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The Average American Man Is Too Fat for Universal’s New Mario Kart Ride

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Re: The Average American Man Is Too Fat for Universal’s New Mario Kart Ride

#11

Post by paulpauper »

The Mario Kart ride restricts anyone with a 40 inch waist or larger from riding. According to the CDC, the average American man's waist is 40.5 inches, which means most American men would be excluded from the ride. The average American woman's waist is 38.7 inches.

wtf. I remember being a 38 and that was pretty big and fat. I am now down to a 31. The obesity situation is worse than I thought. I wonder where the limit is? How much bigger will people get? A lot of engineering is based on the assumption that most humans fit within a certain distribution of weight, having to constantly raise this mean incurs many unforeseen costs and consequences.

Re: The Average American Man Is Too Fat for Universal’s New Mario Kart Ride

#12

Post by djtriptych »

elromulous wrote: post #8
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #4

Wow, the linked CDC page in the article says the average American male over age 20 is 5'9" and 200 lbs. That gives a BMI of 29.5, while obesity is defined as >30. Pretty amazing.

But also BMI is a crap metric, since it doesn't account for percent fat / muscle.

if you're 5'9" / 200lbs you'd better be a powerlifter to be considered fit.

Re: The Average American Man Is Too Fat for Universal’s New Mario Kart Ride

#13

Post by pigsty »

elromulous wrote: post #8
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #4

Wow, the linked CDC page in the article says the average American male over age 20 is 5'9" and 200 lbs. That gives a BMI of 29.5, while obesity is defined as >30. Pretty amazing.

But also BMI is a crap metric, since it doesn't account for percent fat / muscle.

If you’re the type of person where BMI is irrelevant, you’ll know. But the average American is not doing 300 lb bench presses, and the average person doing 300 lb bench presses is also aware that BMI is meaningless for their case but a somewhat fair reference for others.

Re: The Average American Man Is Too Fat for Universal’s New Mario Kart Ride

#14

Post by JesusLovesEwe »

elromulous wrote: post #8
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #4

Wow, the linked CDC page in the article says the average American male over age 20 is 5'9" and 200 lbs. That gives a BMI of 29.5, while obesity is defined as >30. Pretty amazing.

But also BMI is a crap metric, since it doesn't account for percent fat / muscle.

You need to go for a walk to do some people-watching if you think there's an epidemic of lean Americans with bulging muscles. Visit a Walmart.

Re: The Average American Man Is Too Fat for Universal’s New Mario Kart Ride

#16

Post by benatkin »

ianburrell wrote: post #5

Another example of confusing mean and median. The CDC is reporting the mean waist size. But the article talks about the “average man” and “most men” wouldn’t fit. That is the median. Waist may be normal distribution like height which means they are close. But I think the distribution may be unbalanced with limit on low weight but none on high.

I don't see an issue. The headline says average and that normally means mean, not median. It also doesn't say that half of people are excluded from it.

People reading the article are used to hearing about the average household credit card debt in the USA, and that's also the mean.

Edit: I missed the most men part. Other than that it's fine. That would be like if those credit card debt stories said that "most households have more than $7000 in credit card debt" if the average household credit card debt was found to be $7,486 like it was earlier this year: https://thehill.com/finance/3821799-a-growing-number-of-amer.... That would sound wrong to me, and it is.

Re: The Average American Man Is Too Fat for Universal’s New Mario Kart Ride

#17

Post by photochemsyn »

ianburrell wrote: post #5

Another example of confusing mean and median. The CDC is reporting the mean waist size. But the article talks about the “average man” and “most men” wouldn’t fit. That is the median. Waist may be normal distribution like height which means they are close. But I think the distribution may be unbalanced with limit on low weight but none on high.

Yes, this keeps coming up on HN. It's a bimodal distribution, so if 85% of the population can ride on your ride, it's still a solid business proposition.

Re: The Average American Man Is Too Fat for Universal’s New Mario Kart Ride

#18

Post by Someone1234 »

elromulous wrote: post #8
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #4

Wow, the linked CDC page in the article says the average American male over age 20 is 5'9" and 200 lbs. That gives a BMI of 29.5, while obesity is defined as >30. Pretty amazing.

But also BMI is a crap metric, since it doesn't account for percent fat / muscle.

CDC's usage of BMI is what it was designed for: To measure populations/as a generalization.

Your retort is something people repeat, because they don't seem to grasp that originally the point of the retort was when people are using BMI to discuss individuals (wrong) rather than populations (correct). This is the correct usage.

But ultimately there's little data supporting the supposition that Americans have so much muscle they're incorrectly categorized via BMI over population level samples, whereas there is plenty of data suggesting that since the 1970s and the subsidization of corn-created sugar, that Americans have gained body fat.

Re: The Average American Man Is Too Fat for Universal’s New Mario Kart Ride

#19

Post by Ariarule »

ianburrell wrote: post #5

Another example of confusing mean and median. The CDC is reporting the mean waist size. But the article talks about the “average man” and “most men” wouldn’t fit. That is the median. Waist may be normal distribution like height which means they are close. But I think the distribution may be unbalanced with limit on low weight but none on high.

Why speculate? _Anthropometric Reference Data for Children and Adults_, Table 20 "Waist circumference in centimeters for adult males aged 20 and over and number of examined persons, mean, standard error of the mean, and selected percentiles, by race and Hispanic origin and age: United States, 2015–2018" is right at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_03/sr03-046-508.pdf

The mean in the very first row is 102.9 cm (the 40.5 inches in the OP), while the 50th percentile is actually lower at 101.8 (39.7 inches).

Re: The Average American Man Is Too Fat for Universal’s New Mario Kart Ride

#20

Post by jdeisenberg »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #10
elromulous wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But also BMI is a crap metric, since it doesn't account for percent fat / muscle.

BMI may be a crap metric for individuals, but not for large population samples. I guarantee you that nearly half of American men aren't at obese-level BMIs because bodybuilders are somehow making a dent in the numbers.

Some interesting information about the BMI in this opinion piece: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106268... (Top 10 Reasons Why The BMI Is Bogus)
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