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Number of States with High Rates of Adult Obesity More Than Doubles
- cm42 4y agoNo doubt one of the many knock-on effects from a lack of affordable, community-based access to cocaine. Thanks, Reagan!
- ramesh31 4y agoThe Homer Simpson barometer always puts this into perspective. There’s an episode of The Simpsons from the early 90’s where Homer steps on a scale, and it reads 240lbs. It was meant to be a comically absurd number at the time, but the joke falls completely flat now.
- kkielhofner 4y agoIn the well meaning and fun spirit of HN pedantry it was 239lbs in Season 1 Episode 10[0] which aired March 25, 1990. By Season 7 (1995) he was trying to get to 300lbs to be classified as "obese" and get on disability[1]. But, to your point, his quote of "239 pounds! Awwww, I'm a whale. Why was I cursed with this weakness for snack treats?" would be nearly insulting to much of an American audience today and the grotesquely obese Homer portrayed from "King-Size Homer" (at 300lbs) would likely need to be used for that joke today. [0] - http://www.simpsonsforever.com/episodes/quotes/quote.php?id=188 http://www.simpsonsforever.com/episodes/quotes/quote.php?id=... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King-Size_Homer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King-Size_Homer
- mise_en_place 4y ago
- DanBC 4y agoAll the research we have shows, very clearly, that shaming people does not work.
- klyrs 4y agoBeatings will continue until morale improves...
- MichaelCollins 4y agoAnti-bullying rules in schools will continue until the children get thinner... Look at where we were 50 years ago, and where we are today. 50 years ago, lots of bullying but fat kids were rare. Today we have far less bullying, and a ton of fat kids. I don't think it's working.
- allturtles 4y agoI would personally be ashamed to mock someone for being overweight. But I'm worried about the ongoing shaming of shame. Shame is an unpleasant feeling, but also a socially-useful force. It enforces compliance of valuable social norms (e.g. not urinating in public). It is also the twin of duty. It's difficult to imagine people doing things out of a sense of duty without a corresponding sense of shame for a lapse in duty.
- n4r9 4y agoNeither duty nor shame feel like healthy ways to encourage social norms. They make the world feel hostile and intimidating rather than warm and accepting. Better to foster and appeal to compassion and wisdom.
- allturtles 4y agoIMO compassion is too weak and diffuse to be a replacement for duty and shame. I feel compassion towards a lot of people, e.g. the people suffering from hurricane Ian, but I feel no duty to drop what I'm doing to help them, and no shame about not doing so. Whereas if a friend or family member were in dire need, I would have those feelings. This is a good thing. Society would cease to function if compassion were as strong as duty and shame, and everyone dropped everything to help anyone in need anywhere in the world.
- algoatecorn 4y agoTo be clear, it is estimated that >98% of Americans can afford a recommended diet. The issues are access, culture, education, and time constraints. Innovation in these areas are how we can reduce non-communicable disease and the trillion dollar externality of poor diets. https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-022-00588-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-022-00588-7
- BitwiseFool 4y ago>"The issues are access, culture, education, and time constraints." I respectfully disagree, because I believe the root issue is physiological/chemical rather than mental. Most obese people know they are living an unhealthy lifestyle and that what they eat is bad for them. Education can only do so much to counteract cravings. I believe the mind over matter approach works for some, but not for the majority of the population. Beyond the fact that modern prepared and prepackaged food is often engineered to be as desirable as possible, I believe some of us are just naturally more prone to seeking calorie dense foods. This was probably a positive adaptation in past living conditions, but it is now maladaptive in a world of cheap and virtually unlimited calories.
- jmull 4y ago> but it is now maladaptive in a world of cheap and virtually unlimited calories. I think that's the nice way to put it. I think it's maladaptive in a world where brand food companies have developed rigorous approaches maximally exploit our normal systems for acquiring and consuming food, and are free to deploy them to increase sales.
- biomcgary 4y agoIn addition, reasonably strong evidence points towards shifts in microbial communities that can induce cravings. Thus, your microbiome can be "addicted" to certain foods and pass that on to you. Intervention at the microbial level may be helpful for some people, including microbiome transplants. However, my impression is that we're still largely stumbling in the dark in this area.
