Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm

by arikr • 8 years ago

163 260 8 years ago

arikr4• 8 years ago

This might be a good YC "request for startups."

Virta Health is one I've seen.

And the Robert Johnson Wood Foundation is working on this cause: https://www.rwjf.org/en/our-focus-areas/topics/childhood-obe...

Diet seems crucial.

Obesity isn't really helped by exercise. (https://www.vox.com/2018/1/3/16845438/exercise-weight-loss-m...)

"Significant weight loss was observed with any low-carbohydrate or low-fat diet. Weight loss differences between individual named diets were small. This supports the practice of recommending any diet that a patient will adhere to in order to lose weight." (Many diets work. Most important is optimizing for one that will be continued long term / rest of their life)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25182101

Overweight-obesity is also a top 3 preventable cause of death for US people (and many other nations).

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/smoking-hig...

About 1 in 12 of total deaths each year in the US can be attributed to the person being overweight or obese.

~7x more Americans die each year due to obesity/overweight than due to opioids. (Though opioid deaths are rising much faster.) https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o...

What causes obesity?

The "greatest contributor to weight gain" is eating more calories than are burned. (https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/obesity/conditioninf...)

It seems that food types do play into this - in part because eating 1000 calories of sugar will leave you much hungrier than eating 1000 calories of fat, so while in theory you've eaten the same amount of calories, in reality the sugar eating person will probably eat more the rest of the day.

jacquesm5• 8 years ago

I did a small investment in a food oriented start-up and I really hope they will succeed in their dream of feeding people healthy stuff. Many companies claim to want to 'change the world for the better' when actually they are just looking to make bank. These guys are driven because of their ideals, they're super nice and have a good idea + track record. Time will tell if it works out.

arikr4• 8 years ago

Nice! What's the link/name?

adrr4• 8 years ago

Its not about eating healthy food, obesity is about the over consumption of food. You can maintain a healthy weight eating hamburgers and fries every day. The problem is portion size.

arikr4• 8 years ago

Also this article seems promising, if only I could read it without a paywall... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-fix-the-ob... (Side note: Is anyone working on "Amazon Prime for Web Paywalls" - e.g. $x/mo, and you get access to >90% of commonly hit web paywalls - see also https://stratechery.com/2015/aggregation-theory/)

sincerely• 8 years ago

For specific articles you can make requests on r/scholar

m_ke• 8 years ago

We applied and interviewed twice with Bitesnap/Bite AI but got feedback that they weren't sure if the market was big enough. Blame probably falls more on us and our ability to sell the vision though.

anthony_romeo• 8 years ago

I don't disagree with what you've written, but regarding your brief point on exercise... On my journey to lose 100 pounds I came across a meta-analysis of studies on weight loss* which indicated that, while exercise wasn't a significant contributor to short-term weight loss, exercise was correlated to successful long-term weight loss (a much less likely occurrence, since the vast majority of people who lose weight regain it within a decade).

*I read this analysis a decade ago, so I can't really find it to share.

darkstar999• 8 years ago

Interestingly, based on that same dataset, high cholesterol decreased from 20% in 1988 to 11% in 2014. Any ideas?

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus16.pdf#053

learc83• 8 years ago

Statins

wjn02• 8 years ago

Yup. Highly effective and widely prescribed.

toasterlovin5• 8 years ago

Cholesterol is a risk factor, not an outcome. This is the problem with basing recommendations on controlling risk factors.

neolefty• 8 years ago

Gradual elimination of trans fats?

3pt141593• 8 years ago

This is directly related to the way American cities are designed. It’s a car centric culture where big houses are far away from each other. That means driving everywhere. That means long commutes. That means TV over communal activity. That means big grocery runs with shelf stable food.

Then pile on hyper sweet drinks and nutritional misinformation campaigns, and of course Americans are going to be overweight. The worst part is it’s becoming culturally acceptable for children to be overweight. I do not advocate for fat shaming—but there is a limit to my tolerance. Children should not consume anywhere near the amounts of sugar that they do and the pervasive attitude of “just one [soda, ice cream, pop tart, pie slice, muffin, cupcake, cookie] won’t hurt!” is incredibly damaging. Five grams of refined sugar a day. That’s it. That is less than one tenth of a “personal” (16oz / 500ml) bottle of Coca Cola.

We’re poisoning our kids.

nawitus• 8 years ago

It should be plausible to design a scientific study on how much a car centric culture is causing overweightness.

pm90• 8 years ago

Why is it only now that obesity is reaching such epidemic proportions though? We've had a car-centric culture since Post WW2. Why haven't we seen this epidemic before?

izietto3• 8 years ago

I'm italian and I visited united states a couple of months ago. In my opinion the biggest problem is that you don't have decent food at affordable prices. Healthy food has nonsensical high prices and if you want something at a human price you don't have much choice except fast food. What a shame.

pascalxus5• 8 years ago

That's partly because much of the government subsides go towards subsidizing corn, ending up in high fructose corn syrup and all the junk food most people consume. It's quite sad, that everyone is so okay with this.

Personally, I try to eat as healthy as possible and use my nutrient finder (https://kale.world/c) to find high nutrient, low calorie foods, which end up being mostly beans, vegetables and fruits.

hangonhn2• 8 years ago

I was in Bologna not too long ago and I was baffled by how fresh, high quality ingredients are available at affordable prices. I've seen similar quality ingredients in the Bay Area but they charge an arm and a leg for it. I don't know how the Italians do it or why we Americans have such a hard time doing something similar.

tjr225• 8 years ago

I wonder if there are any subsidies paid for by taxpayers to the businesses that sell us cheap, unhealthy food.

Freedom to kill ourselves and each other, it seems...

nkkollaw5• 8 years ago

Meh, veggies, rice, etc. are super-cheap everywhere in the world.

It doesn't take money to eat healthy. It's not that fast food restaurants are the only choice is you don't have money. You can go to a grocery store and eat extremely healthy if you want to.

Those who eat at fast food restaurants all the time are more uneducated than poor (although both things might go hand-in-hand), and might not know how many calories are in a burger or more importantly sodas (I've seen people drinking liters every day).

You can buy an apple instead of a can of coke and save you both a few hundred calories and a few pennies. Nothing to do with money.

yodsanklai3• 8 years ago

I would add that many Americans seem totally unaware that junk food is bad for them and for their kids. Even in well-educated families, I would see kids drinking soda and eating snacks all the time. As I understand it, it is also a political issue, food corporation have huge marketing power and any attempts of regulation draw big protests (free will / nanny state arguments).

adrr4• 8 years ago

Healthy food isn't expensive. You can buy chicken breast for $3 to $5 a pound. You can buy a head of lettuce for $2. Oatmeal is dirt cheap. Most vegetables are less than $3 a pound.

trophycase• 8 years ago

Honestly this is only slightly true. Beans are 2 bucks a pound, cabbage is 2 bucks a head, bananas are 50 cents a pound, chicken is 4 bucks a pound, lentils are 2 bucks a pound, broccoli is 3 bucks a pound, yams are 1.5 bucks a pound, green bell peppers are 1 each, peanuts are 4.5 a pound, etc.

