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Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

cdc.gov

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Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#141

Post by zaroth »

adrr wrote: post #61
izietto wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

It may be true that these ingredients are available in certain markets for those prices, but that isn't accounting for a significant portion of the true overall cost of healthful eating.

Healthy food tends to spoil, and if you're not able to go shopping multiple times a week and have unpredictable availability for meal preparation, you're going to see a lot of spoilage. If 30% of your fresh produce ultimately spoils, your actual cost is 43% higher.

Healthy food requires a degree of planning and execution which takes time and focus. Finding healthy options which are appealing for 3x meals a day is a lot of work if you aren't happy with 1 or 2 standbys every day.

Healthy food is extremely hard to find on the go. If you don't have a kitchen at your disposal generally you are shit out of luck for finding something that is truly healthy. So for example, the quality of my diet is highly inversely correlated with the amount of travel I am doing in a given month.

Making unhealthy choices more expensive through taxes is extremely regressive for many of these reasons.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#142

Post by SeeDave »

Avshalom wrote: post #22

Of course "overweight" has as-good or better long term health outcomes so... Meh? https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/35/1/55/849914

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...

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#143

Post by westiseast »

protonimitate wrote: post #45
3pt14159 wrote: post #8

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 wor…

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…

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.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#144

Post by matte_black »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #123
wjn0 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Highly effective and widely prescribed.

What do the meta-studies have to say about statins and life expectancy? Back then, before we had statins we had clofibrate. It decreased cholesterol levels just fine but overall mortality went up. Also, why isn't dietary adjustment the first-line treatment for high cholesterol?

Because changing human behavior is much more difficult than just making people take a pill.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#145

Post by pascalxus »

martingordon wrote: post #71

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 l…

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.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#146

Post by ghaff »

RealityVoid wrote: post #116
bogomipz wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"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…

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)

56% (22%+34%). Which is indeed lower than 70% but also note that the 70% is very unevenly distributed across states.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#147

Post by _Codemonkeyism »

mamon wrote: post #126
adrr wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>> Most vegetables are less than $3 a pound. And you call that cheap.... In my country most vegetables cost below 1$ per kilogram, which is 6 times cheaper. I think this has to do with EU policy of subsidies for farmers.

"most vegetables cost below 1$ per kilogram"

I haven't seen 0.80 EUR/kg in Germany for vegetables, so I wonder where you live. I've assumed vegetables are rather cheap in Germany due to very high competition. Lettuce is around $1.85 a piece, carrots are 1 EUR/kg or 1.50 EUR/kg when organic. Karfiol is 2 EUR/kg here.

The cheapest discounters (Aldi) are little bit cheaper.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#148

Post by lobster_johnson »

izietto wrote: post #20
3pt14159 wrote: post #8

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 wor…

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.

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.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#150

Post by poulsbohemian »

0942v8653 wrote: post #78
izietto wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.…

I completely agree, but my thoughts are that it is biology in action -- people crave fats and sugars, and by themselves rice, beans, etc don't have much flavor. Or, the average American's palate has become so conditioned to sugar that they think those things don't have flavor. They have also been conditioned to think of meat as the go-to source for protein. Plus, frankly, there is a stigma of "rice and beans" being poor people food or even "ethnic" food in some circles, Ie: compare a meat / potato / bread heavy "traditional" American diet.
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