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More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

symlinkk 6y ago
Isn’t it strange how the only way to eat healthy food in America is to cook it yourself? Every fast food restaurant is unhealthy. Most sit down restaurants are unhealthy. I can pay someone to change my oil, I can pay someone to cut my grass, but for some reason cooking healthy food, the most essential service, is difficult to find. Why has our economy failed us in this sector specifically?
- atom-morgan 6y ago
  Lack of demand I'm guessing. Within cities it's much easier to find healthier food at restaurants.
  - itake 6y ago
    I am on a high protein diet. I can find "healthy" choices in local SF restaurant, but its rare to find food with enough protein to meet my needs. Even "healthy" restaurants sneak in sauces and sweet drinks or don't accurately measure their ingredients (and thus correctly report calories).
- sjg007 6y ago
  You can do healthy meal delivery plans or for the really rich, hire a chef. The healthy for life plans are quite good. I lost weight on them.
- vkou 6y ago
  > I can pay someone to change my oil, I can pay someone to cut my grass, but for some reason cooking healthy food, the most essential service, is difficult to find. > Why has our economy failed us in this sector specifically? Because it's incredibly inefficient for a chef to cook a meal for a family, because people want their food to arrive warm, thus preventing factory-food-production, because delivery is expensive, because everyone has a refrigerator, thus making cooked-to-order food have compete on price with long-shelf-life refrigerated staples, and because people vote with their wallets by buying food that tastes good, as opposed to food that's healthy. Do you know what makes food taste good? Sugar, fat, salt, and alcohol. Do you know what's not healthy for you? Sugar, fat, salt and alcohol. [1] The other problem is that a lot of Americans don't know how to eat well - because eating well is a skill that you inherit from your parents. If your parents were feeding you crap food as a kid, you'll turn into an adult that craves that same crap. There's a huge class divide, here. My parents were immigrants with lower-middle-class means, but upper-class habits. As a kid, soda was a treat for me. Soda was a staple for my lower-class friends - which was not by their choice, but rather by choice of their parents. They grew up into adults with bad diets, bad teeth, and bad overall health, and they find it really, really hard to change what they eat. This sort of thing repeats, generation after generation. [1] Yes, I'm aware that fat and salt aren't unhealthy in themselves - but are probably unhealthy in the amounts we consume.
  - zeroonetwothree 6y ago
    Fat and salt are both critical for your health.
    - inglor_cz 6y ago
      SOME fats are indeed essential for our health, but not every fat out there is. Highly processed shit like trans-fats seems to be pretty destructive.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- bpodgursky 6y ago
  Most every fast food restaurant has reasonably healthy food that few people order. Mcdonalds has chicken burgers. Everywhere has salads (albeit fewer than in 2019 because of food handling concerns in 2020). Subway caters to this heavily in their marketing. You can easily put together a cheap sub with whatever macro/micronutrient combo you want. Also, most supermarkets have a hot prepared food section with very healthy cheap pre-prepared food. Again... few people take advantage of it. Outside of food deserts (which yes, do exist) it's really not hard to find healthy cheap prepared food if you want it. But nobody does.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    Mcdonalds has chicken burgers. The cheapest chicken sandwich at McDonald's is slathered with mayonnaise. Of course one can specify that the mayonnaise be omitted, but then one is confronted with the fact that the factory-made chicken patty is fairly unpalatable by itself. The main question about Subway is which is more disgusting: the food or the way they treat (especially immigrant) franchisees? I can't think of a single item at Subway that qualifies as "cheap" either. Non-millionaires who seek tasty and healthy food must learn to cook.
    - bpodgursky 6y ago
      What are you on about? You can get a perfectly health meal at subway for $5. Just get a turkey club with vegetables or whatever. If you think Subway is garbage food, the problem is not Subway, the problem is that you're a rich food snob.
      - rsynnott 6y ago
        A couple of months ago, the Irish Supreme Court ruled that Subway's 'bread' wasn't bread (the reason this went to court was that it's important for setting a VAT rate), due to containing too much added sugar. In Ireland (and, as far as I know, most places in Europe) it would not be normal for bread to contain added sugar _at all_. So, yeah, a sandwich made with what is legally cake seems fairly garbage (though, I do see the problem in that it seems to be hard to get normal bread cheaply in the US). This does point to a potential solution, though. As I understand it, the determination was only directly relevant to taxation. However, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to imagine that a country could take the stance that advertising sandwiches made with non-bread as sandwiches wasn’t permissible. That might be enough of a marketing problem for Subway that they’d just drop the sugar.
- UShouldBWorking 6y ago
  Chipotle?
- diarmuidc 6y ago
  Maybe eating out every day isn't the best idea.
- jariel 6y ago
  The food is not so much unhealthy as portion sizes are just too big. I eat literally the kids meal sizes at many places. McDonalds burger is not very unhealthy for example. And even the food you buy is loaded with sugar and other hidden carbs. Yogurt - for example - is kind of positioned as 'healthy' when for the most part it's total junk food due to the addes sugar. Most cereal, crackers are effectively junk food. Pragmatically speaking even bread is junk food. Salad dressing is usually junk food. BarbQ sauce is junk food. Eat less, avoid carbs and sugar ... we'd probably do just fine.
- ojhughes 6y ago
  When I used to travel to the US with work, I would start to get split cuticles after a few days due to nutrition deficiencies eating out every day
- meowzero 6y ago
  Usually, healthier cooking doesn't taste as good. Most of the food industry is focused on providing the best tasting food so people will buy them. How do you make food taste good? Add a lot of fat and/or carbs, which are the macro nutrients that are calorie dense. There doesn't seem to be much demand in healthy food services.
  - symlinkk 6y ago
    I disagree that there isn’t much demand for healthy food services. I think the real problem is that healthy food just doesn’t have as high of profit margins as unhealthy food. A satisfying healthy meal will be primarily meat based, which is expensive. A satisfying unhealthy meal will contain lots of carbs and fat, which is cheap.
    - t-writescode 6y ago
      > A satisfying healthy meal will be primarily meat based, which is expensive. Indian, vegan and vegetarian food would like a word. I've had some stellar salads.
  - linspace 6y ago
    For the same amount of taste healthy food is incredibly more expensive. I have eaten vegetables as good as any meat.
  - worik 6y ago
    No! Healthy food tastes great!
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      But not as great as unhealthy food. So if you're trying to sell food next door to someone selling tastier food, you're probably not going to succeed unless you have a weird number of health conscious folks. And health conscious folks tend to cook at home anyway and not eat out anyway.
  - hristov 6y ago
- kube-system 6y ago
  My reality is the opposite. I ate healthier food when I worked in an urban office every day. There was basically a salad place on every corner -- enough variety that I basically never got tired of them. And when I did, I would usually get some ethnic vegetarian food that I have no idea how to cook anyway. At home, I have fewer options in my fridge, it's easier for me to make a lazy choice for lunch, and there's nobody around to lean on for social support.
- didibus 6y ago
  Not just that, but even if you cook it yourself, it can be hard to find certain things that are healthy, almost everything has added sugar, or sugar concentrates for example, and a lot of produce are adulterated and so arn't even the real thing, like some Olive Oils.
- shinycode 6y ago
  Because processed food yields the most profit. It’s cheap and quick to cook. It’s the economy of profit, with 8h of work and the same food budget you cook more and make more profit ...
  - symlinkk 6y ago
    Maybe there is space in the economy for a fast food restaurant that is slightly more expensive but also slightly healthier. Food for thought.
    - shinycode 6y ago