You get my point but I think it's more of a culture and convenience thing.

0942v8653• 8 years ago

I don't understand this. Rice, potatoes, vegetables are still cheap here. I guess if you're looking at restaurants, this is true. If you are with a group and have to go eat somewhere, they usually provide healthy options which are not too expensive compared to the unhealthy ones (though sometimes, that's just due to smaller portions).

Maybe you have a different experience, having just visited, instead of living here.

addendum: it also depends quite heavily on the area's cost of living, apparently. I just bought a sack of potatoes for $0.40/lb, whereas https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16448984 says potatoes in LA are $1.88/lb (nearly 5x as expensive).

Isamu• 8 years ago

Shelf space at the stores seems to be shifting more toward prepared and semi-prepared foods. This comes at a cost of more carbs, sugar, etc. I interpret this trend as consumer choice, that people are preferring to spend less time cooking and preparing meals.

If you have a strong food culture that demands fresh ingredients (Italy) then the prices may follow.

natethinks• 8 years ago

I find healthy food to be very accessible in the United States if you cook for yourself. Most of our grocery stores have huge varieties of produce and lean proteins are relatively inexpensive. I think eating fast food is becoming more and more common as well as people buying pre-made packaged foods to heat up at home which are often just as unhealthy as fast foods.

always_good5• 8 years ago

I watched a good youtube video that compared the 7/11-level food available in japan vs america and was convinced that this is one of the biggest issues.

What's the healthiest thing you can get in a 7/11 in the States? An apple? One of those shitty packaged sandwiches that has a slice of ham with a mysterious wad of splooge? A hotdog that's been turning on the spit all day?

Then you realize this is how it is every step of the way. It's a cultural problem. With a lot of the world trailing right behind.

You can blame everything on personal choice, and that might make you feel good, but that doesn't help us solve systemic issues.

I live in Mexico now which has some of the worst obesity issues as well due to their soft drink consumption. They just had a president that was the ex-president of Coca Cola.

It was during the Fox's leadership of Coca-Cola Mexico that Coke became Mexico's top-selling soft drink, increasing Coca-Cola's sales by almost 50%.

But Mexico still has healthy enough food that's readily available. Getting a bag of chips from 7/11 has to compete with a just-as-cheap taco stand right outside. I find it easy to eat pretty healthy here for that reason. I love some tacos and nopal salad.

Meanwhile in Austin you can't even find a taquero outside of East Riverside.

And, of course, the lack of walkability in the US is horrifying. I don't ever want to live somewhere where I can't walk to a fruit stand or cafe ever again. I think of any time I've felt dullness in my life and every time it was at a point in my life where I had to drive everywhere. Like playing an open-world game and only using fast travel, missing out on all the small interactions that turn out to be the spice of life.

notadoc2• 8 years ago

Perhaps you're thinking only of restaurants, because healthy food is far cheaper than fast food or any restaurant food in general, but it does require going to any grocery store and then spending a few minutes cooking.

lobster_johnson2• 8 years ago

I'm curious about this. I lived in a predominantly Latino (mostly Puerto Rican) neighborhood of Brooklyn for a while a couple of years back. The supermarkets were full of fresh, cheap food, yet the customers (who were consistently overweight and often obese, including the kids) were piling their shopping carts up with terrible stuff -- sugary cereals (Froot Loops etc.), sugary drinks (sodas, fruit juices, Caprisun, iced tea), white bread, snacks (cookies, doughnuts, potato chips), tons of frozen microwave meals, etc. I never saw a shopping cart filled with anything healthy and unprocessed. And I realized that I was actually being very picky walking through this place. I had to ignore 90% of the stuff they stock their shelves with because it's unhealthy.

Places like Whole Foods have the same problem, of course -- it's also full of sugary drinks and cookies, except they're labeled "organic" and made with "natural sugar cane" or agave, or they're things low/no fat yogurt (containing more sugar than the full fat ones). You can get fat on Whole Foods groceries if you're not super picky.

nsxwolf4• 8 years ago

I don't get this. You'll get just as fat with "healthy" food. People aren't skipping small portions of healthy food because it's expensive - they just don't want to eat it at all, or they want to eat enough of it to feel full and satisfied, which is going to make them fat.

conistonwater• 8 years ago

My (potentially incorrect) impression was that the Common Agricultural Policy in Europe meant that the affordable food prices you get used to could just be the result of subsidies. So any country with different subsidies would have surprisingly high food prices and give you sticker shock, but that wouldn't really mean all that much, it's like the difference between paying for it in the store vs paying for it with taxes. Is this plausible?

factsaresacred• 8 years ago

Decent by Italian standards is pretty decent. But if we're talking about fresh fruit and vegetables, go to any Asian market. Or Walmart. It's not that expensive.

There's few good reasons to be eating tripe if you live in a city or live in a 'food desert' (spare me) and have a car.

The real problem is the overabundance of crap choices crowding out the sensible ones.

For example, here's Walmart's online store: https://www.walmart.com/all-departments#food--household---pe.... Now look at the categories: Beverages, Snacks & Cookies (listed before meals), Candy & gum.

Ctrl + F for 'fresh', and all I get is flowers. Madness.

By contract, here's Tesco in the UK: https://www.tesco.com/groceries/?icid=dchp_groceriesshopgroc...

Fresh food is top of the list. And three sub-sections are all 'fresh' something.

There's zero reason Walmart can't do the same. Except for the fact that Americans demand soda and 800 different types of cookies, so that's what they're supplied with.

Edit: this submission was bumped from first to the third page within minutes...for whatever reason. Comment to upvote ratio perhaps?

smoothgrips• 8 years ago

I'm italian and I visited united states a couple of months ago. In my opinion the biggest problem is that you don't have decent food at affordable prices. Healthy food has nonsensical high prices and if you want something at a human price you don't have much choice except fast food. What a shame.

We recently just spent a week in Spain. We went to the grocery store and bought a whole cart full of food for like 20 euros. I was blown away. The equivalent amount of food in the US would have easily been like 100 dollars, probably more.

samsonradu2• 8 years ago

Same here, I was chasing asian street food for breakfast. From my touristy experience US breakfasts consist of no vegetables and all sorts of sweets.

nkkollaw5• 8 years ago

The reason Americans eat that much sugar is not the "one won't hurt" mentality, but the fact that the government singled out fat as the only source of evil, and companies started adding sugar to everything because without fat everything tastes like cardboard.

I bet most of the sugar consumed is from things that no one would think contain as much sugar as they do (like--bread, meat, etc.), which is added to make it more palatable.

