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More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

diabetes.co.uk

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Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

#11

Post by andygcook »

BMI isn't a reliable indicator to gauge obesity. For example, Tom Brady at 6' 4" and 225 lbs is considered overweight, which is obviously not the case.

That being said, as an American, it really did shock me how fit the majority of people were in Italy when I visited there for the first time last year.

This New England Journal of Medicine chart really does a good job of showing that America has gotten heavier over the years: https://www.nejm.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/mms/jour...

Source: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1909301

Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

#12

Post by symlinkk »

Isn’t it strange how the only way to eat healthy food in America is to cook it yourself?

Every fast food restaurant is unhealthy. Most sit down restaurants are unhealthy.

I can pay someone to change my oil, I can pay someone to cut my grass, but for some reason cooking healthy food, the most essential service, is difficult to find.

Why has our economy failed us in this sector specifically?

Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

#13

Post by atom-morgan »

symlinkk wrote: post #12

Isn’t it strange how the only way to eat healthy food in America is to cook it yourself? Every fast food restaurant is unhealthy. Most sit down restaurants are unhealthy. I can pay someone to change my oil, I can pay someone to cut my grass, but for some reason cooking healthy food, the most essential service, is difficult to find. Why has our economy failed us in this sector specifically?

Lack of demand I'm guessing. Within cities it's much easier to find healthier food at restaurants.

Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

#14

Post by sjg007 »

symlinkk wrote: post #12

Isn’t it strange how the only way to eat healthy food in America is to cook it yourself? Every fast food restaurant is unhealthy. Most sit down restaurants are unhealthy. I can pay someone to change my oil, I can pay someone to cut my grass, but for some reason cooking healthy food, the most essential service, is difficult to find. Why has our economy failed us in this sector specifically?

You can do healthy meal delivery plans or for the really rich, hire a chef. The healthy for life plans are quite good. I lost weight on them.

Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

#17

Post by OminousWeapons »

Clubber wrote: post #2

Using the BMI to gauge obeseness of a population is very lazy and disingenuous.

Oh come on. I'm overweight by BMI behind lifting, but take a trip outside a coastal city and you will find that the number of people in similar positions amounts to rounding error in the general population.

Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

#18

Post by kbenson »

Clubber wrote: post #2

Using the BMI to gauge obeseness of a population is very lazy and disingenuous.

Yeah, I just worked backwards from the metrics they provided and at my height I would have to be under 165 lbs to not be considered overweight. In high school I weighed about 180, and was not overweight in the slightest. I had a six-pack, and was fairly active. Yet my BMI suggests I was half-way through the overweight range on my way to obese? That seems somewhat ridiculous.

Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

#19

Post by Clubber »

annirun wrote: post #10
Clubber wrote: post #2

Using the BMI to gauge obeseness of a population is very lazy and disingenuous.

Accurate body fat tests either require expensive equipment or training to use. The inaccurate method those cheap bathroom scales use would probably be good enough to detect trends but if we're just going to detect trends: why not stick with BMI that's accurate enough for that purpose and way cheaper/easier to use? There aren't that many people with overweight BMIs that aren't overweight. Maybe it could be slightly be…

>Accurate body fat tests either require expensive equipment or training to use.

I agree, that's why I think it's lazy and disingenuous. Look how much we fund global warming research. But when it comes to calling something a "national health crisis," we don't even bother and take something invented around the time of Andrew Jackson's administration. Good enough, right?

>There aren't that many people with overweight BMIs that aren't overweight.

How many people would you estimate have overweight BMI's aren't overweight? How are you even defining overweight? See how it's a soft metric? Countries basing taxation and policy on this stuff.

You are overweight and part of the national health crisis, period. No discussion because the BMI doesn't allow it.

Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese

#20

Post by orwin »

Clubber wrote: post #2

Using the BMI to gauge obeseness of a population is very lazy and disingenuous.

I disagree.

Using BMI to gauge the obesity of an individual is lazy, but for a population, its quite okay.

How many people are more than 6'5" in a population? How many athletes? And even athletes sometime are overweight! A 6'5", 29 BMI NFL LB might be healthy, but the 32 BMI lineman with the same size will have the same problem as obese people once he's 35, discounting injuries.

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