      In Europe, at least in France there is lots and lots of restaurants with healthy cooked food and not expensive. Maybe it’s cultural ?
- konjin 6y ago
  Because healthy food is not subsidized. A raw Big Mac costs on the order of a dollar. If you tried to just match that with raw healthy ingredients you'd be looking at five to ten times that. And that's before we get into the labor costs of cooking.
- mcavoybn 6y ago
  I don't think that this issue is specific to the food service sector. I think the reason healthy food is hard to find in America is the same reason that the only way to have a healthy social ecosystem online is to painstakingly develop it at a grassroots level: corporate interests have taken over. The second that a corporate entity takes hold, growth is made the only priority and the system will naturally develop insidious patterns which abuse our most pathological tendencies. Let's refactor your comment using social media: > Isn’t it strange how the only way to have a meaningful discussion on the internet is to spend hours researching and filtering through a sea of clickbait/porn/fakenews/gossip? > Every social media website is unhealthy. Most well-known forums are unhealthy. I think the unfortunate reality is that we will continue to slip into these patterns until we stop responding to them. It's a self-perpetuating cycle. We all need to strive to find out what healthy means and crawl towards that. Unfortunately things will continue to spiral out of control to the degree they need to for us to change, and sadly some people will be lost along the way. Other possibilities: * Food is now abundant. The whole idea of healthy food is relatively new. Only the very rich used to be overweight, but now even the poorest can afford enough food to become obese * American food is heavy and fatty as a matter of tradition. Burgers, fries, fast food are all cultural artifacts most commonly associated with the US. * Multiple generations of Americans have been raised in front of the television and have deep seeded emotional imprinting from fast food marketing (happy meals!)
Clubber 6y ago
Using the BMI to gauge obeseness of a population is very lazy and disingenuous.
- m3kw9 6y ago
  Is an average way to determine it but a good and quick estimation even if +-10%
- yters 6y ago
  The irony of the BMI is the more I workout to stay in the healthy range, the more difficult it is to stay in the healthy range. Best bet is to sit around not eating anything to be 'healthy' according to BMI.
  - newen 6y ago
    True, I started weightlifting for three months and my BMI went into overweight territory. I had an athletic build both before and after. Probably good for a lot of people but weightlifting really puts it into question. It's not like weightlifting is something only few men can do; most men can weightlift. Then they end up having healthy body fat levels, but end up with BMI in the overweight category. If something as simple and straightforward as weightlifting messes up a measure, then it's not a good measure.
    - multjoy 6y ago
      You don’t lose weight lifting things up and putting them back down. You certainly don’t put any appreciable strain on the CV system.
      - yters 6y ago
        I was doing a lot of cardio training for an ironman and had really low body fat, but still borderline overweight according to BMI.
    - sergiotapia 6y ago
      Lifting heavy weight doesn't mean you're fit. You can still be very overweight and bloatmaxxed This guy is strong as hell but he isn't healthy at all https://youtu.be/1LsIQr_4iSY https://youtu.be/1LsIQr_4iSY
8f2ab37a-ed6c 6y ago
Is "healthy at every size" still a fringe movement, or is it gaining more social acceptance?
- turing_complete 6y ago
  "Body positivity" is -- inadvertently for the most part -- insidious. Of course, don't make fun of overweight people for being overweight, don't be an asshole. However, making people people believe that they can eat whatever they want, can be obese and still healthy doesn't help at all. It might make you feel nice, but it is very destructive and unhelpful in the long run.
  - lemonspat 6y ago
    > but it is very destructive and unhelpful in the long run. If the United States ever moves to a public-funded healthcare regime, it will also be more expensive and destructive to care for from a government budget perspective.
    - forrestthewoods 6y ago
      False! Unhealthy people are great for saving money. Health care costs are disproportionately skewed towards end of life care. People who are unhealthy die younger and more quickly. Edit: Here you go. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748884.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748...
      - lotsofpulp 6y ago
        Assuming the healthcare issues resulting from being overweight result in a sudden death. Considering they result in chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension and require things like heart bypass surgeries, I doubt it.
      - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
        After 20 years of avoidable diabetes.
andygcook 6y ago
BMI isn't a reliable indicator to gauge obesity. For example, Tom Brady at 6' 4" and 225 lbs is considered overweight, which is obviously not the case. That being said, as an American, it really did shock me how fit the majority of people were in Italy when I visited there for the first time last year. This New England Journal of Medicine chart really does a good job of showing that America has gotten heavier over the years: https://www.nejm.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/mms/journals/content/nejm/2019/nejm_2019.381.issue-25/nejmsa1909301/20191213-01/images/img_xlarge/nejmsa1909301_f1.jpeg https://www.nejm.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/mms/jour... Source: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1909301 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1909301
- cma 6y ago
  For a population study BMI is fine, elite NFL players aren't going to move the needle.
- diarmuidc 6y ago
  A professional athlete doesn't need a simple metric to understand if he's at his ideal weight. It's part of his job. The general public do need a simple metric which covers 95% of the population. BMI is that.
- sangli 6y ago
  BMI isn't a reliable indicator go gauge obesity FOR EVERY SINGLE PERSON. I would think most of us agree that the people like Tom Brady, Dwyane Johnson (the rock), or competitive body builders would be extreme ends of this scale. For average people BMI is a reliable indicator.
  - mirekrusin 6y ago
    That’s because muscles are heavier than fat, right?
    - pmalynin 6y ago
      They are more dense, yes.
lsiebert 6y ago
I think everyone working in tech knows that sometimes simplistic solutions handle the vast majority of cases. The people who are muscular athletes are probably not worried about their BMI, but if they are, they can discuss with their doctors.
martindbp 6y ago
I still remember driving through some small town in Arizona 10 years ago, and I couldn't find a single non-obese person there. Not just overweight, full on obese. Parents, kids, everyone. It was the one of the most bizarre experiences I've had, as a visitor. Cities are not that bad though, but I'm sure many rural parts are close to 100%.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  I've only ever visited San Francisco in the US, and the first time I was there I was slightly surprised that in terms of obesity it seemed pretty similar to Dublin (which wouldn't be the thinnest city around, but is middle of the road European). Then I flew back via O'Hare, and really saw the difference when waiting for the transfer; quite dramatic levels of obesity. I wonder how much of it is just down to urban Americans walking places, and rural and suburban Americans less so. I did also notice that there was added sugar in virtually _everything_.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    There are probably multiple factors, walking more and fewer time sitting in cars is quite possibly one of them. Urban areas also have more young people. The added sugar in the US is a shame. Just this year, the nutritional labels are mandated to show added sugars in products now. I hope that helps.
    - konjin 6y ago
      Would showing added lead in baby formula help? Kind of shocked how in the US an issue that is obviously a health issue is treated as a personal failing. If you want sugar in your food you're free to add some after the fact, or buy it from a non-food store. Warning people that all the food they have access to is poison is not a solution to anything.
      - dwaltrip 6y ago