RightMillennial• 8 years ago

I was curious so I checked the bread in my cupboard. The generic loaf of white bread has high fructose corn syrup, and the fancy whole wheat loaf has sugar. Both are pretty high up in the ingredient list.

lamename• 8 years ago

tangentially relevant and interesting summary on mass-transit in the US https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cjfTG8DbwA

protonimitate• 8 years ago

While I agree American cities don't promote the most healthy lifestyles, it's not like city-dwelers are less healthy or more obese on average than those who live in the country.

You're spot on with your second paragraph though. There is a lot of misinformation about nutrition, dieting, and food in general, and it's all aimed at one goal: turning a profit. Sugar is one of the major culprits, but over eating in general in America is an issue.

We need to start health education on a basis of Calories in vs. Calories Out, what healthy bodies actually look like, and dispel the myths of fad dieting and fat-burning-exercise routines/equipment.

Eat a balanced diet, consisting of little to no processed foods, and keep your calories close to your TDEE (or below if you are overweight).

Exercise for long-term health (physical and mental), not weight loss binges.

It's really that simple.

yequalsx• 8 years ago

Pretty much all cities and towns in the U.S. are car centric. Large amounts of space wasted in the form of parking lots. Houses are mostly built away from grocery stores and shops. Usually there are no decent foot paths to get to them. It’s not just a phenomenon of large cities. It’s pretty much everywhere.

bunderbunder2• 8 years ago

It really depends on the city. A lot of the "urban/rural" statistics are somewhat clouded by the fact that most American cities aren't really walkable outside of a central business district that nobody really lives in, and that its residents probably have to drive out of to get to such basic places as a grocery store.

The correlation looks a lot firmer when you look at overweight rates compared to population density or walkability instead of trying to just coarsely bucket it into "urban/suburban/rural".

westiseast• 8 years ago

Absolutely.

I think people underestimate how much walking or physical activity they’d need to do to counterbalance the calorie surplus they have on a daily basis. You’d literally need to be fast walking for hours and hours a day. Cars don’t help, but walking for an extra 3-4hrs a week isn’t the major factor here. It’s the pound of cheese you had melted on everything, or the 24oz Cola.

nsxwolf4• 8 years ago

It's really that simple.

Everything you list is simple, but nearly impossible for most people to stick with for life. It's not a matter of education, it's the fact that implementing that plan is physically and emotionally painful and wears most people down inside of a week or two.

rich_ard• 8 years ago

Were this the case, you would see a correlation between urban development and obesity rates; cursory examination of obesity rates and population density (and our basically unchanged urban planning methods since the 1960s) reflect that this is not the case.

bogomipz5• 8 years ago

"This is directly related to the way American cities are designed. It’s a car centric culture where big houses are far away from each other."

New York City is perhaps one of the most walkable cities in the world. It's also a place where you absolutely do not need a car and the majority of residents don't have a car. Yet 34% or New Yorkers are overweight and 22% are obese.[1]

The BMI statistic for the EU are none too encouraging either. [2]

[1] http://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/obesity.pa...

[2] http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...

_dark_matter_• 8 years ago

I think you may have proven the point. That's less than half the general population.

bunderbunder2• 8 years ago

Even if it doesn't explain 100% of it, it's still striking that the overweight rate in NYC is, according to your figures, less than half of the US average.

RealityVoid• 8 years ago

Well, honestly, this comment is only giving more credence to OP, since, apparently, the US average is 70% is much much worse than the 34% of NY.

EDIT: Haha, apparently the HN crowd is very quick to point out inconsistencies since the original comment has been up 2 minuites and there are already 3 comments pointing the same thing (and counting)

3pt141593• 8 years ago

I'm the OP.

I agree NYC should be better but a number of problems are present there:

1. Cultural. I haven't been there for two years, but people use the subway, not the bike lanes. And I remember as recent at 2010 taxis were very prevalent, although slightly less so last time I was there. Though that could be Uber. The walkability of a city isn't just its density, it's its zoning, the width of its streets, the expected work hours. NYC is fast food, finance, media. Though they're still better off than the average American, they are no Amsterdam.

2. They have many of the problems that most American cities have: Dirt cheap unhealthy food and sugar consumption rates that are unhealthily high.

3. Many people come to NYC to make it. If they're coming from the rest of America they're coming in overweight.

halotrope• 8 years ago

Sugar seems to be a major driver of this development. The main problem is likely excessive sugar and especially fructose consumption starting with the emerge of cheap HFCS in most products. Dr. Robert Lustig has put a lot of research into the causes of the obesity crisis. He goes into great detail in his lectures on YouTube https://youtu.be/ceFyF9px20Y?t=51m41s He also argues against the "gluttony and sloth" prejudice by saying that you eat too much and move to little as a consequence of messed up hormones due to excessive fat. Not the other way around. The problem is probably more dimensional but the correlation between increasing Sugar/HFCS amounts in foods and the onset of obesity seems to be pretty strong.

ellyagg• 8 years ago

You should read Stephen Guyenet to challenge what you've heard about sugar, both his twitter and his blog. He's a Ph.D. neuroscientist who studies the connection of the brain to fatness for a living.

A recent tweet from him:

    Most comprehensive analysis of macronutrients vs. lifespan, fatness, health in mice.  High fat + high carb + low protein = highest body fat.  High fat + high carb + high protein = highest insulin.  High carb + low fat + low protein = longest lifespan.

https://twitter.com/whsource/status/965330116468502529

There is an air of certainty about low carbs permeating our culture right now that is not justified by the evidence at all. The Kitavans today get 70% of their calories from potato and have no diabetes or metabolic syndrome.

Look up Ray Peat for a good argument in favor of sugar. Plenty of people are thriving on high sugar diets.

For my own part, I've consumed 1300 or so calories of sugar a day for 20 years and my biomarkers are 99th percentile. I'm very consistent about resistance training and I don't overeat, both factors likely dwarfing my sugar intake.

Of course, obviously that's an anecdote, but I would caution anyone who automatically judges someone else for their sugar consumption. You might be wrong about sugar and, more importantly, you might be wrong about sugar paired with a particular person's genes or other lifestyle factors.

Because of my high sugar consumption, I eat relatively low fat and protein. What if that's better for you, assuming you don't overeat?

Guyenet is somewhat in favor of the hypothesis that sugar increases fatness, but he thinks it's because humans are susceptible to the "unnatural" increase in food reward that adding extra sugar induces, not because sugar is toxic in and of itself.

lhorie2• 8 years ago

It’s a car centric culture

I don't really see the correlation. In Brazil, obesity is commonly associated with lower incomes, and if you were to correlate with the transportation system usage patterns there, one might misguidedly conclude that public transit usage is related to obesity. It seems more logical to make a correlation with lack of food variety (in both cases, cheaper food tend to be heavy on carbs and fats) and sedentary lifestyle

shados• 8 years ago

I moved from Canada to the US a few years back, and gained an enormous amount of weight and gained a bunch of health issues, all food related. Here's my take on it.

