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The US didn't have a meaningful problem with obesity until ~1990 forward. If you look at high school yearbook photos from the 1980s, almost all the people were

The US didn't have a meaningful problem with obesity until ~1990 forward. If you look at high school yearbook photos from the 1980s, almost all the people were thin. These are young persons that should have high metabolisms and high rates of activity, so you'd expect that. That thinness changed noticeably and rapidly through the 1990s. I went to high school in the 1990s and could see that shift very plainly during the decade. All childhood age range obesity was typically about 5% until the early 1980s. Now the combined average is around 15% From 1960 to 1980 adult obesity was typically 12% to 15%. Today that would nearly qualify as the thinnest country in the developed world (only Japan, South Korea and Singapore beat it now). From 1980 to 1990 it went up five or six points. By 2000 it had doubled (since the early 1980s) to ~30%. So approximately a doubling of the obesity rate in 15-20 years. Contrast 1980 US at ~15% obesity, with present day Denmark, Italy, Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland which are all considered fairly thin at ~20% obesity rates.

hef19898 8y ago
Not sure why this was down voted. If the cited numbers are wrong, which is the only valid reason to down vote, please call it out and provide the correct numbers. If not don't down vote.
- adventured 8y ago
  I've run into resistance to what I pointed out, pretty much every time I've ever pointed it out anywhere online. For some reason people like to believe a myth that the US always had a big problem with obesity. Factually that's simply not true at all, it's a relatively recent problem.
  - quotemstr 8y ago
    As a meta point, I've found people over the past few years less willing to even entertain facts that contradict their worldview. I blame the culture war, which has broken, in a serious way, the ability for lots of people to think critically and evaluate arguments on their own. People instead interpret posts that don't confirm their conclusions as attacks on their person, and then downvote, block, and counterattack as needed.
    - hef19898 8y ago
      Point in case the down votes on your post and the OP above as of now. Let's hope that changes again.
  - narrator 8y ago
    There is no official explanation for the obesity crisis except people are lazy and eat poorly. The only alternative to this is that officials are ignoring other explanations. This, in most people's minds, is conspiracy theory to even suggest and that's what makes people uncomfortable. Most people don't know how to answer questions outside their limited domain expertise without relying on authority figures. Telling them their authority figures are unreliable on such an important topic seriously complicates their lives.
    - FiveSquared 8y ago
      Really, conspiracy theory are nuts 99 percent of the time. Also, the officials are elected by the people which differs government from the Martia. Besides, even in tribes we have authorities. And without authority, Somalia happened.
  - lsc 8y ago
    I think that it is fairly well acknowledged that obesity, both in the US and globally, has gotten a lot worse fairly recently. There's a lot of different theories, and a lot of controversy as to why but the idea that wide scale obesity is a fairly recent problem is not controversial. I'd guess that the reason why the top comment here was downvoted, if it was downvoted, is that many people feel it's an obvious problem; calories in and calories out and the falling costs of calories in and the increasing cost of calories out explains the whole thing for me. You take an organism that has lived essentially on the edge of starvation for hundreds of thousands of years, and you put it in an environment where calories in are almost free and where for most of them, calories out are not? and yeah, those organisms are going to overeat. (Just my opinion, but it's a common one) (the complaints about downvotes were downvoted because they are complaints about downvotes; those are obligatory downvotes.)
- claydavisss 8y ago
  Very few discussions on HN are fact-based anymore unless the facts support the cultural zeitgeist embraced by the herd.
- soundwave106 8y ago
  Based on this CDC paper -- https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity_adult_07_08/obesity_adult_07_08.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity_adult_07_08/obe... -- the numbers for the US look absolutely correct to me. Note that the percentage of overweight but not obese individuals has remained a constant at roughly 30% of the population (both in 1960 and now). So there were some problems with weight issues back then too. But not so extreme. What's also noteworthy is that extreme obesity (BMI >= 40) has shot up from barely existing in 1960 (0.9%) to 6% of the population. The health risks of obesity are much more problematic at BMI >= 40.
jackfoxy 8y ago
Roughly coinciding with the complete dominance of high fructose corn syrup completely taking over from granulated sugar in food manufacturing. Correlation is not causation. In the U.S. the sugar industry my uncle used to work in is now non-existent. Sugar beet is possibly not even a crop in Californian any longer, and I believe the cane industry in Hawaii is either non-existent or at least much smaller.
- adventured 8y ago
  There's a bit of a perfect storm in that 1980-2000 frame. US soda consumption roughly doubled from 1975 to 2000. And of course as you mentioned, the US switched from sugar to high fructose. The US Government poured gasoline on the fire, with its industry collusion re sugar and its wildly screwed up food pyramids encouraging the over-consumption of carbs. US sugar consumption also oddly skyrocketed from roughly 1980 to 2000. It went from ~80 pounds to ~110 pounds annually per capita in just under 20 years (after being relatively stable in a 20lb range the prior 60 years minus WW2). The era of sugar cereal, sugar breakfast, large containers of soda everywhere, a large junk food boom, a big pizza & carb boom (rapid growth of pizza chains everywhere), continued explosion of low quality fast food chains. And last but not least, a huge increase in sedentary lifestyles.
  - nyolfen 8y ago
    also coincides with advertising deregulation, the advent of ads directed at children during the first reagan administration
    - chrisco255 8y ago
      Source? Also coincides with the advent of cable television.
      - ghaff 8y ago
        I remember plenty of commercials for cereal during my childhood which significantly predated the 1980s. The idea that kids didn't widely eat Frosted Flakes, Lucky Charms, Trix, etc. etc. is simply counterfactual. I I suspect there are many reasons for increased obesity including more fast food, more (large) soda consumption, less physical play activity, etc. Simply blaming advertising, farm subsidies, or whatever may make people feel that they've identified an external bogeyman but it's not as simple as that.
nradov 8y ago
Normalization of deviance. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Diane_Vaughan_and_the_normalization_of_deviance#Philosophy:_What_is_normalization_of_deviance https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Diane_Vaughan_...? Once society passed some critical threshold of obesity prevalence, people started to see it as normal and then the problem accelerated.
WalterBright 8y ago
In the 1970s, looking at old pictures, people I thought were "fat" at the time I would not regard as such these days.