        > Warning people that all the food they have access to is poison is not a solution to anything. It sounds like you are suggesting all food in American grocery stores is equally bad when it comes to sugar. Perhaps I misunderstood you, as that is obviously absurd. While I do wish there were more healthy options, I can assure you that the mainstream grocery stores (Ralph's, Safeway, etc) contain many products with low or no sugar. Empowering people to make better decisions is actually one of the best things we can do. What is your alternative proposal? I read nutrition labels, looking at the sugar content. I eagerly await the requirement to list the amount of added sugar, as it will inform my food purchases.
29athrowaway 6y ago
In the US there are many highly processed foods with little fiber and added sugar. Nutrition fact labels can be very misleading. e.g.: showing nutrition facts per certain some arbitrary amount of weight, or having multiple servings per container, which is misleading if it's an individual serving container. e.g.: Oreo serving size is 2 cookies. Who opens a pack of oreos only to eat 2 of them? nobody. Many occupations do not involve physical activity, and nowadays many day to day activities also do not involve physical activity.
- brundolf 6y ago
  Something I've realized in recent months is that restaurant portions are insane. Even if you're not eating a cheeseburger - heck, even if you're eating a salad (assuming it has more than just lettuce) - the sheer amount of food you get in a single entree at most restaurants means that even a reasonable type of meal will end up being two or three times the calories it would be if you made it at home. The alternative of course is to stop halfway (or earlier), but that's really hard to do when it's right in front of you. The only workaround I know of (beyond just not eating out) is to order it to go, and then immediately put half in the refrigerator.
  - 29athrowaway 6y ago
    "Clean plate mentality" is also a big part of the problem. We should not indoctrinate kids to clean their plates.
  - worik 6y ago
    You are allowed to only eat part of what you are offered.
  - t-writescode 6y ago
    I take the "snack in the morning, meal at night" approach with restaurant food. That way the 1700-2000 calories worth of food is still under my daily requirements.
  - motardo 6y ago
    For the last ten years, my spouse and I always split an entree when we eat out. We order one entree and ask for an extra plate. The portions are perfect, and eating out is much more affordable.
ggm 6y ago
Fringeing overweight, it has taken me years to remove 10kg and keeping it off is a constant battle. I used to be as thin as a rake. Folks, its a mostly one-way ratchet. If you put a one-way walk into any system, and let it run free, what direction do you think things will trend, even if the pace of movement is a crawl?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bitL 6y ago
  You can lose 10 kg in 20 days of not eating anything but electrolytes, so it's definitely not one-way ratchet. It's just difficult to do so. Once you eat anything with calories, you disrupt your 100% fat burn and it makes you totally miserable as the body switches over to energy preservation, while with 100% fat burn you feel plenty of energy.
  - hombre_fatal 6y ago
    When I weigh myself daily, I realize I can fluctuate over 5kg just depending on if I've shat, been fasting for 24 hours, and/or consumed much water that day. I wouldn't start counting score until you have a few months of data to average. All of those "lose 10 pounds in two weeks!" magazine programs just have you emptying your poop chute where you get immediate results. Because they never try to scale to 20 pounds in four weeks or 30 pounds in six weeks.
    - bitL 6y ago
      Those +/- 5kg are coming from the water inside, that's normal. I am talking about real fat burning. Think about it - if you don't eat at all, aren't you going to lose weight? Our ancestors often went through feast-famine cycles and survived, likely because they accumulated fat during feast periods and then spent it during famine periods. Our issue is that we are always in the feast period and can't allow body to enter the famine one. The first three days are usually the worst, then it feels normal (assuming you take your electrolytes).
dmichulke 6y ago
For those interested in a different measure that is much more suited to athletes: A body fat calculator that requires just a tape measure. You measure your height, waist and neck (as a man). http://fitness.bizcalcs.com/Calculator.asp?Calc=Body-Fat-Navy http://fitness.bizcalcs.com/Calculator.asp?Calc=Body-Fat-Nav... The site is in 90's retro style. You can click on the question mark at the bottom left to see an explanation of all fields. Someone with BMI of 27 ("overweight") and 16% body fat ("fit") and no belly (but no six-pack either)
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  I was happy to close the tab once "Fit" popped up until I saw the waist measurement is to be done "at navel".
  - paulryanrogers 6y ago
    But can I inhale sharply and hold while measuring?
    - travisr 6y ago
      Sure, if you breathe properly[1] 1. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/take-a-deep-breath https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/take-a-deep-b...
claydavisss 6y ago
Obesity is 100x worse of a crisis than covid. We do nothing to change obesity or the lifestyle choices that lead to it. We need to have a national dialog about obesity that results in some people feeling bad. Global levels of obesity are set to meet US levels by 2040.
tunesmith 6y ago
It's impressive, because it's as if in America, we've figured out how to design a system that gets 73% of us to agree to do whatever we are doing to be overweight. That's really something when you think of it in terms of a population that is otherwise divided and polarized.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  Our firmware back from the ape era contains instructions to enjoy anything sweet and/or fatty. Of course, this worked back in the Paleolithic, when you found something sweet and/or fatty several times a year. It becomes a bad loophole for metabolic diseases when sweet and fatty things are everywhere and cheap.
  - twblalock 6y ago
    There are plenty of other countries where sweet and fatty things are cheap, yet they don't have the same obesity rate as the US.
    - inglor_cz 6y ago
      Everyone is slowly getting there, some countries (UK, Arab countries) faster, but the development seems to be unstoppable. In my country, never particularly known for being thin, I can see a definitive negative development since the 1990s. Morbidly fat teenagers were basically nonexistent then. Now you meet them all the time. IMHO the worst offenders are soft drinks, which have zero satiating effect and consist of a mass of liquid sugar. Coca-cola used to be expensive here in the 1990s (compared to a median wage), now it is cheaper than beer, our typical lower class drink.
      - rsynnott 6y ago
        In the last few years, a number of countries have brought in sugar taxes that have in many cases caused soft drink manufacturers to push the zero calorie versions of their products, or reduce sugar in their normal ones (particularly common where there's a two-tier tax; I think about the only soft drink that's still in the top tier here is Coca Cola, but even they have been heavily pushing their Coke Zero product), or both. Will be interesting to see what impact this has.
meowzero 6y ago
This isn't surprising. We're conditioned to eat great tasting food and lots of it. Most American cities have a car-oriented culture, along with sedentary lifestyles; therefore, not much walking or NEAT (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis). It seems over the years, Americans are burning less calories, but consuming more. I usually cook at home now, thanks to the Pandemic. Looking at all the recipes I found online, I realized how much high-calorie ingredients you have to add to make the food taste delicious. I try to limit those ingredient or use lower-calorie substitutes, but it is challenging. I can't imagine how much fats and sugars restaurants put in their foods to make it tasty for the general population. Also, food portions have gotten bigger. We're used to eating more. Having a great tasting food filled with sugar or fats is not bad by itself, but eating a small portion of it won't be satisfying or satiating enough for most people. There's a Youtube home cook named Ethan Chlebowski who sometimes does low-calorie versions of certain foods. I think more people need to do that--give great recipes that can taste almost as good as the high-calorie versions.
- mpol 6y ago
  > I realized how much high-calorie ingredients you have to add to make the food taste delicious. Is that not a trap? Most professional cooks who want to stand out use lots of salt and sugar, sometimes up to a point that I find it disgusting. I can imagine if you are used to that much salt and sugar, you need it again to taste anything. But believe me, you can unlearn it and start to taste the food itself, instead of the added salt and sugar. I learned the rule that a cook that uses lots of salt and sugar is a bad cook.
  - war1025 6y ago