Food is much, MUCH cheaper. Not a big difference at the grocery store for whole produce and raw ingredients (though it is cheaper). But the processed foods, premade stuff, deserts, drinks, etc? A fraction of the cost.

Restaurants are also much, much cheaper. Where I used to work, going to the sit down restaurant next door downtown brought me down 20-25 bucks. A similar restaurant downtown where I now live has equivalent food for 8-10 bucks. I make 4 times my Canadian salary and pay a lot less taxes, so effectively, it's virtually not worth it for me to cook, if my only constraint was money.

Sugar in EVERYTHING. Food that used to be a little bit sweet (not necessarily health, but not the end of the world) is drenched in sugar. I have to be careful when I get an orange juice in case its sugar added. A milkshare at the local icecream shop has way more sugar. Sugar sugar sugar EVERYWHERE.

Ordering food is also way easier, with formerly Foodler, GrubHub, Doordash, etc. I have no idea if those services became common up north after I left, but that was a big change, being able to order from 100 different restaurants at any point in time, sometimes in the middle of the night, with a few mouse clicks.

The portions: Cheesecake Factory exists up north, but it's not considered normal. Here, while the portion sizes are certainly above average, they aren't exactly unique either. You have Outback and the like all service you enough food to last you 3 days.

I also find it a lot more common to have fatty or sugary snacks at the office, and soft drinks, etc.

I'll shamefully admit I have zero self control when it comes to food. I have a sweet tooth like no other. But the price and availability constraints in my hometown stopped me from going overboard. For a while I was pretty much flush at my "recommended" weight. After I moved here? Things got really bad for me.

poulsbohemian4• 8 years ago

You are spot on here -- I lost ten pounds in just the past few weeks simply by upping my step count.

Taking it one step further though... I think about my forebear farmers. When I would hear my grandmother talk about the huge meals they would eat daily, you'd think they were all 300 pounds and died of heart disease by 40. Instead, they were trim and lived into their 80s and 90s. The reason being that they were physically active all day long on the farm. In a modern services economy though, we have to go to a gym, go for a run, IE: build physical activity into our day. After a long work day, this is a mental challenge for many people just as much as a time challenge. So, in many ways it's an artifact of the transition away from the farming / industrial economy of the past that many segments of the population have simply not addressed.

Brybry• 8 years ago

I'd like to note that poor quality of food does not make one overweight (and lack of exercise does not either).

Exercise and good food are good for you (diabetes and heart disease are bad) but in terms of weight what matters is pure number of calories consumed. This has been true from everything I've read on the subject and what I've seen from my own underweight failures and triumphs to gain weight.

Americans just eat too much, for a variety of reasons.

chisleu• 8 years ago

You are not wrong, but I will say that overweight is a really low threshold. For me at 6'5", it's about 200lbs at the top. Factor in that tall people generally have more variance in torso to leg ratio, and it makes it difficult to get down to that weight. I was 235 lbs when I left the Army and was incredibly trim. At 200 lbs, I would have been very skinny. At the middle of the healthy range, 175 lbs, I would look incredibly skinny.

My goal weight is 200. I've got 100 to go and I've lost 40 so far. I got there because of the sugar and depression, but I thought it was important to note that 200 for me is going to be incredibly skinny. I don't think it is practical for most people to maintain that.

nradov7• 8 years ago

The top of the normal BMI range for someone 6'5" tall is actually 210 lbs. That's not incredibly skinny nor would it be impractical for most people to maintain.

nicoslepicos• 8 years ago

Just wrote a little Medium article about your post, as your comments about car culture made me wonder:

Will Autonomous Cars & Mobile Gyms Help With America's Obesity Epidemic: https://medium.com/@nicolaerusan/will-autonomous-cars-mobile...

Def, the nutritional issues are still there & so are the issues around communal activity - but I think for a lot of people I know who have long commutes to work, the opportunity to exercise in transit would be compelling.

CharlesMerriam2• 8 years ago

Methinks that if 70% of you population is affected, something is effecting them.

It's not just "low will power" even if that explanation makes 30% of people smug.

NikolaeVarius• 8 years ago

Abundantly available extremely cheap food?

a_humean• 8 years ago

Abundantly available extremely cheap food of poor nutritional value and addictive over consumption encouraging qualities forcefully positioned by the market at the expense of other options.

TheAdamAndChe3• 8 years ago

Regular exposure to high doses of xenoestrogens like BPA[1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A

throwthisawayt3• 8 years ago

Why can’t it be low willpower along with availability of instant cheap calorically rich unsatiating food? In the past even if you had low will power you didn’t have access to cheap 2000+ simple carb / sugar meals. Now we do.

Avshalom4• 8 years ago

Because if it's 70% it's not "low willpower" it's "average plus a standard deviation will power"

whoisjuan2• 8 years ago

Public policy, lack of education, overall culture and scale and dominance of food corporations. I'm not surprised with this data. The best example to understand this is to go to your nearest US convenience store.

Price of an Arizona Iced Tea 23oz can = $0.99

Price of the average bottle of water 16 oz = $1.50

Any poorly educated individual wouldn't understand the health implications of gulping 70g of liquid sugar when the only available data points to make food decisions are price and flavor.

bfred_it• 8 years ago

That makes me wonder... what if non-luxury water was legally fixed to a set price per liter?

aaron-lebo2• 8 years ago

Do people really not understand that drinking 23oz of empty calories day after day will make you fat?

People aren't really that ignorant, they make choices, often driven by short term desire. The corporations get this, but I feel like you are using poor as a synonym for stupid. We gotta stop treating poor people like they are dumb helpless animals, it gives them no agency.

Avshalom4• 8 years ago

Well there was also that time in the 90's when we redefined overweight/obese thereby inventing the obesity epidemic overnight.

Joeri• 8 years ago

It's the food. I've visited the U.S. several times, and every time I'm shocked by how hard it is to find affordable healthy food. Even so called "healthy" options like salads are often loaded with egg yolks, fatty dressings, bacon bits and all kinds of unhealthy ingredients. Portion size is also way off.

justboxing• 8 years ago

... and salt, sugar and butter. I was surprised to learn that supermarket chicken and meat is routinely injected with salt water and other chemical in a process known as 'Plumping'....

Source: https://www.naturalnews.com/037153_food_industry_chicken_fil...

peterwwillis2• 8 years ago

I think portion size is the main issue with food quality being a very close second. Even if you "eat healthfully", if you eat too much food, you're still fat.

I went to a restaurant the other night. I ordered chicken marsala. I ate my meal, and when I felt I was getting full I stopped eating. I had two meals worth of food left.