- bjornsing 4y agoSo more states have more people with more fat on them? Or perhaps more scientifically put: the prevalence of states with a high prevalence of inhabitants with a high prevalence of fat cells is increasing.
- jmcphers 4y agoA lot of comments blaming this on high-carb, sugary foods, but it has to be more than that. Carbs and sugar intake started falling in 2000 and has fallen every year since[1]; this is not happening because people can't control themselves around delicious foods. Obesity continues to stubbornly rise despite the fact that we, as a nation, have all started to eat in ways that are supposed to be healthier. Something else is going on. [1] https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/11/a-chemical-hunger-part-ii-current-theories-of-obesity-are-inadequate/ https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/11/a-chemical-hunger-p...
- nerdponx 4y agoPart 3 of that link is more interesting, seriously looking into the possibility of chemical contamination in the environment: https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/13/a-chemical-hunger-part-iii-environmental-contaminants/ https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/13/a-chemical-hunger-p...
- mensetmanusman 4y agoIt’s because we are super sedentary. During the pandemic, I got my mom walking 10k steps a day with no diet change, she lost a pound a week for a year. Once she stopped, gained it all back.
- jffhn 4y ago>It’s because we are super sedentary. I think about that too. Sitting in front of screens for most of the day, people don't need as much energy as they used to when the tradition of 2 to 3 meals a day was established. I chose to eat just once a day, and still think some more fasting wouldn't hurt.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoThis is the cheat code. If you have a sedentary white collar job, only eat one meal.
- derekp7 4y ago
- rconti 4y agoI wonder if anyone has input on the methodology / presentation of data here. What actually happened is a number of states passed the "35%" threshold they chose. The timeframe is surprisingly short (2018-now), but the actual increase in obesity could be relatively low, and it just so happens that a significant number of states passed that threshold. To be sure, it's not trending in the right direction. And it's true that the number of states did double in a short time. But the absolute increase could be incredibly small.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoObesity is also correlated with much lower rates of fertility due to downstream health impacts. In the long term Darwin would suggest it’s self correcting assuming our environment of unlimited food and low cost sugar remains intact.
- DeadMouseFive 4y agoSolutions: Food security. Taking processed foods out of the American diet as much as possible. Permaculture. Basic income, basic food, basic housing, basic medical. "The future is here it's just not evenly distributed yet." -William Gibson
- tb_technical 4y agoI'm one of these people. I'm quite fat and got fatter in the pandemic. I'm looking for a way for me and my family to lose weight. And it looks like we have to look seriously at a workout regiment and cutting out many foods... I don't know if we will succeed. Does anyone have advice? Thank you.
- andbberger 4y agosemaglutide has FDA approval as a weight loss drug and is quite effective
- landemva 4y agoFind an activity you like, and get started. Walk, moderate bike, SUP on lake, snowshoe. Mix it up so it is not a chore and it gets you outside.
- prirun 4y agoI have read that 2/3rds of weight issues is food intake, 1/3 is exercise. I can believe it, because if you look up how many calories are burned walking 30 minutes, it's 80-100 calories. By contrast, there are 150 calories in a can of soda. If I was overweight, I'd concentrate on the food aspect and forget about exercise, because that's 2 difficult things to change at once. Cut out grains (bread, rice, pasta), sugar, high fructose corn syrup, starchy vegetables (limas, peas, corn, beans, potatoes). Losing weight requires putting the body in calorie deficit so that it has to use fat already stored rather than relying on incoming food calories.
- thunderbong 4y agoCut down drastically on carbs and sugar. Take a walk every day building it up to an hour a day.
- rr888 4y agoAnyone have a link to that report a few years ago that the Midwest is more obese than the South but just not as honest?
- blakesterz 4y agohttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/oby.20451 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/oby.20451
- josephscott 4y agohttps://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/prevalence-maps.html https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/prevalence-maps.html
- Victerius 4y agoTo summarize the data about race and ethnicity: Blacks are the fattest group, followed by hispanics, American indians or Alaska natives, whites, and finally, Asians. This is easily explainable: blacks and hispanics have the lowest incomes and least healthy diets. Whites and Asians are the opposite.