    I agree on the sugar aspect, but having been brought up firmly in the "salt is the devil" camp by my parents, it was an absolute revelation for me that the way you get rid of that hollow taste in food is by adding salt. I used to always make dishes that had all the right ingredients to taste good, but just didn't. The thing they were missing was salt.
    - kyriakos 6y ago
ambivalents 6y ago
> A new report has also revealed that 19.3% of children and young people, aged between two and 19, had obesity, with 6.1% of kids identified as being severely obesity. Small point but I found it interesting that 'obesity' is used here as a condition one can have, rather than be. Maybe that's the norm in science writing but first time I've seen it.
- samename 6y ago
  Maybe the norms or language is changing to be more accurate. This applies to mental health as well. For example: Skylar has bipolar disorder. Trevor has depression. A person is not their condition and many conditions can be overcome.
misja111 6y ago
I find it amazing how much effort and economic sacrifices we are willing to take to fight COVID, while at the same time, even now, the death toll because of unhealthy lifestyles is far greater. Why don't we put a similar effort into banning fast food, for instance? How can the USA allow companies to advertise that stuff when the bad consequences can be seen everywhere?
- maddyboo 6y ago
  We should be doing both, but COVID is very different and I don't think I need to explain why.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  Things must be politically unpopular in order to get banned. Merely being objectively bad for a given metric is not sufficient. See also alcohol vs marijuana.
- viraptor 6y ago
  With the virus you can get funding to get rid of it. But try enforcing limits of sugar in coke and you'll mostly find money that tries to stop you.
torstenvl 6y ago
BMI has no scientific validity and never did. Huge numbers of people are "overweight" by BMI standards, which is why even the armed forces don't use it (the Marine Corps height/weight standards allow for heavier individuals at each height, which is pretty telling since were the most physically demanding branch and geared toward being light naval infantry).
- claydavisss 6y ago
  The armed forces are allowing the overweight to enlist because they can't find healthy recruits in the numbers they demand.
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  BMI is valid for the vast majority of people. If you're no in the gym for a least an hour 7 days a week BMI is good enough for you.
spaetzleesser 6y ago
Just watch some home movies or look at pictures from the 60s or 70s and see how skinny most people were back then. It’s pretty amazing how the country got fat in such a short time. Having lived only on the coasts I noticed that Americans are a little chubbier than what I was used from Germany but the extent of the crisis became only clear when I did a cross country trip. Going to a Walmart in Indiana or Oklahoma you basically see only very fat or morbidly obese people. Even children are huge.
war1025 6y ago
A thing I wondered over the weekend: Is there a correlation between frequency of bowel movements and BMI? I read a book about pigs a couple years ago. It mentioned that once of the main differences between breeds of pigs that are high fat and those that are more lean is intestine length. Basically, the longer food is in your guts, the more energy gets extracted from it. My hypothesis would be that for an obese person, the length of time between food entering the body and food exiting the body is greater than in a person of a healthy weight.
- grecy 6y ago
  Huh, I might have to look into that. I've always had a "high metabolism" in that I can eat enormous quantities of food (and calories) and still struggle to put on weight. If I don't lift weights often I lose weight until people comment on how skinny I am. I get the shakes and feel horrible if I skip a single meal, or if I don't constantly consume food - doubly so when working out. I also use the bathroom often, certainly every day.
jonas21 6y ago
If you're inclined to think of this as just an American problem, keep in mind that most western nations are following the same trajectory as the US -- they're just 10 to 15 years behind. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-adults-who-are-overweight?tab=chart&country=CAN~FRA~GRC~DEU~USA~ESP~ITA~GBR https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-adults-who-are-o...
- troydavis 6y ago
  Thank you! Here's a few more data points that I found useful: Adult obesity by state over time: https://stateofchildhoodobesity.org/adult-obesity/ https://stateofchildhoodobesity.org/adult-obesity/ . MA, WA, and IL seem to have uniquely flatlined in the last 4 years. Most states have not. Obesity in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States#Prevalence_by_state_and_territory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States#P... Colorado, which has consistently had the lowest obesity rate of any state going back to 1990 (6.9%): https://www.denverpost.com/2018/09/12/colorado-least-obese-state/ https://www.denverpost.com/2018/09/12/colorado-least-obese-s...
Dowwie 6y ago
The Biden administration is going to try to advance a Medicare for All healthcare system. If the government wants to control the skyrocketing cost of healthcare, it can do well by addressing the root causes of health problems rather than structuring creative contracts with healthcare providers and pharmaceuticals. Even something as progressive as "incentivize healthy living" is very difficult when every legislator is lobbied nonstop by a long line of vested interests. Obese Americans create billions of dollars of financial opportunity. Think about the financial losses that people would experience if the mind and habits of every American were to change today. Healthcare, pharmaceutical, insurance, finance, food, academia, government agencies and administration -- all have a stake in keeping America the way it is. Just as America is focusing resources on a Green New Deal, so too does it need to focus on a Lean New Deal. This doesn't seem to be on the agenda for the first term, though.
paulryanrogers 6y ago
Sometimes I wonder how this trend impacts dating and marriage
falcolas 6y ago
I mean, duh? Eating makes you feel good. It releases all kinds of feel-good chemicals in your body, and it just feels good to be, if not full, satiated. It's an activity chock-full of positive reinforcements. Exercise, in contrast, is filled with various forms of pain (short and long term) and lots of tedium. If you're lucky, you get an endorphin rush to help offset these, but not everybody (and not every exercise regimen) provides these. It's an activity with lots of built-in negative reinforcements. And dieting? Dieting is constantly saying "No" to the positive feelings associated with eating. A piece of Christmas fudge? No. A side of fries with your hamburger? No. A full rack of sauced BBQ ribs? No. Creamy dressing for your salad? No. Seconds? A whole lot of No. It takes a lot of willpower and a long term goal to maintain a certain body shape to consistently - over the course of your entire lifetime - exercise more and eat less. And any mistake, any injury or illness which pushes you into obesity, and you're having to go even further into the "this doesn't make me feel good" category. Throw in a continuing shift towards jobs which don’t burn thousands of calories every day (e.g. forced exercise, overhead for increased caloric intake), and the availability of cheap meals with lots of calories, and boom. Obesity.
- grecy 6y ago
  Everything you said it true, but why isn't it such a big percentage in other developed countries?
  - falcolas 6y ago
    As pointed out by others, this is happening in other developed countries as well, it’s just lagging behind the US. Personally, I largely blame our learned culture of referencing “children in Africa”. Want to fuck up a child’s eating patterns for life? Force them to clean their plate.
    - sheepdestroyer 6y ago
      Hu? I grew up in France and I have always cleaned my plate as my mother told me. In my familly, it's the polite and sensitive way to eat. Same expectation when visiting friends. Really few are overweight. Since I moved to Japan, I learned that here too food is treated with the same deference : "you shall not let a grain of rice left in your bowl" is basic table decency. Few overweigh people here either. Both France and Japan have their food recognized as UNESCO cultural world heritages. In both countries people LOVE to eat and hate to waste. Maybe people should treat their food and themselves with respect and only put on the plate what they should and can eat?
rdtwo 6y ago
Many folks that weight lift are overweight by the BMI metric. When I used to hit the gym 3-4 times a week I was overweight, now I don’t and bam lost most of the muscle and in the normal range. It’s pretty easy to fall into the overweight range of the bmi metric