Fat people want more food, so more restaurants put out bigger portions than is healthy. The same is true of prepared and pre-packaged foods. And with high-calorie, salt, fat and carb laden snack foods everywhere you look, you can keep eating all the time, everywhere you go. Find yourself in a place where they don't sell food? Don't worry, here's food made to take everywhere you go, so you can be constantly eating.

nradov7• 8 years ago

There's nothing particularly unhealthy about a little bit of egg yolk, oil (dressing), or bacon. Added sugar in the dressing may be more problematic.

dudul• 8 years ago

Holy shit, this is the scary part to me:

* Percent of adolescents aged 12-19 years with obesity: 20.6% (2013-2014)

* Percent of children aged 6-11 years with obesity: 17.4% (2013-2014)

* Percent of children aged 2-5 years with obesity: 9.4% (2013-2014)

thearn4• 8 years ago

This definitely concerns me as a dad. I need to keep discipline not just for myself, but to set the right example.

maxxxxx4• 8 years ago

Parents are number one. You rarely see overweight children with normal weight parents

maxxxxx4• 8 years ago

It will get worse. You rarely see fat children with skinny parents. But a lot of fat parents have fat kids too. Once these grow up it will be more and more likely that their children will get fat too.

Also when you grow with a lot of fat people around you you don't even know how normal weight looks. I noticed this last time in Paris. I had completely forgotten how normal weight looks.

graeme2• 8 years ago

It's worse even than that. Over 40% of people in France are overweight now - the numbers have increased rapidly over the past 20-30 years.

Paris is leaner than the French average, but you were probably still seeing a population with a fair amount of overweight people. Just, less overweight than what you're used to.

Seeing Paris 110 years ago would be a shock. (On many levels, but certainly on the average body composition level).

I have a book by Georges Hebert, who was an influential fitness instructor in France about 100 years ago. In it, he has pictures of French peasants shirtless, and some African tribesmen and women. They are in a form that today would be considered "unrealistic".

I can't find any of the peasant pictures online, but here are a couple of examples of the Africans:

https://actionlondaise.blogspot.ca/2016/03/georges-hebert-ce...

http://ayeparkour.blogspot.ca/2012/02/tracuers-of-legend-geo...

(The top photo on the second link is Hebert)

foepys• 8 years ago

Is there any country where the percentage of overweight population is decreasing?

dpflan• 8 years ago

Because this article is on the front page and this one about having an active lifestyle is too, I thought to link it here for discussion and reference:

Adopting a more active lifestyle could benefit your personality decades from now (bps.org.uk)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16447654

Avshalom4• 8 years ago

Of course "overweight" has as-good or better long term health outcomes so... Meh?

https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/35/1/55/849914

dj-wonk2• 8 years ago

Thanks for sharing; this line of thinking is too often overlooked.

From the abstract:

National and international health organizations have focused increasingly on a perceived obesity epidemic said to pose drastic threats to public health. Indeed, some medical experts have gone so far as to predict that growing body mass will halt and perhaps even reverse the millennia-long trend of rising human life expectancy.1 In response to such concerns public health agencies across the world have sprung into action, searching for policies or incentives to mitigate the alleged ‘disease’ of obesity.
Yet even as the volume of alarm grows louder, a growing number of researchers, drawn from a broad array of academic disciplines, are calling these claims into question. The authors of this article come from this latter group. In our view the available scientific data neither support alarmist claims about obesity nor justify diverting scarce resources away from far more pressing public health issues. This article evaluates four central claims made by those who are calling for intensifying the war on fat: that obesity is an epidemic; that overweight and obesity are major contributors to mortality; that higher than average adiposity is pathological and a primary direct cause of disease; and that significant long-term weight loss is both medically beneficial and a practical goal. Given the limited scientific evidence for any of these claims, we suggest that the current rhetoric about an obesity-driven health crisis is being driven more by cultural and political factors than by any threat increasing body weight may pose to public health.

SeeDave• 8 years ago

Not very "meh" IMO as obesity, and especially childhood obesity, is a national security issue.

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/policy-dose/articles/20...

Bartweiss3• 8 years ago

This is an interesting paper, particularly the sections on how Americans have gained weight. "Obesity is up!" is much less informative than specifying which populations have gained how much like this does.

That said, the section on health outcomes is not hugely compelling. The "normal weight has worse outcomes" studies (particularly the famous NEJM one) have a significant set of problems.

NEJM simply didn't use the same bucketing as common parlance, so bucketed comparisons (as opposed to BMI ones) are basically meaningless.

More broadly, these studies are generally correlational, which produces serious issues regarding patients suffering from diseases. Eating disorders have very high mortality and often cause low weights, while conditions like cancer and neurodegenerative disease often cause both mortality and low weight. Without correcting for that, you're actually noticing trends like "late stage cancer patients are both skinny and sick".

I'll have to go and dig up references, but I thought the current state of research suggested that among otherwise-healthy patients, especially men in middle age or older, health outcomes noticeably worsened beyond the middle of the overweight category?

Avshalom4• 8 years ago

I mean I don't know what's come out in the last months, that's just the famous one because it's such a large group but you can go poke around Wikipedia all the smaller studies seem to go back and forth though so if there is a negative effect it's probably a weak correlation or a weak effect https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Body_mass_index&i...

Nomentatus2• 8 years ago

Too old by more than half. 2005. The discussion has moved on since. For more recent articles, I went to pubmed.com and entered "obesity longevity review." Four quick highlights:

"Although a recent meta-analysis suggests that overweight individuals have significantly lower overall mortality than normal-weight individuals, these data are likely to be an artifact produced by serious methodological problems, especially confounding by smoking, reverse causation due to existing chronic disease, and nonspecific loss of lean mass and function in the frail elderly." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24628815

"Utilizing novel models of visceral obesity, numerous studies have demonstrated that the relationship between visceral fat and longevity is causal while the accrual of subcutaneous fat does not appear to play an important role in the etiology of disease risk." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23764746

Mexico: "Obesity and overweight have a strong effect on the incidence of T2D;this, combined with the large impact of diabetes on adult mortality, generates increases in mortality that translate into losses of 2 to 3 years of life expectancy at age 50." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26172231

Trend: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24913899

bpicolo2• 8 years ago

Doesn't a 25 BMI seem like kind of a crappy metric for "overweight"? That makes my 6'4" brother "overweight" at like 205 which seems nuts. That doesn't feel overweight at all.

(Defined in the footnote on page 222)

nicolashahn3• 8 years ago

BMI is a terrible metric that's mostly meaningless for anyone not sedentary.

DoreenMichele• 8 years ago

My ex was career army. He had to pass a PT test and pass weight to keep his job. He was a little guy, so he lifted weights to be able to do his job.

When he was on recruiting duty, every year they attended a conference. Every year, there was an insurance guy there. Every year, every one in the office was pronounced overweight according to their height and weight charts.

