publications if that's what you're expecting. Extrapolating it to society means that healthy people have to subsidize the unhealthy, so it's extremely unfair to those who chose to invest in their health. So being 'contrarian' in this context is just being wrong, ignoring evidence and contributing nothing to the discussion.
• ajcodez 9y ago
  It also sucks to frequently throw out spoiled produce. If you live alone or with roommates, go to restaurants, etc chances are nearly half the produce will go bad. It's not expensive so much as disheartening.
• JackFr 9y ago
  Real question here (US specific) -- how do the subsidies work, that they make corn cheaper, and milk more expensive? Are they truly both subsidies or is one another form of intervention that causes a different market result?
• always_good 9y ago
  We have some bizarre cultural hangups around food in our country, that's for sure. I was made fun of at lunch in my youth for bringing things like whole carrots and canned garbanzo beans and turnips/radishes.
• b3b0p 9y ago
  Maybe it's not a problem, but I don't think it helps is when asking and/or researching what to go do, enjoy, see, explore, experience when traveling or moving to a new city. The most common responses almost exclusively and only mention food and local places to eat or drink. As if it's the only thing to do and enjoy? Anyone else notice this or is it just me? I don't know about other people, but I only spend a small percentage of my day actually eating, needing, or hungry enough to sit down and eat. I've got a whole day not including sleep to do so much more! Food is good, but I want to have some fun, see things, explore, meet people, relax and not eat.