Isn’t it strange how the only way to eat healthy food in America is to cook it yourself? Every fast food restaurant is unhealthy. Most sit down restaurants are unhealthy. I can pay someone to change my oil, I can pay someone to cut my grass, but for some reason cooking healthy food, the most essential service, is difficult to find. Why has our economy failed us in this sector specifically?

atom-morgan 6y ago
Lack of demand I'm guessing. Within cities it's much easier to find healthier food at restaurants.
- itake 6y ago
  I am on a high protein diet. I can find "healthy" choices in local SF restaurant, but its rare to find food with enough protein to meet my needs. Even "healthy" restaurants sneak in sauces and sweet drinks or don't accurately measure their ingredients (and thus correctly report calories).
sjg007 6y ago
You can do healthy meal delivery plans or for the really rich, hire a chef. The healthy for life plans are quite good. I lost weight on them.
vkou 6y ago
> I can pay someone to change my oil, I can pay someone to cut my grass, but for some reason cooking healthy food, the most essential service, is difficult to find. > Why has our economy failed us in this sector specifically? Because it's incredibly inefficient for a chef to cook a meal for a family, because people want their food to arrive warm, thus preventing factory-food-production, because delivery is expensive, because everyone has a refrigerator, thus making cooked-to-order food have compete on price with long-shelf-life refrigerated staples, and because people vote with their wallets by buying food that tastes good, as opposed to food that's healthy. Do you know what makes food taste good? Sugar, fat, salt, and alcohol. Do you know what's not healthy for you? Sugar, fat, salt and alcohol. [1] The other problem is that a lot of Americans don't know how to eat well - because eating well is a skill that you inherit from your parents. If your parents were feeding you crap food as a kid, you'll turn into an adult that craves that same crap. There's a huge class divide, here. My parents were immigrants with lower-middle-class means, but upper-class habits. As a kid, soda was a treat for me. Soda was a staple for my lower-class friends - which was not by their choice, but rather by choice of their parents. They grew up into adults with bad diets, bad teeth, and bad overall health, and they find it really, really hard to change what they eat. This sort of thing repeats, generation after generation. [1] Yes, I'm aware that fat and salt aren't unhealthy in themselves - but are probably unhealthy in the amounts we consume.
- zeroonetwothree 6y ago
  Fat and salt are both critical for your health.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    SOME fats are indeed essential for our health, but not every fat out there is. Highly processed shit like trans-fats seems to be pretty destructive.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
bpodgursky 6y ago
Most every fast food restaurant has reasonably healthy food that few people order. Mcdonalds has chicken burgers. Everywhere has salads (albeit fewer than in 2019 because of food handling concerns in 2020). Subway caters to this heavily in their marketing. You can easily put together a cheap sub with whatever macro/micronutrient combo you want. Also, most supermarkets have a hot prepared food section with very healthy cheap pre-prepared food. Again... few people take advantage of it. Outside of food deserts (which yes, do exist) it's really not hard to find healthy cheap prepared food if you want it. But nobody does.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  Mcdonalds has chicken burgers. The cheapest chicken sandwich at McDonald's is slathered with mayonnaise. Of course one can specify that the mayonnaise be omitted, but then one is confronted with the fact that the factory-made chicken patty is fairly unpalatable by itself. The main question about Subway is which is more disgusting: the food or the way they treat (especially immigrant) franchisees? I can't think of a single item at Subway that qualifies as "cheap" either. Non-millionaires who seek tasty and healthy food must learn to cook.
  - bpodgursky 6y ago
    What are you on about? You can get a perfectly health meal at subway for $5. Just get a turkey club with vegetables or whatever. If you think Subway is garbage food, the problem is not Subway, the problem is that you're a rich food snob.
    - rsynnott 6y ago
      A couple of months ago, the Irish Supreme Court ruled that Subway's 'bread' wasn't bread (the reason this went to court was that it's important for setting a VAT rate), due to containing too much added sugar. In Ireland (and, as far as I know, most places in Europe) it would not be normal for bread to contain added sugar _at all_. So, yeah, a sandwich made with what is legally cake seems fairly garbage (though, I do see the problem in that it seems to be hard to get normal bread cheaply in the US). This does point to a potential solution, though. As I understand it, the determination was only directly relevant to taxation. However, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to imagine that a country could take the stance that advertising sandwiches made with non-bread as sandwiches wasn’t permissible. That might be enough of a marketing problem for Subway that they’d just drop the sugar.
UShouldBWorking 6y ago
Chipotle?
diarmuidc 6y ago
Maybe eating out every day isn't the best idea.
jariel 6y ago
The food is not so much unhealthy as portion sizes are just too big. I eat literally the kids meal sizes at many places. McDonalds burger is not very unhealthy for example. And even the food you buy is loaded with sugar and other hidden carbs. Yogurt - for example - is kind of positioned as 'healthy' when for the most part it's total junk food due to the addes sugar. Most cereal, crackers are effectively junk food. Pragmatically speaking even bread is junk food. Salad dressing is usually junk food. BarbQ sauce is junk food. Eat less, avoid carbs and sugar ... we'd probably do just fine.
ojhughes 6y ago
When I used to travel to the US with work, I would start to get split cuticles after a few days due to nutrition deficiencies eating out every day
meowzero 6y ago
Usually, healthier cooking doesn't taste as good. Most of the food industry is focused on providing the best tasting food so people will buy them. How do you make food taste good? Add a lot of fat and/or carbs, which are the macro nutrients that are calorie dense. There doesn't seem to be much demand in healthy food services.
- symlinkk 6y ago
  I disagree that there isn’t much demand for healthy food services. I think the real problem is that healthy food just doesn’t have as high of profit margins as unhealthy food. A satisfying healthy meal will be primarily meat based, which is expensive. A satisfying unhealthy meal will contain lots of carbs and fat, which is cheap.
  - t-writescode 6y ago
    > A satisfying healthy meal will be primarily meat based, which is expensive. Indian, vegan and vegetarian food would like a word. I've had some stellar salads.
- linspace 6y ago
  For the same amount of taste healthy food is incredibly more expensive. I have eaten vegetables as good as any meat.
- worik 6y ago
  No! Healthy food tastes great!
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    But not as great as unhealthy food. So if you're trying to sell food next door to someone selling tastier food, you're probably not going to succeed unless you have a weird number of health conscious folks. And health conscious folks tend to cook at home anyway and not eat out anyway.
- hristov 6y ago
kube-system 6y ago
My reality is the opposite. I ate healthier food when I worked in an urban office every day. There was basically a salad place on every corner -- enough variety that I basically never got tired of them. And when I did, I would usually get some ethnic vegetarian food that I have no idea how to cook anyway. At home, I have fewer options in my fridge, it's easier for me to make a lazy choice for lunch, and there's nobody around to lean on for social support.
didibus 6y ago
Not just that, but even if you cook it yourself, it can be hard to find certain things that are healthy, almost everything has added sugar, or sugar concentrates for example, and a lot of produce are adulterated and so arn't even the real thing, like some Olive Oils.
shinycode 6y ago
Because processed food yields the most profit. It’s cheap and quick to cook. It’s the economy of profit, with 8h of work and the same food budget you cook more and make more profit ...
- symlinkk 6y ago
  Maybe there is space in the economy for a fast food restaurant that is slightly more expensive but also slightly healthier. Food for thought.
  - shinycode 6y ago
    In Europe, at least in France there is lots and lots of restaurants with healthy cooked food and not expensive. Maybe it’s cultural ?
konjin 6y ago
Because healthy food is not subsidized. A raw Big Mac costs on the order of a dollar. If you tried to just match that with raw healthy ingredients you'd be looking at five to ten times that. And that's before we get into the labor costs of cooking.
mcavoybn 6y ago
I don't think that this issue is specific to the food service sector. I think the reason healthy food is hard to find in America is the same reason that the only way to have a healthy social ecosystem online is to painstakingly develop it at a grassroots level: corporate interests have taken over. The second that a corporate entity takes hold, growth is made the only priority and the system will naturally develop insidious patterns which abuse our most pathological tendencies. Let's refactor your comment using social media: > Isn’t it strange how the only way to have a meaningful discussion on the internet is to spend hours researching and filtering through a sea of clickbait/porn/fakenews/gossip? > Every social media website is unhealthy. Most well-known forums are unhealthy. I think the unfortunate reality is that we will continue to slip into these patterns until we stop responding to them. It's a self-perpetuating cycle. We all need to strive to find out what healthy means and crawl towards that. Unfortunately things will continue to spiral out of control to the degree they need to for us to change, and sadly some people will be lost along the way. Other possibilities: * Food is now abundant. The whole idea of healthy food is relatively new. Only the very rich used to be overweight, but now even the poorest can afford enough food to become obese * American food is heavy and fatty as a matter of tradition. Burgers, fries, fast food are all cultural artifacts most commonly associated with the US. * Multiple generations of Americans have been raised in front of the television and have deep seeded emotional imprinting from fast food marketing (happy meals!)