The army offers a tape test as an alternative if you can't pass weight. It is sometimes necessary to prove that bodybuilders are all muscle. My ex and his office mates were not so muscular that they needed to rely on a tape test. They were still pronounced overweight by the insurance guy every year.

qrbLPHiKpiux• 8 years ago

I got so sick of that bullshit when I was in. Every damn time.

doubletgl• 8 years ago

It's the lower end of "overweight" and also "BMI exaggerates thinness in short people and fatness in tall people". Your brother is most likely fine.

graeme2• 8 years ago

BMI is not meant as an individual health measure. It's a general population measure valid over a large sample size.

6'4" is a statistically rare height. I believe BMI is less valid for the extremely tall and extremely short. That doesn't mean it isn't useful when viewing the whole population.

For an individual, BMI + a waist measure is a better indicator. Your brother probably isn't overweight, unless he has low muscle mass and a large waist - but that individual anecdote does nothing to argue against the population level validity of BMI.

longerthoughts2• 8 years ago

It's a general population measure valid over a large sample size

This assumes a relatively symmetric distribution of heights and weights though, right? I'm curious if the tails for which BMI is individually invalid are equally populated. Basically, are short, fat people as common as tall, thin people?

hervature• 8 years ago

BMI isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination. For example, I'm 5'5'' and weigh 160lbs. Currently trying to get down to 135lbs (which is less than my peak physical form in high school) and people balk at the idea that I can lose that much weight based on my appearance. Funnily, 115lbs is still considered healthy for someone my height. At the end of the day, it is much cheaper to read a scale and a measuring stick than use an expensive DEXA scan to get an accurate measure of body fat percentage.

verteu• 8 years ago

According to [1], obesity classified by DEXA scan agrees with obesity classified by BMI 82% of the time.

Not bad for a metric that can be easily computed at home.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/summer-of-sc...

zaroth4• 8 years ago

If this is based on BMI, I couldn't care less. It's a terrible metric which is not fit for its purpose.

"Obesity is defined as body mass index (BMI) at or above the sex- and age-specific 95th percentile BMI (based on the variable BMXBMI) using cutoff points from the 2000 CDC growth charts for the United States: Methods and development. NCHS. Vital Health Stat 11(246). 2002. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_11/sr11_246.pdf. Excludes pregnant girls."

Almost everyone I know is "overweight" by this metric, which, as it turns out, means they are healthier (in terms of less likely to die from any-cause overall) than their thinner peers.

Show me the bell curve of longevity versus body-fat percentage, and what percentage of Americans are 1-sigma past the right side of the peak of that curve. Even body shape, for example, is a much better indicator of all-cause mortality than BMI. E.g. http://absi-calc.appspot.com/

bpicolo2• 8 years ago

It is, they define overweight as BMI 25+, obese class 1 as BMI 30+

dibujante2• 8 years ago

BMI is a sufficiently sensitive metric for this. BMI can be relied on to confirm overweight/obesity. It cannot be relied on to confirm normal weight (that is to say, if your BMI says you're overweight, you're overweight. If it says you're normal weight, that may or may not be true).

zaroth4• 8 years ago

If you spend 3 months body-building, you will know first-hand that this isn't true.

dumbfounder• 8 years ago

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bmi-is-a-terrible-measu...

mFixman• 8 years ago

The interesting thing is that obesity and overweightness rates are very different between States.

Most coastal States have regular rates among rich countries (albeit still high). 23.1% of Californians are obese, which is a lower rate than France, Ireland, and most of Western Europe.

There's a completely different story in the South, where more than a third of Mississipi's population is obese.

TekMol• 8 years ago

The majority of websites are overweight too.

matte_black2• 8 years ago

IMO the only way for this number to go down is to educate future generations better on nutrition and the importance of taking care of their bodies. I have no faith that the vast majority of people currently overweight will ever weigh much less than what they do today, and studies have backed this up. 95% of people who lose significant weight gain it back after a year. The few stories of people who keep weight off for good does not scale out to the general population. Indeed, it still seems the best way to lose weight is to go back in time and never gain it in the first place. It is never too early to talk to your children about responsible food consumption.

nicolashahn3• 8 years ago

Anyone have statistics on what % of those overweight adults are actually healthy, or at least have an acceptable body fat %? Many athletes and weightlifters would be considered overweight by BMI due to muscle mass. And according to the "Adults" PDF, that's the metric they're using. It's probably not a large percentage but I get ticked off a bit to know that you can be in the "overweight" BMI category and have clearly defined abs.

I've also noticed that the muscle-building culture is much, much smaller in the rest of the world than America. So while I'm sure we have a lot more fat people, we also have a lot more buff people, both of which are contributing to this percentage.

toasterlovin5• 8 years ago

I fall into the group you mention. BMI of 34, which makes me obese, but not, you now, actually obese. That being said, serious weight lifters and large athletes are not a meaningful % of population.

stevekemp• 8 years ago

"Healthy" is such a nebulous term it is hard to reply in a serious fashion.

Many HAES-advocates, for example, would claim they're extremely healthy despite weighing 300lbs+. Any poor effects are just coincidental, and the weight is not a cause.

The best way of discovering how healthy somebody is? Perform an autopsy. Beyond reporting on aches, pains, lumps, worn out joints, the simple fact is people can appear very healthy right until they drop dead. Blood tests, CT-scans, etc, can be used to look at very narrow metrics, but they don't tell give a useful "healthy vs. non-healthy" response.

LinuxBender• 8 years ago

What is the deepest most complete diagnostics we can run on humans without them having to be dead? I would be interested in such a lab exercise even if it cost a lot.

jriot• 8 years ago

I would fall into this category. I am 5'11", weighing 220lbs, which equates to a BMI of 30.7. My hobby is powerlifting, 1,300 lbs total.

I have a clean diet, but do eat a heavy animal fat diet. Though all my meat comes from a local small farm e.g., I was able to watch the pig grow from a baby to right before it was slaughtered. I saw them feed the pigs (6 in total) 15 gallons of goats milk etc...

The beef I got was done a similar matter but a slightly larger farm - which was grass finished. While I eat a meat heavy diet, I feel great, the best I have in my entire life (I am 32 years old).

I also tested my cardio recently via swimming and I was able to swim 500 yards in 11 minutes. Not breaking records but felt good enough. Though I did notice swimming is more form and I basically muscle my way through the water i.e., I don't have good swim form.

Could I loose some weight? I am certain I could and probably be a little healthier. However, the feeling of being strong is incredible and I don't wish to give that up.

nradov7• 8 years ago

Very few athletes are actually overweight. The Olympics are on TV right now. How many of the competitors look overweight to you? Even in America only a tiny fraction of the population is really "buff"; they have a negligible impact on the overall percentage.

nicolashahn3• 8 years ago

My point is that those competitors ARE classified as overweight by BMI.

Don't forget that muscle is denser than fat - a flabby 169lb is going to have more body volume than a fit 169lb.

Any muscular sprinting/non-endurance athlete is probably going to be classified as overweight.