hef19898 8y ago

Not sure why this was down voted. If the cited numbers are wrong, which is the only valid reason to down vote, please call it out and provide the correct numbers. If not don't down vote.

adventured 8y ago
I've run into resistance to what I pointed out, pretty much every time I've ever pointed it out anywhere online. For some reason people like to believe a myth that the US always had a big problem with obesity. Factually that's simply not true at all, it's a relatively recent problem.
- quotemstr 8y ago
  As a meta point, I've found people over the past few years less willing to even entertain facts that contradict their worldview. I blame the culture war, which has broken, in a serious way, the ability for lots of people to think critically and evaluate arguments on their own. People instead interpret posts that don't confirm their conclusions as attacks on their person, and then downvote, block, and counterattack as needed.
  - hef19898 8y ago
    Point in case the down votes on your post and the OP above as of now. Let's hope that changes again.
- narrator 8y ago
  There is no official explanation for the obesity crisis except people are lazy and eat poorly. The only alternative to this is that officials are ignoring other explanations. This, in most people's minds, is conspiracy theory to even suggest and that's what makes people uncomfortable. Most people don't know how to answer questions outside their limited domain expertise without relying on authority figures. Telling them their authority figures are unreliable on such an important topic seriously complicates their lives.
  - FiveSquared 8y ago
    Really, conspiracy theory are nuts 99 percent of the time. Also, the officials are elected by the people which differs government from the Martia. Besides, even in tribes we have authorities. And without authority, Somalia happened.
- lsc 8y ago
  I think that it is fairly well acknowledged that obesity, both in the US and globally, has gotten a lot worse fairly recently. There's a lot of different theories, and a lot of controversy as to why but the idea that wide scale obesity is a fairly recent problem is not controversial. I'd guess that the reason why the top comment here was downvoted, if it was downvoted, is that many people feel it's an obvious problem; calories in and calories out and the falling costs of calories in and the increasing cost of calories out explains the whole thing for me. You take an organism that has lived essentially on the edge of starvation for hundreds of thousands of years, and you put it in an environment where calories in are almost free and where for most of them, calories out are not? and yeah, those organisms are going to overeat. (Just my opinion, but it's a common one) (the complaints about downvotes were downvoted because they are complaints about downvotes; those are obligatory downvotes.)
claydavisss 8y ago
Very few discussions on HN are fact-based anymore unless the facts support the cultural zeitgeist embraced by the herd.
soundwave106 8y ago
Based on this CDC paper -- https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity_adult_07_08/obesity_adult_07_08.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity_adult_07_08/obe... -- the numbers for the US look absolutely correct to me. Note that the percentage of overweight but not obese individuals has remained a constant at roughly 30% of the population (both in 1960 and now). So there were some problems with weight issues back then too. But not so extreme. What's also noteworthy is that extreme obesity (BMI >= 40) has shot up from barely existing in 1960 (0.9%) to 6% of the population. The health risks of obesity are much more problematic at BMI >= 40.

jackfoxy 8y ago

Roughly coinciding with the complete dominance of high fructose corn syrup completely taking over from granulated sugar in food manufacturing. Correlation is not causation. In the U.S. the sugar industry my uncle used to work in is now non-existent. Sugar beet is possibly not even a crop in Californian any longer, and I believe the cane industry in Hawaii is either non-existent or at least much smaller.

adventured 8y ago
There's a bit of a perfect storm in that 1980-2000 frame. US soda consumption roughly doubled from 1975 to 2000. And of course as you mentioned, the US switched from sugar to high fructose. The US Government poured gasoline on the fire, with its industry collusion re sugar and its wildly screwed up food pyramids encouraging the over-consumption of carbs. US sugar consumption also oddly skyrocketed from roughly 1980 to 2000. It went from ~80 pounds to ~110 pounds annually per capita in just under 20 years (after being relatively stable in a 20lb range the prior 60 years minus WW2). The era of sugar cereal, sugar breakfast, large containers of soda everywhere, a large junk food boom, a big pizza & carb boom (rapid growth of pizza chains everywhere), continued explosion of low quality fast food chains. And last but not least, a huge increase in sedentary lifestyles.
- nyolfen 8y ago
  also coincides with advertising deregulation, the advent of ads directed at children during the first reagan administration
  - chrisco255 8y ago
    Source? Also coincides with the advent of cable television.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      I remember plenty of commercials for cereal during my childhood which significantly predated the 1980s. The idea that kids didn't widely eat Frosted Flakes, Lucky Charms, Trix, etc. etc. is simply counterfactual. I I suspect there are many reasons for increased obesity including more fast food, more (large) soda consumption, less physical play activity, etc. Simply blaming advertising, farm subsidies, or whatever may make people feel that they've identified an external bogeyman but it's not as simple as that.

nradov 8y ago

Normalization of deviance. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Diane_Vaughan_and_the_normalization_of_deviance#Philosophy:_What_is_normalization_of_deviance https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Diane_Vaughan_...? Once society passed some critical threshold of obesity prevalence, people started to see it as normal and then the problem accelerated.

WalterBright 8y ago

In the 1970s, looking at old pictures, people I thought were "fat" at the time I would not regard as such these days.