Clubber 6y ago

Using the BMI to gauge obeseness of a population is very lazy and disingenuous.

m3kw9 6y ago
Is an average way to determine it but a good and quick estimation even if +-10%
yters 6y ago
The irony of the BMI is the more I workout to stay in the healthy range, the more difficult it is to stay in the healthy range. Best bet is to sit around not eating anything to be 'healthy' according to BMI.
- newen 6y ago
  True, I started weightlifting for three months and my BMI went into overweight territory. I had an athletic build both before and after. Probably good for a lot of people but weightlifting really puts it into question. It's not like weightlifting is something only few men can do; most men can weightlift. Then they end up having healthy body fat levels, but end up with BMI in the overweight category. If something as simple and straightforward as weightlifting messes up a measure, then it's not a good measure.
  - multjoy 6y ago
    You don’t lose weight lifting things up and putting them back down. You certainly don’t put any appreciable strain on the CV system.
    - yters 6y ago
      I was doing a lot of cardio training for an ironman and had really low body fat, but still borderline overweight according to BMI.
  - sergiotapia 6y ago
    Lifting heavy weight doesn't mean you're fit. You can still be very overweight and bloatmaxxed This guy is strong as hell but he isn't healthy at all https://youtu.be/1LsIQr_4iSY https://youtu.be/1LsIQr_4iSY

8f2ab37a-ed6c 6y ago

Is "healthy at every size" still a fringe movement, or is it gaining more social acceptance?

turing_complete 6y ago
"Body positivity" is -- inadvertently for the most part -- insidious. Of course, don't make fun of overweight people for being overweight, don't be an asshole. However, making people people believe that they can eat whatever they want, can be obese and still healthy doesn't help at all. It might make you feel nice, but it is very destructive and unhelpful in the long run.
- lemonspat 6y ago
  > but it is very destructive and unhelpful in the long run. If the United States ever moves to a public-funded healthcare regime, it will also be more expensive and destructive to care for from a government budget perspective.
  - forrestthewoods 6y ago
    False! Unhealthy people are great for saving money. Health care costs are disproportionately skewed towards end of life care. People who are unhealthy die younger and more quickly. Edit: Here you go. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748884.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748...
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      Assuming the healthcare issues resulting from being overweight result in a sudden death. Considering they result in chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension and require things like heart bypass surgeries, I doubt it.
    - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
      After 20 years of avoidable diabetes.

andygcook 6y ago

BMI isn't a reliable indicator to gauge obesity. For example, Tom Brady at 6' 4" and 225 lbs is considered overweight, which is obviously not the case. That being said, as an American, it really did shock me how fit the majority of people were in Italy when I visited there for the first time last year. This New England Journal of Medicine chart really does a good job of showing that America has gotten heavier over the years: https://www.nejm.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/mms/journals/content/nejm/2019/nejm_2019.381.issue-25/nejmsa1909301/20191213-01/images/img_xlarge/nejmsa1909301_f1.jpeg https://www.nejm.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/mms/jour... Source: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1909301 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1909301

cma 6y ago
For a population study BMI is fine, elite NFL players aren't going to move the needle.
diarmuidc 6y ago
A professional athlete doesn't need a simple metric to understand if he's at his ideal weight. It's part of his job. The general public do need a simple metric which covers 95% of the population. BMI is that.
sangli 6y ago
BMI isn't a reliable indicator go gauge obesity FOR EVERY SINGLE PERSON. I would think most of us agree that the people like Tom Brady, Dwyane Johnson (the rock), or competitive body builders would be extreme ends of this scale. For average people BMI is a reliable indicator.
- mirekrusin 6y ago
  That’s because muscles are heavier than fat, right?
  - pmalynin 6y ago
    They are more dense, yes.

lsiebert 6y ago

I think everyone working in tech knows that sometimes simplistic solutions handle the vast majority of cases. The people who are muscular athletes are probably not worried about their BMI, but if they are, they can discuss with their doctors.

martindbp 6y ago

I still remember driving through some small town in Arizona 10 years ago, and I couldn't find a single non-obese person there. Not just overweight, full on obese. Parents, kids, everyone. It was the one of the most bizarre experiences I've had, as a visitor. Cities are not that bad though, but I'm sure many rural parts are close to 100%.

rsynnott 6y ago
I've only ever visited San Francisco in the US, and the first time I was there I was slightly surprised that in terms of obesity it seemed pretty similar to Dublin (which wouldn't be the thinnest city around, but is middle of the road European). Then I flew back via O'Hare, and really saw the difference when waiting for the transfer; quite dramatic levels of obesity. I wonder how much of it is just down to urban Americans walking places, and rural and suburban Americans less so. I did also notice that there was added sugar in virtually _everything_.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  There are probably multiple factors, walking more and fewer time sitting in cars is quite possibly one of them. Urban areas also have more young people. The added sugar in the US is a shame. Just this year, the nutritional labels are mandated to show added sugars in products now. I hope that helps.
  - konjin 6y ago
    Would showing added lead in baby formula help? Kind of shocked how in the US an issue that is obviously a health issue is treated as a personal failing. If you want sugar in your food you're free to add some after the fact, or buy it from a non-food store. Warning people that all the food they have access to is poison is not a solution to anything.
    - dwaltrip 6y ago
      > Warning people that all the food they have access to is poison is not a solution to anything. It sounds like you are suggesting all food in American grocery stores is equally bad when it comes to sugar. Perhaps I misunderstood you, as that is obviously absurd. While I do wish there were more healthy options, I can assure you that the mainstream grocery stores (Ralph's, Safeway, etc) contain many products with low or no sugar. Empowering people to make better decisions is actually one of the best things we can do. What is your alternative proposal? I read nutrition labels, looking at the sugar content. I eagerly await the requirement to list the amount of added sugar, as it will inform my food purchases.

