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To summarize the data about race and ethnicity: Blacks are the fattest group, followed by hispanics, American indians or Alaska natives, whites, and finally, A
by Victerius 4y ago
To 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?
- etchalon 4y agoWouldn't geographic disparities be easily the result of the accessibility of food and government assistance programs in that region?
- biomcgary 4y agoIt could also easily be the historic cultural dietary trends of that geographic region (e.g., I suspect moonshine is still predominantly consumed in Appalachia, although that is primarily due to past government policies, and cheese curds near the Great Lakes).
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- zeroonetwothree 4y agoI believe the effect of race persists even controlling for income?
- primroot 4y agoPerhaps relevant: "Consistent with our results, it has been shown that FADS genetic variants have a stronger effect on PUFA metabolism in African Americans than in Americans of European descent as a result of differences in genotype frequencies." - Genetic Adaptation of Fatty-Acid Metabolism: A Human-Specific Haplotype Increasing the Biosynthesis of Long-Chain Omega-3 and Omega-6 Fatty Acids https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3376635/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3376635/
- mensetmanusman 4y agoDarker skin also needs way more sunlight UV in northern climates to stimulate vit-D (lack of which helps ‘cause’ obesity). It’s a tragedy that sunscreen is being marketed to these folks now.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- inglor_cz 4y agoI wonder how the field would split if you divided "Asians" into subgroups. I haven't yet seen an obese Vietnamese person, but Indians seem to be exploding out of their pants faster than anyone else.
- Xeoncross 4y agoIt's sad that everything at cheap stores like Dollar General is in a package with more preservatives than a Goodyear tire.
- atdrummond 4y agoI was homeless for three years in Saint Louis (also lived in West/South Chicago for some time) and was the healthiest I ever had been in terms of weight. You don’t have to patronize these places, even in so-called food deserts.
- orwin 4y agoI think the working poor, who do not have any time to pick and choose what they eat, are worse off than let's say me when i was a homeless student with enough time to cook myself salads. Wasn't in a food desert though, i don't think those exist in my country.
- kaesar14 4y agoI mean there's still enough time to pick and choose the food that is making people fat...
- biomcgary 4y agoIn my experience, most large grocery stores funnel customers past the produce section first. So, if people simply grabbed the first edible things that they saw. . . However, I have lived primarily in rural and suburban areas of the US, so I don't know if that is generally the case.
- atdrummond 4y agoThat’s the case in nearly every proper supermarket I’ve ever visited on pretty much every continent. The only exception seems to be bodega-like corner stores.
- 4y ago
- SoftTalker 4y agoA cheap diet can be healthy. Rice, beans, eggs, apples are some of the cheapest items in the store.
- almost_usual 4y agoAssuming you don’t live in a food desert.
- kaesar14 4y agoOnly 8% of the American population live in what could be qualified as a food desert.
- almost_usual 4y agoSo _only_ ~29 million people. Edit: What is your 8% source? 12.8% according to the USDA. https://www.aecf.org/blog/exploring-americas-food-deserts https://www.aecf.org/blog/exploring-americas-food-deserts
- kaesar14 4y agoThe statistics here are saying anywhere from 30-50% of each American state's population is obese so yeah I'm gonna venture to say food deserts are not the culprit here Edit: Looks like the AECF link might've been edited as the Google preview said 8% - indeed is 12% on the same link. USDA says 10%: https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2011/05/03/interactive-web-tool-maps-food-deserts-provides-key-data https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2011/05/03/interactive-web-t...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- almost_usual 4y agoThe start of this thread was about unhealthy diets specific to poor minorities.