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Adult Obesity Facts

• rjbwork 5y ago
  We've designed our cities, suburbs, food industry, and society such that the average person is at least overweight, nearing obese. If the average person suffers from what should be an anomaly, perhaps it is less a personal failing than a societal failing and we should try to fix the societal problems generating the poor outcome.
  • JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > we should try to fix the societal problems generating the poor outcome What would this look like policywise?
    • dantheman 5y ago
      Stop tariffs on sugar and end subsidies to corn that lead to high fructose corn syrup.
      • kccqzy 5y ago
        I get that cane sugar is more natural than high fructose corn syrup, and I myself would choose the former over the latter, but aren't these basically the same in terms of causing obesity?
        • jjj123 5y ago
          I’m talking out of my ass here but wouldn’t raising the price floor of sugar lower the incentive for companies to make high sugar foods?
    • rjbwork 5y ago
      Walkable and bikable cities and suburbs. Increased transit. Reduced working hours so that people don't feel the need to choose between health and survival and stress. Getting the garbage out of our supermarkets. Not subsidizing massive amounts of corn syrup and sugar. I really could go on.
      • boomskats 5y ago
        But who is going to lobby for any of those things?
        • frabjoused 5y ago
          20 years ago, who is going to lobby for electrical cars or solar power? They aren't financially profitable.
          • kiba 5y ago
            It's far easier to make technological progress than it is to fight in politics.
        • lolpython 5y ago
          We already are. At the national level, there is a High Speed Rail lobby group http://www.ushsr.com/ http://www.ushsr.com/ At the local level, it is up to you. In my city of Pittsburgh, we are removing parking and expanding transit access and bike lane coverage. But there is still a lot to be done, so I am advocating for change by participating in groups and contacting my city councilman.
      • baggy_trough 5y ago
        The so-called "garbage" in our supermarkets is there because people want to buy it. What gives somebody else the right to say that they should not do so?
      • aww_dang 5y ago
        If you're a cycling enthusiast you'll always find a way. As you develop as a cyclist areas which once intimidated you may feel safer. It is like any other skill in that way. I know many would prefer bike lanes, but bicycle infrastructure isn't always safer for cyclists. Often city planners have no concept of what actually goes on, so even when token lines are painted on the street - it does nothing to increase cycling. It may be best to put aside the issues of investment and which top-down solution is the best. There may be a time and place for that, but in the near term individuals with an interest can develop their skills incrementally. Disclaimer: I am a self admitted cycling extremist
    • sam0x17 5y ago
      Legislation banning overly processed foods. Better school lunches. etc. Pick a "first world" country with much better BMI. Copy all of their regulations surrounding food and agriculture.
      • dragontamer 5y ago
        Every "processed food" definition is incredibly arbitrary, and not necessarily correlated to health. What about rolled oats or steel cut oats? They're clearly "processed", oats don't look like that when they come off the plant. Potato chips + fries are just cut potatoes dropping into a vat of oil. Oil itself isn't very much processed either. But we all know that potato chips / fries are unhealthy and shouldn't be eaten all the time. Cheese or butter require incredible amounts of processing to get done. But when properly portioned, they are part of a healthy diet (more so than potato chips anyway). -------- Is honey any healthier than sugar? Is juice healthier than soda? From an obesity perspective, not really. You really want to be cutting back on these empty calories. (Sure, juice is __slightly__ better than soda cause juice has vitamins in it. But... its actually not that good for you)
        • CabSauce 5y ago
          Do you really think we can't come up with some definitions that at least push in the right direction? They don't have to be perfect, but just start somewhere and keep evolving in the right direction. Let's not pretend we have to get it perfect before we try anything.
          • dragontamer 5y ago
            Instead of banning (or discouraging) "processed foods", lets start with banning/discouraging "unhealthy foods". Because "unhealthy" is a better starting point than the arbitrary metric "processed". ------- You're going to do more for your health by cutting back on your rice portions, rather than worrying about what is or isn't processed. (And rice is barely "processed" at all... but its incredibly calorie dense with high glycemic index). Switching out bread portions (since bread is highly processed) for rice portions won't do you jack diddly squat. Both are high calorie / high glycemic index foods.
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    • CabSauce 5y ago
      At a minimum, make it more costly to eat unhealthy foods by taxing added sugar and subsidizing healthy foods.
      • maerF0x0 5y ago
        IMO we dont need more late (consumer) applied taxes, first we need to remove the negative taxes (subsidies) from the input.
        • CabSauce 5y ago
          That's a great start. However, any tax/subsidy filters down to the consumer in a roughly efficient market.
          • maerF0x0 5y ago
            Sure, but a subsidy + tax in the chain is itself inefficient way to structure a market (ie takes a lot of software and accountants) . Better to just not do it at all.
      • epi789 5y ago
        Taxes won’t work. People want autonomy. If you provide healthy meats and unprocessed foods, people will choose it. It’s a problem of access and convenience not necessarily choice.
        • CabSauce 5y ago
          That's just clearly not true with current incentives. Healthy options are more available now than any time in the past.
    • maerF0x0 5y ago
      Michael Pollan (in his cooked netflix show) has pointed out that the cost of "junk food" has been heavily subsidized (eg corn subsidy), but fresh produce has not. Subsequently the consumer price of each has fallen, or risen a lot, respectively. One policy choice (amongst many required) could be to stop subsidizing the inputs to junk food. Another policy I've heard talked about by Joel Salatin is that a lot of low processed foods are getting crushed by regulation because the cost/barriers are very high and demand scale/volume. For example poultry processing is only feasible on a massive scale because of regulation policies like (paraphrased) "there must be a dedicated washroom onsite for the inspector to use". That makes no sense if you only process 10000 birds a year (something like $100k of gross market value).
