7 ms·

Obesity Trends in the U.S.

49 points by EndXA 7y ago

starpilot 7y ago
Solution is SS + GOMAD.
- seattle_spring 7y ago
  Telling people to employ GOMAD is akin to what happened to Cartman in "Weightgain 3000."
  - markdoubleyou 7y ago
    Right. Rippetoe is very clear that GOMAD is only intended for underweight 19 year-olds who are trying to add mass.
    - blaser-waffle 7y ago
      Which is basically no one in the US these days
- brailsafe 7y ago
  "Step 1: Go to Kroger and get yourself a gallon of milk. Gallon of milk a day, do my uppercuts, some kickers, twisters."
standardUser 7y ago
I feel like people have become far more health conscious in recent years. Working out regularly and caring about your diet used to be fringe activities, but now it seems like almost all anyone talks about! Maybe these trends are concentrated in urban areas? That would help explain why the highly-urbanized West and Northeast have managed so much better than the less-urbanized South.
- jessriedel 7y ago
  The urban areas in 2010 had significantly higher obesity rates than even the rural areas in 1990. So regardless of what people are yapping about, it's not working.
  - shagmin 7y ago
    ...or is working, but at too small a scale to overcome general nationwide trends.
    - jessriedel 7y ago
      I mean, even if we attribute 100% of the urban-rural difference to yuppy diet fads -- neglecting the almost-certainly much more important class, income, genetic, and cultural differences -- the effect of those fads are being absolutely crushed by the general nationwide trends. Whatever it is that us urban people get out of talking about diet fad that people in the rural areas don't keep up with, I don't think it's motivated by a desire to understand the obesity epidemic.
  - trophycase 7y ago
    Idk, where I live in the city I find these trends pretty shocking. Mind you 2010 is 10 years ago, but just from looking at the people around me I'd expect this to have leveled off or reduced.
    - graeme 7y ago
      It’s also possible you’re simply used to a certain level of adiposity without realizing it. Almost everyone over 30 has some level of gut now, even those considered comparatively fit and thin. This wasn’t normal decades ago, but is normal now. How often do you see people shirtless? Clothes hide a lot of bellies. Having muscles, being a jogger, eating salads or riding s bicycle is completely consistent with abdominal fat. So, what standard are you using when you say urban people now are likely thinner than rural people in 1990?
- 7y ago
m_ke 7y ago
With the climate crisis and the opioid epidemic in the news we're not hearing as much about obesity as we used to but it's still a growing problem that's now spilling over to developing nations. I work on a product in this area and was really surprised how big of an issue obesity and diabetes is is in the middle east. (https://qz.com/1504345/americas-other-unhealthy-legacy-in-the-middle-east/ https://qz.com/1504345/americas-other-unhealthy-legacy-in-th...) It's mostly driven by CPGs and Fast Food chains looking for growth in emerging markets (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/health/ghana-kfc-obesity.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/health/ghana-kfc-obesity...., https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/obesity-uk-usa-developing-countries-western-culture-chains-a8002026.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/obesity-uk-usa-developi...) > Of all high income countries, the United States has the highest rates of overweight and obesity, with fully a third of the population obese-a rate projected to rise to around 50 percent by 2030.
- philg_jr 7y ago
  Specifically, type 2 diabetes. Which is a metabolic disease that can be fixed with proper diet and some exercise.
  - James_Henry 7y ago
    I would change that to "can sometimes be fixed" as type 2 diabetes can damage the pancreas (and other organs) to the point that "proper diet and some exercise" alone will not rejuvenate them.
    - 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
      Even if that's the case, you can actually DIY an artificial pancreas with relative ease. Biggest blocker is finding the insulin.
      - James_Henry 7y ago
        I don't think many (any?) type 2 diabetics have artificial pancreases. Also, even with good glucose control, type 2 diabetes still seems to lead to some pretty bad comorbidities.
stareatgoats 7y ago
Another of the menu items talks about causes, which is immediately where the mind goes: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-causes/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesi... It talks about unhealthy food habits, lack of exercise etc. There is probably solid science behind it, but my gut feeling is that there is something missing. I mean people have been eating beef steaks and gobbled sweets in front of TVs for ages now haven't they? I could be wrong.
- baroomba 7y ago