29athrowaway 6y ago

In the US there are many highly processed foods with little fiber and added sugar. Nutrition fact labels can be very misleading. e.g.: showing nutrition facts per certain some arbitrary amount of weight, or having multiple servings per container, which is misleading if it's an individual serving container. e.g.: Oreo serving size is 2 cookies. Who opens a pack of oreos only to eat 2 of them? nobody. Many occupations do not involve physical activity, and nowadays many day to day activities also do not involve physical activity.

brundolf 6y ago
Something I've realized in recent months is that restaurant portions are insane. Even if you're not eating a cheeseburger - heck, even if you're eating a salad (assuming it has more than just lettuce) - the sheer amount of food you get in a single entree at most restaurants means that even a reasonable type of meal will end up being two or three times the calories it would be if you made it at home. The alternative of course is to stop halfway (or earlier), but that's really hard to do when it's right in front of you. The only workaround I know of (beyond just not eating out) is to order it to go, and then immediately put half in the refrigerator.
- 29athrowaway 6y ago
  "Clean plate mentality" is also a big part of the problem. We should not indoctrinate kids to clean their plates.
- worik 6y ago
  You are allowed to only eat part of what you are offered.
- t-writescode 6y ago
  I take the "snack in the morning, meal at night" approach with restaurant food. That way the 1700-2000 calories worth of food is still under my daily requirements.
- motardo 6y ago
  For the last ten years, my spouse and I always split an entree when we eat out. We order one entree and ask for an extra plate. The portions are perfect, and eating out is much more affordable.

ggm 6y ago

Fringeing overweight, it has taken me years to remove 10kg and keeping it off is a constant battle. I used to be as thin as a rake. Folks, its a mostly one-way ratchet. If you put a one-way walk into any system, and let it run free, what direction do you think things will trend, even if the pace of movement is a crawl?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bitL 6y ago
You can lose 10 kg in 20 days of not eating anything but electrolytes, so it's definitely not one-way ratchet. It's just difficult to do so. Once you eat anything with calories, you disrupt your 100% fat burn and it makes you totally miserable as the body switches over to energy preservation, while with 100% fat burn you feel plenty of energy.
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  When I weigh myself daily, I realize I can fluctuate over 5kg just depending on if I've shat, been fasting for 24 hours, and/or consumed much water that day. I wouldn't start counting score until you have a few months of data to average. All of those "lose 10 pounds in two weeks!" magazine programs just have you emptying your poop chute where you get immediate results. Because they never try to scale to 20 pounds in four weeks or 30 pounds in six weeks.
  - bitL 6y ago
    Those +/- 5kg are coming from the water inside, that's normal. I am talking about real fat burning. Think about it - if you don't eat at all, aren't you going to lose weight? Our ancestors often went through feast-famine cycles and survived, likely because they accumulated fat during feast periods and then spent it during famine periods. Our issue is that we are always in the feast period and can't allow body to enter the famine one. The first three days are usually the worst, then it feels normal (assuming you take your electrolytes).

dmichulke 6y ago

For those interested in a different measure that is much more suited to athletes: A body fat calculator that requires just a tape measure. You measure your height, waist and neck (as a man). http://fitness.bizcalcs.com/Calculator.asp?Calc=Body-Fat-Navy http://fitness.bizcalcs.com/Calculator.asp?Calc=Body-Fat-Nav... The site is in 90's retro style. You can click on the question mark at the bottom left to see an explanation of all fields. Someone with BMI of 27 ("overweight") and 16% body fat ("fit") and no belly (but no six-pack either)

hombre_fatal 6y ago
I was happy to close the tab once "Fit" popped up until I saw the waist measurement is to be done "at navel".
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  But can I inhale sharply and hold while measuring?
  - travisr 6y ago
    Sure, if you breathe properly[1] 1. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/take-a-deep-breath https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/take-a-deep-b...

claydavisss 6y ago

Obesity is 100x worse of a crisis than covid. We do nothing to change obesity or the lifestyle choices that lead to it. We need to have a national dialog about obesity that results in some people feeling bad. Global levels of obesity are set to meet US levels by 2040.

tunesmith 6y ago

It's impressive, because it's as if in America, we've figured out how to design a system that gets 73% of us to agree to do whatever we are doing to be overweight. That's really something when you think of it in terms of a population that is otherwise divided and polarized.

inglor_cz 6y ago
Our firmware back from the ape era contains instructions to enjoy anything sweet and/or fatty. Of course, this worked back in the Paleolithic, when you found something sweet and/or fatty several times a year. It becomes a bad loophole for metabolic diseases when sweet and fatty things are everywhere and cheap.
- twblalock 6y ago
  There are plenty of other countries where sweet and fatty things are cheap, yet they don't have the same obesity rate as the US.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    Everyone is slowly getting there, some countries (UK, Arab countries) faster, but the development seems to be unstoppable. In my country, never particularly known for being thin, I can see a definitive negative development since the 1990s. Morbidly fat teenagers were basically nonexistent then. Now you meet them all the time. IMHO the worst offenders are soft drinks, which have zero satiating effect and consist of a mass of liquid sugar. Coca-cola used to be expensive here in the 1990s (compared to a median wage), now it is cheaper than beer, our typical lower class drink.
    - rsynnott 6y ago
      In the last few years, a number of countries have brought in sugar taxes that have in many cases caused soft drink manufacturers to push the zero calorie versions of their products, or reduce sugar in their normal ones (particularly common where there's a two-tier tax; I think about the only soft drink that's still in the top tier here is Coca Cola, but even they have been heavily pushing their Coke Zero product), or both. Will be interesting to see what impact this has.

meowzero 6y ago

This isn't surprising. We're conditioned to eat great tasting food and lots of it. Most American cities have a car-oriented culture, along with sedentary lifestyles; therefore, not much walking or NEAT (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis). It seems over the years, Americans are burning less calories, but consuming more. I usually cook at home now, thanks to the Pandemic. Looking at all the recipes I found online, I realized how much high-calorie ingredients you have to add to make the food taste delicious. I try to limit those ingredient or use lower-calorie substitutes, but it is challenging. I can't imagine how much fats and sugars restaurants put in their foods to make it tasty for the general population. Also, food portions have gotten bigger. We're used to eating more. Having a great tasting food filled with sugar or fats is not bad by itself, but eating a small portion of it won't be satisfying or satiating enough for most people. There's a Youtube home cook named Ethan Chlebowski who sometimes does low-calorie versions of certain foods. I think more people need to do that--give great recipes that can taste almost as good as the high-calorie versions.