      • baggy_trough 5y ago
        That's precisely the point of much of this legislation as it favors the big players who are in bed with the regulators.
    • woodruffw 5y ago
      We can probably look at large cities for appropriate policy here: increased investment in pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, localized access to fresh groceries (eliminating food deserts), and investment in public parks and other facilities. NYC's obesity rate is half of the nation's; we could still do better, but it's a starting point.
      • JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > NYC's obesity rate is half of the nation's This is a function of density. We walk more. Look at the boroughs that drive and they're closer to the national average. Replicating this in e.g. San Francisco would require overcoming the anti-development NIMBYs. That's a hard problem.
  • xyzzy21 5y ago
    Very true. When it's easier to drive across the street or down the block than walk, you will be less healthy. Part of what I loved about living in Asia (Taipei, Tokyo, et al.) was that public transit required walking to, between and from stations/stops. It's not much but it's just enough.
  • echelon 5y ago
    People love to rail on suburbs, but I'd be willing to bet that sugar is the real problem. Sugar is in everything. Snacks, restaurant food, drinks, sauces. It puts the metabolism into a bad state and desensitizes the body to its deleterious effects. Before you know it you're overweight, mentally foggy, and pre-diabetic. Not a good place to start working out or going for outdoor activities. People exercise and walk more when they have energy to do so. Sugar saps that away. Look at people in other "confined" spaces: submarines, ships, the space station. These people are not overweight for lack of walking. It's diet. America is pumped full of sugar. edit to respond to comments (since I'm flagged / rate limited) : Someone with a healthy body and mind won't "sit on their ass 23 hours a day". They won't consume too many calories, either. Sugar pushes the body into more lethargy and higher sugar consumption.
    • op00to 5y ago
      Sugar does not “sap your energy away”. Sitting on your ass 23 hours a day does.
      • maerF0x0 5y ago
        Caloric balance is the key. You can lose a lot of weight sitting on your ass, but also not eating all that much (ie calorie deficit)
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    • maerF0x0 5y ago
      I follow Layne Norton on youtube, and he has a lot of great videos where he talks about how sugar(nor fat, insulin) are the real issue at hand. He does a great job of reading, and synthesizing lots of research into recommendations. Both for himself as a competition bodybuilder and power lifter, but also as a PhD. Ok, appeal to expertise aside. And yes, many will find him obnoxious in his demeanor, but that's not a rebuttal of his point. His point basically is that Sugar is not in any way except for how it contributes to excess caloric intake. The key here is that sugar contains calories and can attribute to hyper-caloric state. But you can also eat lots of sugar and be in a hypo-caloric state. Therefore sugar has nothing to do with it. Total consumption is everything here (and body fat percent). Have a watch of these videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JrT84PeTgw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JrT84PeTgw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eq8VObUFsk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eq8VObUFsk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3WN4zrEENY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3WN4zrEENY
  • canjobear 5y ago
    City design and the food industry haven't changed substantially in the last 40 years. If anything, there has been increasing emphasis on walkability in communities and health in foods. And yet the obesity rate was 15% in 1980 and 42% now.
    • snakeboy 5y ago
      Isn't that expected? People born since 1980 grew up with those sticky habits/culture around food and exercise, and are a growing proportion of the population.
  • paulddraper 5y ago
    The problem with "policy solutions" is that they don't account for individual preferences. Do people want walkable cities? Or do they want single-family dwellings and yards? Do people want to be healthy? Or do they want sugary foods and television programs? Fortunately, the U.S. has plenty of each, to accommodate multiple preferences. Life is trade-offs. It's the conceit of policy makers to force their trade-off preferences on people.
    • woodruffw 5y ago
      > Fortunately, the U.S. has plenty of each, to accommodate multiple preferences. As of 2010, close to 24 million Americans lived in a "food desert"[1], i.e. an area without adequate access to healthy eating choices. These areas are disproportionately lower SES areas, and the people in them don't get to have a "preference"; the decision is being made for them. Edit: Here's a paper explaining the correlation and absence of choice in detail[2]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert [2]: https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article/66/4/216/1864784 https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article/66/4/216/1...
      • paulddraper 5y ago
        My point was the the U.S. has plenty of each place. So, yeah, that's exactly my point.
        • woodruffw 5y ago
          Your point is that food deserts are evidence of preference? That doesn’t make a lot of sense: privation is defined by the absence of actual choice.
    • CabSauce 5y ago
      An alternative approach is to encourage people to make more effective decisions by actually including the negative impacts of their decisions as actual, dollar costs. If we included the higher healthcare costs of obesity into the cost of soda, it might not be as enticing. This isn't forcing people to make a decision, it's including all of the costs in the dollar value of the product on the shelf.
  • mc32 5y ago
    City design hasn’t helped; however, even in places where walkability and public transit are good, Mexico City, Paris, China, etc., people are becoming obese. Something else is a major contributor to this.
  • kiba 5y ago
    Yes, exercise is good for you, and should be taken, but diet seems to be the most important factor. Research had came out indicating that exercise doesn't really do much good in losing weight. Might help in maintaining weight.
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    • ptmcc 5y ago
      Indeed it's a heck of a lot easier to not eat 500 calories than to burn off 500 calories. Running a 5k doesn't even burn 500 calories for most people, but you can eat that much in snacks without a second thought. To really make a difference in weight the much more important side of the equation is intake.
      • kiba 5y ago
        It get worse. Apparently, your body adjust its basal metabolism over the long term in response to daily physical activity.