Here's something to think about: spindly Usain Bolt is 6'4" and 207lbs - which puts him at just over edge of "overweight" which is 25 BMI.

https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmi...

scarface743• 8 years ago

How many of these people are actually "overweight" as far as health and how many are "overweight" according to BMI?

When I was in the best shape of my life from my mid 20s to my mid 30s, working out 12 hours a week (part time fitness instructor and a runner) with a body fat of 12% (measured with calipers) and a 29-30 inch waist, I was according to the BMI calculations 30 pounds overweight. Even now weighing 10 pounds more and I'm considered "obese", I wear a size 30 regular cut pants.

Where exactly am I suppose to lose 40 pounds from? Realistically, I need to lose about 15.

dj-wonk2• 8 years ago

There are big problems with BMI. Here is just one article on the topic: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265215.php

Another, broader question is this: what are the health impacts of various body compositions?

See also "Medical Myths Doctors Believe":

https://www.amazon.com/Medical-Doctors-Believe-Michael-Ancho...

gameswithgo• 8 years ago

Where exactly am I suppose to lose 40 pounds from?

At your best shape you still had 5% lower you could go on your bodyfat, assuming you are male. It can be rather stricking, I used to be 208lbs and didn't feel like I was overweight at all. Got into endurance sport and dropped to as low as 165. (normally hover around 175 now that I'm not hardcore about it) I can look at pictures and see now where it went, but couldn't have imagined it before.

I think a lot of people in America suffer from skewed expectations. The kind of body mass that is healthy is perceived as sickly and unrealistic at this point. Yet it used to be common, or is common in other parts of the world.

Kluny• 8 years ago

There are a couple different calculations you can use. Here's a good calculator I found. http://www.calculator.net/ideal-weight-calculator.html

It tells me that my correct weight according to BMI is anywhere from 118 to 159. Now, I know if I weight 159lbs, I'd be fat. 118 doesn't seem especially healthy to me either - I'm at my lowest weight ever right now, 128lb, and my clothes are hanging off me like I'm a skeleton. All the other calculations are telling me 134-138 are right for me, which matches my normal weight. I think I'm down right now because I've been weight training and not taking in enough extra calories to gain weight, but if I lose any more weight than this I'm gonna start chugging olive oil or something. No way am I going down to 118.

lotsofpulp• 8 years ago

I know it's anecdotal, but from NY to FL to TX to CA, I don't find myself commonly walking amongst people who are too fit to throw off BMI.

jcadam• 8 years ago

Yes, applied to large populations it can be a useful measure. Applied to individuals, it's fairly useless.

antisthenes2• 8 years ago

What's your weight and height?

scarface743• 8 years ago

5" 5 - 185. Like I said. I know I need to lose 10-15 pounds.

nradov7• 8 years ago

Caliper measurements are notorious for underestimating actual body fat percentage. If you can afford $50 it's worth getting a DXA scan to accurately measure composition.

scarface743• 8 years ago

True. But they are much better than the body fat instruments that you hold in your hand or the scales that are suppose to measure it.

throwthisawayt3• 8 years ago

I work in health tech and I genuinely believe that this is an endemic problem that can’t be solved by a startup. It is a social issue approaching a health crisis and we need to have our policy, educator, and parents addressing this. While private industry can help, the ultimate responsibility lies with our democracy.

nnutter• 8 years ago

29.3% of US adults are underweight

arikr4• 8 years ago

This seems directly related to diet.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesi...

cproctor• 8 years ago

And it's changing quickly. Here's the same statistic from the last 30 years:

1988–1994 54.9

1999–2000 64.1

2001–2002 65.6

2003–2004 66.5

2005–2006 67.3

2007–2008 68.3

2009–2010 69.2

2011–2012 69.0

2013–2014 70.7

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2016/053.pdf

eikenberry• 8 years ago

In case anyone else is curious about their definition of overweight. Found it in the paper.

    Overweight is defined as body mass index (BMI) greater than or equal to 25, based on the NHANES variable, Body Mass Index.

martingordon• 8 years ago

When you're poor, you prioritize calories over nutrition, and Americans are becoming increasingly "poor". From https://twitter.com/hugwins/status/963282840292032512?lang=e...:

When you are in a place where it's eat food that gives you no vitamins, no protein, no micronutrients, etcetera, or eat food that does not give you enough basic breakdown of glucose to get your body through another day, you do not have the luxury

pascalxus5• 8 years ago

But McDonalds and fast foods are much more expensive than healthy foods like rice, beans, rolled oats and potatoes, onions (all can be had for less than 1$ per pound). They should allow people to purchase those foods, and maybe even publish a guide on how to stretch each dollar farther.

as i said before, Beans especially are very well balanced, super high in fiber, protein and micronutrients.

watwut3• 8 years ago

I can't feed yourself on onions. And diet based on rice and potatos is not all that better for you. And you have to know hoe to prepare these so that they are remotely tasty.

dsfyu404ed• 8 years ago

Time is money.

NiklasMort• 8 years ago

time to invest into some diabetes meds pharma stocks

nostromo• 8 years ago

While this might be true, the CDCs “healthy weight” ranges are laughably inaccurate for anyone that does weight resistance training. And in my circle of friends, this is becoming the more common form of working out.

The CDC calculations basically assume 100% of us are sedentary.

longerthoughts2• 8 years ago

If you read the fine print you'll see they're using BMI to determine if people are overweight or obese. BMI is a tragically flawed metric (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265215.php) and I would approach the 70.7% figure with caution. The more compelling story in the stats is the trend showing a gradual rise from 54.9% in the period between 1988-1994 to the more current figure of 70.7% in the period between 2013-2014. I'm skeptical of the raw figures given issues with BMI but highly doubt such a massive increase came from US adults getting significantly taller or more muscular (both factors that can inflate BMI for healthy individuals).

dexwiz• 8 years ago

These numbers aren’t shocking. Many people are “casually” fat, meaning they carry an extra 30-40lbs around their gut. Probably accumulated slowly by 2-3lbs a year. They don’t fit the classic image of an obese person but they are obese according to BMI.

I moved to SF which is a relatively fit city. Going back home in the Midwest I am shocked by the number of people who are overweight. Fat is normalized there. It wasn’t until I lived in a health conscious area and checked my own BMI that I realized how skewed my image of a healthy person was. In the Midwest if you are active you are considered healthy, even if you are overweight. It’s not until you are 100lbs overweight are you considered fat. And this doesn’t even touch the HAES mentality.

yodsanklai3• 8 years ago

As a non-american, I'm wondering how a fit person is considered in the midwest? Is it seen as a good trait or rather something odd?

TheAdamAndChe3• 8 years ago

I live in Missouri. Response to fit people is highly variable, and seems to depend on the family. Some fat families here seem to see fit people with jealousy, not understanding how they stay so thin. Others just don't seem to care about their obesity and think of normal sized people as abnormal, like their sense of what is normal is completely shifted. Yet others are ashamed of their obesity, yet none of their attempts to change seem to work.