  There's very, very cheap food now that's also low-effort and craving-satisfying and/or inducing. All sorts of crappy low- or zero-prep food has gotten both cheaper and better at being hard to resist. Meanwhile, sedentary entertainment has gotten much better and also very cheap.
  - chadcmulligan 7y ago
    Yes I think this is a big factor - also the social barriers to eating this junk food is lower. It used to be you'd eat at home and seldom buy and eat anything when out, social eating at a restaurant was a special occasion and you'd eat 'treat' foods like cake or ice cream. This sort of eating is now nearly every day, all it takes is 100-200 calories to much a day and you're a fatty in 10 years. I suppose a good example of this is to look at asians who have a traditional diet - they sit around as much as the westerners but are still predominantly thin, though you can tell who's adopted a western diet.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- partiallypro 7y ago
  I think it largely has to do with not being as active. We have a lot more desk jobs now than we had in the past. In the past people didn't have to go to the gym to not be overweight, they burned it all off when they were going throughout their day.
mnm1 7y ago
I think the numbers are likely exaggerated to the point of being almost useless. It all depends on how BMI is measured. If it's not measured, the number are useless. The website says: > There are a number of ways to measure body fat. Some are well suited to the doctor’s office, such as calculating a person’s BMI. That seems to suggest a simple calculation given height and weight. That is not a proper way to measure BMI. BMI must be measured. Otherwise it simply is not a reflection of anything but an inaccurate calculation that doesn't apply to most people and overestimates the number of overweight and obese people. Yes there are a lot of overweight and obese people, but exaggerating the numbers by using inaccurate formulas and pretending like the numbers were measured instead of calculated doesn't do anyone any good.
- bootlooped 7y ago
  Height and weight is exactly how BMI is measured. There is no other way to get it. Yes, body fat % might be a better metric to use, but BMI is fine for population-level statistics, which is what they're taking about here.
- Ensorceled 7y ago
  Even if the measurement is inaccurate and over measures obesity; the trend of BMI increasing, and hence obesity, still exists.
- URSpider94 7y ago
  BMI is defined as (weight in kg) / height in meters ^2. It can’t be measured any other way. There’s no controversy about this, no other answer. Now, many people argue that BMI is not a good measure of obesity, or health, since it does not account for percent body fat or other health metrics. That’s totally true. But BMI is BMI.
- tasty_freeze 7y ago
  Every time BMI is mentioned someone brings up this point. I sometimes wonder if it is mostly an opportunity to humblebrag about how much time they spend in the gym and "Dude, I am 6' tall, weigh 240 lbs and have 3% body fat but the BMI says I'm obese. See, the BMI is bullshit." Yes, there are individuals for whom the BMI metric is spectacularly bad, a modest percentage for whom it is simply poor, but those people already know they aren't obese. At a population level, the BMI metric is just fine.
andygcook 7y ago
This Slate article from 2013 has a gif mapping obesity from 1985 - 2010 by state: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_week/2013/04/obesity_in_america_cdc_releases_gif_of_epidemic_over_time.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_w... It's really shocking how quickly Americans' weights increased. The map also shows the increases are usually more pronounced in the South and Midwest first, then spread to the coasts (skipping over Colorado, of course)
- Meekro 7y ago
  The sheer speed with which this happened undermines many theories about what's causing it. People talk about idle desk jobs, a car-dominated culture, and abundant cheap food. Those things were just as true in 1990, though, and far fewer people were obese.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
    But how long had they been that prevalent by the 90s? One does not gain 30 pounds overnight.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - mc32 7y ago
      But also it doesn’t take decades to put on a couple of stone. A poor diet over a year or two will do it without trying.
  - autokad 7y ago
    in 1990, we still had a lot of manufacturing jobs. I think the "idle desk jobs" still makes sense. Probably demographics is more important though. For example, median age is going up. In fact, a lot of the things we complain about today can be at least partially attributed to that.
  - dawnerd 7y ago
    From personal experience I can attest to it being sitting all day and not really moving around much plus eating a lot. People always go on about how you should change but it's just so freaking hard to break out of it once you're gone.
irjustin 7y ago
The old adage was "genetics". If you had the right ones you could eat anything. Clearly 20-30 years is not enough for genetics to play in so what is going on? I know we blame fast food and sugars or possibly even fats a lot, but I feel like a lot of those have existed.