      • osigurdson 5y ago
        While I am not completely convinced that it works to greatly improve fitness, I can attest that the low heart rate running approach (google Maffetone:180 - age) approach does not seem to increase appetite at all.
    • ultrarunner 5y ago
      I realize that this discussion is focused on obesity, but the above response comes out every time weight loss is discussed. It may well be accurate in many cases, but I don't think it encompasses the full picture of health. For example, smoking has shown to aid weight loss, but the outcome of taking up smoking is a skinnier person with a new set of comorbidities. If the desired outcome is an improved quality of life, exercise has a plethora of mental-health benefits [0], cardiovascular and energy improvements[1], and has negative correlations with some of the risk-factors of obesity, like type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and some cancers [1][2]. I would hate for someone to read the common response and conclude that since obesity is causing their problems and weight loss seems more affected by diet changes, that exercise doesn't matter and can be safely skipped. To have a different life a lifestyle change is needed. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470658/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470658/ [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6172294/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6172294/ [2] https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/exercise/art-20048389 https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-dept...
  • hncurious 5y ago
    Unpopular opinion: It's both a personal and societal failing, but personal choice is dominant. You can choose to eat rice and beans and drink water. You don't have to eat hamburgers and fries and drink sugar.
    • minikites 5y ago
      Not everyone has the time to prepare healthy meals, that's why convenience foods are so popular in our overworked society. If the average person spent less time working, they would have more time to shop for and prepare healthy meals.
      • hncurious 5y ago
        The average person in this country has time to binge watch Netflix and social media. Have you seen the stats? We do have the time. Of course there are exceptions, but we're a long long way from only having the exceptions left.
        • kiba 5y ago
          We may have the time, but we may not have the skills. It's also work to cook food. People also don't know tricks like meal preps, sous vide, and slow cooking.
    • nradov 5y ago
      Hamburgers aren't necessarily more obesogenic than rice and beans, depending on the specific type of bun and condiments. Rice has a fairly high glycemic index. Nothing wrong with eating some rice in moderation, but getting the majority of your calories from rice isn't healthy. https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/a-good-guide-to-good-carbs-the-glycemic-index https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/a-good-guide-to-go...
      • throw8383833jj 5y ago
        They are, if they're designed to be addictively delicious. McDonalds and their ilk, have created taste formulas that are nearly irresistable. I've seen people from foreign countries come to america who've never tasted anything other than their local cuisines who can't imagine eating anything else. but the second they sink their teeth into a McDon hamburger, they are hooked. MSG has been shown as a super reliable way to make mice obese: there's even a scientific procedure named after it: "MSG induced Obestity". It's a standard procedure used as a precurser to obesity experiments on rats. If it's that reliable on rats, just imagine what it would do to humans.
  • epi789 5y ago
    That’s because it’s profitable and it’s very difficult to make systemic changes. Here’s a few points: - In the documentary Fed Up, it showed how Michelle Obama had to back down to the big food companies over her push for healthier food. - I worked with bariatric surgeons and some incredibly cited papers stating that people can’t lose weight by diet and exercise alone. The surgeons I knew were incredibly narrow-minded and uninterested in any counter arguments. - Sleeve gastrectomies are the most effective technology to fight obesity. If someone can’t change on their own in 10 years, then it is a good option. It removes 90% of the stomach including the hunger hormone ghrelin. - The surgeon I worked with had a sleeve procedure, stretched his stomach out, and had a 2nd sleeve. - Long term, the food environment has to change. Living expenses are high, work demands are high, people are stressed and all the easy options are terrible for you. - We should distribute good meats, foods, vegetables and essentials in an entirely new way. - Our business leaders like Buffett and Gates need to realize the absurdity of respectively owning Coca Cola and selling potatoes to the fast food industry. Buffet also owns DaVita, a dialysis company. Gates promotes global health but earns money from french fries being sold at McDonalds.
    • pjscott 5y ago
      > Living expenses are high, work demands are high, people are stressed and all the easy options are terrible for you. It's not obvious, but there are some ways to trade relatively small amounts of inconvenience for food that's healthier and often cheaper. Some people will cook enough food on a weekend to last the rest of a week with refrigeration, optionally dividing it up into single-serving containers. Since a lot of recipes scale up well, this ends up taking much less cooking time than doing one meal at a time, and the labor is shifted to weekends when you might have more energy. A quality-of-life variation on this idea is to do ingredient preparation for a week on the weekend -- chop the vegetables, measure things out, etc. -- and cook meals for four days, then do a second (much quicker) batch of cooking mid-week so the food doesn't spend too long in the fridge. Googling for "once a week meal prep" will turn up a lot more information on this. The big problem with the approach above, of course, is the monotony: having only a handful of meal choices each week can get old after a few days. For people who are willing to cook more often but would still like to economize on time, this guide from last year on quarantine meal-planning for people who normally don't make most of their food at home is very good: https://www.seriouseats.com/our-tips-for-meal-planning-during-self-isolation https://www.seriouseats.com/our-tips-for-meal-planning-durin... In particular, the big thing to take from it is the idea of making larger batches of meal components that you can quickly put together in various combinations with different flavors, which lets you save on cooking time (and shift it to when it's more convenient) while also giving more variety in your diet.
  • nradov 5y ago
    My pet hypothesis is that widespread use of endocrine disruptor chemicals such as phthalates (plastic softeners) is one of several key causes for increasing obesity. There isn't real proof of that yet. But exposure is correlated with lower testosterone levels, and we know that low T can cause growth of adipose tissue. https://www.endocrine.org/news-and-advocacy/news-room/2014/reduced-testosterone-tied-to-endocrine-disrupting-chemical-exposure https://www.endocrine.org/news-and-advocacy/news-room/2014/r...