mpol 6y ago
> I realized how much high-calorie ingredients you have to add to make the food taste delicious. Is that not a trap? Most professional cooks who want to stand out use lots of salt and sugar, sometimes up to a point that I find it disgusting. I can imagine if you are used to that much salt and sugar, you need it again to taste anything. But believe me, you can unlearn it and start to taste the food itself, instead of the added salt and sugar. I learned the rule that a cook that uses lots of salt and sugar is a bad cook.
- war1025 6y ago
  I agree on the sugar aspect, but having been brought up firmly in the "salt is the devil" camp by my parents, it was an absolute revelation for me that the way you get rid of that hollow taste in food is by adding salt. I used to always make dishes that had all the right ingredients to taste good, but just didn't. The thing they were missing was salt.
  - kyriakos 6y ago

ambivalents 6y ago

> A new report has also revealed that 19.3% of children and young people, aged between two and 19, had obesity, with 6.1% of kids identified as being severely obesity. Small point but I found it interesting that 'obesity' is used here as a condition one can have, rather than be. Maybe that's the norm in science writing but first time I've seen it.

samename 6y ago
Maybe the norms or language is changing to be more accurate. This applies to mental health as well. For example: Skylar has bipolar disorder. Trevor has depression. A person is not their condition and many conditions can be overcome.

misja111 6y ago

I find it amazing how much effort and economic sacrifices we are willing to take to fight COVID, while at the same time, even now, the death toll because of unhealthy lifestyles is far greater. Why don't we put a similar effort into banning fast food, for instance? How can the USA allow companies to advertise that stuff when the bad consequences can be seen everywhere?

maddyboo 6y ago
We should be doing both, but COVID is very different and I don't think I need to explain why.
lotsofpulp 6y ago
Things must be politically unpopular in order to get banned. Merely being objectively bad for a given metric is not sufficient. See also alcohol vs marijuana.
viraptor 6y ago
With the virus you can get funding to get rid of it. But try enforcing limits of sugar in coke and you'll mostly find money that tries to stop you.

torstenvl 6y ago

BMI has no scientific validity and never did. Huge numbers of people are "overweight" by BMI standards, which is why even the armed forces don't use it (the Marine Corps height/weight standards allow for heavier individuals at each height, which is pretty telling since were the most physically demanding branch and geared toward being light naval infantry).

claydavisss 6y ago
The armed forces are allowing the overweight to enlist because they can't find healthy recruits in the numbers they demand.
colinmhayes 6y ago
BMI is valid for the vast majority of people. If you're no in the gym for a least an hour 7 days a week BMI is good enough for you.

spaetzleesser 6y ago

Just watch some home movies or look at pictures from the 60s or 70s and see how skinny most people were back then. It’s pretty amazing how the country got fat in such a short time. Having lived only on the coasts I noticed that Americans are a little chubbier than what I was used from Germany but the extent of the crisis became only clear when I did a cross country trip. Going to a Walmart in Indiana or Oklahoma you basically see only very fat or morbidly obese people. Even children are huge.

war1025 6y ago

A thing I wondered over the weekend: Is there a correlation between frequency of bowel movements and BMI? I read a book about pigs a couple years ago. It mentioned that once of the main differences between breeds of pigs that are high fat and those that are more lean is intestine length. Basically, the longer food is in your guts, the more energy gets extracted from it. My hypothesis would be that for an obese person, the length of time between food entering the body and food exiting the body is greater than in a person of a healthy weight.

grecy 6y ago
Huh, I might have to look into that. I've always had a "high metabolism" in that I can eat enormous quantities of food (and calories) and still struggle to put on weight. If I don't lift weights often I lose weight until people comment on how skinny I am. I get the shakes and feel horrible if I skip a single meal, or if I don't constantly consume food - doubly so when working out. I also use the bathroom often, certainly every day.

jonas21 6y ago

If you're inclined to think of this as just an American problem, keep in mind that most western nations are following the same trajectory as the US -- they're just 10 to 15 years behind. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-adults-who-are-overweight?tab=chart&country=CAN~FRA~GRC~DEU~USA~ESP~ITA~GBR https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-adults-who-are-o...

troydavis 6y ago
Thank you! Here's a few more data points that I found useful: Adult obesity by state over time: https://stateofchildhoodobesity.org/adult-obesity/ https://stateofchildhoodobesity.org/adult-obesity/ . MA, WA, and IL seem to have uniquely flatlined in the last 4 years. Most states have not. Obesity in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States#Prevalence_by_state_and_territory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States#P... Colorado, which has consistently had the lowest obesity rate of any state going back to 1990 (6.9%): https://www.denverpost.com/2018/09/12/colorado-least-obese-state/ https://www.denverpost.com/2018/09/12/colorado-least-obese-s...

Dowwie 6y ago

The Biden administration is going to try to advance a Medicare for All healthcare system. If the government wants to control the skyrocketing cost of healthcare, it can do well by addressing the root causes of health problems rather than structuring creative contracts with healthcare providers and pharmaceuticals. Even something as progressive as "incentivize healthy living" is very difficult when every legislator is lobbied nonstop by a long line of vested interests. Obese Americans create billions of dollars of financial opportunity. Think about the financial losses that people would experience if the mind and habits of every American were to change today. Healthcare, pharmaceutical, insurance, finance, food, academia, government agencies and administration -- all have a stake in keeping America the way it is. Just as America is focusing resources on a Green New Deal, so too does it need to focus on a Lean New Deal. This doesn't seem to be on the agenda for the first term, though.

paulryanrogers 6y ago

Sometimes I wonder how this trend impacts dating and marriage

falcolas 6y ago

I mean, duh? Eating makes you feel good. It releases all kinds of feel-good chemicals in your body, and it just feels good to be, if not full, satiated. It's an activity chock-full of positive reinforcements. Exercise, in contrast, is filled with various forms of pain (short and long term) and lots of tedium. If you're lucky, you get an endorphin rush to help offset these, but not everybody (and not every exercise regimen) provides these. It's an activity with lots of built-in negative reinforcements. And dieting? Dieting is constantly saying "No" to the positive feelings associated with eating. A piece of Christmas fudge? No. A side of fries with your hamburger? No. A full rack of sauced BBQ ribs? No. Creamy dressing for your salad? No. Seconds? A whole lot of No. It takes a lot of willpower and a long term goal to maintain a certain body shape to consistently - over the course of your entire lifetime - exercise more and eat less. And any mistake, any injury or illness which pushes you into obesity, and you're having to go even further into the "this doesn't make me feel good" category. Throw in a continuing shift towards jobs which don’t burn thousands of calories every day (e.g. forced exercise, overhead for increased caloric intake), and the availability of cheap meals with lots of calories, and boom. Obesity.

grecy 6y ago
Everything you said it true, but why isn't it such a big percentage in other developed countries?
- falcolas 6y ago
  As pointed out by others, this is happening in other developed countries as well, it’s just lagging behind the US. Personally, I largely blame our learned culture of referencing “children in Africa”. Want to fuck up a child’s eating patterns for life? Force them to clean their plate.
  - sheepdestroyer 6y ago
    Hu? I grew up in France and I have always cleaned my plate as my mother told me. In my familly, it's the polite and sensitive way to eat. Same expectation when visiting friends. Really few are overweight. Since I moved to Japan, I learned that here too food is treated with the same deference : "you shall not let a grain of rice left in your bowl" is basic table decency. Few overweigh people here either. Both France and Japan have their food recognized as UNESCO cultural world heritages. In both countries people LOVE to eat and hate to waste. Maybe people should treat their food and themselves with respect and only put on the plate what they should and can eat?

rdtwo 6y ago

Many folks that weight lift are overweight by the BMI metric. When I used to hit the gym 3-4 times a week I was overweight, now I don’t and bam lost most of the muscle and in the normal range. It’s pretty easy to fall into the overweight range of the bmi metric