- zzzcpan 7y ago
  Could be more cars and computers that pushed sedentary life on people or plenty of other things too: more effective sugary food advertising on better screens, food producers figuring out that sugar is addictive and starting to put it into everything, or all of the above.
- astura 7y ago
  >Clearly 20-30 years is not enough for genetics to play in Unless it's some sort of epigenetic factors changing genetic expression? It's a possibility considering our animals are also getting fatter [1], including lab animals, whose diet is controlled and has not changed. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/10/its-not-just-us-even-american-animals-are-getting-fatter/310063/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/10/its-not...
narrator 7y ago
The truth is is that it happened all by itself. That's because someone coming along saying that someone with deep pockets is responsible will lead to a multi-million dollar PR offensive to convince you otherwise. For example, just look at how much Monsanto had to pay out when they failed at the PR war [1]. Before they eventually failed at their PR war, they had a well funded department devoted to discrediting any criticism of Monsanto [2]. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/california-jury-hits-monsanto-2-billion-judgment-cancer-lawsuit-n1005191 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/californ... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/08/monsanto-roundup-journalist-documents https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/08/monsan...
mullingitover 7y ago
I'd love to see another set of maps showing annual fructose consumption. I bet they'd line up with these nearly perfectly.
brailsafe 7y ago
This has been a solved problem for years now. Step 1: Go to Kroger, pick up a gallon of milk. Step 2: Uppercuts, Kickers, Twisters. Obesity solved. https://youtube.com/watch?v=tAAAbwEtZRo https://youtube.com/watch?v=tAAAbwEtZRo /s
tzs 7y ago
If you made a time machine, went back about 45 years, and brought my then overweight teen self who was probably in the top 5% for obesity then to today...I think his reaction would be the same as Jack the Ripper in the 1979 movie "Time After Time" when Jack was brought to modern San Francisco [1]: > I belong here completely. In our time, I was a freak. Today, I'm an amateur. [1] Briefly, in the movie H.G. Wells actually builds the time machine. Jack steals it to escape capture coming to our time. Wells, fearing he was unleashed a monster on what he expects to be utopia follows (the machine had been set to automatically return when Jack stole it).
rpiguy 7y ago
Funny how obesity accelerated with the decline of smoking. Sure lots of obese people smoke, but my anecdotal experience with my immediate family tells me that a decline in smoking is a factor. Everyone who quit smoking in my family replaced it with food (except for one, who replaced it with alcohol, and then later replaced alcohol with food when they realized they were becoming an alcoholic). Instead of reaching for a cigarette they reached for a snack. It hit my grandparents the hardest because they quit smoking in the late 80s when there was also a war on coffee/caffeine with wild studies blaming it for a ton of health problems. Boom - they lost two appetite suppressants in one fell swoop. I am not advocating for smoking, which has worse or comparable health effects to obesity, but I do think it is a factor in a multi-factor phenomena.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
gedy 7y ago
I wonder the impact of working mothers and need for fast, convenient processed meals? https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/FT_14.04.07_Stay-At-Home-Moms_momstayinghome640px.png https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/FT_14...
nate_meurer 7y ago
Father in law is a doctor -- a family doctor in a small town, and the only one in private practice (not in a hospital) within 100 miles. Much of the population in that area are his patients, so he gets to see everything, from mundane stuff to exotic illnesses and injuries, and is well-positioned to discern long term trends. In recent years, he's suddenly treating hypertension, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes in his pediatric patients. With few exceptions, these kids are morbidly obese. He says these things were unheard of fifteen years ago. Let that sink in. High blood pressure, cholesterol, T2 diabetes in teens, pre-teens, and in some cases even younger. This. is. fucked. up.
kapnobatairza 7y ago
Lots of factors contribute to our "obesogenic environment", and it isn't quite as simple as pinning it down on any particular food, habit or practice. I recently read this paper on the "ecology" of obesity and I thought it provided a fairly good assessment of this viewpoint: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2127317/pdf/9284671.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2127317/pdf/928...