    • maxerickson 5y ago
      Being sedentary is also associated with lower testosterone. People are less active in their work and lives, and not just a little bit.
  • torginus 5y ago
    There have been many suggestions in this thread about the root cause of obesity. While I'm sure these things do contribute to the issue, they are not the main cause - the main cause is that being fat is socially acceptable. I don't believe that if the average person placed great importance on being healthy - as great as making more money, getting a better job etc., they would be unable to afford the extra cost of healthy food, fit a couple of hours of exercise per week into their routines, or do whatever it takes to maintain a healthy physique.
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    • gibagger 5y ago
      I don't think healthy food has to be expensive. It can be if one decides to go the "superfood" route, also if one decides to eat beef / fish with every other meal. The fact is that multigrain bread, oats, beans, lentils and peanuts are all cheap, filling good sources of fiber and protein. Large animal protein portions are rarely truly needed. Combine that with some vegetables, a bit of oil, some spices, a modest portion of pork/chicken protein, and you end up with an inexpensive healthy meal. I understand that eating well has other costs (namely, the time and effort it takes to make it and clean up afterwards). For people who value their health, this cost is usually acceptable.
      • feudalism 5y ago
        There's even a helpful subreddit r/EatCheapAndHealthy
    • kiba 5y ago
      Seems to be a form of victim blaming. If people tried to follow normal dieting advice, and they failed, do we keep telling them to try harder? I am speaking as someone who had lost a lot of weight and achieved near normal BMI and had prioritized health. I found intermittent fasting to be much easier and less willpower taxing than counting calories, which was way too much work. People do want to be healthier and a lot of people really tried hard. Problem is, in other societies, it's effortless.
  • sershe 5y ago
    Well if it's pet theory time, mine is that it's all the sauces, dressings, ketchups, breadcrumbs, and other additions, and indirectly salt and spices. My exhibit #1 are 800-calories salads at Cheesecake Factory. My exhibit #2 is an American dude in Munich telling me the (wonderful, tasty) local pork is "flavorless" and they needs to add some crap to it, or at least give him some ketchup. You can eat anything - vegetables, meat, fish, potatoes, pasta, bread - and be pretty thin. If you add 500 calories of dressing to a salad, then no matter what you eat, you are doomed... also, that and spices would bomb out your taste buds, so you wouldn't even be able to enjoy "purer" food anymore.
• yehudalouis 5y ago
  Nitpicking is pointless here, but the phrasing was immediately confusing to me. "US Adults are 42.4% obese" leads me to believe that all US adults are 42.4% of the way to becoming obese, where as in actuality it appears that 42.4% of US adults are obese.
  • sharkmerry 5y ago
    the first line on the link is a little more clear > The US obesity prevalence was 42.4% in 2017 – 2018.
  • wccrawford 5y ago
    I'm medically "obese", but nobody looking at me would say that. Whenever I tell people that I'm dieting, they're surprised and often tell me that I look good. So with the medical definition of obese not matching what peoples' eyes tell them, I'm not surprised that 42% are "obese".
    • gibagger 5y ago
      In this age of normalised obesity, the idea of what an obese person looks like has also shifted. Plenty of overweight and slightly obese people would consider themselves as normal weight in countries where obesity is prevalent. And normal they are, but it's just a bad reference point.
      • wccrawford 5y ago
        My point was more about what other people perceive than what a person perceives about themselves. I agree that the perception of "normal weight" has probably changed over the years, but I think "obese" has always meant something more extreme to the layman than it has to a medical professional.
    • rm445 5y ago
      Do you really think anyone reading this is going to think you're anything other than an obese person with polite friends and a mild case of self-delusion? Of course, there are many nuances. Your musculature (though surely if you were a bodybuilder you'd have said so). Your sex, both for where fat sits on your body and for social expectations. The clothes you wear. Normal human variation - if your femurs just happen to be -2 standard deviations in length, your BMI will always be higher than it would be otherwise. Someone with a BMI just into the thirties can still have a good level of walking-around fitness, look good in a shirt, etc. They wouldn't stand out in today's society. But the medical risks are still increased in a statistical sense. It being normalised may make people feel better but doesn't solve the medical issue.
• newaccount2021 5y ago
  Why won't the CDC talk honestly about the connection between covid deaths and obesity?
• asciimov 5y ago
  We need to outlaw sugar and restrict simple carbs in made to order foods.
  • umvi 5y ago
    Outlaw sugar? What about those of us that can use sugar on moderation? Sugar passports might be better - you have to get a physical from a doctor and if your BMI and biometrics are ok you can get a sugar passport allowing you to order soft drinks and purchase candy.
    • kleiba 5y ago
      Haha, right. Good luck trying to propose that. But I agree with you on your first point: there's nothing wrong with sugar in moderation. But it seems that it's just too hard to keep it in moderation for a lot of people. And that's understandable: high calorie, highly palatable foods are often packed with sugar and fat (hence "highly palatable") but don't contain enough fiber to fill you up and -more importantly- keep you full for a long time. So you're gonna be hungry again soon, despite having just consumed a shit load of calories. It's too easy to consume more calories than you actually burn, especially since we hardly move anymore compared to previous generations. Our life style is sitting down.
  • dbsmith83 5y ago
    Outlaw sugar? You must be joking. No thanks, I don't want to live in your nanny state.
  • s3r3nity 5y ago
    I hear Prohibition was such a great deterrent to alcoholism and related debauchery. Seems like something we should try again. (/sarcasm)
  • avelis 5y ago
    Processed sugar definitely. At least cap & trade sugar if possible.
