Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

cdc.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 271 posts

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#191

Post by ghaff »

izietto wrote: post #152
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.

I partially agree with you guys substaining that there were cheap healthy things, but for my experience they were exceptions. I could find very rarely vegetables at affordable price and at decent quality together. Or they were cheap, or they were decent. And a head of lettuce at 2$ is a high price. As exceptions examples, avocados were good and cheap.

>avocados were good and cheap

Maybe in California. Certainly not in the eastern US.

Canned vegetables are usually not very nutritious but a lot of frozen vegetables are pretty cheap year-round as well.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#192

Post by aaron-lebo »

whoisjuan wrote: post #180
aaron-lebo wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Dude. It's pretty easy to say that. You're educated and you definitely understand well the implications of sugar consumption. It's easy to imply this just because of your presence here. Someone uneducated will not understand this well. It's not about being stupid or being poor either. You don't hear people blaming their problems on sugar... I consume sugar products because they are delicious (dopamine release). Howev…

I have uneducated friends, they aren't stupid.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#193

Post by mcfunk »

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.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#194

Post by nkkollaw »

RightMillennial wrote: post #164
nkkollaw wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mo…

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.

Yes because in European bakeries they might add butter to make it taste good, but in America no one would buy it because it wouldn't say "fat-free", so they add sugar.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#195

Post by poulsbohemian »

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…

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.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#196

Post by deviationblue »

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".

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#197

Post by jcadam »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #174
scarface74 wrote: post #43

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…

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.

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

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#198

Post by Brybry »

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'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.

Re: Obesity and Overweight Prevalence for the U.S

#199

Post by peterwwillis »

Joeri wrote: post #106
CharlesMerriam2 wrote: post #11

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.

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.

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.

Post reply on HN