- glitchc 4y agoThis may have as much to do with cultural staples as available food options. What constitutes a typical meal in a Black family is quite distinct from what constitutes a typical meal in an Asian family. As an example, soup (from a variety of bases), is a staple meal for the latter and quite a rarity for the former.
- kaesar14 4y agoOr that the cultures in each racial group have different diets of wildly different nutritional value. No one is making anyone overeat.
- hindsightRegret 4y agoIt's not so simple. Asians for example are genetically predisposed to being lean (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-46960-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-46960-9), so we "seem" healthier. However, that can be deceptive because Asians tend to have less fat and more muscle than other ethnicities and are predisposed to higher rates of type 2 diabetes at lower body weight (https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/library/spotlights/diabetes-asian-americans.html https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/library/spotlights/diabetes-asi...). So even though Asians might "look" healthier, it doesn't all come from a difference in diet and even BMI ratios can be a deceptive measure of health. It's a multi-variable analysis and can have confounding factors.
- iroh2727 4y agoThat’s a reasonable explanation for the spread across racial groups. But that spread has existed for a long time. There are other even more important phenomena to explain, like (1) why is it going up across all (or most) groups and (2) why are there geographic disparities?
- diceduckmonk 4y agoI was trying to find data to confirm my belief that people walked less due to the pandemic. At least in the UK, people took less trips but when they did they walked more (probably less public transit) https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/walking-and-cycling-statistics-england-2020/the-impact-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic-on-walking-and-cycling-statistics-england-2020 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/walking-and-cycling...
- walthamstow 4y agoThe average London commuter does 10k steps without even thinking about it, and used to do that 5 days a week. I can see total walked miles decreasing across the board during the pandemic, even if walking did become our national sport for a short while (mostly due to being the only time and place you could get drunk with your friends)
- javier_e06 4y agoAt CVS and Walgreens the pharmacy is at the back of the store. To pick up your obesity, sugar intake related prescription you have to walk through aisles filled with Milky Ways, Cokes, Lays Chips and Oreos. Viva La Freedom!
- cosmotic 4y agoA while back, CVS stopped selling tabaco products because of the health concerns, even though it was very profitable for them. I wonder why they haven't made the same decision for the candy and snacks yet.
- BlargMcLarg 4y agoSide effects of smoking on non-smokers are more obvious. Candy and snacks can also be defended as "CICO bro", even though sugar is ridiculously addictive and makes proper calorie intake far more difficult.
- 1123581321 4y agoIt looks bad, but since the checkout is in the back, there’s little incentive to go through the line again on the retail side just to get snacks. And they are totally unavailable via drive-through.
- hunglee2 4y agowhat is the end outcome of this. We have known about adult obesity rate for decades now, yet the wrong numbers keep getting higher. At what point does this become unsustainable?
- akavi 4y agoI'd bet on a small-molecule GLP-1 agonist being the most likely path out. Certainly more likely than a nation wide overhaul of diet/lifestyle. All we can hope the side effects won't be too bad.
- behaveEc0n00 4y agoYeah in the US we’d never curtail industrial food profit to overhaul the state of store shelves being full of easily consumed crap packaged in plastic waste of enormous energy and material cost. The health side effects are not the only outcome of concern with our eating habits.
- Beaver117 4y agoWhy are we not already using them? Because they're subQ injections? Supply issues? Side effects? They are already proven effective, why is every obese/overweight person not given a script? We could solve the crisis within a year
- bb88 4y agoBefore recently most GLP-1 agonists only gave a small amount of weight loss, and they've typically only been approved for type 2 management. Mounjaro from Eli Lilly though shows great promise with an average weight loss of 50 pounds per participant. It's been approved for type 2 management, but they've also submitted it to the FDA as a weight loss drug. On the first month on the lowest dose (no exercise), I lost 15 pounds. The good side is the injection is mostly pain-free, and easy to administer. You will feel a little prick, but it feels mostly like getting a burr stuck to your skin. The downside is it's $1000/month. Most insurance won't cover it yet. It also makes maybe more sense when insulin costs $5000/year or more. Right now there's a coupon which makes the co-pay $25 but that lasts for only 3 months. Side effects for me were decreased appetite (which is a good thing), low level nausea, and constipation. All of which were not deal breakers for me.