  • jmclnx 5y ago
• echelon 5y ago
  We need to stop putting sugar in everything. That's the root cause of most of our problems. It's not just industrialized preprocessed and prepackaged food, because restaurants are guilty of this too. I don't buy the "cars and suburbs" as a root cause argument. People would be less sedentary if they felt healthier and more energetic. Sugar is the problem.
  • BigW1lly 5y ago
    ahem Subway
  • gbrown 5y ago
    > I don't buy the "cars and suburbs" as a root cause argument Why? I didn’t think the connection between infrastructure and transportation was particularly controversial. Also, real world problems often have multiple causes…
  • justwalt 5y ago
    I can't stand sugar in savory foods. I had a friend tell me a handy tip at Thai restaurants is to ask for your food made with no sugar, so I tried it at my favorite place. The college student waiter got a wide eyed look on his face and lowered his voice to say "can't do that, and it's in _everything_." It sucks that this is as commonplace as it is.
    • ThePadawan 5y ago
      That's a key part of Thai cuisine though, isn't it? I imagine you'd have an easier time at the nearest German restaurant. Not sure what they even could put sugar into and have any positive impact.
  • Eric_WVGG 5y ago
    I disagree. I live in NYC, where automobiles are the least-convenient way to get around. People don't really eat much better here than anywhere else, but they walk around almost constantly. Everyone is hela fit. Until you drift out to the outer boroughs where cars are more convenient, that is. Also I think that the assertion that "people would be less sedentary if they felt healthier" requires evidence. Some people who feel healthy and energetic would still rather sit down and play videogames. Any fitness system that requires carving time out of the day is doomed to failure; what works is fitness that is built into the things people already do. In other words, if you walk or bike everywhere, you don't have to make time to work out.
• sharkmerry 5y ago
  Is this solely done based on BMI? Some of you may know that BMI can be wildly inaccurate. (this guy is technically obese on BMI scale - https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=153207891 https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=153207891) I wonder if we would find better connections between disease and "weight" with body fat % or similar measure.
  • streptomycin 5y ago
    Yes, BMI overestimates obesity in bodybuilders, but there aren't many bodybuilders, so that has roughly no impact on population statistics. On a population level, BMI actually underestimates obesity https://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/bmi-underestimates-prevalence-obesity/story?id=10521712 https://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/bmi-underestimates-pr... so the real obesity percentage is probably even worse than 42.4%
  • wiremine 5y ago
    I've read in a few places that BMI can be inaccurate too. Wondering if anyone has any good articles or perspective that dig into this some more: 1. Is it a "good enough" metric? 2. Is it "wildly inaccurate" for most, or just some outliers?
    • twelve40 5y ago
      If you are ripped af and most of your body mass is muscles then yes your high BMI can be safely ignored. For everyone else, it's definitely a "good enough" reflection of their bad habits.
    • JshWright 5y ago
      BMI can be inaccurate for an individual. That's because it was never designed as a metric to be applied to individuals, but rather to populations. This page is an example of BMI being used appropriately.
    • dragonwriter 5y ago
      > I've read in a few places that BMI can be inaccurate too BMI can't be inaccurate, though conclusions drawn naively from it can be.
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• maerF0x0 5y ago
  > Non-Hispanic Black adults (49.6%) had the highest age-adjusted prevalence of obesity, followed by Hispanic adults (44.8%), non-Hispanic White adults (42.2%) and non-Hispanic Asian adults (17.4%). This made me say "whoa!" How are asian adults so much lower probable obese? Also can we please have a COVID-19 sized response to this issue? > was $147 billion in 2008. And I've heard elsewhere the _economic_ impact is even greater in the long tail of small but numerous costs of obesity. For example the fuel cost on a flight is greater, or premature mortality meaning that education investment has a lower ROI.
  • dangwu 5y ago
    I'd venture to guess that a key difference is that most Black adults grew up in America while most Asian adults immigrated here, maintaining their previous culture's eating and exercise habits.
  • lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Diet. Higher proportion of Asians being first generation could be a confounding factor. I am sure Nigerians and other first generation are the same. Then the second and third generations pick up bad eating habits, namely alcohol and eating out. But from my trips back to my parents’ country, I see a lot of fat rich people and fat kids who have rich parents. In the US, I feel like I hardly ever see rich and fat people. So it is probably a pendulum where you go from being poor and having to eat home cooked food and not having access to excess calories, and then you might pass on some of those good habits to your kids, but the grandkids will not have them. But then if you are in a social circle that is all relatively rich where being fit is valued, then you might start focusing on being fit rather than enjoying all the wealth you have.
• dragontamer 5y ago
  https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/obesity-and-covid-19.html https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/obesity-and-covid-19.html Obesity is also highly correlated to covid19 hospitalizations and deaths. ----------- IIRC, slightly overweight (ex: BMI 26 or so) might be better for certain diseases... as having a layer of "emergency fat" for your body to consume during a sickness / illness is beneficial... with respect to a disease. Its worse for long-term health however. However, "Slightly overweight" is also a condition for strong athletes, as muscle is far more dense than fat. So many strong and healthy athletes are technically overweight (but incredibly healthy). So IIRC, there's a bit of confounding going on in the overweight category. Once we start getting to the obese category (BMI 30+), the number of muscular people in that group diminishes, and the vast majority of Americans in that group are in fact, unhealthy and sedentary individuals. (I'm sure there's some healthy boxers or wrestlers who are BMI 30+, but they'd be in the gross minority of BMI 30+ individuals in this country)
• ErikVandeWater 5y ago
  Sugar and its synthetic brothers are addictive. Sugar addiction should be classified as an addiction and given the same sort of attention and funding that alcohol and drug addictions receive.
