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https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm According to this 73.6% of adults over 20 in th

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm According to this 73.6% of adults over 20 in the US are classified as overweight or obese, so 78% of Covid hospitalizations being overweight or obese is not at all surprising. This means that overweight and obese people are roughly 5.8% more likely to be hospitalized with Covid than people who are not overweight or obese. Hardly the slam dunk you're implying it is. (Of course I'm potentially making a mistake by excluding under 20s without knowing if the covid hospitalization statistic you're mentioning also excludes them, but taking that into account is too much research/math for today - what percentage of the US pop is < 20 years old?). (As a side note, that article is awful (and I assume the source of your mistake) - it seems to imply that "obese" and "overweight or obese" are the same thing, except the former is 41.9% of the population and the latter is 73.6%. Not sure if intentional misuse of statistics, or just incompetence).

remarkEon 4y ago
>According to this 73.6% of adults over 20 in the US are classified as overweight or obese My God. I did not think it was that high. I had thought “ehh 50%” based simply on who I see walking around at Costco, and you’re right shame on me for not looking up the relevant statistics to fact check CNBC. That’s a legit public health catastrophe. We’re slow walking into a health case disaster if this doesn’t change.
- p1necone 4y ago
  To be fair I think the threshold for 'overweight' is pretty low (and based on BMI which isn't a super great measure at least on an individual level), but yes it's definitely a problem.
  - remarkEon 4y ago
    Yeah BMI is a very crude metric. Half the guys I was in the Army with would be “overweight” if you only used BMI (these guys were not overweight, they were yoked).
mgurlitz 4y ago
The "5.8% more likely" statistic would be in comparison to the population rate, not the subgroup who aren't overweight or obese. That group would have a 1-(1-.78)/(1-.736) or 16% reduction in hospitalization rate in comparison to the population, resulting in a relative increase of ~27% if you compare these two groups.
sokoloff 4y ago
Why would the right reference be the adult overweight/obese rate rather than the population-wide, all-ages rate?

remarkEon 4y ago

>According to this 73.6% of adults over 20 in the US are classified as overweight or obese My God. I did not think it was that high. I had thought “ehh 50%” based simply on who I see walking around at Costco, and you’re right shame on me for not looking up the relevant statistics to fact check CNBC. That’s a legit public health catastrophe. We’re slow walking into a health case disaster if this doesn’t change.

p1necone 4y ago
To be fair I think the threshold for 'overweight' is pretty low (and based on BMI which isn't a super great measure at least on an individual level), but yes it's definitely a problem.
- remarkEon 4y ago
  Yeah BMI is a very crude metric. Half the guys I was in the Army with would be “overweight” if you only used BMI (these guys were not overweight, they were yoked).

mgurlitz 4y ago

The "5.8% more likely" statistic would be in comparison to the population rate, not the subgroup who aren't overweight or obese. That group would have a 1-(1-.78)/(1-.736) or 16% reduction in hospitalization rate in comparison to the population, resulting in a relative increase of ~27% if you compare these two groups.

sokoloff 4y ago

Why would the right reference be the adult overweight/obese rate rather than the population-wide, all-ages rate?