49 points by EndXA 7y ago

starpilot 7y ago

Solution is SS + GOMAD.

seattle_spring 7y ago
Telling people to employ GOMAD is akin to what happened to Cartman in "Weightgain 3000."
- markdoubleyou 7y ago
  Right. Rippetoe is very clear that GOMAD is only intended for underweight 19 year-olds who are trying to add mass.
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    Which is basically no one in the US these days
brailsafe 7y ago
"Step 1: Go to Kroger and get yourself a gallon of milk. Gallon of milk a day, do my uppercuts, some kickers, twisters."

standardUser 7y ago

I feel like people have become far more health conscious in recent years. Working out regularly and caring about your diet used to be fringe activities, but now it seems like almost all anyone talks about! Maybe these trends are concentrated in urban areas? That would help explain why the highly-urbanized West and Northeast have managed so much better than the less-urbanized South.

jessriedel 7y ago
The urban areas in 2010 had significantly higher obesity rates than even the rural areas in 1990. So regardless of what people are yapping about, it's not working.
- shagmin 7y ago
  ...or is working, but at too small a scale to overcome general nationwide trends.
  - jessriedel 7y ago
    I mean, even if we attribute 100% of the urban-rural difference to yuppy diet fads -- neglecting the almost-certainly much more important class, income, genetic, and cultural differences -- the effect of those fads are being absolutely crushed by the general nationwide trends. Whatever it is that us urban people get out of talking about diet fad that people in the rural areas don't keep up with, I don't think it's motivated by a desire to understand the obesity epidemic.
- trophycase 7y ago
  Idk, where I live in the city I find these trends pretty shocking. Mind you 2010 is 10 years ago, but just from looking at the people around me I'd expect this to have leveled off or reduced.
  - graeme 7y ago
    It’s also possible you’re simply used to a certain level of adiposity without realizing it. Almost everyone over 30 has some level of gut now, even those considered comparatively fit and thin. This wasn’t normal decades ago, but is normal now. How often do you see people shirtless? Clothes hide a lot of bellies. Having muscles, being a jogger, eating salads or riding s bicycle is completely consistent with abdominal fat. So, what standard are you using when you say urban people now are likely thinner than rural people in 1990?
7y ago

m_ke 7y ago

With the climate crisis and the opioid epidemic in the news we're not hearing as much about obesity as we used to but it's still a growing problem that's now spilling over to developing nations. I work on a product in this area and was really surprised how big of an issue obesity and diabetes is is in the middle east. (https://qz.com/1504345/americas-other-unhealthy-legacy-in-the-middle-east/ https://qz.com/1504345/americas-other-unhealthy-legacy-in-th...) It's mostly driven by CPGs and Fast Food chains looking for growth in emerging markets (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/health/ghana-kfc-obesity.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/health/ghana-kfc-obesity...., https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/obesity-uk-usa-developing-countries-western-culture-chains-a8002026.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/obesity-uk-usa-developi...) > Of all high income countries, the United States has the highest rates of overweight and obesity, with fully a third of the population obese-a rate projected to rise to around 50 percent by 2030.

philg_jr 7y ago
Specifically, type 2 diabetes. Which is a metabolic disease that can be fixed with proper diet and some exercise.
- James_Henry 7y ago
  I would change that to "can sometimes be fixed" as type 2 diabetes can damage the pancreas (and other organs) to the point that "proper diet and some exercise" alone will not rejuvenate them.
  - 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
    Even if that's the case, you can actually DIY an artificial pancreas with relative ease. Biggest blocker is finding the insulin.
    - James_Henry 7y ago
      I don't think many (any?) type 2 diabetics have artificial pancreases. Also, even with good glucose control, type 2 diabetes still seems to lead to some pretty bad comorbidities.

stareatgoats 7y ago

Another of the menu items talks about causes, which is immediately where the mind goes: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-causes/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesi... It talks about unhealthy food habits, lack of exercise etc. There is probably solid science behind it, but my gut feeling is that there is something missing. I mean people have been eating beef steaks and gobbled sweets in front of TVs for ages now haven't they? I could be wrong.