  • lotsofpulp 5y ago
    What harm is there from artificial sweeteners? Or rather, how much consumption of artificial sweeteners is harmful?
    • mey 5y ago
      They may mess with your sense of taste, making you crave even sweeter foods. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/artificial-sweeteners-sugar-free-but-at-what-cost-201207165030 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/artificial-sweeteners-su...
      • lotsofpulp 5y ago
        I feel like I have seen a lot of BS peddled about artificial sweeteners over the years, but it seems like they would certainly be a better alternative to the sugar people have been eating. Despite their widespread consumption, I have yet to see any reports of people being directly affected by them, at least in the amounts currently consumed.
    • asciimov 5y ago
      One issue with artificial sweeteners is that they can make a person feel hungry an hour or two after consumption. Thus causing a person to consume more calories than they normally would.
  • CanceledAccount 5y ago
    Being against artificial sweeteners is like being against vaping. Even if they cause some harm, the alternative is a massive danger, so we should still encourage people to switch.
• avelis 5y ago
  One major contributor to growing obesity is the US diet. It is terrible IMO. I believe we need massive corporate responsibility to solving this issue. Without some form of intervention we are going to see rising costs to our healthcare system to sustain high levels of obesity among the populous.
  • foolfoolz 5y ago
    we now have requirements in most places that nutrition must be on the label or accessible. this hasn’t slowed down the obesity rates. people don’t care what they’re eating and don’t try to figure it out. this is a personal responsibility and it’s cultural, not universal. from this link not every demographic has the same obesity rates
    • asciimov 5y ago
      Nutrition facts don't matter if all your choices are unhealthy. If you visit any chain restaurant, nearly every meal (even the healthy looking ones) has added sugars and simple carbs.
      • xtracto 5y ago
        This is so true. Here in Mexico, we've got a new law requiring large "Warning Labels" [1] warning of excess sugar, fat and calories. However, now when you go to the supermarket to buy say, cereal or tomato paste all the available options have all the same seals. If you limited your purchases to the "healthy" options, you would basically had to buy fruit, vegetables and raw poultry, meat and fish. [1] https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/new-warning-labels-now-required-on-packaged-foods/ https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/new-warning-labels-now-requ...
• yupper32 5y ago
  Every time I comment on one of these threads, I mention how most people don't know about the most fundamental component of weight control: Calories-in calories-out. And then I get a mass of people complaining that "it's not that simple! x y and z also impact weight!" I think so much has to do with these two points: 1. Most don't know about CICO. 2. Many who do throw it away as not useful. We should be teaching this in school health classes. I'm not sure if we are, as I'm from the food-pyramid era which was not even close to useful. Edit: I went from +7 to 0 in a very short period of time. This isn't me complaining, this is me making my point. People downvote the most fundamental component of weight control, even among a likely more educated than average group of people.
  • yehudalouis 5y ago
    Exactly. If you operate at caloric deficit (which can be achieved via caloric subsidies such as diet or exercise) you will lose weight. Even if your caloric deficit is achieved through processed junk, you'll still lose weight. Not a recommendation to do that, but, if you're simply optimizing for losing weight, it would technically work.
    • Ashanmaril 5y ago
      And also if you're gonna be tracking your calories, be liberal with the caloric value of what you're eating. There's some really messed up entries for caloric value of things in MyFitnessPal that extremely underestimate how many calories are in certain foods. Like an entry for a full-sized cinnamon bun that says it's 150 calories (just making up an example, but I've seen things that absurd) Too many people complain about tracking calories not working for them, and I guarantee it's that they weren't tracking properly. Edit: Oh another thing: with stuff like protein powder measuring itself in scoops, they tend to be way off in how many grams are in a scoop. I don't know how they get away with it, but if you measure with a scale how many grams are in a scoop, it can be like 25% more than what it says on the tub
  • CabSauce 5y ago
    We (Americans) didn't understand CICO any better in the past. I'm not saying you're wrong, but the way we get our food has changed dramatically. For the most part, we know what we're supposed to eat. It's just so much easier to eat poorly now. We need to change incentives to make it more costly to eat unhealthy food.
• waiseristy 5y ago
  There are plenty of people who consume highly processed foods and stay skinny. There are plenty of people who eat greasy, sugary, fattening foods who stay skinny. The problem is not car culture, sugar, and processed foods. The problem is overeating. America, and the rest of the first world has major issues with food addiction and a culture associated with "eating until the plate is clean"
  • minikites 5y ago
    >The problem is overeating. We've had a food surplus for a long time, why is obesity a relatively recent problem?
    • waiseristy 5y ago
      You don't get addicted to 2 lbs of turnips and some bacon fat. You get addicted to three 1500 calorie McDonalds meals per day
      • minikites 5y ago
        Doesn't that mean the cause is related to car culture (drive-thru) and processed foods, not just overeating?
        • waiseristy 5y ago
          I think you are reading too far into my McDonalds example. There are plenty of McDonalds without a drive through, who still overserve their customers. There are also plenty of people who are overweight just because they love to cook and eat tasty food (soul food!). Why are chefs nearly always overweight? They work incredibly hard and tax their bodies for 10 hours a day. They aren't sitting in drive throughs. Maybe it has to do with the fact that they are around food all day and consume large quantities of it
      • bcrosby95 5y ago
        It's mostly about the drive through. Is it impossible to make drive through with food that isn't grossly terrible for you?
