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Adult Obesity Facts

cdc.gov

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Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#31

Post by echelon »

rjbwork wrote: post #2

We've designed our cities, suburbs, food industry, and society such that the average person is at least overweight, nearing obese. If the average person suffers from what should be an anomaly, perhaps it is less a personal failing than a societal failing and we should try to fix the societal problems generating the poor outcome.

People love to rail on suburbs, but I'd be willing to bet that sugar is the real problem.

Sugar is in everything. Snacks, restaurant food, drinks, sauces. It puts the metabolism into a bad state and desensitizes the body to its deleterious effects. Before you know it you're overweight, mentally foggy, and pre-diabetic. Not a good place to start working out or going for outdoor activities.

People exercise and walk more when they have energy to do so. Sugar saps that away.

Look at people in other "confined" spaces: submarines, ships, the space station. These people are not overweight for lack of walking.

It's diet.

America is pumped full of sugar.

edit to respond to comments (since I'm flagged / rate limited) :

Someone with a healthy body and mind won't "sit on their ass 23 hours a day". They won't consume too many calories, either.

Sugar pushes the body into more lethargy and higher sugar consumption.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#32

Post by SCUSKU »

I have been theorizing that the reason the US has had the most deaths from COVID has been because our population is mostly obese. Of course there are other failings, such as people being uninsured and as a result not wanting to go to hospitals. Or people not wanting to wear masks or take vaccines. But when obesity triples the likelihood of being hospitalized, it's no wonder that the US suffered the greatest death toll from COVID. [1]

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/obesity-and-covid-19.html

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#34

Post by sam0x17 »

sharkmerry wrote: post #8

Is this solely done based on BMI? Some of you may know that BMI can be wildly inaccurate. (this guy is technically obese on BMI scale - https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=153207891 ) I wonder if we would find better connections between disease and "weight" with body fat % or similar measure.

Yeah I doubt the obesity pandemic in the U.S. is really just a bunch of bros have had sick gains.

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#35

Post by gbrown »

echelon wrote: post #7

We need to stop putting sugar in everything. That's the root cause of most of our problems. It's not just industrialized preprocessed and prepackaged food, because restaurants are guilty of this too. I don't buy the "cars and suburbs" as a root cause argument. People would be less sedentary if they felt healthier and more energetic. Sugar is the problem.

> I don't buy the "cars and suburbs" as a root cause argument

Why? I didn’t think the connection between infrastructure and transportation was particularly controversial. Also, real world problems often have multiple causes…

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#36

Post by unyttigfjelltol »

The numbers start in 1999 because the previous year the CDC arbitrarily changed its criteria for healthy weight, by dictat rendering swaths of the population overweight[1] For the elderly at least, being somewhat overweight is actually healthier.[2] I appreciate that the authors of the article are trying to be helpful but too much useful information is left on the cutting room floor here.

[1] http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9806/17/weight.guidelines/

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3182070/

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#37

Post by newaccount2021 »

sharkmerry wrote: post #8

Is this solely done based on BMI? Some of you may know that BMI can be wildly inaccurate. (this guy is technically obese on BMI scale - https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=153207891 ) I wonder if we would find better connections between disease and "weight" with body fat % or similar measure.

Don't worry, the CDC is surely working hard on a new fat measure that makes fewer people feel bad

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#38

Post by maerF0x0 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #6
rjbwork wrote: post #2

We've designed our cities, suburbs, food industry, and society such that the average person is at least overweight, nearing obese. If the average person suffers from what should be an anomaly, perhaps it is less a personal failing than a societal failing and we should try to fix the societal problems generating the poor outcome.

> we should try to fix the societal problems generating the poor outcome What would this look like policywise?

Michael Pollan (in his cooked netflix show) has pointed out that the cost of "junk food" has been heavily subsidized (eg corn subsidy), but fresh produce has not. Subsequently the consumer price of each has fallen, or risen a lot, respectively.

One policy choice (amongst many required) could be to stop subsidizing the inputs to junk food.

Another policy I've heard talked about by Joel Salatin is that a lot of low processed foods are getting crushed by regulation because the cost/barriers are very high and demand scale/volume. For example poultry processing is only feasible on a massive scale because of regulation policies like (paraphrased) "there must be a dedicated washroom onsite for the inspector to use". That makes no sense if you only process 10000 birds a year (something like $100k of gross market value).

Re: Adult Obesity Facts

#39

Post by woodruffw »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #6
rjbwork wrote: post #2

We've designed our cities, suburbs, food industry, and society such that the average person is at least overweight, nearing obese. If the average person suffers from what should be an anomaly, perhaps it is less a personal failing than a societal failing and we should try to fix the societal problems generating the poor outcome.

> we should try to fix the societal problems generating the poor outcome What would this look like policywise?

We can probably look at large cities for appropriate policy here: increased investment in pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, localized access to fresh groceries (eliminating food deserts), and investment in public parks and other facilities.

NYC's obesity rate is half of the nation's; we could still do better, but it's a starting point.

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