baroomba 7y ago
There's very, very cheap food now that's also low-effort and craving-satisfying and/or inducing. All sorts of crappy low- or zero-prep food has gotten both cheaper and better at being hard to resist. Meanwhile, sedentary entertainment has gotten much better and also very cheap.
- chadcmulligan 7y ago
  Yes I think this is a big factor - also the social barriers to eating this junk food is lower. It used to be you'd eat at home and seldom buy and eat anything when out, social eating at a restaurant was a special occasion and you'd eat 'treat' foods like cake or ice cream. This sort of eating is now nearly every day, all it takes is 100-200 calories to much a day and you're a fatty in 10 years. I suppose a good example of this is to look at asians who have a traditional diet - they sit around as much as the westerners but are still predominantly thin, though you can tell who's adopted a western diet.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
partiallypro 7y ago
I think it largely has to do with not being as active. We have a lot more desk jobs now than we had in the past. In the past people didn't have to go to the gym to not be overweight, they burned it all off when they were going throughout their day.

mnm1 7y ago

I think the numbers are likely exaggerated to the point of being almost useless. It all depends on how BMI is measured. If it's not measured, the number are useless. The website says: > There are a number of ways to measure body fat. Some are well suited to the doctor’s office, such as calculating a person’s BMI. That seems to suggest a simple calculation given height and weight. That is not a proper way to measure BMI. BMI must be measured. Otherwise it simply is not a reflection of anything but an inaccurate calculation that doesn't apply to most people and overestimates the number of overweight and obese people. Yes there are a lot of overweight and obese people, but exaggerating the numbers by using inaccurate formulas and pretending like the numbers were measured instead of calculated doesn't do anyone any good.

bootlooped 7y ago
Height and weight is exactly how BMI is measured. There is no other way to get it. Yes, body fat % might be a better metric to use, but BMI is fine for population-level statistics, which is what they're taking about here.
Ensorceled 7y ago
Even if the measurement is inaccurate and over measures obesity; the trend of BMI increasing, and hence obesity, still exists.
URSpider94 7y ago
BMI is defined as (weight in kg) / height in meters ^2. It can’t be measured any other way. There’s no controversy about this, no other answer. Now, many people argue that BMI is not a good measure of obesity, or health, since it does not account for percent body fat or other health metrics. That’s totally true. But BMI is BMI.
tasty_freeze 7y ago
Every time BMI is mentioned someone brings up this point. I sometimes wonder if it is mostly an opportunity to humblebrag about how much time they spend in the gym and "Dude, I am 6' tall, weigh 240 lbs and have 3% body fat but the BMI says I'm obese. See, the BMI is bullshit." Yes, there are individuals for whom the BMI metric is spectacularly bad, a modest percentage for whom it is simply poor, but those people already know they aren't obese. At a population level, the BMI metric is just fine.

andygcook 7y ago

This Slate article from 2013 has a gif mapping obesity from 1985 - 2010 by state: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_week/2013/04/obesity_in_america_cdc_releases_gif_of_epidemic_over_time.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_w... It's really shocking how quickly Americans' weights increased. The map also shows the increases are usually more pronounced in the South and Midwest first, then spread to the coasts (skipping over Colorado, of course)

Meekro 7y ago
The sheer speed with which this happened undermines many theories about what's causing it. People talk about idle desk jobs, a car-dominated culture, and abundant cheap food. Those things were just as true in 1990, though, and far fewer people were obese.
- onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
  But how long had they been that prevalent by the 90s? One does not gain 30 pounds overnight.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - mc32 7y ago
    But also it doesn’t take decades to put on a couple of stone. A poor diet over a year or two will do it without trying.
- autokad 7y ago
  in 1990, we still had a lot of manufacturing jobs. I think the "idle desk jobs" still makes sense. Probably demographics is more important though. For example, median age is going up. In fact, a lot of the things we complain about today can be at least partially attributed to that.
- dawnerd 7y ago
  From personal experience I can attest to it being sitting all day and not really moving around much plus eating a lot. People always go on about how you should change but it's just so freaking hard to break out of it once you're gone.