• SCUSKU 5y ago
  I have been theorizing that the reason the US has had the most deaths from COVID has been because our population is mostly obese. Of course there are other failings, such as people being uninsured and as a result not wanting to go to hospitals. Or people not wanting to wear masks or take vaccines. But when obesity triples the likelihood of being hospitalized, it's no wonder that the US suffered the greatest death toll from COVID. [1] [1] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/obesity-and-covid-19.html https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/obesity-and-covid-19.html
• unyttigfjelltol 5y ago
  The numbers start in 1999 because the previous year the CDC arbitrarily changed its criteria for healthy weight, by dictat rendering swaths of the population overweight[1] For the elderly at least, being somewhat overweight is actually healthier.[2] I appreciate that the authors of the article are trying to be helpful but too much useful information is left on the cutting room floor here. [1] http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9806/17/weight.guidelines/ http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9806/17/weight.guidelines/ [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3182070/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3182070/
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• ahwvd37js 5y ago
  This series of articles proposes that environmental contaminants are the only possible cause of obesity that fits with all the available data. Can someone with a biology/medical background weigh in on whether this is legit? https://slimemoldtimemold.com/author/slimemoldtimemold/ https://slimemoldtimemold.com/author/slimemoldtimemold/
• reactspa 5y ago
  BMI is a deeply flawed measure. It caters to a very specific body-type. Highly muscular people are usually classified as "obese" according to BMI. That such a deeply flawed measure achieved mainstream acceptance is quite the achievement.
  • foolfoolz 5y ago
    this affects such a small amount of people in practice and is not related to the obesity problem. yes if you are less than 10% BF your BMI might be overweight. this isn’t why obesity rates are high. for almost everyone BMI is an excellent starting point
  • albntomat0 5y ago
    While your point is true, I'm confident in saying that vast majority of the 42.4% of Americans who have an obese BMI are not highly muscular.
• armagon 5y ago
  I wish that article talked about the geographical distribution of obesity. I saw a fascinating pre-print paper here a while ago: A Contamination Theory of the Obesity Epidemic. via: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27936016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27936016 I also read an interesting book lately called "The Dorito Effect" in which the author makes the case that we have a finely developed ability to associate the flavour of food with the nutrients we get from it (and, when we need nutrients, we'll crave the foods that offer it), but, 1) food's flavour and nutritional value has become diluted as we've bread for larger yields, and 2) we add synthetic flavourings to everything, messing with the ability to crave and eat the foods we need.
  • maerF0x0 5y ago
    anecdotally, fasting can help restore this sensitivity. Ever noticed "healthy" foods like say broccoli taste amazing after fasting >= 24 hrs?
    • kiba 5y ago
      Sadly, I haven't been able to ascertain these food as tastier despite fasting for 48 hours or more. They're probably more delicious though.
      • maerF0x0 5y ago
        The key is to not reintroduce competing foods. To pick a cliche thing, if you reintroduce oreos then yeah, the broccoli will pale. The key is to break the flavor dependence, then to only have healthy foods.
    • astura 5y ago
      No, and I fast between 23-25 hours six days a week and occasionally have longer fasts. My longest fast was five days. Broccoli always tastes the exact same.
• kleiba 5y ago
  I'm curious: what do people here think of the whole "body positive" idea?
  • 542458 5y ago
    It’s important to recognize *why* the body positivity movement has proponents - it’s a natural reaction to a lot of the moral judgements and prejudices that get passed on people for how their body appears. This can lead to a lot of depression and anxiety, and one way to combat that is with radical self-love. Of course, there’s been a bit of a swing too far and you see people endorsing unhealthy and harmful lifestyles. I’ve seen people exposing “body neutrality” lately - the idea that you should detach your sense of self worth from your body entirely, and simply view it as a functional thing. For example: “I’m not a bad or failed person because I’m overweight. I appreciate that my body allows me to live my life. However, my weight is negatively affecting the functionality of my body, and so I would like to change that”. Personally I think this is a much healthier mentality.
• cf100clunk 5y ago
  Purely from my own viewpoint, the general size of U.S. restaurant portions in comparison with those in any other country I've visited is noticeably larger. Dishes are more likely to contain processed food products, less likely to contain fresh vegetables, and more likely to contain higher levels of sugars and salt. Again, just my own take. I found when working in Texas and the deep south that booking a room with a kitchen and then shopping for suitable groceries was essential in order to try to eat more sensibly. I'm not flaming anyone, just making an observation. A simple anecdote from a work stay in the Dallas area: several of us "foreigners" went out for dinner and had great difficulty finding a vegetable side dish on the menu. We ordered the broccoli for sharing, so were bemused that it arrived smothered in processed cheese.
  • gnarcoregrizz 5y ago
    Well, Texas is home to some of most overweight cities in the US. However, I agree on all points. Portions are way too big at the majority of places around the US. I get portion anxiety when portions are too large, I feel like I have to eat it all and end up over eating and feeling ill. Places that don't supersize their portions are generally more expensive. Better off making food at home. People still complain about portions being too small at places with massive portions, restaurant owners feel pressure to keep them large.
  • eigenrick 5y ago
    Demand and supply. Most Americans concept of "value" is not quality, it's quantity. Being unable to otherwise judge a thing on its merits, they take the bigger one. Not the one that is healthier, or more nutrient-dense. This, IMO, stems from the industrialization of our food supply. America came of age in post-WWII industrialization. Our food industry originally "began" because it was scaling to cheaply meet the food and logistics needs of a massive war. So Baby boomers (and therefore subsequent generations) learned to buy shitty, processed food "For America". Buying a box of mac and cheese isn't like picking out the best vegetables. All things being equal, you just get the biggest one for the price.
