I still remember driving through some small town in Arizona 10 years ago, and I couldn't find a single non-obese person there. Not just overweight, full on obese. Parents, kids, everyone. It was the one of the most bizarre experiences I've had, as a visitor. Cities are not that bad though, but I'm sure many rural parts are close to 100%.
More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese
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Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese
#32BMI 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 th…
It goes the other way too. You might have a BMI in the "healthy" range, but actually have an unhealthy amount of body fat [0]. Of course, nobody puts themselves in this category.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index#/media/File:Co...
Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese
#33Isn’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?
> 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? Because it's incredibly inefficient for a chef to cook a meal for a family, because people want their food to arrive warm, thus preventing factory-food-production, because delivery is expensive,…
Fat and salt are both critical for your health.
Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese
#34In the US there are many highly processed foods with little fiber and added sugar.
Nutrition fact labels can be very misleading. e.g.: showing nutrition facts per certain some arbitrary amount of weight, or having multiple servings per container, which is misleading if it's an individual serving container.
e.g.: Oreo serving size is 2 cookies. Who opens a pack of oreos only to eat 2 of them? nobody.
Many occupations do not involve physical activity, and nowadays many day to day activities also do not involve physical activity.
Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese
#35BMI 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 th…
Same Paris, metro gates would simply filter out three quarters of population if installed in US.
Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese
#36Isn’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?
Maybe eating out every day isn't the best idea.
Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese
#37BMI 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 th…
Why, how many Americans have the figure of Tom Brady? Is that number big enough to have a meaningful impact on average BMIs?
I don’t understand why everyone is so quite to dismiss BMI based on edge cases, especially when the finding is backed up by your other evidence.
Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese
#38Is "healthy at every size" still a fringe movement, or is it gaining more social acceptance?
"Body positivity" is -- inadvertently for the most part -- insidious. Of course, don't make fun of overweight people for being overweight, don't be an asshole. However, making people people believe that they can eat whatever they want, can be obese and still healthy doesn't help at all. It might make you feel nice, but it is very destructive and unhelpful in the long run.
> but it is very destructive and unhelpful in the long run.
If the United States ever moves to a public-funded healthcare regime, it will also be more expensive and destructive to care for from a government budget perspective.
Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese
#39Isn’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?
The food is not so much unhealthy as portion sizes are just too big.
I eat literally the kids meal sizes at many places.
McDonalds burger is not very unhealthy for example.
And even the food you buy is loaded with sugar and other hidden carbs.
Yogurt - for example - is kind of positioned as 'healthy' when for the most part it's total junk food due to the addes sugar.
Most cereal, crackers are effectively junk food.
Pragmatically speaking even bread is junk food.
Salad dressing is usually junk food.
BarbQ sauce is junk food.
Eat less, avoid carbs and sugar ... we'd probably do just fine.
Re: More than 73% of American adults are overweight or obese
#40BMI 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 th…
Define reliable.
If a metric had 95% accuracy would that qualify as reliable? I would certainly say so. Especially if the 5% outliers are not random but in fact an extremely obvious edge case?
I do not know how “reliable” BMI is. But elite athletes represent an exceedingly small percent of the population.
My intuition is that BMI is a pretty darn good first approximation. And instances where it’s not good there is supporting evidence.