Mating behavior here seems to follow the norm. Fat people tend to date/marry fat people, and healthy people mostly stick with other healthy people.

tdb7893• 8 years ago

As a fit Midwesterner it's seen as good (and it made dating easier). There are plenty of fit Midwesterners so being fit in the Midwest isn't weird at all in my experience

Bartweiss3• 8 years ago

It's not necessarily odd - obesity rates are high, but not so high that a healthy weight is exceptional. Being generally muscular or trim isn't a negative, and probably isn't going to get anyone dismissed as a fitness nut.

That said, an average to low-normal BMI can certainly get comments. I'm smack in the middle of the healthy BMI range, and not exceptionally muscular or anything else that would distort that. Living in and visiting friends in flyover country I get comments like "you're too skinny", "you need to eat more", and so on. No one is particularly judging me, there's just a shifted sense of average where BMI ~21 feels like the low end of the range.

(And of course they're not exactly wrong; eating Midwestern food and living in a driving-centric suburb had the predictable effect on my weight, so on some level thinner people there are behaving unusually.)

kstenerud• 8 years ago

I've lived in San Francisco and I've lived in Europe, and while SF isn't quite as bad as other places in the USA (for example, Philadelphia), I was still shocked at how fat everyone was.

notadoc2• 8 years ago

Yes, you can see that quite clearly with any trip into a public space. But 70% is a low estimate for many parts of the country. And morbid obesity is becoming extremely common as well.

Obesity and the fat epidemic will bankrupt the US health care system.

Sooner than later, weight must be tied directly to out-of-pocket health care costs, via premiums, taxation, tax credits, or some other financial incentive and/or penalty combination for horrendous lifestyle decisions. Maybe go the Japanese route with a metabo law too. Obviously merely being an unhealthy glutton with high disease propensity and increased mortality is not a motivator for the majority of populace, so make them pay for their bad choices the same way someone who speeds frequently pays higher car insurance.

Azeat• 8 years ago

Some here say nutritional misinformation is one of the primary culprits, however, the reality is if you go tell someone "stop drinking soda, it's unhealthy", they will tell you "I don't care."

If people are not motivated to eat healthy, what are you supposed to do? Perhaps this goes back to educating your family on healthy eating, consequently if everyone were doing that, we'd see a trend of increased concern for healthy eating.

xinyhn• 8 years ago

I am certainly not suggesting it's the right answer but in threads like these rarely do I see industrial seed oils with high omega-6 polyunsaturated fat content being suggested as a culprit. The use in food correlates as well as anything else that is being suggested with the rise in obesity rates and metabolic conditions.

CryoLogic• 8 years ago

Maintaining healthy weight cuts your risk for an enormous amount of fatal illnesses including stroke, heart attacks, and many types of cancer.

Want lower blood pressure? Lower your weight.

Want higher testosterone and lower estrogen? Lower your weight.

Want lower cholesterol? Lower your weight.

Lower diabetes risk? Lower your weight.

Healthier gallblader, liver and kidneys? Lower your weight.

Reduce back pain? Lower your weight.

Aid sleep apnea? Lower your weight.

codedokode2• 8 years ago

I think it is important to diffirentiate between people who are born with overweight body and cannot do anything with it and people who would have normal weight but are gaining it because of unhealthy food or lifestyle. Sadly, the page doesn't have such a table.

Kevin_S2• 8 years ago

As I understand it, the idea that people are "naturally" overweight and cannot change that is a complete myth with no scientific backing.

In some cases, certain diseases/medications can cause a very small weight gain but nothing significant.

codedokode2• 8 years ago

Yes, I don't know if it is checked scientifically, but people have different figures. If we take several people of the same height and age and will give them the same food and the same amount of physical load, they still will have different body mass.

_Codemonkeyism2• 8 years ago

What I didn't know until recently, is how juice and fruits make you take on more fat [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose#Cardiometabolic_disea...

RobLach• 8 years ago

I think this one chart explains the situation succinctly.

https://s9.postimg.org/vue47ugq7/image.jpg

mcfunk• 8 years ago

We're not doing enough to understand the environmental factors in a trend like this. As fashionable as it is for each generation to shit on the next, "will power" is clearly not explanatory for a shift of this magnitude.

I have to wonder if our sedentary lifestyle, processed foods (with additives examined under an ignorant lens), stress (income inequality, constant stimulation, glowing objects being the center of our lives), are wrecking our microbiomes and other broader systems from a VERY young age, or causing other systems-level changes that make it hard to correct with behavior changes in adulthood.

Because ultimately, even when people get educated, get active, eat better, etc -- the trends aren't reversing.

deviationblue• 8 years ago

I have a very unpopular opinion on this: if someone is overweight, and isn't sick or malfunctioning in any way that negatively impacts themselves, their loved ones, or society, then who gives a shit?

The libertarian and contrarian in me doesn't care what someone weighs, or how they choose to life. So extrapolating to a larger population, or society, I still fail to see how being collectively overweight is a negative in and of itself if there were no damaging burdens created because of that.

In fact, I think we need to subset the 70.7% population to weed out the "innocously fat".

Kevin_S2• 8 years ago

Being overweight is bad for your individual health.

We know certain things in society have an impact on how overweight people get.

Identifying and fixing those things is worthwhile.

No one is insinuating that we should force people to become fit or anything, as you imply here.

antisthenes2• 8 years ago

Being overweight has a plethora of scientific evidence as being bad for you. I'm not going to re-cite the last 50 years of medical publications if that's what you're expecting.

Extrapolating it to society means that healthy people have to subsidize the unhealthy, so it's extremely unfair to those who chose to invest in their health. So being 'contrarian' in this context is just being wrong, ignoring evidence and contributing nothing to the discussion.

ajcodez• 8 years ago

It also sucks to frequently throw out spoiled produce. If you live alone or with roommates, go to restaurants, etc chances are nearly half the produce will go bad. It's not expensive so much as disheartening.

JackFr• 8 years ago

Real question here (US specific) -- how do the subsidies work, that they make corn cheaper, and milk more expensive? Are they truly both subsidies or is one another form of intervention that causes a different market result?

always_good5• 8 years ago

We have some bizarre cultural hangups around food in our country, that's for sure.

I was made fun of at lunch in my youth for bringing things like whole carrots and canned garbanzo beans and turnips/radishes.

b3b0p• 8 years ago

Maybe it's not a problem, but I don't think it helps is when asking and/or researching what to go do, enjoy, see, explore, experience when traveling or moving to a new city. The most common responses almost exclusively and only mention food and local places to eat or drink. As if it's the only thing to do and enjoy? Anyone else notice this or is it just me?

I don't know about other people, but I only spend a small percentage of my day actually eating, needing, or hungry enough to sit down and eat. I've got a whole day not including sleep to do so much more! Food is good, but I want to have some fun, see things, explore, meet people, relax and not eat.

Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

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