  • nradov 5y ago
    One of my colleagues is a vegetarian. During a business trip to Dallas his associates took him out for dinner at a steakhouse. After reading through the menu he asked the waitress whether they had anything without meat and she cheerfully replied, "We have chicken!"
• not_obese 5y ago
  At 5'10 230lb the CDC would say I'm "obese" (BMI 32.1). I also deadlift 400lb and bench 300. My blood pressure, resting heart rate, blood sugar and HDL/LDL are perfect. I don't know what the body fat percentage is but I'm visibly muscular everywhere except for some stomach fat. My point is that measuring obesity purely by weight is naive and leads to massive overcounting.
• AlbertCory 5y ago
  There are two classes of people you can validly look to for advice on how to avoid Problem X (x = obesity / insomnia / constipation / badly-behaved children): 1) Those who had X but overcame it, or 2) Those who've never had it. Almost everyone, AFAICT, looks to Class #1. Indeed that's useful. However, Class #2 also can instruct. Asians are much less obese than non-Asians. What do they eat that you can learn from?
• arlattimore 5y ago
  People are less active these days compared to 10, 20, 30 years ago. Accessibility to food, not necessarily good food has increased and the combination of the two leads the average person down a pretty bad path. This could be helped if the average person took more responsibility for their own health and wellbeing, easier said than done as there are many pressures on people now that weren't present 10, 20, 30 years ago. While exercise is an important aspect of weight management, the single biggest factor is nutrition. So while I'd love to see more people getting off the couch, for no other reason than they'll feel better for it - addressing the food component is critical. To make big strides in addressing this epidemic around the world, governments would need to start making sugar and fast food unattractive by imposing significant taxes. In parallel, they'd need to make high quality, nutrient dense foods cheaper so it is the obvious choice 6 out of 7 days. At face value, that seems might seem daunting or unachievable but many governments have incrementally increased taxes on cigarettes as an example. As they get progressively more expensive, it gets harder for the average person to justify spending that money and coupled with education programs in schools and so forth it changes peoples behaviour over time.
• meetups323 5y ago
  > Overall, men and women with college degrees had lower obesity prevalence compared with those with less education. Makes sense. > Although the difference was not statistically significant among non-Hispanic Black men, obesity prevalence increased with educational attainment. That's unexpected. So every other demographic gets less fat as they get more money/education, but Non-Hispanic Black Men get more fat as they get more money/education. I wonder why.
• codyswann 5y ago
  Obesity is a problem, but we need a better measurement than OBI. I'm 6'1, 245 pounds which would make me obese, but I come in at 8-9% body fat.
• osigurdson 5y ago
  Plugging in a few test numbers in the following CDC calculator yields interesting results. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/adult_bmi/english_bmi_calculator/bmi_calculator.html https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/adult_bmi/en... Luckily I fall into the "normal" category, but trying a few variations suggests to me that clinically obese is not necessarily the same as what I think most people would consider "classically" obese. Certainly some very fit/muscular people and even elite athletes such as Alex Ovechkin are (very nearly) clinically obese. Perhaps it is time to add a few more parameters to the obesity calculator.
• lkey 5y ago
  Every top comment here tries to distill the problem into this or that based on hunches or links to books or blog posts. "It's cities" "It's society" "It's portions" "It's plastics" "It's activity" "It's overeating" "It's contaminates" "It's education" "It's just calories" This is a complex problem, and you are not experts. It could be some or all of those things, but this kind of pet-theory reductivism doesn't get us anywhere.
  • cf100clunk 5y ago
    That's about as wet a blanket as you could throw on an HN comment thread. This kind of judgementalism doesn't get us anywhere.
    • lkey 5y ago
      Where is it that we can go in a free-wheeling conversation that amounts to 'what do you think about obesity in America?'. Hacker News talking about technology is usually able to engage with a topic or article with some manner of substance, or at the very least, informed by professional familiarity. In this case, as far as I can tell, no one even read the site's information beyond glancing at the troubling stats. Taking a quote from the same area of the CDC's site, which articulates a clearer thesis and goal than here in the comments: "Obesity is a complex disease with many contributing factors. Neighborhood design, access to healthy, affordable foods and beverages, and access to safe and convenient places for physical activity can all impact obesity. The racial and ethnic disparities in obesity underscore the need to address social determinants of health such as poverty, education, and housing to remove barriers to health. This will take action at the policy and systems level to ensure that obesity prevention and management starts early, and that everyone has access to good nutrition and safe places to be physically active. Policy makers and community leaders must work to ensure that their communities, environments, and systems support a healthy, active lifestyle for all."
• BJBBB 5y ago
  My siblings are not morbidly obese, but they have been overweight most of their adult lives. The people they hang out with personally and professionally are also overweight and many have the typical health problems that accompany the overweight demographic. My wife and myself are not overweight and have never been. She was a tom-boy and a jock during high school and did intramural stuff in college. I was on high school track team and either walked or rode my bicycle - no car. While in the military, most of the people in my shop had to eat 4x per day to maintain our weight. Afterwards, during college, I lived on cheap beans and pasta or rice, and the occasional can of cheap tuna, and peanut butter sandwiches until I met my wife. She taught me how to cook and introduced me to much better stuff. So I did not eat 'correctly' until my early 30s. Until the last two years, we had remained physically active and were never overweight. We have gained some weight but are not overweight and, other than the incident that severely curbed our physical activity, have had no significant health problems. The pattern of life-long activity and a physical mind-set seems to be a common factor when you look at older healthy people (over 55) that were never overweight, regardless of food quantity and type consumption. You either are lucky enough to have decent genetics and the willingness to start an active life well, or you go through life increasingly overweight with chronic health problems.