irjustin 7y ago

The old adage was "genetics". If you had the right ones you could eat anything. Clearly 20-30 years is not enough for genetics to play in so what is going on? I know we blame fast food and sugars or possibly even fats a lot, but I feel like a lot of those have existed.

zzzcpan 7y ago
Could be more cars and computers that pushed sedentary life on people or plenty of other things too: more effective sugary food advertising on better screens, food producers figuring out that sugar is addictive and starting to put it into everything, or all of the above.
astura 7y ago
>Clearly 20-30 years is not enough for genetics to play in Unless it's some sort of epigenetic factors changing genetic expression? It's a possibility considering our animals are also getting fatter [1], including lab animals, whose diet is controlled and has not changed. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/10/its-not-just-us-even-american-animals-are-getting-fatter/310063/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/10/its-not...

narrator 7y ago

The truth is is that it happened all by itself. That's because someone coming along saying that someone with deep pockets is responsible will lead to a multi-million dollar PR offensive to convince you otherwise. For example, just look at how much Monsanto had to pay out when they failed at the PR war [1]. Before they eventually failed at their PR war, they had a well funded department devoted to discrediting any criticism of Monsanto [2]. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/california-jury-hits-monsanto-2-billion-judgment-cancer-lawsuit-n1005191 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/californ... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/08/monsanto-roundup-journalist-documents https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/08/monsan...

mullingitover 7y ago

I'd love to see another set of maps showing annual fructose consumption. I bet they'd line up with these nearly perfectly.

brailsafe 7y ago

This has been a solved problem for years now. Step 1: Go to Kroger, pick up a gallon of milk. Step 2: Uppercuts, Kickers, Twisters. Obesity solved. https://youtube.com/watch?v=tAAAbwEtZRo https://youtube.com/watch?v=tAAAbwEtZRo /s

tzs 7y ago

If you made a time machine, went back about 45 years, and brought my then overweight teen self who was probably in the top 5% for obesity then to today...I think his reaction would be the same as Jack the Ripper in the 1979 movie "Time After Time" when Jack was brought to modern San Francisco [1]: > I belong here completely. In our time, I was a freak. Today, I'm an amateur. [1] Briefly, in the movie H.G. Wells actually builds the time machine. Jack steals it to escape capture coming to our time. Wells, fearing he was unleashed a monster on what he expects to be utopia follows (the machine had been set to automatically return when Jack stole it).

rpiguy 7y ago

Funny how obesity accelerated with the decline of smoking. Sure lots of obese people smoke, but my anecdotal experience with my immediate family tells me that a decline in smoking is a factor. Everyone who quit smoking in my family replaced it with food (except for one, who replaced it with alcohol, and then later replaced alcohol with food when they realized they were becoming an alcoholic). Instead of reaching for a cigarette they reached for a snack. It hit my grandparents the hardest because they quit smoking in the late 80s when there was also a war on coffee/caffeine with wild studies blaming it for a ton of health problems. Boom - they lost two appetite suppressants in one fell swoop. I am not advocating for smoking, which has worse or comparable health effects to obesity, but I do think it is a factor in a multi-factor phenomena.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

gedy 7y ago

I wonder the impact of working mothers and need for fast, convenient processed meals? https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/FT_14.04.07_Stay-At-Home-Moms_momstayinghome640px.png https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/FT_14...

nate_meurer 7y ago

Father in law is a doctor -- a family doctor in a small town, and the only one in private practice (not in a hospital) within 100 miles. Much of the population in that area are his patients, so he gets to see everything, from mundane stuff to exotic illnesses and injuries, and is well-positioned to discern long term trends. In recent years, he's suddenly treating hypertension, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes in his pediatric patients. With few exceptions, these kids are morbidly obese. He says these things were unheard of fifteen years ago. Let that sink in. High blood pressure, cholesterol, T2 diabetes in teens, pre-teens, and in some cases even younger. This. is. fucked. up.

kapnobatairza 7y ago

Lots of factors contribute to our "obesogenic environment", and it isn't quite as simple as pinning it down on any particular food, habit or practice. I recently read this paper on the "ecology" of obesity and I thought it provided a fairly good assessment of this viewpoint: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2127317/pdf/9284671.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2127317/pdf/928...